Sahkil

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[ Impostors | Lurkers | Stalkers | Tormentors ]

Sahkil

Sahkil	Phobia	CR
Baxbak ‡	Being eaten alive	16
Borda ‡	Getting lost and drowning	9
Caseafula ‡	Medicine	13
Chakanaj †	One’s secrets being revealed	14
Erasak ‡	Marionettes	6
Esipil †	Living with beasts	2
Fear Liath ‡	Falling, freezing, isolation	12
Ganerul ‡	Sex, lust	3
Hemnallid ‡	Warfare	7
Ichkoh †	Failure of the flesh	7
Ijhyeojin †	Being forgotten	14
Jichjik ‡	Being sick, food	2
Jidolutz ‡	Ghosts, hauntings	9
Kalona ‡	Death	14
Kimenhul †	Failure and self-loathing	20
Kinverletz ‡	Amputation	10
Kwevencha ‡	Arachnids	7
Lanak ‡	Punishment, breaking taboos	5
Maatambil ‡	Physical flaws	10
Mayurch ‡	Fire	4
Nakorik ‡	Imprisonment, slavery	8
Nenchuuj †	Fear of magic	19
Nucol †	Parasites and infection	4
Pakalchi †	Insecurity and failing relationships	9
Pazanbuul †	Apocalypse	15
Penqual †	Being lost in crowds	15
Phikkik ‡	Paranoia, unwarranted fears	12
Qolok †	Lacking and discontent	16
Rabatok ‡	Heights	7
Tuchulcha ‡	Xenophobia, the unknown	11
Tumblak †	Claustrophobia, being crushed	18
Vlogar ‡	Being stared at	3
Wihsaak †	Creeping crawling insects	6
Ximtal †	Sensory deprivation, social isolation	17
Yatorak ‡	The Powers	18
Yogob ‡	Horses, abandonment	8
Zohanil †	Needles and surgery	10
Tormentors	The horrid paragons of the race	20+

Trigger warning — the sahkil’s entire schtick is to induce fears and phobias, so if you have concerns about content like that, I suggest you give this fiend family a miss altogether!

Home Planes: Ethereal / Xibalba; Nether

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Themes: Purely evil masters of instilling fear and dread, the sahkil feed off the terror of mortals

Philosophy: The sahkils are down there amongst the most sinister entities in the multiverse. These fiends are fallen psychopomps who’ve been driven barmy by some horrible revelation, tempted by a sinister force, or simply corrupted by the endless ravages of wickedness from the Lower Planes. Rebelling against their very purpose, these twisted beings flee to the empty places in reality. From there, they watch the mortals with jealous eyes, see them living their little lives and dying their little deaths, as the sahkil themselves cannot.

Faces of Fear

Let me tell you cutter, there are few things more terrifying than the thought of one of the angels of death going rogue. Those psychopomps are already creepy enough for starters. They’re supposed to guide the souls of the dead from the Prime to their final judgements and resting places in the Outer Planes. Sounds harmless enough, eve though they make an art form out of looking sinister while they’re doing the job. But what happens when one of these morbid bashers loses the faith? That’d be where the sahkil come in…

They see the great procession of newly departed souls starting their long march toward judgement, where the sahkil can never go. And there, just out of phase with reality, these rebellious harbingers of death have remade themselves into tyrants of terror.

Sahkils inhabit the Border Ethereal, that ghostly realm that overlaps with the Prime. Peering through the planar curtain, they watch the mortal world as if through frosted glass, their forms invisible and incorporeal to the poor sods that they stalk. To the bloods who can see it, the Ethereal Plane appears as swirling mists and colourful fog, where everything moves in slow motion, muted and distorted. The sahkil have mastered the art of Slip Betweening—the ability to phase between the Prime and Ethereal. This allows them to pass through solid matter, manifest suddenly to terrify their victims, and then slip back into the ether before the poor sods even have a chance to retaliate.

Philosophy of Fear: The sahkils embrace philosophy of nihilism born from their experience of how lives inevitably end—and their anticipation of the end of reality itself. Unshackled from any kind of purpose, in their madness the sahkil do whatever pleases their tortured souls. They’ve transformed themselves into living embodiments of fear, craving the sweet release of emotion they feel when they literally terrify the living into early graves. They’ve discovered that if mortals die anxiety-ridden deaths, questioning their own existence and sanity, their tormented spirits stray from the flow of the River of Souls. When that happens, the sahkil are ready for them.

Each sahkil specializes in feeding on a particular type of delicious fear. These sinister bloods understand all too well that different berks are most affected by different terrors—some sahkil feast on phobias of animals or insects, others savour the fear of death, isolation, failure, or betrayal. Their terrifying forms are inspired by the most insidious dreads of mortals. The least sahkils taking on twisted shapes that amalgamate animal, insectoid and humanoid features, while the greatest of them—the so-called Tormentors—become near-indescribable horrors.

Warning Signs

There are some telltale signs that you’re being stalked by one of these Angels of Horror. Heed these warnings, cutter, lest you find yourself in for a nasty surprise. While none of these are guaranteed that you are being hunted by a sahkil, you’d be a leatherhead to ignore them…

You feel a sense of dread in a familiar place.
Animals act strangely, refuse to enter an area, or are suddenly silent.
The temperature drops suddenly and you feel you’re being watched.
Your nightmares are unusually vivid or persistent.
Magical light sources or wands falter and malfunction.
You feel like someone’s walked over your grave.
You get an eerie sense of déjà vu.

—Seven signs you might be being hunted by a sahkil

The Origin of Dread

The graybeard will tell you that despite their different appearances and methods, all sahkils have some things in common. Most obviously, they are immune to being frightened—after all, they are themselves fear incarnate. They’re immune to poison, diseases and death magic. They’re usually telepathic too, resistant to all sorts of magic, can see in both complete darkness and through the barriers between the Border Ethereal and the Prime. Don’t think turning incorporeal will help you either berk, because they can do exactly the same.

Sahkil can scare a berk witless just by looking at them, and are able to enhance all kinds of emotion-based witchcraft. But for their most sinister powers, you’ll need to learn about each of the horrors individually, for the fiends each specialise in the kind of terror they savour most, and have learned the most delicious ways to induce it in their victims. Sahkil excel at psychological manipulation, and have uncanny patience too, using their powers to slowly ramp up fear and break the will and sanity of their unlucky victims.

A Warning for Summoners

One of the nastiest tricks the sahkil play is upon wizards, however. Unlike elementals and most other outsiders, who despise being summoned and forced to serve mortals, the sahkil relish it. In fact, wizards tell me that these fiends are especially easy to summon, with powerful sahkil eagerly responding to even lowly conjurers. Here’s the rub—unless those summoning rituals are conducted perfectly, these insidious creatures are able to slip through caster’s wards and are free to attack the wizard, or leave the summoning circle. Often though, they’ll play along and simply pretend to follow orders, looking for the perfect opportunity to turn the tables and betray their new ‘masters’.

There are as many sahkil as there are reasons to be afraid—and that is to say, a lot. Graybeards have divided the horrible creatures into three groups, based on the typical methods that they operate. Maybe this will help you to avoid them, or to overcome your own fears…

Impostors

The most treacherous of the sahkil, impostors masquerade as innocent beings or even loved ones, all the while toying with and manipulating their victims to slowly driving them barmy. As shape-changers and illusionists they might assume the form of humanoids, animals or even objects—these fiends are experts at pretending to be something they’re not. It’s feared there are probably more of this sub-type of sahkil that have so far gone unnoticed. Consider yourself warned, cutter… more chant here.

Lurkers

The lurker sahkil specialise in haunting a particular type of location, lying in wait patiently for an unlucky berk to pass through. They draw on the unsettling nature of the environment and magnify feelings of fear in their victims to cook up a delicious feast of terror. You might think these sahkil would always choose spooky, isolated environments but don’t let down your guard when you’re in a bustling city, for there are sahkil that hunt in these places too. There are thirteen known types of lurker… more chant here.

Stalkers

The most insidious of the sahkil, stalkers excel in hiding just out of sight, building tension and instilling fear in their victims. Masters of stealth, evasion, and jump scares, these fiends are only seen when they mean to be seen. There are thirteen known types of stalker… more chant here.

Tormentors

Lurking behind these three categories of common sahkil are the Tormentors, the horrifying paragons of the race. Virtually demipowers themselves, these uniquely awful individuals have risen to dominate their own fearsome niches. Cutters should pray they will never encounter one of them face to face, for they will almost certainly be doomed… more chant here.

Other Sources: Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: The sahkil are a fabulously horrid type of fiend from Pathfinder lore, who make a great addition to the Ethereal Plane and Planescape lore generally. The Creature Codex has done an awesome job of expanding the number of sahkil massively too, and I’ve included all their creations here. Organising the sahkil into three sub-types based on their hunting style was my idea, because the list was unwieldy and their names are (deliberately) hard to remember, and this splits them up into bite-sized chunks.