Two new Sahkil Tormentors

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(Pic source)

Many Daemon Harbingers seem to correspond mortal fears and frailties rather than the unfair deaths, and so I made my ain to address this. The Sahkil Tormentors are completely different beasts altogether, and thus far they've been fairly consistent at being things worthy of fear, but there's withal a little chip of design space for more personal terrors. Below are 2 such Tormentors; the doll one has been in the works for a while and I originally planned on writing a full article on it, but the shortform of this puts less stress on my encephalon to invent needless amounts of content.

And before this week I was reminded of sleep paralysis, a terror no Sahkil takes advantage of… until correct at present.

Reminder that Sahkil Tormentors grant Boons in the grade of spell-like abilities that may be used 2/day!

Lelilauss, the Porcelain Pretender
Neutral Evil Sahkil Tormentor of Dolls, Dread, and the Uncanny Valley

It is not hard to tell when ane has entered the domain of the Porcelain Pretender, an utterly normal town in the centre of Xibalba, the Realm of Fear. The people of this false city alive tense lives in this land where the sun never rises, sustained by plants that should not grow and animals whose flesh yields like cloth and surrounded by neighbors who sometimes twitch horribly in the corner of one's vision… or cease moving at all for extended periods of fourth dimension. A connoisseur of extended periods of dread, Lelilauss' but price for relative prophylactic in this town–which allows but the doll-like minions the Tormentor itself spawns–is the knowledge that, at whatever moment, the protection it offers will exist torn away from every inhabitant the instant even one person acknowledges aloud that something is incorrect to the Tormentor'due south many hidden agents.

Many of the townsfolk are disguised Sahkil, once-mortal servants of the Tormentor, or fifty-fifty soulless simulacra created past the Tormentor, but barely imitating the functions and behaviors of actual people. This is purposeful; their disguises could be flawless, but the occasional cracks (literal and physical) in the illusion serves equally a abiding reminder for the population, stolen from the River of Souls, that nix they have is real. That even one mistake could end non just their existence, but the being of every friend they've made in the Hell that's been crafted for them.

Lelilauss' form is variable. Sometimes information technology is a simple human mannequin whose grotesque shadow hints at worse forms. Sometimes it is a human that never moves its optics or opens its oral cavity to speak. Its true form is said to exist the one it takes in battle, porcelain and wooden limbs jutting from a chaotic ball of mismatched parts, but the Porcelain Pretender states that every physical form it takes is no more than than the shadow of what information technology really is, but it has never elaborated on what this could mean. When it needs fresh sources of terror, it crafts cursed, disquieting dolls which never go out the first unfortunate to touch them or Automata minions too shut to looking human and releases them into the Material Plane to reap the fright they sew.

Domains: Artifice, Evil, Protection, Trickery,
Subdomains: Construct, Fright, Sahkil, Curse*, Deception
Favored Weapons: Warhammer
Symbol: A doll head or porcelain mask with cracks radiating out from one of its eyes.
Sacred Animals: None
Sacred Colors: White
*Followers of Lelilauss can modify the Protection Domain with the Curse Subdomain, replacing the Resistant Touch on power and the spells at the advisable level.

Obedience: Work towards creating a doll or mannequin, or leave such an object in a location where it may startle someone.
Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus to saving throws against the extraordinary and supernatural abilities of Constructs.

Boon i: Aversion
Boon 2: Object Possession (Dolls, mannequins, and similar humanoid objects only)
Boon 3: Statue

——

Him, the Bedside Shadow
Neutral Evil Sahkil Tormentor of Suffocation, Nightmares, and Sleep Paralysis

Few even know of the existence of this nameless, voiceless Tormentor, permit alone that He is annihilation but a figment of their own imagination. Actualization equally little more than a vague, suffocating silhouette in the room of His target, any of His victims recall His appearance and presence with perfect clarity even when they were unable to directly see Him, describing Him as a featureless, black entity dressed in concealing wearing apparel with a notable, brimmed hat. While nearly of His visits to the Textile Plane are affairs lasting mere minutes during which He does little more than hover past the victim's paralyzed form, there are many victims of His predations that perish in their slumber… or, more horribly, are trapped eternally in suffocating nightmares haunted by darkness and shadowy fiends, their imprisoned souls stewing in its fearfulness and aging like fine cheese that He can savour at leisure, piece by disturbing piece.

The Bedside Shadow claims no rule in Xibalba, instead existing in the Dimension of Dreams, where He finds the slumbering minds of those already suffering from nightmares. Following the thread of dreams back to the waking world, He emerges from the sleeper'south own mind, trapping them in a twilight of dream and reality. Information technology is in this state He torments them with His presence lonely, drawing slowly even so steadily closer as they lay helpless. Once they either fully awaken or perish as He touches them, the Tormentor vanishes with the dream, leaving victims with the memory of His visit burned into their minds for the residuum of their lives, all merely assuring that He will find them once more and again.

The dreaming Tormentor allies himself with no other beyond the occasional Dreamthief Hag that manages to reach Him, existing across the reach of His kin and their plots. He is seemingly content to operate on His ain and rarely even acknowledges supplicants praying to Him. Whether the phenomena of sleep paralysis is acquired by Him or something He has simply decided to exploit is unknown… equally is the question of if there are multiple Bedside Shadows in beingness visiting multiple helpless souls at once, or if simultaneous sightings are nothing more than mass hysteria, though the answer is something most scholars of fiends practise not wish to contemplate.

Domains: Darkness, Expiry, Evil, Void
Subdomains: Dark, Shadow, Fear, Sahkil, Isolation
Favored Weapons: Garotte
Symbol: His silhouette.
Sacred Animals: House centipedes
Sacred Colors: Black

Obedience: Stand or sit down every bit close to a sleeping beast as you tin can without waking it, so remain there, watching it, until either one 60 minutes passes or it awakens on its own.
Benefit: Gain a +four profane bonus to saving throws against effects which cause exhaustion or slumber.

Boon one: Hold Person
Boon two: Deadscape
Boon 3: Piercing Nightmare