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Faction Guide Excerpts

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Pathfinder Chronicles: Faction Guide presents 24 example factions, rules for how PCs can gain reputations and status in these organizations, and rewards for PCs who pursue such things. The goal of this book isn’t to present the history and reach of these factions in detail, but to give codify ways (and incentives) for PCs to become involved with these group and provide unique benefits for achieving high status within an organization. Though this book is written primarily for GMs, it has no secrets that should be kept from the eyes of players, and each faction takes up exactly two pages so a GM can hand over all the necessary information for a faction to an interested player.

What follow are three examples of faction rewards PCs can earn, all of which require the character to be in good standing with the faction (about what you’d expect after doing two or three levels’ worth of adventures relating to the faction’s interests) and “spending” some of the goodwill they’ve earned for their work.

Church of Razmir: Gain the title “Priest of the Third Step.” Priests may purchase drugs and poisons from the church at a 10% discount. Priests also gain a +1 bonus on saving throws against poison and have free access to temple concubines and church-run businesses that require a cover fee (such as bars, brothels, clubs, gambling halls, or restaurants). A high-reputation member of the Church can earn a magical blessing from Razmir himself, granting the faction member certain spell-like abilities.
Prophets of Kalistrade: Acquire a litter and four strong servants (LN commoner 1) to bear the character around in it. The litter-bearers are willing to work in civilized areas or on roads, but not on rough terrain. Spending an additional 1 CPA means the litter-bearers are 1st-level monks, rather than commoners, and fight to defend the character, even to the death. Spending an additional 2 CPA upgrades the litter to an enclosed palanquin, increases the number of bearers to six, and adds another servant to carry the character’s banner and proclaim her arrival at appropriate junctures. The typical term of service for a litter-bearer is 2 years. A high-reputation Prophet can sell items at a higher profit, gain slavishly loyal bodyguards, and even acquire a lavish estate in Druma.
Whispering Way: Arrange a conjuring of an extraplanar undead (such as a devourer) or an incorporeal undead in a ritual similar to planar ally or planar binding. The character must negotiate and pay for the undead’s service, though he can spend CPA to have disciples of the Way pay the price for the service. If the character is a poor negotiator, he can pay 1 CPA to hire a charismatic advocate to bargain on his behalf. If the creature has the ability to create spawn, the spawn are not under the control of the character. A high-reputation member of the Way can learn necromancy versions of non-necromantic spells, acquire an undead “homunculus,” and even transform into an intelligent, free-willed undead.

Sean K Reynolds
Developer, Pathfinder Chronicles

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Silver Crusade

Very interested in seeing what other factions come into play.

If not for all the abstinance I'd go Kalistrade just for the duds.

Looking great! Can't wait to see what all 24 factions are!

That is one freaky waist...
Silver Crusade
evilash wrote:
That is one freaky waist...

Look close.

That's her ribcage showing under the skin just above it!

:O

You forgot to mention who the artist(s) was for these images.
vagrant-poet wrote:
Looking great! Can't wait to see what all 24 factions are!

Same here. Great blog today.

Contributor
LMPjr007 wrote:
You forgot to mention who the artist(s) was for these images.

Actually, I deliberately didn't list artist names because Sarah is on vacation and I'm not 100% sure who all of them are.

Prophet: MuYoung Kim
Whispering Way: MuYoung Kim
Church of Razmir: uncertain!
Sovereign Court

Well, HUH. I thought this book was going to be a tie-in with the Pathfinder Society stuff, not... well, this. I'll have to see about acquiring it.
Paizo Employee Creative Director
cappadocius wrote:
Well, HUH. I thought this book was going to be a tie-in with the Pathfinder Society stuff, not... well, this. I'll have to see about acquiring it.

It's more about bringing the faction rules from the Pathfinder Society OUT of the society so folks who play non-Society games (there are a few out there!) can use those rules for all sorts of factions. Some of whom are not good guy factions.

Contributor
cappadocius wrote:
Well, HUH. I thought this book was going to be a tie-in with the Pathfinder Society stuff, not... well, this. I'll have to see about acquiring it.

It is and it isn't. While PFSOP uses factions, and the introduction to this book is based on the PFSOP system describing the basics of how you earn and spend prestige with a faction (such as, "I've earned 4 prestige with the Andoran-PFS faction, I can 'cash in' that to get a faction priest to cast restoration on me and remove my negative level), the factions presented in the book aren't the five factions from PFSOP. I believe Josh is going to update the PFSOP PDF to bring them 99% into synch with this book (they're about 95% there now), and this book means they have the option of introducing other factions into PFSOP (for example, a series of scenarios relating to the Arcanamirium in Absalom may give prestige with the Arcanamirium).

TLDR: You don't need to be involved in Pathfinder Society to use any part of this book. If you are, you'll be familiar with how the basic rules for these factions work.
Grand Lodge
Sean K Reynolds wrote:

(for example, a series of scenarios relating to the Arcanamirium in Absalom may give prestige with the Arcanamirium).

Soooo.... the Arc is another faction then? COOL! :)

Dark Archive

Mmm... I wonder if that 'Whispering Way' chick would love the smell of brimstone...
Sean K Reynolds wrote:
LMPjr007 wrote:
You forgot to mention who the artist(s) was for these images.

Actually, I deliberately didn't list artist names because Sarah is on vacation and I'm not 100% sure who all of them are.

Prophet: MuYoung Kim
Whispering Way: MuYoung Kim
Church of Razmir: uncertain!

Sarah's back now, right?

Paizo Employee Creative Director
yoda8myhead wrote:
Sean K Reynolds wrote:
LMPjr007 wrote:
You forgot to mention who the artist(s) was for these images.

Actually, I deliberately didn't list artist names because Sarah is on vacation and I'm not 100% sure who all of them are.

Prophet: MuYoung Kim
Whispering Way: MuYoung Kim
Church of Razmir: uncertain!

Sarah's back now, right?

She is. She's been back for 1 day. She also has about 3 weeks of art emergencies to solve, and 3 weeks of email to sort, and 3 weeks of backed up layout stuff to do. Don't expect her to swoop in to the blog posts like an angel of information to provide artist credits anytime soon, is what I'm saying.

the artists here are excellent
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