What It Is - BCNM stands for Burning Circle Notorious Monster. A BCNM is a special type of arena battle in Final Fantasy XI where adventurers fight a specific mob or group of mobs. Unlike most areas of the game, BCNMs are instanced, meaning that the area is only available to you and your party or alliance; no one else will be able to see or assist you in the fight.

Accessing a BCNM - A standard BCNM is accessed by trading a special type of orb item to one of the Burning Circles placed within dungeons throughout Vana'diel. These orbs are available from the NPC Shami in Jeuno Port, in exchange for a number of Beastmen's Seals or Kindred's Seals. When you trade the appropriate number of seals to Shami, as listed in the chart below, he will give you an orb in return. Trading that orb to the Burning Circle provides access to a BCNM.

Seals & Orbs - The Beastmen's and Kindred's Seals are both Exclusive, and can stack up to 99; you can have multiple stacks of both kinds, as many as you obtain. The Beastmen's Seals can drop from any mob in the game, although they primarily drop from mobs that provide experience. Kindred's Seals are similar, but only drop from mobs which are level 50 or above. The only way to get these seals is by killing mobs for them; they cannot be traded between players in any way. To get an orb requires turning in between 20-60 seals, depending on the type of orb it is. The amount of seals required is based on the level cap of the BCNM; a level 20 BCNM takes 20 Beastmen's Seals, a level 50 BCNM takes 50, etc. The orbs are Rare and Exclusive, and are usually obtained from Shami right before a party goes out to the BCNM. Typically once a group has decided to go to a specific BCNM, every person in the party obtains an orb, so that the BCNM can be fought many times in a row.

Getting into the FFXI Gil - All Burning Circles are found within dungeon zones across Vana'diel. These Burning Circle areas are usually very small zones themselves, that are just big enough to walk in and move to the BCNM. Once at the glowing Burning Circle, a player trades the orb to the circle and selects the BCNM he wishes to enter. At that point, everyone in the player's group (or for a few BCNM, an entire alliance) can go into that BCNM by selecting the Burning Circle and choosing the BCNM as well.