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Soul Skelm
Spirit Harrier (CR 10) bullies of the dead
Home Plane: Feywild
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Themes: Toxic masculinity meets psychopomp in these bullies of the dead
Philosophy: Soul skelms are sinister fiendish evolutions of the fey skelm, their toxic masculinity twisted over time by planar energies until they become cold, otherworldly predators of souls. Their natural forms are less physical beast and more eerie presence that exudes hatred and tyranny. Philosophically, these fiends embody domination through their control over identity and memory. Skelms are always male, and some greybeards have hypothesised they’re the masculine foil to hags, although there’s no real link apparent between the two races. They derive nourishment from tormenting and subjugating souls in the liminal space between death and judgment. Soul skelms in particular bully the recently-dead—especially berks they themselves killed—in places heavy with spiritual traffic, making them mortal enemies of Dustmen, psychopomps and priests of Powers of the Dead.
They inhabit urban settlements where the density of life ensures a steady flow of souls passing between the living and the dead, often stalking graveyards, funerary processions, and haunted locales. In Sigil, soul skelms are drawn to the Mortuary, although their competitiveness means just a single skelm claims the faction headquarters as their territory at a time. Masters of disguise and social manipulation, soul skelms weave themselves into the fabric of mortal society, hiding behind respectable façades while they prey upon spirits in liminal spaces. When the Heralds of Dust discover a soul skelm in their ranks, they’re rooted out and kicked through a portal into the Plane of Fire—but that just seems to lure another one to infiltrate the ranks once the dust has settled.
Canonical Sources: Bestiary 3 [PF2e] p241
Source: Jon Winter-Holt
