About the Rebel Line/Royalist Faction–
When you state “consider limiting the upper echelon noble lifepaths” for this Faction, since they are (at the start of the campaign at least), “out of power”, would Court Lord ALSO fall into the examples (Anvil Lord, Forged Lord, Hammer Lord)?
The fulcrum is: I’m debating if Court Lord is a powerful-enough LP that would cripple this faction’s credibility of not being ruling the planet! (ie. why aren’t they in power if they have powerful people capable of attaining & holding it at the onset?)
That judgement is really up to you and your group based on the world you’ve burned. But in my opinion, Court Lord isn’t that powerful. He’s a courtier, not a militarist.
Court Lords are those nobles who make up the royal/Ducal/county/baronial courts memberships, not the rulers themselves. People like (to borrow from Dune) Hasimir Fenring or Feyd Rautha. (Feyd gets promoted to Hammer Lord when he goes to dune…)
We allowed Court Lord (and Void Lord FWIW) while we cut out Anvil, Hammer, and Forged Lords. We had an influential Lord-Pilot Anvil + Court Lord who was trying to get his Anvil Lord trait voted on but it all went horribly wrong for the Human side before that could happen.
Void Lords are savage. They’re a promotion from Hammer or Anvil Lord, remember. Based on the LPs, reqs, traits, and skills they’re generally either the sovereign leaders of Void worlds without full Forged military assets, or else they’re independent adventuring Hammer/Anvil Lords.
But the fact that you allowed out-of-power faction members to take Void Lord when they shouldn’t really be allowed to doesn’t matter, since the only way to get the LP is to take Hammer/Anvil Lord first, and they didn’t have access to those.
Hm you are right! Maybe we just had them switched on because it was a Void World?
What makes them savage exactly? Their neat set of wises? Their lack of resources and kickarse traits make them seem a bit sad next to their fellow Lords.
Well, remember that they’re all either ex-Hammer Lords or ex-Anvil Lords. So they’ll have those traits and skills. Add that on to the Wises and yeah, they’re not toe-to-toe with the average Forged Lord, but they’ll demolish most other lords.
The Wises and Traits they do have gives them some of the same edge that Trevor Faith had: It’s not about the gunz or the combat-monkey shit, it’s about having a bit of a bigger picture (or maybe a narrower one) and just not caring what that Court Lord or Dregus thinks.
The lifepath itself isn’t freakish the way Circle of 10,000 is (seriously, look it up. It’s like a penis pump for your character sheet), but the characters who come out of it will tend to be savage.