Factions

At present, five shadowy, nation-based factions struggle for secret and subtle dominance of Absalom – Andoran, Cheliax, Osirion, Qadira, and Taldor. These ancient and powerful nations have long been major players in Absalom’s affairs, each waxing and waning with the sands of time. Now, in the year 4707, they find themselves on equal footing in the City at the Center of the World, each poised to seize control of the city through political and economic maneuvering. They have their own unique reasons for wanting to control Absalom, but they all share one goal in common: they hope to one day turn this secret war into open and total control of the Inner Sea’s most strategically located mercantile metropolis.

The factions of Absalom have long despised one another. History is fraught with their bloody feuds, brutal wars, and oppressions. At the end, one faction shall stand higher than the others, their talons sunk deep into Absalom’s affairs reaping grand rewards. With each new mission, though, come new opportunities. The winds of Absalom blow hot and fierce and they change direction without warning. Will you be a devil scholar of Cheliax, a brave Andoren freedom fighter, a veiled vagabond of Qadira, an Osirian with pharaohs’ blood running in your veins, or a secret blade of Taldor? Choose wisely, for your actions may change the face of Golarion.

Missions and Prestige

You do honor to your faction by succeeding in specific missions. Each Pathfinder Society mission contains one or more faction secondary missions dedicated to your specific faction, all tasks that, if completed, give your faction a small advantage in their shadow war against the other four. During a mission, your faction might ask you to make sure a crime lord dies, protect an innocent merchant caught in crossfire, save a kidnapped child, hand off an important letter, foil an assassination, or locate a letter of marque. Whatever the mission, a positive outcome earns you and your faction one point of Prestige Award. Every Pathfinder Society mission offers the same potential amount of PA to each faction. It’s up to you to make sure your faction scores higher than its competitors.

As your Prestige Award total increases, your faction rewards your excellent service with ever-increasing boons. In the following sections, you’ll find an expanded list of items, abilities, and services your Pathfinder gains access to as his or her PA increases. These items are rewards from your faction for your loyalty and hard work and reflect your growing influence within your own faction. All of these items are outside of the normal list of items available for purchase and can be purchased at any time once you’ve unlocked the ability to purchase them.

Choosing your Faction

Every Faction has its own unique history, culture, style and specialty. Each has its own modus operandi in the ongoing shadow war for control of Absalom, and each offers Pathfinders in their service different boons. Choosing your Faction is important — it defines your character in the Pathfinder Society, and ties your Pathfinder to one particular nation’s destiny. Before you choose your Faction, peruse each carefully and pick the most exciting one. Once this choice is made, it cannot be changed easily, so choose wisely.

Wayfinder

Aura faint evocation; CL 5th

Slot none; Price 500 gp; Weight 1 lb.

Description

A small magical device patterned off ancient relics of the Azlanti, a wayfinder is typically made from silver and bears gold accents. With a command word, you can use a wayfinder to shine (as the light spell). The wayfinder also acts as a nonmagical (magnetic) compass, granting you a +2 circumstance bonus on Survival checks to avoid becoming lost. All wayfinders include a small indentation designed to hold a single ioun stone. An ioun stone slotted in this manner grants you its normal benefits (as if it were orbiting your head), but frequently reveals entirely new powers due to the magic of the wayfinder itself.

Construction

Requirements Craft Wondrous Item, light; Cost 250 gp

Andoran

“The days of kings are long gone. We are the future of humanity, and of all peoples. Ruled by no crown or scepter, we instead rule ourselves.”

—Captain Colson Mardris, Eagle Knight of Andoran

From humble beginnings as loggers and merchants, the Andorens proved themselves survivors on a hard frontier. Even before they won their independence they were an impressive people. Brave explorers and canny merchants, they were the first to sail the sea beyond the Arch of Aroden. They settled distant colonies, hewing a life from wild lands and an inhospitable coastline fraught with peril. The power of Old Taldor’s navy rested on the shoulders of capable Andoren commanders whose skill at arms, fiery tenacity, and naval puissance was unrivaled in the empire’s glory day.

Andoran shrugged off the auspices of Old Taldor when Qadira invaded the empire. Shortly thereafter they shattered Cheliax’s diabolic chains. Now Andoran holds the reins of its own destiny in the strong hands of its people. They are the first government of the Inner Sea to entrust its power to its own citizens instead of dolloping it upon the crowned brow of a king. Their weapons are innovation, a stubborn dedication to idealism, and a firm belief in the potential of humanity. The Andorens are a hard people, dedicated to freedom for all, and unable to sit by and watch as the world around them submits to savagery and tyranny.

Goals: Common Rule for All

Andoran would see the tyrannic empires who once ruled them brought down. They would see slavery abolished and those who would buy and sell people punished in the extreme. They would bring the torch of freedom to the world’s darkest places and banish mysticism, diabolism, and fear.

Methodology: Light the Fires of Freedom

“Our greatest weapon is the tyranny of our enemies.”

—Captain Colson Maldris, Eagle Knight of Andoran

The Andoran faction attacks its enemies from within. They find dissidents, freedom fighters, and revolutionaries among the populations of their foes and offer them covert aid, equipment, intelligence and the funds they need to topple the tyrants. Missions assigned to Andoran faction members tend toward helping dissident groups within the other factions, though anything that shakes these tyrants’ power is a worthy cause for an Andoren to lend himself to.

Faction Leader: Captain Colson Maldris

The Eagle Knights of Andoran are champions of freedom. Icons of their national pride, these brave warriors have given their lives in battle against devils and monsters for decades. Colson Maldris would much rather be out in the field, his greatsword drenched in the blood of tyrants and slavers, but his order has another use for him.

As a member of the mystery-shrouded Grey Corsairs, Maldris served bravely aboard the warship Trident, sending twenty three slaver ships to the bottom of the Inner Sea and slaying the mangy gnoll slavelord Pasha Palrathgra in personal combat upon the bloody deck of his pleasure frigate. Maldris was the youngest to wear the golden eagle upon his shoulders. His lauds and victories far outshine many of his senior Eagle Knights, and this may be why he was reassigned to Absalom. Rumors that his rising star has ruffled the feathers of fellow Eagles abound, and they have sent him into a den of knives to be torn to shreds by deadly adversaries.

Whatever the reason, Maldris has been assigned as Andoran’s Special Attache to the Grand Council of Absalom. His true duties in the city are to acquire assets and agents in the ongoing shadow war between the five greatest nations of the Inner Sea. Five men and women orchestrate a covert conflict over whose hand will guide Absalom’s political and economic destiny in the coming age, and Maldris is Andoran’s chosen general. His courage and patriotism are without question, but more than a few wonder if this young commander isn’t a little out of his depth in a city whose murky politics can quickly drain an eager man’s soul.

Andoren Pathfinders

Andorens are particularly suited to the life of a Pathfinder. Natural explorers, with the bravery to face ominous frontiers of mystery and danger, these sons and daughters of freedom are perfect candidates for membership in the world’s most elite adventuring society.

Pathfinders not raised in Andoran yet still loyal to the Andoran faction in Absalom typically support the fledgling democracy’s values of freedom and the destruction of tyranny. Regardless of where they came from, non-Andorens in service to Andoran generally hold these ideals above all others.

To learn more about Andoran, read the Inner Sea Primer hardcover.

Andoran Rewards

10 TPA: Andoran faction members gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with people from Andoran.

10 TPA, 1 CPA: Wayfinder

20 TPA: Once per assignment, choose one spell from the spell list in the Pathfinder Rewards that’s 150 gp or less and have that spell cast on your character for free. Casting the spell in this manner takes 1 hour and can only be cast in Absalom or Andoran.

30 CPA: Once per assignment, you may borrow one item from the following list and use it for the remaining duration of the assignment: potion of heroism, scroll of magic circle against evil, silversheen, wand of remove fear, ring of protection +1, wayfinder. If the item is disposable, such as a potion or wand, and you use all or a portion of it, you have to purchase what you used at the end of the assignment before buying any other equipment.

Cheliax

“Asmodeous himself smiles upon our endeavor and we shall not rest until the entire world trembles before Him.”

—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

When Aroden died, some say the soul of Cheliax perished with him. The once mighty empire tore itself apart, and only through the power of three noble Houses, each steeped in deviltry, was order restored. The empire runs on the backs of fiends now, a perfect machine of hellfire and blood, where morality surrenders to the needs of law and order. It’s easy to curse Cheliax as a nation of devillovers, but few can argue with the results of their fiendbinding craft. House Thrune, the greatest of its diabolic noble families, has brought the empire under control once more. Cheliax rises like a dark star, as strong as ever, despite the recent losses of Galt and Andoran to rebellious forces.

Asmodeus proves as powerful a divine patron as Aroden ever did, shepherding his people toward glory and dominance of the Inner Sea. His plans reach eons into the future, and the minor setbacks of yesterday are all factored into the cost of doing a devil’s business. Chelaxians always plan for a long campaign, and never trifle over today’s skirmishes. In the end all will burn in hellfire. It is only a matter of time.

The pale-skinned Chelaxians believe themselves superior to all other peoples. Their compact with great devils gives them power beyond measure, and no other nation of the Inner Sea can compete with their summoners when it comes to trafficking with dark forces. These devils require payment for their service, often offered up in the form of tender flesh and fresh blood. Slaves are an important resource of the Chelaxians, as are artifacts of ancient power whose secrets are revealed to them by their timeless patrons. Even as Andoran revels in its newfound freedom, the tendrils of Cheliax’s empire continue to expand. Arcadia lays open before them and Sargava is ready to fall under their hellish sway. The Inner Sea will fall with the rest as soon as Absalom rests firmly in the bloodied hands of House Thrune.

Goals: Hell on Golarion

Chelaxians plan to spread the dark influence of Asmodeus across the face of Golarion. They bring order to chaos, quell the troublesome concepts of freedom and self-determination, and leave broken souls eager to accept the bondage of slavery in their wake. The world must come to terms with the order of things. Mortals serve at the knee of greater powers. The devils of the Nine Hells are Golarion’s natural overlords and if the rabble gathered along the coast of the Inner Sea can’t be made to understand this simple fact, then they will be purged in a torrent of fire.

Methodology: The Kiss and the Lash

“A true corrupter can convince a man to hand over his soul, a blissful smile on his face.”

—Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

Chelaxians are masters of seduction as well as pain. They bring their enemies to heel with promises of aid, riches, and glory, but keep them in line with cruel lashes and hellfire. The Cheliax faction wins others to its dark cause with temptation. Lust, power, riches, vanity, the Chelaxians offer all, and cater to the sinful nature in every man to bring him low. If a foe cannot be seduced, he must instead be scourged. Many missions of the Cheliax faction involve tempting upright people into darkness and vice, and then threatening to expose their sins unless they aid the empire as dutiful agents. The tricks of devils have claimed men’s souls since time immemorial and they serve the Chelaxians well in their quest for control of Absalom.

Faction Leader: Paracountess Zarta Dralneen

Most people thought Zarta was nothing more than the spoiled daughter of a wealthy paracount. Then her father collapsed, his face purpled by poison, and she assumed control of House Dralneen smoothly with her elder brother’s consent. Constant rumors abound that her elder brother has long been deceased, and the “thing” that wears his skin now is just one of Zarta’s many diabolic servants.

Zarta relishes her role in Absalom. She’s always found the city rife with sins-in-the-making, and takes pleasure in Golarion’s largest cesspool of corruption. She uses her beauty and her diabolic power in equal measures to corrupt the souls of her enemies. It’s been said Zarta is an erinyes in human form, but one victim of her corrupting influence who lost his entire family in a quest to please the coy woman’s evil whims claims: “She could set the most salacious succubi to school.”

Zarta paints the veneer of a cultured aristocratic lady on her outside, especially when appearing on official Chelish business (her cover role in Absalom is that of a diplomatic envoy), but the promise of soul-blasting sin is an ever present dance in her sultry eyes, and the orgies of excess she holds at her private villa are legendary affairs that most scorn with curses, even as they secretly yearn for an invitation.

Chelaxian Pathfinders

Since House Thrune rose to prominence, reclaiming the past glories of Cheliax and re-establishing their footholds across the world has been their primary goal. Chelish armies amass in the ruthless homeland, and their agents push far and wide seeking to expand the diabolic empire’s influence. Chelish culture is widely popular, and their fashions show up in most nations across Avistan and Garund. House Thrune places a high priority on discovering the relics of the past and controlling the revelation and interpretation of historical finds. The noble houses of Cheliax encourage the populace and even their own scions to join the Pathfinder Society and seek treasures of ancient power to bolster the empire.

Pathfinders not raised in Cheliax yet still loyal to the Cheliax faction in Absalom typically seek some form of personal power that they feel their loyalty to Cheliax will provide them. They see the advantages in bending fiends to the will of men (despite the incredible risks) and are generally more obsessed with ancient artifacts of power than their fellow Pathfinders.

To learn more about Cheliax, read the Inner Sea Primer hardcover.

Cheliax Rewards

10 TPA: Cheliax faction members gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with people from Cheliax.

10 TPA, 1 CPA: Wayfinder

20 TPA: Once per assignment, choose one spell from the spell list in the Pathfinder Rewards that’s 150 gp or less and have that spell cast on your character for free. Casting the spell in this manner takes 1 hour and can only be cast in Absalom or Cheliax.

30 CPA: Once per assignment, you may borrow one item from the following list and use it for the remaining duration of the assignment: potion of resist energy (fire) 20, scroll of suggestion, scroll of bull’s strength, elixir of hiding, wand of cause fear, ring of protection +1, wayfinder. If the item is disposable, such as a potion or wand, and you use all or a portion of it, you have to purchase what you used at the end of the assignment before buying any other equipment.

Osirion

“We must find the strength of mountains buried in our past and bring it to bear on those fools who think we are nothing but dust in the wind.”

—Amenopheus, the Sapphire Sage

Osirion was once the most glorious empire of Golarion. Pharaohs ruled as gods on earth, their monuments towered over even Thassilon’s mightiest, and their armies could churn a kingdom to mud and blot out the sun on wings of death.

Now, Osirion emerges from millennia of foreign rule under the rulership of the youthful Ruby Prince Khemet III, who hearkens back to the ancient days of Osirion’s glory. One year ago, Khemet opened the vast deserts of Osirion — long closed by the Keleshite overlords who held the nation as a satrapy of Qadira — to foreign exploration. Today the great treasures and arcane formulas of the living gods of ancient Osirion are unearthed for the entire world to see, and the ascendancy of the Land of Pharaohs is at hand.

Most Inner Sea nations view Osirion as a relic from a bygone age. In truth, Osirion is a slumbering giant that, when awakened, could wash away all fledgling challengers with the power of its traditions. The Osirians are wise people who look deep into the past for answers to present troubles. Their sense of history gives them a unique perspective on the ebb and flow of power in the political landscape of the modern Inner Sea. Many folk of Osirion are of old Garundi blood, bronze-skinned, and gifted with the noble bearing of the ancient pharaohs. It would take a special brand of fool to ignore this semblance of power and dismiss the Osirion faction as less of a threat than any of the other four factions clamoring for control of Absalom.

Goals: Uncover the Power of the Past

In bygone ages, the pharaohs of Ancient Osirion created wonders beyond reason. They concocted potent arcane plagues to destroy their enemies and erected mighty monuments capable of entrapping the souls of deities. Let the other factions jockey for meager political fancy or table scraps like favorable economic sanctions. Osirion is interested in rediscovering the powerful artifacts of its heritage, and preventing their theft by aggressive powers such as Cheliax. Once these powers are returned to their rightful hands, no one shall dare breach Osirion’s borders again.

Methodology: Hide Your Power

“The grasping hands of petty thieves cannot take what they do not know you have.”

—Amenopheus, the Sapphire Sage

For centuries now, the other powers of the Inner Sea have regarded Osirion as an impotent nation of conquered people. Osirion wouldn’t have it any other way. Since the Ruby Prince ascended the ancestral throne, Osirion has been gathering its power and preparing to make a bid for supremacy of the Inner Sea. Most of the Osirion faction’s missions involve quietly undermining the power of their enemies. Osirion agents in Absalom plant the seeds of dissolution with a whisper or a poisonous draught, never with a naked blade, and never with a witness. Just as most of the Great Emerald Sphinx is buried beneath the sands of Osirion’s deserts, so is the nation’s power carefully hidden in secret brotherhoods and spies loyal to the pharaonic throne. When Absalom sits firmly in Osirion’s grasp, then Khemet III shall declare himself Pharaoh in the tradition of his ancestors and Osirion’s Second Golden Age shall follow.

Faction Leader: Amenopheus, Sapphire Sage

The Jeweled Sages of Osirion were plotting the courses of the stars when the other people of the Inner Sea were living in caves and wearing rotting furs. When the Keleshite satrapy seized control of the kingdom, they razed monuments to the ground and savaged the ancient traditions of Osirion. The Jeweled Sages were disbanded, and those who didn’t recant their astrological powers were executed in a most gruesome fashion.

Now the Ruby Prince has reinstated the order. They no longer gaze toward the stars, but rather seek the answers to Osirion’s destiny in the hearts of their enemies. The Jeweled Sages are now Osirion’s spymasters, agents of the throne who gather webs of operatives and oversee their missions.

Amenopheus claims to trace his blood to the line of the Jeweled Sages of antiquity. This time-weathered Garundi sage wears his long black beard in a single braid adorned with nothing but copper bands. He wears austere red robes and simple leather sandals, and dodders, losing his train of thought often or blathering humorous tales or anecdotes that seem simple to most, but often conceal a profound lesson. Those unfortunate to get on Amenopheus’s bad side fear the old man’s piercing gaze, and know full well he conceals a dozen wands of power in the wide sleeves of his robes.

Amenopheus is supposedly the advisor to an obese Osirian noble, named Dremdhet Salhar, who sits on the Grand Council of Absalom, but in truth, the fat noble never utters a sentence not planted in his mind by the Sapphire Sage first.

Some rumormongers claim Amenopheus was a Pathfinder in his youth who wandered the world for years before returning to Osirion to serve his Prince. He has been assigned to Absalom since Prince Khemet III ascended the throne in Osirion and knows the city better than most natives born and bred there. Few are aware of the sage’s true role, and many of the agents serving him think they work for another spymaster. Only the most trusted operatives in his service ever meet face to face with the Sapphire Sage. They say he favors Pathfinders, perhaps out of nostalgia for his own past exploits in the organization’s service.

Other rumors concerning Amenopheus’s true nature abound. Some claim to have glimpsed ancient tapestries dating back to Osirion’s golden age thousands of years past where a sage bearing a striking resemblance to Amenopheus administered to the pharaohs of old. A few whisper that Amenopheus is no mortal man at all but rather some ancient undead abomination, the original Sapphire Sage whose tomb was cracked open by the Ruby Prince and whose mummified corpse was awakened to serve as advisor to the Prince, as he once did to the pharaohs of ancient Osirion.

Osirion Pathfinders

Osirion is rife with ancient tombs, lost relics, and forgotten cities buried under the swirling sands. Many of the best and brightest Pathfinders cut their teeth in this sprawling empire of living history and ancient tradition. Few countries possess such wizened sages or as competent explorers as Osirion.

Pathfinders not raised in Osirion yet still loyal to the Osirion faction in Absalom usually come from strong, ancestor worship-based cultures from across Golarion. They see the goals of the Osirians as laudable and hope to ride the coat tails of powerful pharaohs to glory and honor in the afterlife. Others see vast, unplumbed tombs buried deep beneath the desert sands and pledge their loyalty to Osirion on a sliver of hope that they’ll one day crack the seal on an ancient burial chamber and uncover wealth beyond imagination.

To learn more about Osirion, read the Inner Sea Primer hardcover.

Osirion Rewards

10 TPA: Osirion faction members gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with people from Osirion.

10 TPA, 1 CPA: Wayfinder

20 TPA: Once per assignment, choose one spell from the spell list in the Pathfinder Rewards that’s 150 gp or less and have that spell cast on your character for free. Casting the spell in this manner takes 1 hour and can only be cast in Absalom or Osirion.

30 CPA: Once per assignment, you may borrow one item from the following list and use it for the remaining duration of the assignment: potion of shield of faith +4, scroll of arcane sight, scroll of owl’s wisdom, dust of tracelessness, wand of silent image, ring of protection +1, wayfinder. If the item is disposable, such as a potion or wand, and you use all or a portion of it, you have to purchase what you used at the end of the assignment before buying any other equipment.

Qadira

“Let them sit on their thrones and revel in their power. They still need spice for their meat, cloves for their breath, and incense for their barbaric stench. Let their taxes flow to our golden coffers as fast as we can collect them.”

—Pasha Muhlia Al-Jakri

The westernmost satrap of Casmaron’s Padishah Empire of Kelesh, Qadira is a kingdom with the power of a sprawling empire at its back. Qadira is Kelesh’s doorway to Avistan, and is perhaps the single most valuable piece of real estate on Golarion. Rivers of spice and gold flow through its capital of Katheer, and Xerbystes II, the Satrap of Qadira, boasts correctly that his kingdom holds the wealth of any other three on the Inner Sea.

Qadira has long been a power to be reckoned with. Taldor has felt the bite of their scimitars and nearly lost their entire empire in the struggle. Osirion bowed before them for over three thousand years. The war drums of Katheer have been silent for an age, but they never stopped waging their wars. Gold is their weapon now, spices are their shield, and their incredible trading power is their armor.

Qadirans value wealth above all else and they seek to make their fortunes abroad. The wealth of Absalom, and more importantly the trading opportunities proffered by control of the great city, has long drawn the gaze of the satrap’s most powerful merchant princes. Many Qadirans are ready to leave their deserts behind for the promise of lustrous Absalom gold.

Goals: No Life Without Trade

The world is small and gets smaller every day. The key to power is trade. Qadira couldn’t care less who sits on the Grand Council of Absalom, so long as the Qadiran trade fleet dominates the harbor. Qadira plans to rule the Inner Sea’s trade and then bleed their enemies’ coffers dry. Collecting debts and supplying the demands of other nations’ peoples is how Qadira plans to rule. If their kingdoms slave to send gold east, the satrapy remains contented.

Methodology: All that Glitters is Power

“You can always pay someone to murder your enemies.”

—Pasha Muhlia Al-Jakri

The Qadiran faction seeks trade and economic advantage above all else. They seek to break their enemies’ monopolies and enforce their own. They offer wares and goods no one else can supply and destroy competition with a ruthlessness that put the devil-bowing Chelish to shame. Qadiran missions involve a greater plan, usually embarrassing or defaming an economic rival, or ruining the business of another nation’s trade companies.

Faction Leader: Pasha Muhlia Al-Jakri

The first female pasha in an age, Muhlia’s father was a simple spice peddler on the streets of Katheer with an unfortunate penchant for gambling. When the local street shah came to collect, he sold Muhlia to absolve himself. Muhlia was slated to be sold into pleasure slavery, but she quickly proved far too dangerous and far too useful for such an ignominious fate. She put a knife in the street shah’s best enforcer, and when she realized this would earn her a swift death at the shah’s hands, she fled only to come back the next day with the head of the street shah’s rival in a sack. She was a natural murderess and the shah decided to train her.

She soon surpassed her teacher’s skills with a blade and earned the recognition of one of Xerbystes’ more dangerous operatives. She became a Silent Blade of Katheer in short order and was responsible for the deaths of dozens of merchant princes and trader captains who refused to comply with the satrap’s commands.

Absalom is Muhlia’s current assignment and has earned her the title of pasha. Her official role in the city is as a trade commissioner overseeing Qadiran trader captains’ manifests. This paper-pushing job is boring enough to cast off too much scrutiny. Meanwhile, she organizes cabals of subtle and dangerous agents to serve the satrap’s overarching goals in the city and tear down the economic foundations of Qadira’s enemies.

Qadiran Pathfinders

Qadira is an outward-looking nation seeking profitable trade in every port on Golarion. The wealth of the world is theirs for the taking. Opportunists by nature, Qadirans make excellent Pathfinders. They are fearless, adaptable, and highly cosmopolitan. They find other cultures, while obviously inferior to their own, interesting and rife with plunder. The Pathfinder Society is the perfect instrument with which Qadira can scatter agents and emissaries across the globe to increase trade contacts and negotiate lopsided alliances with lesser peoples a thousand leagues from the shining glory of Katheer.

Pathfinders not raised in Qadira yet still loyal to the Qadiran Faction in Absalom are generally from two types of people: those who wish to use their rewards as a Qadiran loyalist to create a personal empire of trade wealth that spans the Inner Sea, and those who see service to one of the wealthiest trade nations on Golarion as an opportunity to gain wealth by simple association. Either way, the massive armadas of trade ships that Qadira launches every week into the salty waters of the Inner Sea are clearly creating roads throughout the Inner Sea that any loyalist could easily follow.

To learn more about Qadira, read the Inner Sea Primer hardcover.

Qadira Rewards

10 TPA: Qadira faction members gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with people from Qadira.

10 TPA, 1 CPA: Wayfinder

20 TPA: Once per assignment, choose one spell from the spell list in the Pathfinder Rewards that’s 150 gp or less and have that spell cast on your character for free. Casting the spell in this manner takes 1 hour and can only be cast in Absalom or Qadira.

30 CPA: Once per assignment, you may borrow one item from the following list and use it for the remaining duration of the assignment: potion of displacement, scroll of fireball, scroll of fox’s cunning, elixir of vision, wand of lesser confusion, ring of protection +1, wayfinder. If the item is disposable, such as a potion or wand, and you use all or a portion of it, you have to purchase what you used at the end of the assignment before buying any other equipment.

Taldor

“The sun of Taldor’s empire has set. It is up to us to see it rise again in our time.”

—Baron Jacquo Dalsine

Old Taldor once ruled the entire northern coast of the Inner Sea, from gold gilded Oppara to the wild frontier of Varisia. Now it’s reduced to a quarter of its former glory. As Old Taldor’s gaze turned ever inward, its vassals and conquered colonies slowly slipped away without a fight. Andoran and Cheliax broke off hundreds of years ago, and few in Taldor had either the desire or the motivation to go to war to stop it. Why bother dealing with petty trifles in the countryside when your own political destruction is taking place in the limelight of Taldan high society?

It’s easy to forget Taldor’s former glory and dismiss the entire country as a band of narcissistic fools who spend more time preening their wigs than they do defending their borders or quelling the unrest roiling within their great cities. Little do most know that while the majority of Taldor’s upper crust are more concerned with this season’s fashions than the well-being of their collapsing empire, a few of the world’s most dangerous operatives are honed in the constant battleground of Oppara’s feuds. Old enmities between ancient houses have engulfed the Gilded City in shadowy violence and assassinations for hundreds of years, and more than a fair share of skilled adventurers have come up surviving the feuds, either as hired muscle or scions of noble houses mixed up in these cauldrons of bloodshed.

Taldans are decadent bon vivants, favoring rich foods, ornate attire, and jeweled accoutrements for even the most minor of casual affairs. To a Taldan, appearance is an expression of power, and a keen sense of fashion represents a keen mind. Their appreciation for the arts extends beyond fashion and painting, dabbling in sorcery, dueling, and the murky strategies of politics and war. A Taldan mind, when raised to ire, is a dangerous thing, and the rest of the Inner Sea is about to receive a painful reminder of this timeless fact.

Goals: Get Back in the Game

Petty differences and ancient feuds have slowly ground Taldor down from a great polished stone to a whittled nub. The key to restoring the empire’s sense of purpose lies in finding an enemy to galvanize Taldor’s splintered factions, an endeavor worthy of rediscovering the nation’s august past glory. Seizing the political reins of Absalom is the perfect medicine for the wasting disease deep in Taldor’s bones.

Methodology: Wolf and Tiger

“Our weakness must now be our strength: centuries of petty infighting have afforded us one weapon — surely there is no one who can claim as true a mastery of intrigue as we Taldans!”

—Jacquo Dalsine

Taldor’s strategy for seizing control of Absalom lies in turning its enemies upon one another. Misdirection and psychological warfare are the orders of the day. Taldan missions might involve sparking old enmities between Qadira and Osirion or driving Cheliax and Andoran to rekindle their old war. “Sick the wolf on the tiger and the hunter’s work is done” is an old Taldan saying.

Faction Leader: Jacquo Dalsine

A few among Taldor’s elite realize the foolish end their empire is headed toward and plan to reverse it before the entire nation collapses. Jacquo Dalsine is the very picture of a Taldan dandy. A slender and effete gentleman, Jacquo appears the very model of a decadent Taldan fop.

The truth is while Jacquo can carouse and scribe poetry with the best of them, his favorite art is performed with a blade and he is one of the better swordsmen on the Inner Sea. To Jacquo, the arts of politics and intrigue are no different than a duel. There are deceptions, engagements, feints, and disengagements, not to mention lightning fast ripostes. Jacquo sees Taldor as an ailing old duelist, tottering toward death on a foe’s blade, but he knows the empire possesses great puissance if it can be reminded of its former glory. For now, it is key to turn the blades of Taldor’s enemies on one another long enough for the decaying empire to find its footing. Someday, Old Taldor may rise again and hold its sword high once again, making all of Golarion tremble at its power.

Taldan Pathfinders

Joining a secret society is just another dalliance for most Taldans. The Pathfinders are all the rage and everyone loves to hear of their exploits. Many Taldans join the Society simply to keep with the fashion of the times or to ensure they have something particularly engaging to converse about at parties. Others join the Pathfinder Society in hopes of sparking a renewed golden age for their decaying empire, and bringing Taldor back to the forefront of power in Avistan. What most foreigners can’t seem to understand is that many Taldans join up for both reasons. Misdirection is a staple of every Taldan’s diet, and most rely on a foppish or flippant exterior to hide their harder machinations.

Pathfinders not raised in Taldor yet still loyal to the Taldor faction in Absalom often see the decadent, crumbling empire as a haven for untapped historic wealth. Taldor has plundered nearly every country on the Inner Sea and for an unscrupulous treasure hunter or collector of rare artifacts, attaching one’s self to the Taldor faction means a closer proximity to millennia of significant archaeological treasures. Still others hope that by pledging loyalty to a culture based entirely on the whims of the wealthy with an incredibly complex system of honor and respect that they might learn a great deal about how to make the world move around them rather than be moved by the world.

To learn more about Taldor, read the Inner Sea Primer hardcover.

Taldor Rewards

10 TPA: Taldor faction members gain a +2 circumstance bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with people from Taldor.

10 TPA, 1 CPA: Wayfinder

20 TPA: Once per assignment, choose one spell from the spell list in the Pathfinder Rewards that’s 150 gp or less and have that spell cast on your character for free. Casting the spell in this manner takes 1 hour and can only be cast in Absalom or Taldor.

30 CPA: Once per assignment, you may borrow one item from the following list and use it for the remaining duration of the assignment: oil of keen edge, scroll of invisibility sphere, elixir of sneaking, wand of shocking grasp, ring of protection +1, wayfinder. If the item is disposable, such as a potion or wand, and you use all or a portion of it, you have to purchase what you used at the end of the assignment before buying any other equipment.

Changing Factions

Though the option to change factions exists, the consequences of sacrificing your loyalty to one faction and pledging it to another are dire.

By changing factions, your Pathfinder immediately loses half of all Prestige Awards gained previously, affecting both CPA and TPA. Though you retain any gear, items, or rewards previously gained through your PA score, you cannot gain any new gear, items, or rewards until you’ve gained enough new prestige to do so.

Factions and Your Fellow Pathfinders

Everyone in the Pathfinder Society is a Pathfinder first and a member of their faction second. At no point should you betray, harass, or murder another Pathfinder in order to accomplish your missions. The missions for you to pursue should NEVER involve direct conflict with another faction’s Pathfinders. Remember that you are pawns in a massive shadow war, and escalating this to a hot war is not in the best interest for any faction. Play it cool, do your best to accomplish your missions subtly, and do not attempt to derail the efforts of fellow Pathfinders, as this is more likely to see you booted out of the Society more than it will aid your faction.

The long-term plans of your faction are clouded in obfuscation and mystery. If you are kicked out of the Society for interfering in another Pathfinder’s activities or worse, for killing them, you will be of no further use, and the damage you may have caused them by your brash actions far outweighs any boon. Remember the shadow war your faction fights is one of intrigue, not of flashing blades and killing spells.