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.

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.