[Game] Animate a Monster Hunters Setting

[tshiggins]

OpAnswer 16.

The Russians have quietly sought any information the British may have about creatures known in the Hindu religion as "rakshasas" (male) or "rakshasis" (female).

In Hindu folklore, these are highly intelligent, implacably hostile, powerfully magical beings with (at least in a few instances) a taste for political domination only exceeded by their taste for human flesh. Hindu stories relate that while many rakshasas or rakshasis acted as lone bandits or terrifying creatures of the night, others had enough self-control to fight as fierce mercenaries in the armies of the various empires that have duelled for control of the land now known as the British Raj.

However, the most troubling stories indicate that some of the most dangerous of these creatures used their shape-shifting abilities to infiltrate governments, seduce kings, princes, princesses or other royalty, and take control of large populations of humans -- which they promptly treated as cattle (and not sacred ones, either).

These are mostly ancient tales and apocryphal stories that date back to times when humanity was far less advanced than the EdwardIan industrial age. Also, it seems most rakshasas were, in those stories, solitary creatures who primarily perceived each other as rival predators.

Even if such creatures existed, those flaws would seem to make for manageable problems. The willingness of the tsar to reach out to his opponents in the Great Game would seem to indicate that something has changed.

Question 19. Are any monsters unique to the New World and, if so, what is their origin?