The Pathfinder Society
The Pathfinder Society is a globe-spanning organization based out of Absalom, the City at the Center of the World. The membership consists primarily of Pathfinders, adventurers who travel throughout Golarion—usually inconspicuously—and explore, delve, and otherwise experience the lesser-seen parts of the world. They send journals documenting their travels back to their venture-captains, who also assigns them new missions and suggests new places to explore. The most exciting and illuminating of these journals are compiled in the Pathfinder Chronicles, an ongoing series of books that collect the history and mystery of Golarion for its membership and the general public.
History
The greatest heroes of the Inner Sea region record their victories in an ongoing series of chapbooks known as the Pathfinder Chronicles. The amazing, often unbelievable tales bound in these oft-traded volumes tell of lost gods and sunken continents, of creatures older than the world itself that fell from the stars in the eldest of days, and of the fantastic ruins they left behind.
The authors of these tales belong to the Pathfinder Society, a loose-knit group of explorers, archaeologists, and adventurers who span the globe in search of lost knowledge and ancient treasures. Some seek to unlock the secret history of the world, piecing together the past one fragment at a time. Others are in it for the money, filtering priceless antiquities through a series of unscrupulous merchants to enrich themselves beyond measure. Still other Pathfinders take up the trade because they find the thrill of risking their lives more addicting and exhilarating than any vice or drug.
A shadowy inner circle of masked leaders known as the Decemvirate rules the Pathfinder Society from the bustling metropolis of Absalom, the so-called City at the Center of the World. There, in a huge fortress complex called the Grand Lodge, the Ten manage a vast organization of agents spread throughout the Inner Sea region and beyond. These officers, known as venture-captains, coordinate teams of Pathfinders in their assigned regions, tipping them off to ancient legends, passing along newly discovered maps, and supporting their efforts in the field. Venture-captains are an ideal “in-world” source of adventure leads, making them indispensable NPCs in your Pathfinder campaign. That doesn’t necessarily make every venture-captain an unswerving ally, however. The ultimate goals of the Decemvirate are inscrutable, and not even the venture- captains understand the full picture of what the Pathfinder Society does with all of the information it collects. Each venture-captain oversees the activities of several tightly knit groups of Pathfinder field agents, who conduct much of the exploration and adventures that fuel the society as a whole. Perhaps your player characters are one such group, moving from locale to locale to discover the lost secrets of dead civilizations and the wondrous treasures they left behind.
Pathfinder agents provide detailed written reports of their exploits to their venture-captains, who then forward the most compelling records to the Grand Lodge in Absalom for consideration by the Decemvirate. Periodically, the masked leaders of the society collect and publish the greatest exploits in new volumes of the Pathfinder Chronicles, which they send back to their venture-captains for distribution to field agents. Whenever a new volume of the Pathfinder Chronicles hits the field, dozens of adventurers flock to the sites described therein for further exploration and adventure. Although they belong to the same society, individual groups of Pathfinder agents often find themselves at cross- purposes in the field, particularly if each team reports to a different venture-captain. Competition between Pathfinders rarely results in outright battle, but certain agents aren’t above collapsing passages, triggering ancient traps, or selling out their rivals to hostile locals—all in the name of friendly competition, of course.
Structure
The Pathfinder Society was founded more than 400 years ago by a consortium of adventurers and scoundrels fond of working together and regaling each other with tales of their exploits. As the group grew and became more formalized, a governing council of 10 members was formed—the original Decemvirate. With the organization’s continued expansion in both popularity and wealth, the members of the Decemvirate were eventually masked for their own safety, and today the Pathfinder Society is ruled by a shadowy group of masked individuals whose identities are unknown and unheralded. Presumably, the composition of the Decemvirate has changed over the passing of centuries, but when or how the Ten recruit new members is as secretive as their true identities.
Operatives known as venture-captains coordinate teams of Pathfinder agents in their assigned regions, tipping them off to ancient legends, passing along newly discovered maps, and supporting efforts in the field. Each venture-captain oversees the activities of several different Pathfinder field agents, who in turn conduct much of the exploration and adventure that fuels the Society as a whole. Venture-captains are fairly autonomous but still answer to the Decemvirate. The ultimate goals of the Decemvirate are inscrutable, and not even the venture-captains understand the full picture of what the Pathfinder Society does with the information it collects.
The Society’s chief resource is its vast organization of operatives spread throughout the Inner Sea region and beyond. Venture-captains in cities or especially remote locations usually run lodges where they conduct Pathfinder business. Typically a house or building owned by the Society, a Pathfinder lodge is completely under the administration of the local venture-captain. Agents may stay in a lodge as long as they are on legitimate Pathfinder business, but to deter freeloaders, lodges rarely offer food or extensive free services. Most venture-captains keep small stores of potions, scrolls, and mundane adventuring equipment for sale to agents. Mercenary venture-captains charge exorbitant prices for these if they believe their agents have uncovered a treasure haul. As information conduits, venture-captains also pass along letters or messages through Pathfinder channels upon agent request.
The original and greatest Pathfinder lodge is located in Absalom—this structure is known as the Grand Lodge, a massive fortress complex located in the city’s Foreign Quarter. The Grand Lodge is a place of wonder and education, a bastion of knowledge designed to inspire and organize all those who live for discovery. During the day its carefully manicured lawns and monument-strewn plazas are dotted with Pathfinders trading information, and at night the sounds of stories and songs resound along stone pathways lit gently by witchlights.
The most recognizable name among the Pathfinders is legendary Durvin Gest, author of many of the best- known tales from the first several Pathfinder Chronicles. Yet the very nature of the Pathf inder Society ensures that the organization attracts a host of oddball characters and impassioned adventurers determined to make their mark on the face of Golarion. Many of these have become legends in their own right. Currently, a man named Ambrus Valsin serves as the steward for the Grand Lodge. He supervises all important duties within the structure and keeps a long list of relatively safe but time-consuming jobs on file to keep rookie Pathf inders busy. Three other venture-captains—broad-shouldered Marcos Farabellus, radical arcane theorist Aram Zey, and eccentric Kreighton Shaine—serve at the Grand Lodge as the masters of swords, spells, and scrolls, respectively. The Grand Lodge’s newest venture-captain to rise to prominence is Shevala Iorae, a Varisian woman who got her start adventuring among the crumbling ruins of ancient Thassilon. Other venture-captains, like Galtan expatriate Eliza Petulengro, strangely deep-voiced Sheila Heidmarch of Magnimar, Darklands expert and scandal- prone Koriah Azmeren, and the enigmatic Chelaxian known only as Osprey, work constantly to ensure that the needs of the Pathfinder Society are well represented throughout the Inner Sea region.
Goals
The Pathfinder Society makes few demands on agents. Agents are expected to follow three primary duties: explore the mysteries of the world, report on findings uncovered in the pursuit of the first duty, and cooperate with other agents to ensure the success of the first and second duties. Unfortunately, because of the loose structure of the Society, conflicts are relatively common.
Agents are charged with writing up detailed reports of their exploits to pass on to their venture-captains, who then forward the most compelling accounts to the Grand Lodge in Absalom for consideration by the Decemvirate. Periodically, the masked leaders of the Society collect and publish the most worthy exploits in new volumes of the Pathfinder Chronicles, which are then distributed to Pathfinder lodges throughout the Inner Sea region.
Yet for as long as the Pathfinders have chronicled their adventures, the general public has clamored for access to these tales, as those that are published present exciting and hair-raising tales. Among scholars or competing explorers (particularly the Aspis Consortium), copies of the Pathfinder Chronicles are particularly valuable for their routes to treasure, secrets of magic, and other hints about how to navigate the far corners of the world. Reproductions and counterfeit copies are growing more and more common.
Public Perception
The Pathfinder Society is so loosely organized that it’s difficult to identify it as having a particular flavor or character. In most cases, venture-captains are members of their communities and participate in local customs and habits. Since venture-captains often maintain lodges, they tend to be more responsible and, as a result, less unpredictable than the average Pathfinder in their actions—although exceptions always seem eager to show otherwise.
Field agents are much more of a hodgepodge. The freedom for agents to be, do, and say anything they want is likely the organization’s most consistently distinct aspect. The liberty of agents occasionally clashes with the desires or goals of specific venture-captains, but rarely creates too deep of a rift for them to work together.
The same cannot be said of most Pathfinder agents, and deep and even violent rivalries are far from unheard of among their ranks. Although the freedom to approach their duties as they see fit is a distinct advantage on most missions that Pathfinder agents might undertake, it unfortunately appeals to a large number of individuals eager to abuse their perceived status as Pathfinders, and these bad apples have done little to promote the perception of Pathfinders as legitimate scholars and explorers.
In certain areas where information is seen as a commodity or weapon, such as Nidal, Cheliax, or Galt, Pathfinders are often greeted with suspicion. So little is known of the mysterious leaders of the Society that governments who particularly fear their citizens and rely on propaganda, misinformation, or similar exploitative tactics often see Pathfinders as threats to their control of secrecy, and a Pathfinder in such an area must take extra care to avoid attracting the wrong sort of attention. Perhaps even more disturbing are the rumors of a secret “shadow lodge” within the Society itself that seeks to take over and control its massive magical resources, but both the Decemvirate and many vocal venture- captains dismiss these unsettling rumors as utter hogwash.