So, going through today and I’ve just noticed this. Is it a typo? Or, is it set that a person must become both Hammer Lord AND Anvil Lord before he can be declared Forged? (or, naturally, have the Your Majesty or Your Grace traits). Or what? Am I crazy?
That is exactly what it is. The forged lord is a lord of the space fleets and the planetary armies. That is what makes them forged, they are both the hammer and the anvil.
The only other way is to be born into it via Your Majesty or Your Grace.
It is bloody difficult to get into the club of the forged.
So, it IS that way, on purpose? Making a Forged Lord essentially an 8 lifepath character? Interesting. Doesn’t affect my current game but almost did (till I remembered the current Lord Steward in our game has the Your Grace trait). Interesting.
I hate writing these kinds of posts, but you may be interested in picking up Bloodstained Stars. It heled click for me that individual planets don’t really have both forces - a given world will likely have one force, and the lanets ruler will pay fealty to a forged lord elsewhere.
Yes, it’s meant to be that way. It’s not at all uncommon to see eight lifepath characters in Burning Empires. Anyway, a Forged Lord generally holds at least one and usually multiple planetary systems in fief. They’re a big deal. As stormy notes, most individual planets don’t have one. An Anvil Lord might hold a world as a Forged Lord’s vassal, or a star system might have both Anvil Lords and Hammer Lords that pay homage to a Forged Lord from another star system.
Now THAT’S interesting. I had the impression that a world might have multiple Anvil and Hammer Lords, with a Forged Lord over them all. Hmm. Traits in the main book then don’t make sense. The book implies that the only people than can hold armies or navies are Hammer and Anvil Lords, and that a Forged Lord’s forces are made up of these, naturally. But by what seemed to be written as regards the scale of forces (I’m specifically talking about the Hammer and Anvil Lords’ dice numbers) it seemed we were talking not GIANT forces (enough to hold worlds, for example).
Also, seems weird that a planet wouldn’t have both. I mean, what, when pirates come, or heck, shipping simply needs to be protected from hazards, what does a planet with only an Anvil Lord do? Watch the ships blow up in orbit?
One last thing. By extension, what’s a Lord Steward then? Again, it seemed they were for only one world - now it sounds like they’d control multiple worlds (is that right?).
But again, this seems odd. It means that individual Lord-Pilot Hammers and Lord-Pilot Anvils have…what? Character rules imply that an individual Lord-Pilot Hammer can have a single ship. A Lord-Pilot Anvil seems to have only himself (and his own Iron, of course). Can they have personal “forces”? If so, how much?
I’ll be getting Bloodstained Stars sooner or later.
Try this: A Lord-Pilot Anvil or Lord-Pilot Hammer is like a Knight. Most knights headed up a Lance composed of two to three men-at-arms, a squire and a valet.
And Anvil Lord or Hammer Lord is like a Knight-Banneret. he’s got multiple Lords-Pilot Anvil or Lords-Pilot Hammer, respectively, that serve as his vassals. A powerful one might have other Anvil Lords or Hammer Lords that owe him fealty. A really powerful one would have many.
A Lord Steward is not a military appointment. It is a bureaucratic one. He is the emperor’s representative, like a viceroy or Imperial Legate. A Lord Steward might have a military background, especially on border worlds that see a lot of fighting, but most likely he was a creature of the court (i.e., Court Lord).
Also, the eight lifepath Forged Lord represents a hard man or woman who won the right to be Forged by utter excellence. This is an unusual thing! Most Forged Lords are born to it as Dukes, Princes or Grand Dukes. These men can be Forged Lords in as little as two lifepaths: Born Noble (with Your Grace or Your Majesty trait), Forged Lord. That is far and away the most common way to become a Forged Lord.
NOW the Anvil Lord/Hammer Lord thing makes. But if that’s so…then the titles bought with traits should have more meaning (what I mean is, an Anvil Lord who controls other Anvil Lords should be a Duke, for example, or a Count with Barons and Knights below him).
So, by this account, a Lord-Pilot COULD have his/her own forces? Traits don’t imply that but I see, as a consequence of being Lord-Pilot. Okay. However, reading the Forged Trait, it seems you only get a planetary-wide 1D Reputation, rather than for multiple systems. And Fored being only on one world seems to be implied in the setting creation example in the main book.
So, parsing things. Thanks for clearing all that up.
A Lord-Pilot Anvil (for instance) could command forces, but they would be Anvil troops, not Iron. An Anvil Captain (from the Anvil setting) would be an example of such a character. Someone who went just with Lord-Pilot Anvil wouldn’t go that far though. He’d probably buy an Armiger (his squire) or a Stentor (his valet) as a relationship.
An Anvil Lord can raise both Anvil troops and Iron troops. Being an Anvil Lord doesn’t necessarily put you in charge of a planet. An Anvil Lord can pay homage to another Anvil Lord. A planet could have many Anvil Lords and Hammer Lords.
An Anvil Lord that commands many other Anvil Lords most likely would be a Count, Baron or Duke. That’s taken care of by the lifepaths. The most common way to take a Lord-Pilot lifepath is to take Born to Rule, Coeptir, Armiger, Lord-Pilot (Hammer or Anvil). Born to Rule offers the Your Lordship, Your Eminence and Your Majesty traits.
The Forged Trait grants you a Free 1D reputation, but you can buy that up with additional resource points. You can also buy new planetary reputations with your resource points. The trait gives you a discount, you’re expected to contribute the rest.
World Burning is for burning a world. If your world is the Forged Lord’s seat, he’s there and we don’t care what his reputation is on his other fiefs (we’re not playing on those worlds, so it doesn’t matter.) If your world is not, but does have the Noble Fief government type, then it is ruled by one or more Hammer/Anvil lords. They presumably owe fealty to a Forged Lord, but he ain’t here so who cares what his rep is? “Planet-wide” and “universe-wide” are equivalent terms as far as a game of BE is concerned.
It’s also worth drawing a distinction between the state of being a Lord-Pilot and the Lord-Pilot lifepaths. Members of the Pilotry certainly do command forces. But commanding forces is not part of what it means to join the Pilotry. The lifepath represents that basic duty. (Notice that LP Anvil fulfills the requirements to enter Anvil Captain: your rank is enough to earn you a command.)
The LP lifepaths represent the stuff you do as you gain entrance to the Pilotry. In a similar way, the Student LP represents the stuff you do as you get a college education. Lords-Pilot Anvil can command troops in the same way as college graduates can practice law: the LP-Anvil lifepath doesn’t involve command, but it lets you get a command. The Student lifepath doesn’t involve practicing law, but it lets you take Lawyer. (The flaw in the analogy is that Student is more of a transitional LP, while plenty of Lords-Pilot never ascend any higher and just keep repeating the lifepath.)