What constitutes as evil enough to reincarnate as a Rakshasa?

[LamiaCritter]

I've been reading some lore here and there about the Rakshasa race of outsiders/ devils (or what have you, as they're classified as ).
The most consistent thing I've noticed is that, in order for one to come into being; either a mother , innocent or not has to be pregnant, and be in relative proximity to a very grievous, evil work being done.

Likewise, in order for someone themselves to be reborn as a Rakshasa after they die, they themselves have to have commited a great sin or blasphemy.

Now here's my question!

What sorts of things consist to be such? What is considered grievous enough for such a punishment to be meted out?

[FabulousFizban]

person pesurant (but failed) lichhood

[Mastikator]

A Rakshasa is a being of immense power and long life span, how is it punishment to be born as one?

Okay how about: if you sacrifice a large number of people to a Rakshasa for it to eat the Rakshasa will reward you by making you into a Rakshasa.

[lightningcat]

Who said that being reincarnated as a Rakshasa is a punishment? It is a reward from the dark powers.

But your name should be the watch word for evil for decades after your death, at least in the region.

[Xuc Xac]

A Rakshasa is a being of immense power and long life span, how is it punishment to be born as one?

Karmically speaking, it's like being punished for speeding by being strapped to a missile. Sure, you've got even more phenomenal speed and power, but you're heading for a very bad end.

They have very long lives and the power to do a lot of evil, but they will still die someday. When they die, they will have centuries of wickedness to burn off in one of the nastier hell realms. Becoming a rakshasa is basically karma saying "Oh, you like to be naughty? Here, have some more rope!"

[Mastikator]

Who said that being reincarnated as a Rakshasa is a punishment?[snip]

[snip]What is considered grievous enough for such a punishment to be meted out?

OP said it.

[Mastikator]

Karmically speaking, it's like being punished for speeding by being strapped to a missile. Sure, you've got even more phenomenal speed and power, but you're heading for a very bad end.

They have very long lives and the power to do a lot of evil, but they will still die someday. When they die, they will have centuries of wickedness to burn off in one of the nastier hell realms. Becoming a rakshasa is basically karma saying "Oh, you like to be naughty? Here, have some more rope!"

What will be the punishment to karma itself for the evil deed of giving immense power and longevity to an evil being as a punishment of being evil? This kind of twisted karma is nothing short of an ironic cosmic joke at the expense of the innocent.

Hell why not reward them by turning them into all mighty demons? Then they can really go to town! Common now, being turned into a Rakshasa is a reward for being in service of great Evil.

[Xuc Xac]

What will be the punishment to karma itself for the evil deed of giving immense power and longevity to an evil being as a punishment of being evil? This kind of twisted karma is nothing short of an ironic cosmic joke at the expense of the innocent.

Hell why not reward them by turning them into all mighty demons? Then they can really go to town! Common now, being turned into a Rakshasa is a reward for being in service of great Evil.

Karma is a closed system. The demons are trapped in it. Gods are trapped in it. Everybody is trapped in it. It's like the universe is a high rise building with a raging inferno on the lower floors. The people in the penthouse aren't currently on fire, but they're just as screwed as the people stuck in the basement.

[Florian]

What sorts of things consist to be such? What is considered grievous enough for such a punishment to be meted out?

If you don't mind the Golarion take on this, because they tackled the topic of Rakshasas a bit more thoroughly:

"Rakshasas are malevolent creatures that represent unspeakable past deeds as well as the boundless voids of terrible futures. They are the evil spirits of mortal manipulators, traitors, and tyrants obsessed with causingsuffering and amassing wealth. Purely from stubborn hate, these spirits do not pass into the Boneyard upon death.

Instead, they are born into the bodies of rakshasas, kicking off a cycle of birth and death that sees these beasts grow stronger and more hateful with each horrifying incarnation.

The best known of rakshasakind boast the heads of beasts and backward hands. However, the wise know that these wicked creatures come in many true forms, from the gnomelike dandasuka to the viper-armed marai. Whatever their form, rakshasas roam the worlds of the Material Plane, searching for ways to perfect their cruelty and ascend to everhigher castes, all the while striving to burst the bonds of reincarnation. Rakshasas believe they are truly great beings who will eventually achieve the dark divinity that they know lurks tenuously tethered in their souls. And so they despoil their lairs, heinously indulging in earthly pleasures while plotting the downfall of those around them."

[Frozen_Feet]

Karma is absolutely fair, in the sense that all evil deeds will have proportionate punishment and all good deeds will have proportionate reward in the (really, really) long run.

No-one said it's nice.

In the karmic sense, the universe has null net value - all things balance out to zero. In D&D, this is how True Neutrality was originally envisioned: good and evil, law and chaos are all necessary for function of the cosmos. As a result, the best one can hope is to keep them in balance and thus maintain the status quo. Things are as they have been and will be, and nothing can be improved upon except temporarily and locally.

From the viewpoint of other alignments, it may indeed be reasonable to conclude that karma is a trap, and hence act to free themselves from it.

[Vitruviansquid]

Have you ever lent someone something, and they never return it, and later on you see the thing you lent them with a sticker that has their name on it, as if it belonged to them the whole time?

That's evil enough to make you reincarnate as a Rakshasa.

[Spore]

Being reborn into this worldly prison instead of reaching Nirvana is usually the point

[Anymage]

What will be the punishment to karma itself for the evil deed of giving immense power and longevity to an evil being as a punishment of being evil? This kind of twisted karma is nothing short of an ironic cosmic joke at the expense of the innocent.

Hell why not reward them by turning them into all mighty demons? Then they can really go to town! Common now, being turned into a Rakshasa is a reward for being in service of great Evil.

Most real-world religions - the inspiration for many D&D monsters - posit that on some level the universe's moral compass does point at least generally north. Immense power to feed one's ego at the cost of putting off heaven for centuries if not longer is, ultimately, a bad deal

Most D&D cosmologies, with the great wheel, grid filling, and cosmic balance as a core element of the universe, can't really follow the same assumption. Good means being kind and selfless, even if it's suboptimal, and the reward is working constructively with other kind and selfless people. Evil gets to do what it wants right now, with the downside that you're surrounded by other evil types who will happily do whatever evil things they want to you. So in a better thought out D&D cosmology rakshahas would be more like demons, either rewards from the dark powers for being bad or a state the strong could achieve through the harsh darwinian struggles of the lower planes, sometimes writers will crib a little too heavily from real world myths without accounting for the underlying differences in metaphysics.

[Segev]

Given that it's reincarnation and not an afterlife thing, maybe it's how evil worshippers of druidic religions go. Would explain the animal ties, too.