Grandmaster Torch

Ven Lorovox

(Person)

Aliases

Grandmaster Torch

Titles

Emerald Sage

Alignment

Neutral

Ancestry/Species

Human

Class

Bardic Sage 6 / Rogue 5

Gender

Male

Homeland

Absalom

Organization

Pathfinder Society
Shadow Lodge
Scarab Seekers

Images of Grandmaster Torch

Source: Pathfinder Society Field Guide, pg(s). 21

For another meaning of "Torch", please see Torch.

Ven Lorovox, or Grandmaster Torch as he is better known, was once one of Absalom's most notorious information brokers and a radical—and often violent—advocate for reform within the Pathfinder Society.

After Tar-Baphon's invasion of the Inner Sea region in 4719 AR, Torch's fate and whereabouts are unknown.

Appearance

Grandmaster Torch in his full regalia.

Grandmaster Torch is a charming, soft-spoken man in his late-middle years whose entire body is covered in horrible burn scars, borne from a terrible curse. Due to this fact, he was almost always seen soaking in a cool bath, being tended to by servants. His retinue of heavily armored dromaar bodyguards protected him from any harm, though they seem unable to do anything about his permanent burn wounds.

History

Little is known of the early life of Grandmaster Torch before he became an information broker. He was a field agent for the Pathfinder Society, but his career came to an end during an expedition to an Osirian tomb that left Torch cursed and killed his colleagues. The Decemvirate, secretive leaders of the Society, declined to send a rescue party, but Torch nevertheless survived and escaped back to Absalom. He left his true name, like his career as a Pathfinder, behind in that ancient tomb. He spent much of his time in his lair, located within the Siphons beneath the Puddles district, though he also traveled Golarion for research and "business."

For decades after his return to Absalom, Torch accrued favors from the Pathfinder Society before he created the infamous Shadow Lodge faction within the Society in 4708 AR. He recruited and united dozens of disillusioned Pathfinders against the masked Decemvirate, whom Torch claimed served only their own interest and not the well-being of the common Pathfinder. This culminated in the breaking off of several splinter groups with the Shadow Lodge in 4710 AR and a series of attacks on the Grand Lodge and those loyal to it.

The Decemvirate eventually agreed to some of Grandmaster Torch's demands, hoping to end the violence and bring disenfranchised Pathfinders back into the fold, though critics maintained that the Decemvirate still failed to do enough.

After this, Grandmaster Torch enjoyed a position of importance within the Pathfinder Society and assisted the Decemvirate in hunting down rogue Shadow Lodge agents who refused to be accepted back into the Society. However, Torch himself betrayed the Society in 4713 AR and the Society disbanded the Shadow Lodge entirely. Torch continued to manipulate the Society from the shadows, however, recruiting the former Venture-Captain Thurl and helping plan the Fiendflesh Siege of Absalom in 4717 AR in a plot to unmask the Decemvirate.

The Decemvirate's Vahlo Huovar responded by dispatching a team of Pathfinders to kill Torch and a long-lost founding Pathfinder named Eylysia, who had in secret deduced that Huovar was a graveknight of the Whispering Way who had infiltrated the Society's leadership. Torch and Eylysia then aided the Pathfinders in exposing Huovar after Tar-Baphon's reawakening, as Huovar launched a plot to take over the Grand Lodge and deliver Absalom to the Whispering Tyrant.

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.