Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Nerd-Rage of the Rakasta

Just to get it out of the way, I'm talking about these guys:

Mystaran cat-dude chillin'

NOT these guys:

Evil tiger-spirit in the Temple of Doom


The rakasta first appeared riding their sabre tooth cats in X1 The Isle of Dread, and have become one of those breakout hits of D&D (albeit in a niche manner). They went on to get their own moon kingdom (Japanese inspired) orbiting the world of Mystara (the Known World and Hollow World of BECMI), as well as a kingdom on the Savage Coast (a Merrie Olde England parody). They have gone from B/X to BECMI to AD&D 2E and still have many fans online. Why am I going on about them?

Polyhedron 101. Roger E. Moore wrote a short article brainstorming an OA campaign set on the rakasta moon of Myoshima. It was a really fun thought experiment and although some people despise anthropomorphic animal characters, I think they can be interesting if done well.

Can I get the rakasta (or some very similar being with a name change) into my work on "OA for LL"? Just maybe.


4 comments:

  1. Please don't hit me. It is clear that you see a fundamental difference between both pics.
    But I don't.
    Care to elaborate?

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  2. Easy, the first guy has a sword and the second doesn't. Joking aside, the diet pic is of a rakasta (humanoid cat people from the Mystara setting), and the second is of a rakshasa (evil spirit with backwards hands and vulnerability to blessed crossbow bolts).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Of course. Stupid me. I always thought they were the same creature!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Diet should read "first"; typing on Phone...

    ReplyDelete