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Nenchuuj Sahkil
Fluxfiends (CR 19) rhabdophobia — fear of magic, magical side effects, fear of magic failing
One of the most dangerous fiends in the planes, let alone amongst the sahkil, the nenchuuj [nen-CHOO-udj] is a bizarre, magic-twisted monstrosity. Looking like a misshaped hulk of melting silver wax that has been moulded into the vaguest shape of a humanoid, their thick arms and legs are bent and buckled. Their most notable feature though is their eyes—great round orbs of glowing fluid. Staring into them is likely to be a life-changing event, for even if the nenchuuj doesn’t strike you down, they say that a spellcaster will be terrified by visions of all the ways the magic they thought was trustworthy might backfire on them.
Some graybeards suggest that the nenchuuj might be responsible for the creation of Wild Magic, and they certainly don’t deny that themselves. At the least, these sahkil are oracles of magical catastrophe, and they embody the fraught relationship that mortals have with magic. While magecraft is an impossibly powerful art in trained hands, it is also easy for spells to go awry. Perhaps the summoning is imperfect and the caster loses control of their thrall. Perhaps the fireball detonates too early or too hard and catches allies in its radius. Or perhaps the wish is perverted from the caster’s real intent. All are examples of magic going awry, and a wise spellslinger is justifiably nervous about their ability to control powerful magic. The nenchuuj take advantage of such anxieties, embodying the fear all honest wizards will admit they feel when mastering a new spell, or reading an unfamiliar scroll with trembling hands.
The appearance of a nenchuuj is accompanied by a crackling of runic electricity and a smell of ozone and burnt flesh. When they speak, tendrils of corrupted magical energy pour from their mouth, visible manifestations of spell-perverting energies. Nenchuuj find themselves drawn to areas of wild magic, places where great arcane catastrophe has damaged the weave, or areas where planar conjunction has destabilised magic locally. The presence of one of these sahkil only serves to amplify the warping of magic which occurs after such an event.
Nenchuuj subscribe to a philosophy of magical entropy. They believe that magic is a fundamentally unstable force, like fire or lightning, and every time a mortal dabbles with wizardry they are risking a catastrophe. It is the duty of the nenchuuj to make sure that this fate is fulfilled. To that end, a nenchuuj is able to twist spells cast in its presence, causing them to rebound upon their caster, or be misdirected to another target. They particularly despise magical societies, the proxies of powers of magic and witchcraft, and Guvners.
Cutters preparing to combat one of these fiends should be very wary of using any kind of magic against it, lest it rebound the effect and use it against the. However, graybeards suggest the nenchuuj may only be able to bounce back one spell at a time, so hitting it with multiple magical effects in quick succession may be more successful, assuming you an withstand the rebounding.
Sources: Ruins of the Radiant Siege [PF2e] p85
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.