If you have played any Pathfinder Society games, you are familiar with the faction system. For those that have not, here's a brief introduction. Your faction is sort of a means that to indicate your secret (or not so secret) loyalties and affiliations. As you complete secret objectives for your faction that are provided at the start of each adventure, you increase your reputation within your faction and gain prestige points. Your prestige points can be spent for special favors or items from your faction, and your total accumulation over time gives you certain abilities as well.

The Pathfinder Chronicles Faction Guide lists twenty-four sample factions and provide a great deal of story elements and background about them. Each faction entry includes a description of the faction, its goals, its leadership, classes that fit well (and classes that don't), how to join, and a list of rewards that are unique to that faction. Factions are a great way to add some additional elements to your game that go beyond nations and cities. In effect, they are like thieves guilds and wizards guilds but with a bit of structure and more defined purpose. As an example, I wrote up a draft of the Red Currant Syndicate for the Dark Golden Age setting.

The Red Currant Syndicate
The Red Currant Syndicate is an organization of allied wizards and sorcerers who seek to awaken magical ability within themselves through self-sacrifice and pain. They came into existence shortly after the Collapse after a discovery by Willem Analore reached the ears of his closest friends and allies. They are sometimes just called the Currants or the Syndicate, and the blossoms of the red currant bush are used to mark the identities and locations of their members to those who know what to look for.

Goal: Magical Awakening
The Currants study magic and testing new means of suffering in an effort to find new ways to empower magical ability.

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