Circles, Resources and the military man

[Monkey_Bloke]

I have just begun the world/character burning process for my fist game of Burning Empires, so please forgive the inevitable deluge of questions.

In the case of our world, Solstice, we have a noble fief with a professional volunteer force, in essence, a professional mercenary anvil army that has been hired by the Forged Lord, but the meager hammer forces are commanded by a member of the nobility.

Two of the PC figures of note are the mercenary commander who is pledged to marry the Forged Lord’s sister, and the Hammer commander who is the captain of the Space Station that orbits the planet.

In burning these PCs we had a few questions about the resources and especially the circles at character creation.

Firstly the Merc captain;
In terms of his lifepaths he was born noble but quickly went into the Anvil setting and worked up to Anvil Captain.
Also one of his character elements is that he is betrothed to the (very young) Forged Lord’s older sister.
His life path gave him 6 circles and he would like to have a relationship with the Forged Lord’s sister and be the commander of the army.
We believe that the best way to do this was to take the impending marriage as the free relationship.
The relationship with the FoN is with the Lord Regent (ruling for the young Forged Lord) who is on the other side of the conflict. This costs 1 point for a complicated relationship, right?
Then to become commander of the armies he needs another relationship with his second-in-command (2 points) leaving 3 points for his affiliation and reputation in the military.
Is there a better way to create this setup?

The Hammer commander is slightly different, since he was a Hammer Lord during his lifepaths and then was “demoted” to Hammer Captain (the character was friendly with the old Forged Lord but since his death the scheming Lord Regent has sidelined his as the commander of a space station).
This means he has the Hammer Lord Trait and only need the affiliation to get hammer forces.
Can he use the 1D affiliation from “Hammer flies, Anvil dies” to build on to create his 3D affiliation with the hammer at a cost of 3 circles?

The other thing we had a little trouble with was resources/equipment.

The military leader took the lifepath Lord-Pilot Anvil and as such wanted an Iron. No probs, 3 resources and he’s done since the rest of the military doesn’t really include Iron and his is a special case.
But he was wondering about other equipment/weaponry. I assume that as per page 113 “Assigned Gear” he can get weapons etc. from his military affiliation, assuming they are standard weapons.
Is this the case?
What about other stuff like grav sled troop transports? As a mercenary company, what about an interstellar capable transport? At what point does the assigned gear become excessive?

Any help or advice on these issues would be appreciated.

[Sydney_Freedberg]

My group found that Circles points ran out fast in character burning, too. Traits that give free Affiliations and/or Reputations are very valuable as a result – which ones do these characters have?

As for your mercenary, you’ve got him at

• free relationship - counts as a 2 point (allied) relationship: fiancee
• 2 point (allied) relationship: second-in-command (you’re right, this is required to be a commander)
• 1 point (conflicted): Lord Regent

Now, does this player really want the relationship with the fiancee to be rock-solid and unproblematic, for her to be totally on his character’s side? Because that’s what the free relationship gets you. As I understand the rules, that free relationship counts as a 2-point relationship, that is, as a trusted ally (unless the player decides otherwise). In my group, we almost always used that for the second-in-command, since that’s a character you don’t want to have drama with, you just want them to do their damn job.

Me personally, I would have more fun with the fiancee as a conflicted relationship: Sure, she loves you, she believes in you, she thinks you’re the best thing to happen to the planet since she can remember, but she has her own agenda, she has other people she cares deeply about – the young brother, for example – and it takes anything from a little roleplaying to a full-fledged Duel of Wits to get her to go along with certain courses of action.

If the player is willing to give the fiancee that much screen time, then you’d have

• free relationship - counts as a 2 point (allied) relationship: 2nd in command
• 1 point (conflicted): fiancee
• 1 point (conflicted): Lord Regent
  More potential drama, fewer points spent.

For your Hammer guy:

Can he use the 1D affiliation from “Hammer flies, Anvil dies” to build on to create his 3D affiliation with the hammer at a cost of 3 circles?

A player in my group did this; we allowed it, but I’m not entirely comfortable with that ruling; better ask someone who’s more experienced with the rules.

Also, how did you get to 3 circles points to upgrade the 1D free affiliation from “Hammer Flies, Anvil Dies” to 3D? Shouldn’t that cost just 2 points (3-1 = 2)?

The military leader took the lifepath Lord-Pilot Anvil and as such wanted an Iron. No probs, 3 resources and he’s done since the rest of the military doesn’t really include Iron and his is a special case.

How did you come up with 3 resource points for Iron? Pg. 112 of the rulebook says “One must have the Iron Trained trait in order to purchase Iron. No other restrictions apply. It’s the character’s right to bear this armor. For low index worlds, 1 rp purchases index 4 Iron. 2 rps purchases index 5 Iron. If the
world is high index, then 1 rp purchases index 5 iron.” No matter how you cut it, you can spend at most 2 rp, not 3! Unless you’re on a Zero Index world, in which case the rules fall silent…

I assume that as per page 113 “Assigned Gear” he can get weapons etc. from his military affiliation, assuming they are standard weapons.
Is this the case? What about other stuff like grav sled troop transports? As a mercenary company, what about an interstellar capable transport? At what point does the assigned gear become excessive?

That rule starts with a big fat “The GM may, at his discretion…” – so the GM can assign everyone a squadron of Hammer cruisers if he/she wants. In my group we never used this rule; if you wanted something to be available to you whenever you needed it, as your personal possession, then you paid Resources in character burning or made a Resources roll later.

Cool world and setup, by the way. My group had an Anvil Lord affianced to an NPC with problematic relatives (including a Vaylen Figure of Note) and a Hammer Lord fallen from grace into piracy – fun stuff.