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Trigger warning — this fiend description contains themes of vertigo and falling, so if you have concerns about content like that, I suggest you give this creature a miss
Rabatok Sahkil
The Vertiginous Horror (CR 7); acrophobia — fear of heights
Standing eighteen feet tall on chitin-clad, stilt-like legs that bend at unnaturally acute angles, the rabatok embodies fear incarnate for anyone who’s ever felt their stomach lurch with vertigo. This eerily elongated quadruped moves with disturbing grace and speed across precipitous terrain. Its four spindly limbs allow it to perch on impossibly narrow ledges, climb sheer surfaces, and cling to spires where no natural creature should be able to maintain purchase. Its tiny head balances atop its towering frame, with four low-set eyes. Its pincer-like jaws snap menacingly, as tentacles writhe from its mouth.
Unlike sahkils that embrace slow psychological erosion, the rabatok’s obsession is of the inevitability of gravity—the belief that all things must eventually fall, and the higher you go, the harder that fall will be. These creatures understand that acrophobia, the fear of heights, affects only a fraction of cutters, but they know that any mortal’s evolutionary dread of falling can be awakened and amplified. The rabatok views civilisation’s vertical achievements—towers, bridges, mountaineering, flight—as hubris in defying natural laws, and delights in demonstrating that gravity always claims its due. They particularly savour the moment when a climber’s confidence transforms into terror, when a berk slips, catches an edge and clings on with their fingertips, begging for help. Of course, the rabatok slowly prises their fingers off, one by one.
Planewalkers venturing into rabatok-territory—mountains, valleys, cliffs, even tall towers—should prepare for attack from any direction, as these fiends excel at using elevation as both weapon and tool for psychological warfare. As well as hunting on the Prime, rabatoks also roam the lonely mountains of the Outlands, layers of Mungoth on Gehenna, and Cania in Baator. Rabatoks possess the ability to create magical pits instantaneously beneath their opponents’ feet, turning solid ground into yawning chasms without warning—a tactic that proves especially dangerous in already elevated locations, where a fall becomes doubly treacherous. Their telekinetic abilities allow them to lift and drop opponents repeatedly, and they are also able to reverse gravity, turning victims into helpless playthings subjected to the terror of free-fall over and over. Most dangerous of all is the aura the rabatok exudes, however. Within 200 feet of one of these fiends, all kinds of falls become more dangerous and damaging.
Travellers should watch for tell-tale warning signs of rabatok infestation: Unnatural winds that seem to push upward from below, the sound of chitinous legs clicking against stone surfaces high overhead, and most ominously, the complete absence of other creatures in such areas, for animals and birds instinctively avoid such cursed places.
Source and Stats: The Creature Codex [PF1e] 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.