Hey y'all, hoping for some help. I'm going to be running a campaign soon, and I have very little actual prep work done. That's not a huge issue, but I need a hand figuring out some details. 

The overarching plot is this: The minotaur country is going to have a civil war. Supposedly the shogun of this society killed unarmed civilians of a border nation in combat due to bad information, causing the war to ignite. As players pick a side in the war, they'll continue to dig up things that just seem a tiny bit off. A piece of intel here, an artifact here. The entire war turns out to be orchestrated by a Rakshasa who is simultaneously posing as: The informant for the shogun for the border dispute, who gave him bad information, a daimyo living in a lavish castle, and a merchant who is using the war to inflate his prices and feed his lifestyle. 

The players will meet the "merchant" as they cross the border into the minotaur's country. Dressed opulently, a retinue of fellow "merchants" servants, and guards with him. Then they'll meet him as the "informant" when they meet the shogun, and he will, in rakshasa style, be dressed to the nines here as well. Finally when they meet the "daimyo" personality, the illusion will grow thin. The servants of this daimyo look familiar. They look tired, aggravated with the commands of their lord. The daimyo is similarly dressed to the previous disguises. 

My problem is as follows:

I have a few adventures to set my players on before things start to get thick with intrigue, and that's all well and good. But how do I hint at the rakshasa besides his consistent love for opulence? How can I make it seem like certain things just aren't adding up when they look into them? How do I make things just a *tiny* bit off throughout their adventures, cluing them in to the existence of the rakshasa pulling the strings? Subtlety and social mastery are a rakshasas biggest tools, and I, as a real person, am not skilled with those at all.

Any ideas are greatly appreciated. 

I don't know your storytelling style and I don't know your party, but I wonder if you might need to be a little bit more overt to get the players on the path to discovering the rakshasa's true nature and intentions.

• The party might witness an assassination attempt where someone casts a spell at the "daimyo" and it just doesn't work.
• Or maybe the party crosses paths with a dismissed retainer of the former real daimyo who tells the party the daimyo has been acting very unnatural lately.
• A particularly observant player might note the rakshasa is always wearing gloves or hiding his hands to mask the telltale backwards orientation.
• Or they might see the rakshasa casting a spell when he thinks nobody else is looking (fly seems like a good one for this purpose)
• Tigers could fit heavily into the daimyo's decor in a conspicuous way

For a rather villainous encounter, have the party invited to dinner so the Daimyo or Merchant can thank/reward them or request their aid in some manner. This is a ruse, the rakshas is feeling them out, assessing their abilities and powers and it has an ally in another room detecting magic and identifying all the party weapons and armour. The party have to doff their armour and give over their weapons before they enter the Daimyo's/Merchants  presence because 'it is not appropriate for one to dine with the Daimyo/Merchant whilst fully armed and armoured'.

Should anyone decide to go snooping then in the kitchen is a cook preparing dinner with succulent looking cuts of meat and hidden away in a larder is the remains of a previous adventuring party which is now serving as the main course (because Rakshasa love humanoid meat).

The Daimyo/Merchant is accompanied by his favoured concubine (a disguised Succubus or Inccubus) and his personal guard are Teifflings led by a Cambion, all of which wear face covering helms to hide their fiendish appearances, any horns on them appear to be part of the helm. These are all descendeants of the Rakshasa/Succubus/Inccubus so have a strange familial loyalty, however one of them seeks to advance their lot in the heirachy and may approach the party with information in an attempt to usurp power.

Absolutely love all of these, great ideas all. Thank you much. Also had the idea of having a caster in the party find a tome that details some of the Rakshasa's abilities and tendencies.

For your ideas of how to hint at the rakshasa, I think abyssal symbols on goons armour, demonic mutations in servants, and maybe some physical feature that his illusions can’t hide, like the players rolling perception to notice the weird way he picks things up due to backwards hands under the illusion, or a consistent tiger-like craving for raw meat.
hope this is useful.