Yaksha

Yaksha are the product of hungers and desires so terrible they transcend death, seeking out the purity and vulnerability of unborn children as a gateway back to physical existence. Yaksha consume their hosts utterly, merging with their physical body and replacing the potential they promised the world with the void of their eternal appetites.

Standard Racial Traits

The following racial traits represent the yaksha, spirit beings of insatiable hunger incubated through mortal birth and capable of maturing into full-blooded rakshasa.

  • Ability Scores: Yaksha are nimble, charming and strong of personality, but their innate narcissism limits their intuition. They gain +2 Dexterity and +2 Charisma but suffer -2 Wisdom.
  • Size: Yaksha are Medium creatures and receive no bonuses or penalties due to size.
  • Type: Yaksha are humanoids with the shapechanger subtype.
  • Speed: Yaksha have a base speed of 30 feet.
  • Languages: Yaksha begin play speaking Common and Infernal. A yaksha with a high Intelligence score can choose any language as a bonus language (except Druidic and other secret languages). See the Linguistics skill page for more information about these languages.
  • Unnatural Movement: Thanks to their shapeshifting abilities, yaksha can contort their bodies in unusual ways. A yaksha gains a +2 bonus to CMD against grapple combat maneuver checks, and a +2 bonus to Escape Artist skill checks made to escape a grapple.

Skill and Feat Racial Traits

  • Beguiling Liar: Yaksha gain a +4 racial bonus on Bluff skill checks to convince a creature that what they are saying is true.
  • Change Shape (Su): Yaksha can assume the appearance of a Small or Medium humanoid at will. This ability functions similar to alter self, but the yaksha retains her original form’s darkvision and does not gain an adjustment to her ability scores.

Sense Racial Traits

  • Darkvision: Yaksha can see perfectly in the dark up to 60 feet.
  • Insatiable Consumption (Ex): Yaksha require the same amount of food as other Medium humanoids, but must supplement their diet with humanoid meat and organs. This flesh can come from a living or dead humanoid, but not from the animated or destroyed body of an undead creature. A yaksha must consume her weight in humanoid flesh each month in order to not starve. A starving yaksha gains 1 negative level, plus 1 additional negative level for each additional month that passes without fulfilling the feeding requirements of her insatiable consumption. These negative levels can be removed only by the yaksha consuming her weight in humanoid flesh in a single ritual feast that takes 1 hour to perform.

Alternate Racial Traits

Beast Skin: The yaksha’s skin has exceptionally resilient and tough skin, granting her a +1 natural bonus to AC. This bonus stacks with the natural bonus to AC provided by the predatory resilience rakshasa paragon class ability. This racial trait replaces the beguiling liar racial trait.

Divine Rejection: Placing one’s faith in another being is a sign of weakness, and the yaksha scoffs at her prey that does so. She gains a +1 bonus on all saving throws against divine spells and effects. This racial trait replaces the unnatural movement racial trait.

Host Echoes: The yaksha retains some lingering racial qualities of her host. She gains a standard racial trait of her choice from those listed for her original host’s race. The racial trait gained must be valued at 2 RP or less. This replaces the beguiling liar racial trait.

Impersonator: The yaksha gains a +4 racial bonus on Disguise skill checks to impersonate a particular individual. This racial trait does not automatically grant the ability to impersonate individuals with change shape by itself. This racial trait replaces the unnatural movement racial trait.

Planar Territoriality: The yaksha holds a particular grudge against creatures from the Outer Planes who meddle with the mortals she sees as belonging to her on the material plane. She gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls against outsiders with the extraplanar subtype. In addition, she gains a +2 racial bonus on Knowledge (planes) checks to identify outsiders and can make such checks untrained. This racial trait replaces the unnatural movement racial trait.

Rakshasa Sorcery: The yaksha has a particular talent for deceptive magics. She gains a +1 bonus to caster level when casting bonus spells and bloodline powers from the Rakshasa or Shadow sorcerer bloodlines. This racial trait replaces the beguiling liar racial trait.

Veil Piercer: The yaksha finds it easy to pull energies across the boundary of life and death. She gains a +1 bonus to damage or healing from any of her effects that use positive or negative energy. This racial trait replaces the beguiling liar trait.

Favored Class Options

Bard: Gain a +1/2 bonus on Bluff checks to lie and a +1/2 bonus on Diplomacy checks to gather information.

Brawler: Gain a +1 bonus to CMD when resisting a bull rush or grapple combat maneuver.

Luckbringer: Gain +1/4 moments of chance.

Monk: Gain a +1/2 bonus on damage rolls with unarmed strikes and monk weapons against opponents denied their Dex bonus to AC.

Slayer: Increase the studied target bonus on Bluff and Sense Motive checks by ¼. When the slayer gains the stalker class feature, the slayer also gains this increase to the studied target bonus on Disguise checks.

Sorcerer: Gain a +1/4 bonus to the DC of enchantment spells targeting humanoids.

Time Thief: Gain +1/6 additional temporal talents.

Vizier: Gain a +1/4 bonus to the DC of illusion effects from the vizier’s veils and magic items invested with the vizier’s essence.

Rakshasa Paragon: Gain +1/4 predation points.

Section 15: Copyright Notice

In The Company of Rakshasa © copyright 2016, Steven D. Russell; Author Wendall Roy.

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