I’m new to Burning Empires and haven’t yeat read through the book. One thing got me a bit confused though, when reading through the lifepaths. There are really no descriptions of each lifepath, for eaxmple Caeptir and X-O. I don’t know what they mean and can’t find it in the book, or am I missing something? Maybe it’s due to English not beeing my native tounge, I’m not sure.
X-O is slang for Executive Officer. Generally, it is the second in command on a naval ship.
It has nothing to do with your command of English – there are some very weird, obscure phrases and Latinoid sprinkled through there. You should be able to figure out what most of them are from context, though.
Didn’t someone go through the book and reverse-engineer the wacky Empire-speak a while ago?
p.
Generally speaking, the LPs are in hierarchical order, from lowest to highest. That combined with the required skills and traits will usually give you a pretty good idea of what the LP is about.
For the Kerrn, pretend you’re Arnold Schwarzenegger and say them aloud.
There are no descriptions. You generally have to figure it out from skills, traits and requirements.
X-O means executive officer, as Count Zero mentioned. They get Administration, Persuasion, Unit-wise, Bureaucracy and Regulations-wise, and the Scut-work and Privileged Position traits, and they are in the Anvil setting. Privileged Position mentions interacting with powerful figures in government and the military. So the X-O in this context is a high-ranking Anvil desk jockey, making sure that the unit he is attached to gets the support it needs from the unwieldy military bureaucracy.
Coeptir’s are a little harder, but they are evidently for people who are pretty young (must be second lifepath), generally require Mark of Privilege, appear in the military, nobility and court settings, and are requirements for various military positions. My guess is that Coeptir is roughly equivalent to squire or page - a young noble learning the ropes in preparation for his military career.
It seems a bit awkward that you have to figure out what some of the LP’s mean. One or two sentences about each should have been provided. Do the authors know themselves what they mean? 
The lifepaths mean what they mean. They are defined by their skills and traits and also by their placement in the hierarchy and their requirements. Anything more than that is up to the user to provide. It requires imagination. You do have an imagination, right?
Even with my extraordinary imagination I’m still having trouble with some of the LP’s. But I’ll probably figure it out eventually.
Didn’t someone go through the book and reverse-engineer the wacky Empire-speak a while ago?
Did someone do that?
Meow! :rolleyes:
p.
If you want an clear and easy way to figure out what the lifepaths are about, I’d look at the traits. Anyone who thinks that BE doesn’t have enough setting info in the book should just read the traits section of the book. That’s where its at.
I’ve just glanced the Traits section, but a readthrough will probably clear things up. Thanks.
yea, it did take my group sometime to get what each LP was. We just guessed a bit and looked up the traits. Really the required skill and trait is all you really have to know. Tell, your player’s not to fuss they dont have to build the perfect character.
I gotta say, it’s a weird and counterintuitive way to learn a setting. The net result is mostly excellent: You learn the rules and the setting at the same time. OTOH, it’s easy to overlook canonical setting details that aren’t relevant to your world-burning experience.
In my first game, I had a Vaylen agent serving as the Imperial Steward of our world. Well, I’d read up on all the Vaylen stuff because that’s what was required to make the character. But I hadn’t read up on the Stewardship and Court setting, and had no idea about how any of it worked. That sucked but we got past it.
p.