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Trigger warning — this fiend description contains themes of body dysmorphia, deformity, self-harm and suicide, so if you have concerns about content like that, I suggest you give this creature a miss
Maatambil Sahkil
Glamourghoul (CR 10); dysmorphia— fear of physical imperfections
Home Planes: Ethereal / Xibalba; Nether
Alignment: Neutral Evil
It comes first with radiant charisma. A beautiful stranger in the right clothes, with the right smile, the right amount of seemingly effortless grace. The maatambil wears borrowed symmetry like a mask, an illusion of beauty created from the vanities of everyone who ever doubted their own appearance. Yet every mirror betrays it: in glass or polished steel, the truth stares back—the maatambil is a travesty of meat with incorrect angles, a jumble of hands and legs and eyes where they do not belong. But when it catches its reflection, the maatambil does not flinch. It preens. It adores its ugliness, basking in the sacrament of being “wrong.” Then it turns away from the mirror, and it is beautiful again.
The maatambil is a hideous sahkil that looks like more like an accident in a butcher’s shop than a humanoid. Yet it wears the cloak of illusion of an attractive and charismatic debutant—all the better to make friends and mix in the best social circles. Once it has wormed its way into the confidences of the Beautiful People, then its real work begins—to spread self-doubt, tospread malicious rumour and vicious judgement of the fashion choices and physical appearance of its peer group. Its gaze is withering and its tongue is its primary weapon, although the maatambil is hardly physically defenceless.
While the false form the maatambil wears is illusionary, the hurt it spreads with its words is very real. It feeds from the self-doubts that it creates in others that their bodies are wrong, and bask in the envy their own perfect illusory forms engender. They find particular nourishment in the horror that cutters have of ‘flaws’ in their own appearance being pointed out, and the dread of their own physical bigotry being turned inwards—being judged for their own shape, gender, scars, height or limb differences, be they real or imaginary. Any deviation from the imposed societal ‘norms’ of appearance can be wielded like a weapon by the vindictive maatambil. Their true goal is to select a single victim to befriend/torment and slowly drive them barmy with psychological insecurity masquerading as ‘helpful advice’, ultimately leading to them self-mutilating or even taking their own lives.
Maatambil are thought to be particularly active in the Lady’s Ward of Sigil, as well as the burgs of the Abyssal layer of Skindjur, where graybeards reckon they spend time to hone their craft.
The Curse of Esteem is a long-term and potentially deadly hex which a maatambil can place upon its chosen victim after befriending them and talking with them for at least one minute.
Source and Stats: Ruins of the Radiant Siege [PF2] p63. This was a text-only description of this particular sahkil, I have expanded it here and the stats are my homebrew. For this creature I was partly inspired by body-snatcher and changeling lore, and the Real Housewives of whichever burg you would wish to inflict them upon.
Other Sources: Jon Winter-Holt. Canonwatch: These sahkil are a fabulously horrid type of fiend from Pathfinder lore, who make a great addition to the Ethereal Plane and Planescape lore generally. 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.