Qadira

Desert Frontier Kingdom

"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 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 captain's 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 opportunities and 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 Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover.