Pathfinder Religion Guide: Sahkils and the Sahkil Tormentors 

As someone with a DEEP phobia of needles and blood, the idea of a Zohanil, a demons made from needles, is particularly noteworthy to me.

Wow! I've never heard at all about the Sahkil outsiders. I like them a lot and love their aesthetic. Looks a lot like a corpuscarii electro priest from Warhammer 40,000. Absolutely lovely, these stewards of death are certainly ones I love to know about. Have a great day everyone! Thanks for the vid.

for everything that is, there is an Outsider for it.

WOW, so the Boogie Man is actually an entire race of specialized Boogie Men? The things that "go Bump in the Night" suddenly got multiple times more frightening. The Sahkils would make an excellent antagonist in a campaign. The Valiant heros must conquer Fear Itself... or run from it like bumbling fools, or a bit of both. Players will do what players will do after all. 🤣

Once again, Golarion proves to be an insane horrible place to live for someone without superhuman strength or exceptional knowledge of magic or stealh. Zipacna gets most of their nutrition through youtubers the night before they promised to upload 😲

I love these deep dive videos, and this one was helpful to me. I'm running a game where the ultimate BBEG is Hataam. The setting is a pristine mountain lake-and-river valley, settled only a few hundred years ago, and Hataam seeks to corrupt it and claim it for his own. Despite some dark historical secrets (known so far to very few), Promise Valley is NG/LG. The idea is that it is basically THE IDEAL place to live. (All the more horrifying when Hataam's followers begin corrupting it.) As I was watching this video, I was reminded that sahkils are former psychopomps, and as it happens Pharasma has no following in Promise Valley. I didn't do this on purpose, exactly; it's just that the religions in Promise tend to be associated with water, hunting, and outdoorsiness. But I popped open my OneNote and modified things to "Pharasmans are actively unwelcome." This feels like a very thematic opposite-weight to the looming threat of sahkils. My question is ... what's a good explanation for why Promise Valley dislikes Pharasma so much? I'm giving it some thought, but although I like the existence of the Pharasma dislike, I haven't yet come up with a satisfying explanation for it. Any ideas?

Hey, it's here! I really do find these guys neat. There's just something about how sort of petty their place in the cosmology is which lines up with their reason for becoming what they are, that really boils down to just being a bunch of immortals sick of their literal dead end jobs. And their motivations end up being that they just like messing with people because it ticks off their old boss, and they take the Scooby Doo villain approach to do it, obviously to a bit higher of an extreme than most of those people in masks. And it's interesting that the simpler fears are the weaker ones since you'd think that if you can scare more people easier, you're doing a better job, but it does make sense that if the goal is to perpetuate misery, primal fears usually end up being things that kill you faster. I can tell Xibalba is probably Pathfinder's version of D&D's Ravenloft/ Demiplanes of Dread setting. And I feel they both end up doing things very differently with Xibalba being one section of a plane which is devoted to fear, while the Ravenloft demiplanes are more like a smorgasbord of different scary settings. I like Ravenloft's more diverse pool of settings and having each plane essentially be prison dimensions for an assortment of evil beings really gives each demiplane a good core to work with. But I think Xibalba's Tormentors are a much more interesting greater evil than whatever Ravenloft's "Dark Powers" are. Looming unknown can be cool, but the Tormentors can be used to have that effect, and then there's a payoff when you reveal which ones were specifically messing with the players. But I do think overall Xibalba and Sahkils are underdeveloped compared to Ravenloft, so I hope they do more with them in the future since there hasn't been much written about them since their debut in 1e. The last thing I wanted to say was I think a fun idea for a player character, especially since alignment has been removed mostly with the remaster, would be a cleric of one of the Tormentors that is and acts as what is considered a good aligned character, with their whole schtick being that they strive to put fear in the hearts of evil outsiders, like devils and demons. And I think it could work since Sahkils aren't on good terms with most outsiders anyways, so trying to terrify the minions of your demigod's bitter rivals seems like something they'd be interested in seeing. The character probably wouldn't be too bright following an evil deity, but hey clerics are known to int dump. Maybe you go on an adventure and accidentally create a Halloween adjacent holiday while you're at, about scaring away evil creatures for a night. Just something I've thought about.

Great video! Thanks for all your research and for your consistency!

Very nice video somewhat tempted to add these to my list of half fiend templates I've worked on not sure what theme the half versions would follow but probably make fun to come up with ideas

After having a really, really rough day yesterday, seeing a new video makes me happy. Your content makes my day, can't wait to give it a watch while having dinner. Thank you.

Love this creature essays especially about planar outsiders

Great video thanks

Thanks!

Another banger video! I look forward to a video from you about demodands. IMO, the Pathfinder versions are better than the D&D ones (at least, there're more of them, and more monsters is always better).

Another excellent and detailed video. Have you thought about a video about the most common artifacts of Golarion ?

Positive comment

Other characters I think these beings look like: -Ananshia looks like a bdsm theamed sucubi. -Chamiaholon = Gannon Corpse (Zelda Tears Of The Kingdom.) -Charg = Boogieman (Nightmare Before Christmas) -Dachzerul = Venom Symbiote (Spider-Man) -Hataam = Maligula, but male (Psyconaghts 2) -Nameless = Herobrine? (Minecraft Creepy-Pasta) -Ozranvial = Jevil, but spookyer. (Deltarune) -Valgass = Voldimort (Harry Potter) -Vermilion Mother = Poison Ivy (Bat-Man) -Xiquiripat = lava and blood elimental

I didn't knew about xibalba in the Pathfinder setting. Thats great information. Do we know someting abot the continent of Arcadia? I would like to know more about that, bcause i want to make n adventure inspired in Mesoamerica.

👏👏👏👏

Just started getting into Pathfinder lore so i could mix it with some D&D stuff, i really liked your video! By any chance do you know the name of the sourcebook, guide, or campaign which the gods are from? Id really like to pick it up. Thanks!

Pharasma must be irritated with first the Sahkil and now the Undead turning away from the River of Souls, let alone the First World never carrying to following the plan.

Honestly there are a few too many types of beings in Pathfinder that just amount to "another type of demon" even though those already exist.

2 spooky 4 me

Love to hear more about the ethereal plane, I never know what's going on over there. I also have a question I could not find the answer to anywhere - are the outer and inner planes in the same physical space? Or do you have to take a portal betweem them like the travel between the material plane and the inner planes?

eacc and every time you update I realize more and more why Golarion is a terrible place and truly the cage attracts all of the worst of the multiverse.

Are there veriants for every fear? chononicaly, I know realisticaly you couldn't even compile all of those in one book if you tried. but for instance would there cononicaly be a shakil of the dark of of loosing ones self?

I've read in some places that couatls are the natural opposite to the sahkils, but I can't find any details or narrative behind that. Do you know where I can learn more about their connection?

Why do they have CND logos growing out of their heads?

why do we not get more unique good outsiders it feels unbalanced

Spoiler: The Ichkoh in War for the Crown book 2 attacked by character. Perfect victim for it: a female Opera Diva Celebrity bard, 36 yo, part of backstory was her being turned down for being too old to play the heroine, even when her male costar was in his 70s. GM and I couldn't have done better if we had planned it.

SHibalba, no?

These are cool but I can't stop hearing "sackhill" as in "the Sackhill Bagginses". Or was that "Sackville"? Idk. Don't know how else I'm supposed to pronounce it either, and even if I did the fact that I'm consciously pronouncing it a different way would still remind me of the pronounciation I'm trying to avoid.

The Sahkils are a disppointment and Zipacna is basicly the summary of the Dev Team's feelings. The lesser Sahkils work as "Fear Spirits" but that's on their own. The ex-Psychopomp background does not work at all. The Greater Sahkils appear to be variants of would-be rivals for Zyphus to tie into the ex-Psychopomp background. With both together it comes off as the Dev Team trying too hard to cover up poor writing.