Since time out of memory, it has been the case that rulers, overlords, wise old wizards and so on, always has an .. advisor, henchman, agent or whatever that has special abilities that are particularly useful - meaning, in other words, that it's an 'exotic' race, something the players will hardly ever encounter outside of this role. 

In most cases, if I'm not making any special effort, the vizier will be a kenku. The kenku are specialists in this field, and they actively sell their services. Everyone knows they can't be trusted, per se, but they have an unparalleled information network, precisely because they can't be trusted. 

In other cases, I've used undead (a flameskull, specifically), a type of beetle-hive-humanoid-undead thing (it's complicated, but the beetle colony animates a skeleton), yuan-ti, and so on. Imps and other outsiders too, of course.

Here's my problem - actually, it's twofold:

I want to use rakshasa, but they are much too powerful for the games I play, I rarely if ever play beyond level 10. So is there a ... rakshasa-light or some such? 

Also, are there other obvious race choices for this role? Just to liven things up =)

You could use a tabaxi or a leonin if you wanted to stick with cats. Evil puss in boots would be pretty cool. Or you could have a team of were rats that use their size change to seem like they are appearing out of nowhere.

Well, they're not necessarily evil - or, I mean, sure, the Grand Vizier is always evil, and scheming behind the back of his liege. Unless it's a kenku .. in which case it's neutral, but still scheming.

I'm not a fan of tabaxi, I'm just not the demographic for it. The leonin are cool, but they lack the ... stripes, and the sofistication, you know? I can't imagine a leonin smoking a long pipe, or wearing a vest =)

But yea, I could just cheat on the stripes. 

Btw, what do you mean 'evil puss in boots' would be cool? All cats are inherently evil! =)

The best Vizer I’ve read about was Dios from Terry Pratchett’s book pyramids, but he would be either a litch or a mummy lord so probably would be as difficult to use as a rakshasa. You could homebrew him to be a zombie with the mental stats of a litch but the abilities of a zombie if you wanted to keep him low level. 

I really liked Thakok-An and Vorak - the two undead, decapitated former champions who were advisors (so essentially viziers) to King Kalak of Tyr. But it's such a cool idea, and so well-known, that I can't use it. I'm not about to use someone else's ideas. I mean, unless they come from something like this, a discussion of sorts =)

The Vizier card's application often depends entirely on the context of the adventure that your party is taking on. What question and what answer might be the most useful and suitable is dependent entirely on the nature of the adventure and what mysteries you might need help unravelling.

So with that in mind, what is going on in your adventure right now that you might need the assistance of the Vizier card to help you along?  https://100001****/

Quote from qedded >>

So with that in mind, what is going on in your adventure right now that you might need the assistance of the Vizier card to help you along?

 Oh. No, this is world building. There's no current, ongoing campaign for which I need this discussion. It's more about inspiration. 

All rulers need advisors, and even the best of them by necessity sometimes have to make decisions that are less than squeaky clean. For this purpose, all (or almost all) also have advisors who are less than squeaky clean - drow assassins, mind flayers interrogators, kenku information brokers, competent and/or knowledgeable beings of all types. But .. well, I've played for a bajillion years, and I've used all my own ideas more than once. So rather than trying to come up with more on my own, I'm looking for input.

And while I rarely use other people's suggestions and ideas 1:1, nothing is ever discarded. Rather, it all goes into the pickle jar, and improves over time.