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Horde sigil · the violet lotusNucleus Faction Registry · File RH
Rakshasa Horde
Prime Horde · Shashan and Bhumi, Proxima Centauri
The only Horde that asks first.
One of the Three Prime Hordes, and the only one nobody is forced into. In 2108 the last 108 survivors of a Buddhist ark reached the roots of a living tree on a moon of Proxima Centauri. She taught them that desire, embraced without shame, makes people strong. Their descendants now hold the Realm of Eternal Bliss against a Covenant crusade, and they can step from Proxima to Mars in seconds.
“Embrace desire, and desire will make you strong.”
18+ This file covers a culture in which sexuality, faith and human–Radi-Mon symbiosis are inseparable, and it describes them plainly. Everything described is between consenting adults. The Rakshasa draw on Buddhist and Daoist traditions but are entirely fictional, and represent neither. Readers curious about the real traditions are warmly encouraged to explore them.
// 01 — Doctrine
How the Horde wins
The Rakshasa fight like a summoner. A Worm Witch walks onto the field with a lantern and no army, and a minute later she has one: Corpse Gorgers out of a portal, a Jinki built from whatever is lying on the ground, Creepers out of her own body. Behind her comes the bred swarm. Jalraks arrive by the hundred thousand, Trishuls pick targets over their backs, and Lotus Lancers shoot, vanish and shoot again from somewhere else.
It rarely fights to the death. Moro teaches the Horde to offer paths, not chains, and it would sooner gain a neighbour than bury an enemy. That restraint is why Proxima Centauri is still a frontier: low governance, high risk, and open opportunity.
- Summoning. One Worm Witch is a formation. Her army does not march to the fight. It arrives there.
- The Valva Falam. People, and whatever they can carry, cross between Proxima and Sol in seconds. Everyone else needs weeks, or a Tether Arch.
- Bred to order. A Breeding Lotus turns out Jalraks, Trishuls or Weavers in 6.9 days, in whatever mix the Horde needs.
- Every commander casts. Sūkṛmucs wield Mirage and live for centuries. Their Radi-Mons carry Eclipse and Mirage.
- Home ground. Most human communities in Proxima cooperate with the Horde of their own accord.
- Blind spots on demand. One Lust Moth can blank a sensor grid across a city block. Lancer ambushes are built on it.
- It holds nothing. No walls, no armor, no siege engine, no capital ship. Pressed hard, the Horde gives ground. Devithar and Eglė already answer to the Covenant.
- Few witches. About twelve thousand for a whole star system, and each can hold only one Jinki at a time.
- Borrowed rifles. Lancer weapons are salvaged, traded or stolen.
- Living gates. The Valva Falam takes one traveller at a time, and no vehicle or flyer. Cut one and its twin dies with it.
- The Lotus cannot be forced. Coercion produces nothing, so the Horde cannot simply order more soldiers.
- No seat at the table. The Atomic Accord does not know what to do with the Horde, and refuses it a place at the summit.
// 02 — Order of Battle
What they field
A bred swarm, a human militia, and commanders who bring their own reinforcements. SYM marks a symbiote and SUM a summoned creature. Tiers follow the Codex class lines.
Weaver
// Unit Record 01 · Rakshasa Horde
Weaver मधुकरी
A giant bee the size of a large dog. It builds everything the Horde lives in, and will not fight unless it is made to.
- Raising a structure fast, wherever the Horde settles
- Burrowing hidden stores and transport tunnels
- Large works with nobody directing them
- Fighting. It is pacifist unless provoked
- Surviving a raid without escorts
Weavers are the reason the Horde needs no factories. They mine, build, repair and haul, and they attend every Breeding Lotus with food and water for the couple inside.
The milk is given, never taken. It feeds the Valva Falam, which cannot mature without it.
Jalrak
// Unit Record 02 · Rakshasa Horde
Jalrak जलरक्ष
The Horde's core infantry on land and sea: a war crocodile with no tricks at all, deployed by the hundred thousand.
- Amphibious assault
- Swamping a position by weight of numbers
- Wearing an enemy down
- Anything that takes a plan. Jalraks are not bright
- Ranged fire, on the way in
Everything complicated was left out of the Jalrak on purpose. It goes where it is pointed, through river, surf or street, and keeps going.
Trishul
// Unit Record 03 · Rakshasa Horde
Trishul त्रिशूल
A mantis-armed hunter that fires an armor-piercing spike from its maw. It is agile, intelligent, and choosy about its prey.
- Punching through armor at range
- Quick evasive maneuvers
- Close work, when the range collapses
- A shot to the chest
- Fighting women. See the field note
Field note: what it hunts
A Trishul prefers to hunt, kill and eat human men. Unless it is provoked, it never targets a human woman.
Xenologists in India suspect a link to its symbiotic relationship with the Sūkṛmucs, whose society is matriarchal. Fuuka Natsukawa's version is shorter: “They seem to understand our structure instinctively.”
Lotus Lancer — sugegasa and light plate
// Unit Record 04 · Rakshasa Horde
Lotus Lancer पद्म भाला
The Horde's human soldiers: fast scouts in purple and black who patrol Proxima's settlements and range into hostile ground beside Radi-Mon packs.
- Reconnaissance, and days in the field without resupply
- Hit and run
- Holding an urban chokepoint with volleys while Radi-Mons flank
- A sustained firefight
- Commanding Radi-Mons. They have hand signals and relay beacons, not pheromones
- Supply. Every rifle was salvaged, traded or stolen
Lancers are Proximans who chose to serve. Some have no psionic potential. Others prefer steel to symbiotic flesh. Training runs across Devithar's scorched plains and Shashan's low-gravity craters, and graduates receive the hat in a ceremony at Moro's roots. Most never meet her.
The bamboo grows on Devithar's nearside under Proxima's full radiation, which leaves it light enough for a long march and dense enough to stop a round. In close quarters some Lancers unhook the hat and use it as a shield.
Nāga
// Unit Record 05 · Rakshasa Horde
Nāga नाग
The Horde's fighter: a flying eel built for air-to-air combat and scouting.
- Dogfighting. It turns inside almost anything
- Scouting from above
- Stunning a formation before the swarm lands
- A shot to the chest
- Crossing between stars. The Valva Falam cannot carry flyers
“Beautiful in flight. Like ribbons of muscle cutting through the atmosphere.”— Fuuka Natsukawa
// Unit Record 06 · Rakshasa Horde
Lust Moth कामशलभ
Kāmaśalabha, the “Desire-Moth.” A violet moth the size of a person that softens a target for capture, blinds its sensors, and lets a witch cast from where it hovers.
- Softening a position before Lancers and packs move in
- Blinding a sensor grid across a city block
- Relaying spells. Veteran witches chain several Moths together
- Sealed suits
- Being overused as a relay, which starves or kills it
- Hunger. An unfed adult burns out in weeks
The dust is its only weapon. It settles on skin or is breathed in, and the target flushes, loosens and stops thinking about the fight. Trained Moths can tell an ally from an enemy. Those that roost near Breeding Lotuses or Silk Springs feed well and live for years.
Alliance and Covenant xenobiology both file the Lust Moth as a corrupted Moonwing. It is in fact descended from the white-ringed atlas moth of Eastern Africa, whose cocoons crossed to Proxima with African pilgrims aboard Bimba. The Rakshasa have never corrected the record.
A female Sūkṛmuc in human form
// Unit Record 07 · Rakshasa Horde
Sūkṛmuc सुक्र्मुच्
The Worm Witch. A human who chose the Rakshasa strain of the Nucleus Virus and became a shapeshifter, a Mirage caster, and the Horde's commander and spiritual anchor.
- Flooding a battlefield with summons while she casts from safety
- Surviving where others starve. She can digest nearly any flesh
- Worm form, when something finally reaches her
- Numbers. There are very few of her
- Passing as human for long. The appetite has to be hidden
- One Jinki at a time. The mind cannot hold two
No one becomes a Sūkṛmuc by force. Every other Radi-Mon conversion in the Seven Realms can be inflicted. This one has to be asked for and accepted. What the convert gets is centuries of life, three bodies, fluent Devavāṇī, and a bond with the Proxima Creepers that will live inside her from then on.
Witches command the Horde's Radi-Mons by pheromone, and carry Moro's teaching wherever they are posted. When local leaders disagree, the women are heard first, and the eldest woman carries the most weight.
“I will not lie to you. Your waste becomes highly acidic. Your hunger for flesh, any flesh, becomes difficult to ignore. You will never be fully human again. Some find this liberating. Others mourn what they were.”— Fuuka Natsukawa, orientation address for new arrivals on Shashan
Matrons and Pathfinders
Female Sūkṛmucs are Matrons: guardians, keepers of sacred sites, and the ones who decide. Male Sūkṛmucs are Pathfinders: scouts and frontline defenders, who go into danger first.
Bahuvivāhaḥ
बहुविवाहः. Rakshasa society has no marriage. A female Sūkṛmuc bonds with several men over her centuries, and each brings his own strengths and knowledge to the children they raise together.
“This is not indulgence. It is genetic wisdom and emotional honesty. A woman's heart can hold more than one love. Why pretend otherwise?”
The name the Horde chose
“Rakshasa comes from ancient Earth mythology: spirits who could be demons or protectors, depending on who told the story. We chose it. To those who threaten what we love, we are demons. To those we shelter, we are guardians.”
Carrion Creeper
// Unit Record 08 · Rakshasa Horde
Proxima Creeper प्रॉक्सिमा वल्ली
A vine-like symbiote that lives inside every Sūkṛmuc. It keeps its host healthy, and it comes out as a weapon.
- Being impossible to disarm
- Close defence when a witch is cornered
- Keeping its host alive in places that kill other people
- Range. It fights within reach of its host
- Fighting hungry. It draws strength from blood or fresh essence
Creepers clean their host from the inside. Their enzymes break down toxins and kill pathogens. A female witch finds her cycle steadies and the cramps stop. A male witch gains endurance and a deeper Aether draw.
They leave the body through its natural openings. A woman has three routes: mouth, vagina and anus. A man has two, mouth and anus, and his Creepers grow half again as large to make up for it.
- Poison CreeperFrom the anusCalled by ritual
- Carrion CreeperFrom the vaginaCalled by ritual. Women only
- Semen CreeperFrom the mouthCalled by ritual
In private
Some Sūkṛmucs bring their Creepers to bed, and say so without embarrassment.
Corpse Gorger
// Unit Record 09 · Rakshasa Horde
Corpse Gorger शव ग्रासक
A one-eyed hound of rotten bone and purple flesh, called through a Worm Witch's lantern portal in packs of up to seven.
- Soaking fire while it closes
- Long fights. Every body on the field is a meal
- Guarding a position
- Speed
- Finesse. It bites, and that is all
Gorgers belong to the Rakshasa cycle of life and decay: death turned back into strength. Some witches let one linger after the fight to scavenge around camp.
Clay Jinki
// Unit Record 10 · Rakshasa Horde
Jinki 神亀
A god-turtle twice the height of a man, walking on its hind legs. A witch molds it from whatever material is to hand, and the material decides what it does.
- Anchoring a front line. It takes hits that shatter lesser summons
- Battering through at close range
- Sheltering the pack that swarms behind it
- Pace. It plods
- Being the only one. Lose it and the line has no anchor
Off the field, some witches keep a Jinki as a camp sentry.
- ClayBaselineDraws enemy fire with rumbling taunts
- Fresh bloodDrainerSiphons life back to its summoner
- Enemy bonesBruiserAgile. Inherits the donor's fighting style
- WasteRot-spreaderMelts foes in a miasma
- A lover's seedBondedPulses with the vigor the two of them share
Breeding Lotus
// Unit Record 11 · Rakshasa Horde
Breeding Lotus पद्म कक्ष
Every Radi-Mon in the Horde starts here: 108 cells of living resin that turn one couple's union into a brood.
- Producing exactly the creatures the Horde is short of
- Going up fast. Weavers raise one wherever the Horde settles
- Coercion. A Lotus given anything less than real regard for the woman produces nothing
- Defending itself
A woman and her partner enter together. The Lotus takes what the two of them give it, and over 6.9 days each cell grows a different creature from the same beginning. The Horde's rule for it is short: her womb is used, but the depth of her soul decides how strong the brood will be.
“Our Radi-Mons are partners, not weapons of violation. They serve because we have earned their service.”— Fuuka Natsukawa
- Breeding LotusRakshasaBy consent. A couple, and 6.9 days
- Breast BarrowFenrisBy capture. One woman, held for good
The rite performed inside the Lotus is a Nucleus Cultivation. It is not recorded in this file.
Valva Falam, dormant
// Unit Record 12 · Rakshasa Horde
Valva Falam वल्वा फलम्
The “Vulva Fruit” (女陰果). A plant grown in pairs on Shashan that passes a traveller between its two halves in seconds, at any distance.
- Moving operatives and light supplies between Proxima and Sol
- Hiding. Dormant, it passes for a plant among roots and fungi
- Vehicles, heavy equipment, flyers and large Radi-Mons. None can pass
- More than one traveller. Forcing it risks enzyme burns and rupture
- Damage. It takes weeks to heal, if it survives
- Transplanting. Most attempts in Sol fail
Dormant, a Valva Falam looks like a purple-veined succulent vagina the size of a shuttle, warm to the touch and pulsing faintly with Mirage energy. When its witch lays her skin against it, the outer membrane parts like petals. The walls close gently around the traveller, clean them, and push them through to the twin plant at the other end. First-timers call it uncomfortable. Veterans call it soothing.
The two plants share one root system across folded space. They must be grown together, then separated and carried to where they are needed. Sever a mature pair and both die within days.
“The first passage every human travels is vaginal flesh. Why would passages across the cosmos be any different?”— Primarch Moro
- Valva FalamRakshasaSeconds. One person at a time
- Tether ArchNirboh relicWorking pairs only. Nobody can build more
- StarshipEveryone elseWeeks
The locations of working pairs are among the Horde's most guarded secrets. Several agencies believe Valva Falams stand on nearly every planet and moon of the Seven Realms, and suspect at least one pair linking Mars to Shashan and another linking Mars to Venus.
// 03 — Command
Who gives the orders
Moro teaches. The eldest witches decide. Nobody here holds rank the way the other powers mean it.
Primarch · The Living TreeMoroBorn the same day as the Buddha. She loved him, and disagreed with him about desire.
Elder Worm Witch · Deep coverShazmeen VinhKeeps the Slumbering Mantis Inn in Xing Hong. Moro's eyes in the Sol System.
Worm Witch · Main castFuuka NatsukawaBorn on Devithar in 2252. In the Inner Sol to help it resist Skarn, by her own account.
Worm Witch · Last of House ChakriSuthep ChakriFled the Imperium with his bloodline's gifts. Fourteen of its agents took him for a gentle old man.
Lotus Lancer · Shashan patrolAdisa OkonkwoEx-Alliance marksman, court-martialed for refusing to abandon a colony.
Elder Wild Fang · The Breeder of MoonsAmir NyāyaPulled from a refugee raft off Java. Two and a half centuries on, he mentors half of Proxima.
// 04 — Territory
The Realm of Eternal Bliss
Proxima Centauri was Rakshasa ground for a century before anyone else arrived. The Covenant has been taking it a world at a time since.
“You've heard stories, ne? The Imperium calls us monsters. The Covenant calls us heretics. The Alliance calls us a ‘regional concern’ and hopes we stay in Proxima. They are all a little bit right.”
Holdings as observed by the Haskal mission, 2295.
- Radi-Mons 69%
- Humans 31%
Haskal mission estimate, 2295: about 689 million Radi-Mons and 310 million humans. Roughly 600 million of the Radi-Mons are Weavers, which do not fight. The 12,000 Worm Witches and 150,000 Lancers are too few to draw at this scale.
// 05 — Strategic Assets
What is worth taking
Almost nothing the Horde values was manufactured. It was grown, inherited, or is still alive.
The Mountain of Enlightenment on Shashan. Forty-seven metres of Moro stand above ground, eyes closed, over an emerald pool. Her roots run through the mountain's core.
Living gates between Proxima and Sol. Nobody outside the Horde knows how many pairs there are, or where.
Private, and hidden in Hualien, on the Taiwanese coast the Imperium has never fully held. It serves the Horde's scattered cells across the Inner Sol, and its reach ends at the edge of Sol. It exists so that nobody has to wake a god to confirm a shipment.
The ark that left Osaka Starport in 2055 with 555 Buddhist survivors and arrived with 108. It never flew again, and it rests somewhere in Proxima, preserved and sacred.
The Horde's most sacred technologies rest on the work of an extinct people. Their ruins in Proxima predate human arrival by millennia, and Moro is one of them.
The Spirit Lantern floats at its witch's shoulder, amplifies her casting and opens her portals. The Soma Dagger is grown from Shashan fungus and crystal, and is harder than steel.
// 06 — Diplomacy
Where they stand
Moro teaches the Horde to seek no enemies, and it prepares for the ones who will never accept it. The quoted notes are Fuuka Natsukawa's.
// 07 — Faith
The living tree
The Horde has no church and no scripture. It has a teacher who is still alive, and who still answers when she chooses to.
Moro, above the emerald pool on Bodhasya Parvatah
// Deity Record 01 · Primarch of the Rakshasa Horde
Moro
A Nirboh born on the same day as the Buddha, and a Bodhi tree for most of the time since. The Horde does not kneel to her. It lives at her roots.
She and the Buddha were both Nirbohs, living hidden among humans. He taught that desire causes suffering and that detachment brings peace. She argued that desire, embraced honestly, is where fulfillment and strength come from. They disagreed on everything that mattered, and she loved him anyway.
When illness took him, grief drove her from Earth. After eight years alone in Proxima Centauri she merged with a Bodhi tree, and her mind spread through root and branch until it filled the mountain. In 2108 she reached out to a failing ark and guided its last 108 passengers to her roots. Her four teachings are set out under Doctrine above.
“Embrace desire, and desire will make you strong. Deny it, and you deny the fire that makes you alive.”— Primarch Moro, from her roots
What stands above ground
The face shifts between serenity and sorrow. A large emerald pool lies at her base, and the air around it hums with psionic energy. People who come near feel comforted and aroused in equal measure.
What lies below
The tree is a fraction of her. Her roots grew from her womb, and they are as thick as starship hulls. They spiral down through the mountain and open into chambers lit by bioluminescent fungi. Some barely fit a crawling human. Others are as tall as cathedrals. The deepest are warm, and heavy with musk.
What she kept of him
Mercy. The Horde rarely seeks to annihilate an enemy and prefers to offer a path to symbiosis. Her followers trace that restraint to her regard for the man she argued with.
The oath is not to her
Lotus Lancers receive their hats at her roots and swear to the community she shelters, not to the tree. Most Lancers never meet her. She does not ask for worship, and the Horde has never built her a temple other than the mountain she already is.
Her research
The idea of the Radi-Mon was hers. Fragments of her notes survived into the Nucleus Era, where scientists on an Imperial commission, Meiya Ji among them, refined them into practice. Fuuka Natsukawa's summary: “Bitter family, ne?”
What the other powers think
The Imperium forbids Buddha worship and files her followers as insurgents and Buddhist sympathizers. Zori says Moro's philosophy inverts everything she teaches. The Atomic Accord has no category for a sovereign who is also a tree.
“So. You have read this far. The question now is simple: what do you want? Not what you should want. What burns in you when you are honest with yourself?”— Fuuka Natsukawa, Worm Witch