Type: Academic
Leader: Decemvirate, ten mysterious hooded leaders
Alignment: Neutral
Headquarters: Grand Lodge, Absalom; Scattered small, often secret, Pathfinder lodges
Goals: Exploration, chronicling adventures/exotic locales, publishing guides and tales in the Pathfinder Chronicles
Scope: Global
Structure: Loosely affiliated members directed by venture-captains
Members: Like-minded explorers and adventurers

The Pathfinder Society is a globe-spanning organization based out of Absalom, the world’s largest city. 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 back to their venture-captain, 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 which collect the history and mystery of Golarion for their membership.

Members
Members of the Society are loosely affiliated adventurers, who are not required to interact. However, they are forbidden direct conflict against each other, but this does not stop the more unscrupulous from leading rival parties into dangerous situations and dead ends. Most are issued a wayfinder, which is a type of magical compass, and taught to recognize the signs indicating a lodge. Other than that, they are largely free to be and do what they please. This allows for a very varied membership, with a Chelaxian devil-binder and a Garundi rogue easily finding themselves sharing a night in the same lodge in the far north of Avistan.