Pathfinder Chronicles (6/?)

(This is part of a series of posts reviewing the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting.)

Chapter 4 of the PCCS is entitled Organizations; it takes up a scant 12 pages, of which one is mostly art. It could probably have been folded into Chapter 2 relatively easily: of the six major organizations depicted, only the single-page Aspis Consortium is not closely associated with a single nation. It's mostly notable for presenting the Pathfinder Society, which may be quickly summed up as "Adventurer's Guild" — there's a reason their name is on the cover of the book. While the remaining major organizations are generally more useful to a GM, being mostly the fantasy equivalent of Nazis (read: instant antagonists), the entries in the section entitled Lesser Groups are generally more interesting. (Especially the Darklight Sisterhood, Chelaxian mirrors of the Pathfinder Society, whom I find hilarious on several levels... although nowhere else in the book does there seem to be any antipathy noted towards the PS by Cheliax.)

Amusing fact: there are at least three instances where a secretive group of masked and encloaked individuals of unknown identity whose faces are never seen nor identities disclosed run a large nation- or region-spanning organization: the Pactmasters of the nation of Katapesh, the Patrons of the Aspis Consortium, and the Decemvirate of the Pathfinder Society. ... why?