[ Sahkil ] [ Impostors | Lurkers | Stalkers | Tormentors ]
[ Ichkoh | Kalona | Kimenhul | Kinverletz | Kwevencha | Nucol | Pakalchi | Pazanbuul | Phikkik | Tuchulcha | Vlogar | Wihsaak | Ximtal ]
Trigger warning — this fiend description concerns isolation and loneliness, so if you have concerns about content like that, I suggest you give this creature a miss
Ximtal Sahkil
The Silent Scream (CR 17) monophobia — fear of isolation, not belonging
Home Planes: Ethereal / Xibalba; Nether
Alignment: Neutral Evil
What do you get if you cross a plague rat’s head, a deep sea crab’s body, tentacles of an octopus and the wings of a vampire bat? No, that’s not a joke cutter. The ximtal [ZIM-tahl] is the opposite of a joke. For starters, they’re enormous; they loom as tall as a tree, and they’re a lot more likely to put you in the dead-book. Although not right away, of course—like all sahkil they’d rather play with their food first.
When one of these fiends slips between Ethereal and the Prime, the air grows thick and stagnant, heavy with the musty reek of infested cellars and the acrid tang of vomit. The sound will set your teeth on edge too: the wet scraping of chitin against stone mixed with the persistent rustling of those its tentacles as they probe and test every surface. A ximtal speaks with the faintest and most sinister of whispers, the sort of sound that’ll haunt your nightmares even if you survive the night.
This sahkil embodies, and feeds from, the crushing terror of isolation. Not just being alone mind, but the gnawing fear that you don’t fit in, your cause is meaningless, and that even your allies secretly despise you. Ximtals are the master manipulators of the sahkil, spending years slowly corrupting a single virtuous soul by whispering doubts about their companions’ loyalty and their worthiness of their crusade. They don’t choose any old victim, either—like a fine wine, a ximtal will select only the most confident of bashers to ruin, for the flavour is all the sweeter to them.
Ximtal are able to inflict a debilitating disease which erodes the senses of their victims, causing deafness, blindness, even the ability to taste or smell. More terrifying than sensory deprivation though is their most powerful curse—to isolate a victim from their companions by putting them out of phase with the rest of reality. The sahkil is still able to see, hear, and attack them, but to their friends, to all intents and purposes they simply vanish. And unfortunately, when it gets to this stage, the ximtal usually makes sure they don’t come back.
Source and Stats: Bestiary 6 [PF1e] p244; Bestiary 3 [PF2e] p221.
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.