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Hi all,
How does being a member of the Pathfinder Society affect one's ability to inherit lands, titles, and manors (or be granted the former by potential liege lords, as say a reward for service in battle or bringing a treacherous vassal to justice)?
Does a recruit to the Pathfinders forfeit potential claims on initiation? If not, assuming they accept their inheritance, are they required to leave the Society when they accept, or are they allowed to retain their membership?
Can a landed lord join the Pathfinders?
tl;dr Potential and/or current Barons/Counts/Dukes as Pathfinders. Yay or nay? What does the cannon say?
I've heard in passing that the Pathfinders had troubles in the past with geopolitical factions within the organisation causing some Bad Stuff™ to happen. I'd imagine that that would make them sceptical of allowing landed lords and nobility into their ranks (although I recall them having plenty of dispossed nobles among them).
If anyone has any examples of characters I can look up on the wiki, or books (1st ed is welcome) that I could read about anything/anyone that might be relevant to the topic, let me know!
Any speculations y'all might have are also welcome.
Thanks!
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The novels feature at least one titled Pathfinder (Count Varian Jeggare), who has not given up any of his claims to titles or property (not that he had much property to start with by noble standards, but he kept the title and what property he did have), and PFS has featured others, I believe.
So no, you don't have to do that. Being a Pathfinder is like being a member of a social club more than a religious order.
Now, if your responsibilities to a specific government come into conflict with those to the Pathfinder Society and you pick the Pathfinder Society, that's the sort of thing that could certainly lead to losing one's title, but that's specific to a situation and done by the government in question rather than the Pathfinder Society.
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Count Varian Jeggare
Thanks for the input. Just knowing there is one such case really helps out. I'll do more reading about this character.
And I agree that if obligations to a government and the Society came into conflict, it would be more likely for the government to request the agent's resignation from the Pathfinders, rather than the Society doing so. They seem to value a wide range of backgrounds within their organisation.
That being said, I'd have thought the Shadow Wars would have made them hesistent to allow membership to legitimate nobility. But again, they seem pretty forward thinking, so I can also accept that they'd just dismantle the political factions but allow nobility to join as individuals.
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My understanding from what the novels is that he is the wealthiest member of the wealthiest family in the wealthiest nation in the inner-sea region. Thrune as a family may be wealthier, but that's about it.
The wiki describes them as "extremely wealthy" and several times throughout the books the fact that other branches of the family want to get their hands on the the considerable wealth of Varian's branch is noted.
Oh, he's certainly rich, but I always got the impression that his money was mostly in, well, money (and investments, and so on) rather than property in the sense of lands held and the like. Which is what I was thinking of as property, since clearly you can bring a bank account with you when you give up a noble title, but have much more trouble bringing an estate.
Maybe that's a false impression due to the books focusing on him doing stuff outside Cheliax, but it was the impression I got.
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In Lord of Runes, the extent, quality and productiveness (-ivity?) of his vineyards is referenced more than once.
To be fair, the amount he drinks, they'd need to be pretty good.
Ah, then I'm mistaken. I never actually got to Lord of Runes in that particular series.
I'm sure, like all rich families who've had their money for a while, that he's got quite the varied portfolio. But the non-transportability and... relative permanence... of land is often a point in its favour from a wealth perspective. I would imagine. Not being wealthy.
Depends on the conditions of the area. Land's permanence is great when the area its in is stable...much less so when its unstable. Or at least that's what I understand from research.
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Maybe I am missing something, but what exactly is the problem with the inheritance and the PF society?
There isn't one.
The OP suggested that, if they didn't allow nobles, those nobles who wanted to join would likely need to give up their title and inheritance. This is probably true if they din't let nobles in, as it certainly was with the Catholic Church in the real world.
But the Pathfinder Society has no such restriction, so it doesn't come up.
Also, the problem with talking about titles, nobles, etc. in Pathfinder is that the government system is rather ill defined in PF so it is hard to judge which rules would apply.
There isn't one governmental system in Pathfinder. There are lots, all with different rules. Some are pretty well defined, others are less so.