Characters – Rakshasa

The Slumbering Mantis Inn serves the cheapest hot meals in Dragon District. Shazmeen ladles rice porridge for broke hunters, remembers everyone’s drink order, and laughs at dirty jokes with the easy warmth of a woman who’s heard them all. Iron Roach has worked her bar for years and trusts her completely. He has no idea what she really is.

Shazmeen is the Elder Worm Witch of the Rakshasa Horde, Fuuka Natsukawa’s direct superior, and Primarch Moro’s eyes in the Sol System. Every mercenary passing through her inn gets catalogued. Every whispered deal at her tables gets reported. Twice a month she slips out to the Martian plains to meet Fuuka, exchange intelligence, and remind her student what loyalty tastes like. The cover has held for decades now. The inn’s warmth isn’t fake, and that’s the problem. She genuinely likes the people she’s been sent to betray.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 1

She was born the same day as the Buddha. Two Nirbohs walking among humans, hiding what they were. He preached detachment from desire. She argued that embracing it led to true strength. They disagreed on everything that mattered, and she loved him anyway. When illness took him, her grief broke something inside her that two and a half millennia haven’t mended.

Moro fled Earth and merged with a Bodhi tree on Shashan, her consciousness spreading through roots that now pierce an entire mountain. Her eyes stay closed. Her face shifts between serenity and sorrow. Those who approach her feel warmth and wanting in equal measure. She built the Rakshasa Horde on a simple teaching: the body yields secrets the mind alone cannot grasp. Her followers call it wisdom. Her enemies call it corruption. Both might be right.

A prophecy drives her now. Earth will fall in 2299. She intends for her children to survive it.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 3

In 2291, Dante Pompeo deemed a colony under Radi-Mon assault “economically non-essential.” Adisa’s unit received orders to withdraw and leave the civilians to die. He disobeyed. Held the line with three other soldiers until evacuation shuttles arrived. The Alliance court-martialed him for insubordination. He escaped custody during transfer and never looked back.

Two years of drifting through the outer system brought him to a Rakshasa trading vessel that offered passage to Proxima Centauri. He expected to leave once he arrived. Instead, he found what the Alliance had always promised but never delivered: a community that valued people over profit. Now he patrols the forests around Bodhasya Parvatah in purple robes and a bamboo hat, his Pulse Laser traded for a mag-accelerator rifle. His Devavanī still carries a stubborn Michigan accent. Moro’s polyamory suits him better than he ever expected. He laughs more than he used to.

First appearance: TBD

House Chakri ruled Thailand for three centuries before the Imperium swallowed Southeast Asia whole. Suthep watched his family kneel, then watched them disappear one by one into re-education camps they never returned from. He fled to Proxima Centauri with nothing but his bloodline’s psionic gifts and a hatred that has aged into something colder and more useful than rage.

Male Worm Witches hold less authority in Rakshasa society, but Suthep has never needed a title to command a room. He speaks softly. He smiles often. His serpent staff has tasted the blood of fourteen Imperium agents who thought an old man with gentle manners would be easy prey. He and Fuuka clash constantly over strategy and methods, yet Moro trusts them both precisely because they refuse to agree. Nearly two centuries of survival have taught him patience. The Imperium will answer for House Chakri. He can wait a little longer.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 3

Taṇhā doesn’t remember her parents, doesn’t understand “inappropriate timing,” and doesn’t see the point of clothing. When she found Jabari’s group half-starved in a Shashan forest, she fed them, then asked if the Maridian wanted to mate. They were naked and about to have sex when Ume wandered into the clearing. The girl’s shriek scattered wildlife for half a kilometer. Taṇhā still doesn’t understand what the problem was.

In combat, she channels Solar psionics like they’re disposable. Her eyes go bright gold, her chain-blade starts spinning, and she grins like something’s funny. It usually isn’t. Older Wild Fangs call her reckless. She calls it fun. But beneath the feral edges lies warmth she won’t admit to, and she gets attached to people faster than she’d ever say out loud. Her relationship with Jabari runs on power and pleasure rather than love. She’s fine with that arrangement. Whether Jabari feels the same is a question neither of them has answered.

Finds clothing suffocating. Loves analingus and doggystyle position. Will kill for chocolate.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 3

Rising oceans swallowed Java in the 2050s. Amir lost everything: family, home, future. The Rakshasa found him starving on a refugee raft and offered transformation. Two and a half centuries later, he’s outlived his grief and become something like a legend.

Fuuka calls him “The Breeder of Moons.” It started as a joke. Then people realized there isn’t a single habitable moon in Proxima Centauri where Amir doesn’t have a child, a grandchild, or at least a woman who remembers his name fondly. He gives advice whether you ask for it or not, laughs easily, and treats humans and Radi-Mons with the same patient warmth. In combat, younger Wild Fangs slip into spirit states for minutes at a time. Amir holds the edge for hours, twin crystal-ite daggers in hand, amber eyes never flickering. He doesn’t rush. He doesn’t need to. Everything dies eventually.

First appearance: Nucleus Volume 3