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Folca is infamous for being one of the most offensively repugnant fiends in Pathfinder lore, so much so as to actively be buried by its creators and ignored by its player base. I won't be going over why they are (it's pretty bad) and the point of this post is not to bring attention to that. Instead, I feel it is a shame that passed all the unacceptable bits is the hints of a truly compelling supernatural evil that is different from the others. I thus chose to do my own take on the daemon harbinger and expand on them with freshly-baked homebrew lore that I guarantee will make for a good villainous concept to throw at players.
Strangers are just friends you don’t know you have. Now, how about a treat?
Folca
The Gaunt Stranger, The Unmet Friend, Mx. Sweets, the Confectioner of Souls, the Snatcher in the Alley
Daemonic Harbinger of sweets, naivety, and abductions
Among the wretched of Abaddon, few are as perplexingly contradictory as Folca. The Gaunt Stranger is a mute, androgynous humanoid with pasty pale skin that stretches with unseen appendages pushing just under its surface, dressed in common dark clothing and carrying a bulging sack filled with unknown, sickly sweet smelling contents.
Folca’s mortal origin is unknown, but it is certain that they are primarily yoked under Trelmarixian, though they came about under his predecessor, Lyutheria. Unlike other daemons, Folca does not aim for death as the final goal. Instead, they seek a form of twisted mercy. Like all daemons, Folca hates themselves and the world, but rather than handle it through bringing oblivion to reality, they instead take a psychological approach. Folca, and those who follow them, indulge deeply in the addictive succor of sugar. They purposefully seek ignorance, to narrow their experiences, and leave only a single, passionate obsession for candy. They ignore suffering and misery and indeed cause it through their apathy and pursuit of the addictive flavor and rush they get from their confections, both mundane and supernatural.
Folca’s role in daemonic society is that of a charitable philanthropist. Their realm, the Succulent Street, is a deep canyon that resembles a meandering alleyway, with a main thoroughfare that is fed by countless alleyways that lead to speakeasies, unholy confectionaries, abattoir basements, factories, and even fields of pungent rotting sugar crop and fruit trees. It borders Urgathoa’s realm and is a common bridge between it and Abaddon. Undead frequent it as much as daemons do, for it is here that a rare delight can be found, for Folca does not simply devours souls, but spins them into magical candies that are capable of bringing joy even to the most depraved fiends. Folca’s supernatural candies are so wickedly delightful they have been known to make daemons smile and weep with joy as though they had finally found something worth existing for. This, however, is a trap, for soon the rush is over and done and the victim of the experience grows just as disillusioned if not even more so with reality, growing increasingly willing to perform evil acts just to afford another taste. Even undead are not immune and indeed Folca counts a large number of undead in their clientele, among which includes the Pallid Princess herself, though she of course is immune to Folca’s total control and indulges freely without repercussion. She is quite fond of them, and often invites them to Bloodrot to feature their latest creations. Folca procures the ingredients for their craft through either donations (which are immediately repaid with finished candies of their making) and abduction (most often of those who would rehabilitate or hurt the willfully ignorant.)
For their part, Folca is placid and quiet, but not uncommunicative. They have a bizarre form of telepathy that manifests as flashing smells and tastes whose meaning can be intuited completely even for those who lack the means to taste or smell. Folca’s very presence can be addictive, caused by the heady psychic fumes emanating from them and their sack, which is always filled to the brim with liquefied soulstuff transmuted to raw spun sugar. Folca’s presence is such that many will simply follow in their wake, and Folca will unwittingly abduct entire towns they pass by, merrily minding their own business as they cause them to vanish, become lost, and eventually starve. Folca will on occasion offer soul candy to the innocent, favoring them as a kindred spirit, and seeking to block their acknowledgment of the outside world. For their part, those who are inexperienced perceive Folca as a friendly-faced stranger that exudes goodness and trustworthiness, whilst more worldly individuals will look on as a freakish monster interacts with the simple-minded innocent as though they were longtime friends, never to know the true ingredients behind the tasty treats they have just accepted. The more horrifying and numerous the truths hidden from those who unknowingly partake of delights there are, the more content Folca will be.
Folca despises those who willfully seek the truth despite how painful it is. They feel an envious resentment of Elysium and its delights, for Folca knows deep down that no amount of sweets can compare to the true happiness of a fulfilling life, a true friendship, or healthy love. They thus prize ingredients from that sacred realm and pay handsomely for those who would give it along with captive azatas and denizens whose spirits they may torment by induction to their own delights. Equally so, Folca loathes Nirvana for its asceticism and comfort, believing them foolish for denying the joy of sugar addiction for other, more wholesome pleasures.
Folca is not a powerful harbinger. Indeed, they are among the weakest in terms of combat ability. Fittingly, they favor enchantment, illusion, and transmutation magic personally and for their followers to trick, coerce, and transform their enemies. Folca’s greatest strength, however, is their popularity, for like a twisted parody of protective elder siblings, the daemons of Abaddon protect the Gaunt Stranger from outside depredation. Their reasons are numerous, be it their desire for them to continue creating their sweets, an understanding of the true and unique flavor of entropy they bring to reality, or simply a desire to earn their favor, Folca is a popular evil.
In times when they find a soul with a unique flavor or have a rare episode of murderous rage (most often induced by an occasional bout of awareness brought about by a foolhardy individual’s arguments), Folca will abduct an individual to harvest their soul, stuffing it into their sack for later use. When truly enraged, Folca will peel away their clothing, revealing an indescribable and maddening sight. The rare few who survive such an event and retain enough sanity to recount it have hypothesized a new origin for Folca: that they are, in fact, a qlippoth lord in hiding, masquerading as a daemon and actively subduing their perception of reality, a reality in which demons still hold dominion over the Abyss and there is no hope of qlippoths ever having their quiet, solitary, sinless universe again. For their part, Folca always responds to any such questions with heartier-than-usual offerings of candy, which if denied will certainly result in the harbinger turning hostile.
Folca actively loathes Norgorber, as the god is fond of using candy as a vector for poisoning. Folca does not seek a quick and painful end for their victims, but a slow, decaying, sedated, diabetic failure. However, Folca is not as powerful as Norgorber and is most often duped by the Reaper of Reputation into gifting poisoned candy to a would-be target. For their part, Folca becomes upset when it happens, then decides it was beyond their ability to stop and in merry obliviousness continues along their way, the sooner the incident is forgotten the better.
Folca’s relationship with the archdaemons is bizarre, as while there is certainly no affection, there is nevertheless a prolific interaction with various. Trelmarixian of course knows how Folca operates and leaves them to their own devices, content that the harbinger reliably has no ambition of overthrowing them and predominantly furthers the power of famine through their methods. Charon recognizes the lifespan reduction caused by Folca’s activities and encourages them by loaning them a few thanadaemons to serve as trade caravans for their product (and making a tidy profit off the proceeds, of course, with Folca demanding nothing in return). Apollyon tolerates Folca, seeing sugar addiction as a mediocre disease but one that serves a purpose all the same. The only archdaemon Folca is at odds with is Szuriel, as her violent mass-murder and warmongering create the very conditions Folca wishes their followers and victims alike to be pleasantly ignorant of. Indeed, few creatures evoke more displeasure in Folca than the Horseman of War, and Folca actively bans her followers from his realm for being ‘party poopers’.
The most insidious yet least evil of Folca’s cults take the form of baking circles that merely think Mx. Sweets to be some sort of patron spirit of their craft. These are Folca’s favorites, and they are jealously protected from the influence of others, with Folca’s blessings to them given as honestly as they would their other, more wicked followers. Darker cults are facilitators, forging alliances with and aiding other evil cults by purposefully keeping people blissfully ignorant of their activities and the miseries of the world, often by peddling inconspicuously addictive substances to do so. Some are hedonistic circles of the most apathetic and petty sort who care for absolutely nothing but their own gratification even as others suffer around them. Still others are truly depraved cannibal chefs seeking to create the ultimate candy out of the remains of their victims. Some undead seek Folca’s blessing to taste the pure joy of innocence never to be truly regained, often ones who resent or regret their condition, thus being spurned by Urgathoa.
Though Folca is not a great mover or shaker by way of ambitious designs or grand master planning, they are a dastardly and insidious spreader of evil, and the line between how much the daemon harbinger is or isn’t aware of the awful consequences of their existence and deeds is brought into constant question, but there is no mistaking that wherever Folca’s touch is felt, oblivion’s decay runs through the bodies, minds, and souls of all those who partake of their blessing, in the dead-end alleys where colorful and friendly strangers peddle their sinister sweets.