Devdanchar – A Shayakand Villain

Edited by Jonathan Jacobs

Ethos

When creating Shayakand, a lot of thought went into how different the humans and other humanoid races are from traditionally European-based fantasy settings. Amongst those differences is a concept called Purusartha. According to Purusartha, the four essentials in life are:

• Kama – desire and sensual pleasure
• Artha – wealth and glory
• Dharma – doing the right thing
• Moksha – liberation from the cycle of reincarnation.

Note: Doing the right thingis a loaded phrase that will be explained in another post. For now, keep in mind that dharma in Shayakand is not exactly the same as dharma in Hinduism. The most notable difference is the lack of the non-violence principle traditionally found in Hinduism.

The average Shayakandi sees the first two principles as practical ways of life,  essentially: make money and be happy. The last two are guidelines that govern how the practical ways of life are expressed. Doing the right thing clears the mind to receive divine knowledge. Receiving enough divine knowledge allows a person to be attuned to the divine and thus escape the cycle of reincarnation. As a result, many of the excesses that can come from pursuing money, power, and pleasure are tempered with the knowledge that there is a severe consequence for a person’s actions.

For a human to be a villain, they essentially have to believe that whatever they are doing will be worth the punishment they receive in the next life. A young human might make an effective villain for some time, but as he or she ages, thoughts will inevitably turn to the next life. In other words, human bad guys will not make good villains for a long-term campaign.

However, if a creature is already free from the cycle of reincarnation, there is no check against the potential excesses of Kama and Artha. It is for this reason that many of the ‘bad guys’ in Shayakand are believed to be demons or spirits. Even the humanoid gnolls, ogres and oni are believed to be evil spirits in a fleshy shell.

Enter our villain, a rakshasa named Devdanchar. In Pathfinder terms, he is an native outsider. What places him in Shayakand is the description of a rakshasa found in it’s ecology:

They embody what is taboo among most societies, and in the shape of those it seeks to defile, a rakshasa gorges itself on these hideous acts. Were they human, these acts of cannibalism, blasphemy, and worse would mark them as criminals condemned to the cruelest of hells.

In other words, rakshasa are the sickest and most depraved creatures in a given society. Give a creature like this immense power and wealth and you have the seeds for an arch villain.

Here’s a sketch so of Devdanchar. Some details are missing, but I hope that enough is provided to give you some ideas. Tommorrow you’ll get a chance to see some artwork on Devdanchar from Rob Torno.

Villain Sketch

Devdanchar is the name of one of the most powerful landowners in the entire Shayakand region. From his seat of power in Shayakand’s largest city, Ravandre,  he controls the destinies of thousands . He owns dozens of mercantile businesses spanning almost every city, town, and watering hole in the area. With a word, he can control nearly any good or service coming in or leaving Shayakand.

For example, in Ravendre there was no rice for sale in the city for over a month. Hundreds  starved while the city bureaucracy was unable to do anything to help its citizens. As great as the tragedy was inside the city, the greater tragedy occurred with the destruction of fifty merchant ships and the slaughter of hundreds of farmers. His reasons? Devdanchar’s motives were to have a show of force in reaction to a protest over a docking fee for one of his merchant vessels.

Despite his great power, Devdanchar is consumed with foul passions, the greatest of which is his desire to kill. He indulges his bloodlust monthly in his own personal gladiatorial arena. Fighting with only his trusted kukri, he reigns as the undefeated champion. He has fought lions, gnolls, ogres and all manner of creatures whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Occasionally, he will place some foul demon in the pits and systematically torture it to death to the howling cheers of the mob. All matches end in death, but death rarely comes quickly.

His human appearance hides a darker secret. In reality, Devdanchar is half Rakshasa demon, half shape-shifter. In his true form, he has the head of a tiger and the body of a powerful man. Envious of his father, the King of all Rakshasas, he builds wealth and armies to prove his worth as an heir to the throne. Unfortunately for Devdanchar, he is an illegitimate child and has no claim to the throne. His father is King, but his mother is not the queen. She was not even a rakshasa, but a doppleganger. She was indulging a desire to affect Rakshasa society and its most powerful member, the King. The King became aware of her existence and impregnated her as a lesson to her. Abandoned by his mother at birth, Devdanchar was ‘adopted’ by the royal court and raised as a servant of the royal household.

Rejected by rakshasas as a half-breed, Devdanchar has a particular fondness for destroying full-blooded rakshasas. His hatred of them runs deep. He has often travelled to the plane of his birth to systematically eliminate his half-brothers and half-sisters.

From his rakshasa father, Devdanchar embodies what is taboo. He gorges himself in hideous acts of murder, plunder, gluttony, avarice and wrath. From his doppleganger mother, Devdanchar has gained the ability to change shape and assume the likes and mannerisms of others.

Yet, Devdanchar is a paradox. He can often be found in scholarly pursuits. His libraries have no equal in terms of depth and breadth of knowledge. He has achieved, by Shayakandi standards, the necessary knowledge and skills to be a well-educated man. He strives to use the power of his mind to control his carnal nature. Always the manipulator, he has found ways to manipulate the world around him with his mind.  In addition to being able to detect the thoughts of others, he can detect others with the power to shape the world around them with their thoughts.

When wrestling with his desires, he has been seen alternately assuming the shape of his father and mother in an argument with each other.

Questions

• Is such attention to the ethos of Shayakand worthwhile? Does it help to inform role-playing opportunities in a non-European based setting?
• What do you think dharma, or doing the right thingin a Vedic inspired setting should look like? What do you think would be taboo?
• Would providing more Shayakandi references in the villain’s description confuse or help?

For example, Devdanchar is known as a bashawithin his home city. A basha is a rich landowner as stated in his description, but the term also denotes something of a feudal lord, social superior and surrogate parent.

• Would providing separate encounter hooks for Shayakand natives and those born outside of Shayakand (elves for instance) be helpful?

As always, I look forward to any and all ideas and thoughts.