Question about trait requirements

[jaw6]

It's not clear to me how to work with trait requirements. In other words, "are the trait requirement retrograde prerequisites, or anterograde requirements?" I may be making this harder than it really is; I have a guess, but it feels a little "against the grain"... So I thought I'd ask.

I am looking at the Soldier:Captain lifepath as a prominent aspect of my character concept. I'm thinking Born Noble to start. Lord to Captain is an easy jump, so I need to get from Born Noble to Lord. Here's the situation, then: Born Noble gets me 1 Trait point, which I must spend on Mark of Privilege. Lord requires the Your Lordship trait, and/but offers 1 Trait point, with no requirements.

As I read the character burning guidelines, I write down lifepaths first, total up trait points and then spend them. If I go in this order, I won't, strictly speaking, have acquired the Your Lordship trait prior to taking the Lord path. Otherwise, I may realistically be spending the Lord's Trait point to acquire it's own requirement (which, if that were the intent, I should think it would have listed Your Lordship on the Traits line in the entry, instead of in endnotes.)

My guess is that I should treat the Your Lordship requirement as a prerequisite, and take another path after Born Noble, to "earn" the Trait legit.

[Thor Olavsrud]

As long as your finished character has the trait points to acquire the required traits, you're good to go. Just make sure to pick up a free trait point somewhere in your lifepaths so you can pay for Your Lordship and it's fine.