Gaz1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos - the first BECMI Gazetteer set in the Known World (Mystara)

Gaz1, the Grand Duchy of Karameikos, was the first in a series of official TSR Gazetteers set in the Known World, a collection of nations on a continent that first appeared in the X1 The Isle of Dread adventure module.
This Known World was later developed into the Gazetteer series, becoming the official setting for BECMI Dungeons and Dragons, which later became known as Mystara from about 1994.
Gaz1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos was written by Aaron Allston and published in 1987.
Design: Aaron Allston
Editing: Karen S. Martin, Jon Pickem, Aaron Allston
Coordinators: Bruce Heard, Karen S. Martin
Cover Artist: Clyde Caldwell
Interior Artist: Stephen Fabian
Graphic Design: Dennis Kauth, Ron Kauth, Colleen O'Malley, David C. Sutherland III
Cartography: Dennis Kauth, David C. Sutherland III, Ron Kauth
Typography: Betty Elmore, Kim Lindau
Introduction to the Known World: • The Known World Gazett...
Link to my BECMI Dungeons and Dragons playlist: • BECMI Dungeon and Dragons
The Rules Cyclopedia: • The Rules Cyclopedia -...
Professor Dungeon Master’s Reviled Society playlist: kzbin.info?ist=...
If you like this video and want to support me further, please consider buying me a coffee at: www.buymeacoffee.com/becmiber... Your support is greatly appreciated.
Berserker image: www.pngall.com/viking-png/dow... (used under Creative Commons)
Many thanks to ITS A TRAPP for cleaning up the Berserker image for me. It’s a lot cleaner and sharper now.
Contact:
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[@becmiberserker]

A few people have pointed out my incorrect use of the word “parodies” when I talk about the Shearing. I meant “Parallels” and just muffed it up when I was narrating. Somehow it got through my editing, so apologies. I hope it doesn’t distract you too much.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

I thought you said “parities”, which made sense to me.

[@vladtheinhailer1428]

I'm just glad that viewer fixed the white spots in the beard of your channel Logo/Avatar. My OCD was killing me looking at them ;-) .

[@oz_jones]

Its an Albany expression. Dw about it.

[@trioofone8911]

I was wondering about that

[@StarkMaximum]

Oh, I thought you were saying "parities".

[@Rich_H_1972]

So many adventures and hours lost in Karameikos. Fun times. Would kill to GM or play in a game with this as its basis and play through all those old modules and some homebrew stuff too. My idea of the perfect campaign.

[@mightyeroc7284]

Do it.

[@AdeptPaladin]

WotC should so bring Mystara back. They could consolidate and update their gazeteers to current mechanics too..

[@anarionelendili8961]

I am so tempted to start a BECMI campaign and just make it an accelerated level progression. Like a level every adventure or two, and see if we could get the characters up to Immortality.

[@ricardojuanlopeznaranjo6651]

Mystara is suited for D&D Games (Hyperborea, Dungeon Crawl Classics, OSE, Swords and Wizardry, etc) not for WOW simulators like 5E. Great setting inspired by Sword and Sorcery and Epic fantasy (at High levels) but not suitable for the superhéroes in dungeons that is 5E or FeatFinder. Here there are no Magic users or Clerics with unlimited offensive cantrips, no fighting guys with magical superpowers and slavery, torture and other awful things happens all the time. This is not for Wokists of the Coast or Critical (Script) Role players, but for guys looking to play in an era of High adventure, where you start as an above average guy able to become even an inmortal. You are not the chosen One with 4 Pagés backstories, orcs are Evil, Evil Witches charm knights to serve them (in any aspect) for live and Cthulu like things enslave whole cities. Its vanilla D&D, pulp Fantasy and Swords and Sorcery all in one, not a WOW simulator like the actual iteration of the Forgetteable (originally Forgotten) Realms where you can use Tashas Cauldron of every shit and get away with murder.

[@shiverwolf460]

There is a KZbinr named Mr. Welch who made a 5e player's handbook for Mystara

[@m.g.2642]

Just read GAZ1 myself last week. Was a great read. Those gazetteers are some of the best setting books ever. Just reading them springs my creativity. So much adventure in there. Great video

[@nancyserabian7317]

This Gaz is (to me) the quintessential UR D&D setting. Anything written by Aaron Allston is absolutely brilliant. He is one of the greatest RPG writers ever. All of his stuff for BECMI is so good.

[@user-uy7ps8ur9e]

I agree

[@smmclaug75]

This the the best D&D review channel in existence and it's not close. This was an incredible survey of a classic work, that exemplifies many of the virtues of its subject matter: direct but also colorful, sensitive to the needs of its audience, neatly organized, unmarred in its use of language but not verbose. Truly a gold standard video, BB.

[@becmiberserker]

High praise! Thank you. 🙂

[@deathsaves4310]

I totally agree! And I’m so glad to see the community response to something we all love so much.

[@Gaurelin]

I actually didn't run games in The Known World back when I ran BEMI originally, but I've always appreciated the setting. I am planning on using it as the basis for my "D&D Across the Editions" mega campaign however, as it very well suits the atmosphere I'm looking for in that game!

[@perplexedmoth]

I remember wondering about the population. I then remembered sometimes the numbers only include "abled men" which 1/4 of the total population or less. So 500 for Threshold would actually be 2000.

[@jasonnewell7036]

My favourite thing about Karameikos is the village of Sulescu, which is run by a vampire who is a fair and conscientious leader. His people are very loyal and see no issue with being ruled by a vampire.

[@Newnodrogbob]

Is that described in the Gazetteer? Edit: I just got to the chart of towns and it’s on there, so I can assume that the answer is yes, lol.

[@becmiberserker]

That’s the Nosferatu. He’s also able to move around in daylight because of his age. Love it!

[@jasonnewell7036]

@@becmiberserker the fact that he's just a lovely bloke.

[@polrua]

As an old Champions player, I'm very familiar with the work of the late, great Aaron Allston. He's truly one of the great game designers and jam-packs everything he writes with evocative and inspiring hooks for players and DMs alike. I'm a massive fan of Mystara as a setting because, to me, it's always felt more culturally evocative and colourful than The Forgotten Realms. You could easily summarize The Grand Duchy as "a frontier/wilderness realms of isolated townships and monster-haunted woods with an Eastern European/Slavic feel", but try doing the same for Cormyr or The Sword Coast... and it's because of this that Karameikos feels like a real place, instead of a kind of generic medieval theme park. It's one thing to have a meticulously planned and super-detailed campaign setting, but quite another to have a setting with fewer details, but which each one designed to immediately seize the reader's mind and fill their thoughts with plans and possibilities.

[@DM_Curtis]

Had the pleasure of running with this recently and would definitely do it again.

[@talltonyuk1362]

This is a wonderful gazeteer, and began my love of Mystara. In my game, the Traladarans are planning rebellion. They have their own Robin Hood too. My players are caravan guards protecting money in order to buy weapons and armour from an ally in Ylaruam.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

In my game, the Robin Hood & His Merry Men of the Grand Duchy of Karameikos (a goblin, leading some other goblins with dire wolves) ambushed the caravan that the adventurers were guarding, and the adventurers made short work of those bandits. 😉 That said, the rule of Duke Stefan is not stable, with many factions vying for power, including Baron Von Hendricks, the Traladaran nobles and commoners who reject all of the upper classes.

[@stefanjakubowski8222]

In the 80s, I started converting mt dnd games to RQ, and with the culture rules, it was natural to explore the known world using them

[@JRChiossi]

I've never played in Mystara, I'm setting up a BECMI campaign in the near future. Loved the game since I really learned about it (I started with AD&D 2E), and think the Gazetteer series is one of the best setting supplements ever!

[@bjornh4664]

This review made me get a second hand copy of GAZ1. Back in the 80s, I used my own campaign world, but now I plan to run a few old school adventures, using some of the classic modules and BECM rules. Your channel inspired me to go back to my roots, instead of using a modern OSR game.

[@becmiberserker]

Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you. Gaz2 video coming in a couple of days! 🙂

[@williammoore9794]

Great video 👍. I like your reference to the size of the towns. As written, Threshold is a backwater, but at 5k population it would fit into the top 10 largest cities in Medieval England (late 14th century). Specularum is bigger than London... Perhaps the way around it is to go back to B10, which suggests the countryside is full of small homesteads and hamlets of a few families. So the Gaz1 numbers include the town and then everyone who lives in the homesteads surrounding it for several miles? I had forgotten they put Haven in Karameikos. That's a bit of a ropey idea. They've already got a lost valley - why would they have two? I would be tempted to link that back to Tall Tales of the Wee Folk and make it a fey realm instead. Would need some work but that's no bad thing. Looking forward to GAZ2. I was quite disappointed with that after GAZ1 so I am interested in your view.

[@AuthorTraceRichards]

This is prob my fav spot in the Known World/Mystara. I’m currently running an AD&D 2E game set here. A few changes were made in the new edition as A.C. 1012 is the current date for characters beginning with the source material. The city of Specularum is called Mirros (a Traldaran word for hope) and the Black Eagle Barony has been overthrown by the Hin of The Five Shires. Been a fun game so far.

[@becmiberserker]

Sounds great!

[@anarionelendili8961]

Re: Population sizes I actually like the x10 sizes, since I was having hard time explaining how a village of 500 people could be as developed as Threshold was, and support so many specialists (and a thieves' guild), and an actual castle with a lord. With 5000 people, it is still a bit of a stretch, but at least within a shouting distance, being roughly a good-sized medieval town. Also, it fits better with the imperial sizes of Thyatis and Alphatia, in addition to having been populated for a couple of thousands of years by an agricultural society. There is still plenty of frontier to explore and develop, with those deep dark forests and forbidding mountain ranges and hills, teeming with goblinoids.

[@LoveProWrestling]

Also safe to assume a fair amount of the population is in farms, villages and scattered homesteads as well. Not just island city's seperated by wilderness.

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@LoveProWrestling Yes, as shown by the 'home town' table. That being said, I'd probably have the human habitation pretty clustered. Sure, you have homesteads, but generally only near a bigger settlement. A hut in the middle of wilderness is a goblin raid magnet. Apart from the area around Specularum, I would see wilderness between the villages, generally, rather than an unbroken band of farmlands.

[@8moebius8]

Very comprehensive review.

[@FreihEitner]

I acquired my cousin's limited D&D collection in the late 1980s while I was buying my own BECM (didn't know about the Immortals set) sets. Included was the cover but not the contents of this first Gazetteer.

[@evilgogol]

@BECMIBerserker i have to admit, hands down, that you made me discovered gems with your series! Being a 2e advocate i admit that you made discover countless gems and hours and hours of creations as a DM. Having started D&D when Ravenloft black box came out i guess i missed a lot of good stuff. Thank you so much and i can't wait to the next installment!

[@becmiberserker]

Wow! Thank you so much. That means a lot. ☺️

[@deathsaves4310]

I’m currently running a campaign out of this gaz.

[@mircoles]

This is the only gazetteer that I had managed to get back in the day.

[@eitherorlok]

I've been running an Old + New campaign for a group of TTRPG newbies. I placed Necrotic Gnome's "Dolmenwood" into the east of Karameikos. The map for that setting overlaps nicely with Dymrak, the Lake of Lost Dreams, and Rugalov.

[@becmiberserker]

Nice!

[@Jergal1]

Ohhh thks for this great video!

[@docsavage8640]

I had this way back when it was new. Read it but never used it except maybe some maps and swiped ideas. Wish I still had it

[@Cliffothebig]

It’s funny that you mentioned the calendar being too perfect, I’m currently running KOTB in Karameikos and as thus was reading the Gazetteer this morning. I had just got to the calendar and thought the same thing. I’ve had the Gazetteer since its release and am only now reading through it, I’m going to have fun with the Taxes section and trying to get the party to cough up the dukes moneys!

[@Newnodrogbob]

I think the perfection of the calendar is really just to make it easy to run. In the real world, where we live with the same calendar our whole lives, many people still have trouble remembering which months have 30 and which 31 days. Then you have to keep track of what year it is to see if it’s a leap year? I criticize BECMI for encumbrance and torch longevity and other (admittedly realistic) details, because I don’t want to play Medieval Accountant, the game. Here they went for simplicity, I think because most people don’t want to play Medieval Accountant: timekeeper edition. In a game where it might take weeks to heal from an adventuring session, they didn’t want to make it a drag to know what month it was now…

[@MsGorteck]

Thanks, this was good. To answer your question, I don't think I would have even cared about the pop levels being different, though this is most likely because I never played D&D, only AD&D, so I would not have known there was a difference. However your pointing out the difference IS important. The amount of people who would have to live in the countryside to support the cities is not insignificant and so you are correct stating that the land, except around the edges, would not be frontier like. Indeed the land would be quite civilized, relatively speaking. There would still be crime and bandits and such, and probably dungeons to explore, just not *the wild west*. Until you pointed this out, I had never given this any thought and I am surprised you did and everything you talked about in this video, that was the most enlightening and will stick with me the longest. Thank you again.

[@johndoucette6085]

On the increased population sizes in GAZ1 versus the Expert set, I think a great deal of the revised figures has to do with module X10. The Grand Duchy can get involved in the Darokin - Desert Nomad war, but to support any significant kind of army, it would need to have a much larger population. Given the link with X10, I'm also left wondering if the info presented in GAZ1 actually does represent a significant time shift from the Expert rules, even though GAZ1 does list Basic - Companion-level adventures. Seems to me as if there could easily be a 10 - 20 jump from the Expert rules to GAZ1.

[@CaptainColdyron222]

I can attest to the fact that Baron Ludwig von Hendricks was a rotten guy. Our little party usually adventured in Karameikos and The Five Shires. But one time our DM had us journey to Black Eagle Barony to claim a prize the Baron was offering to any adventurers who could hunt down a werewolf that was terrorizing the countryside. We accomplished the task and then von Hendricks stiffed us and said our prize was being allowed to leave his Barony with our heads still attached to our bodies. Real nice guy.

[@CannabisDreams]

As a fan if the known world since I was a kid, I would love to see a video devoted to the different immortals

[@scottmcley5111]

Great job!

[@Malkuth-Gaming]

First of all, that is one banger of a cover art. And I love the details in this magazine. Its one of the reasons I myself like the old school games more than the new 5e games :P

[@ethans9379]

When you mentioned that the one baron's wizard was Bargle, it clicked for me just how connected the Known World setting was made to be

[@becmiberserker]

There’s a lot of consistency.

[@trashkitten64]

Great video, can't wait to pick up the physical copy from drive thru rpg.

[@johnmccabe2687]

Great review / intro to Karameikos. I've seen other reviews which we're good and covered the contents of the book but the way you do it felt more emersive while being informative. Rolling up where your magic user character was from etc helped with this.

[@becmiberserker]

Thanks for the feedback!

[@seanhillman1016]

I seem to remember coming to the idea that Patriarch Sherlane is the father of Aleena, the cleric from the Basic PHB.

[@CannabisDreams]

Been looking forward to this

[@meatballwanger]

This is the best thing I ever saw.

[@Nobleshield]

My first experience with Karameikos was the 2nd edition "Karameikos: Kingdom of Adventure" box, but seeing all the gazeteers from OD&D I'm enthralled how detailed they made this. IIRC the Traladaran's are kinda Slavic, at least I always got a very eastern European feel from them with the names, and I remember they had the divide between the Church of Karameikos and the Church of Traladara (which I always assumed was more like the Orthodox church)

[@becmiberserker]

Yup. Very much a Slav vs late Eastern Roman Empire vibe.

[@PvtSchlock]

Another fantastic video sir Broham! I have to confess though that I am of a similar opinion as Mr. Welch with respect to the naming convention of the capital city and it's similarly with gynecological examination (also having had this pointed out to me by a snickering female player). Once having turned that page, one cannot unsee it so I tend to use "Mirros" or "Volna" (leaning into the Slavic portrayal we see in B10, Russian for "wave" as the words for mirror lead us back to examination equipment). I substitute a "fostering" tradition for the shearing ceremony as who in their right mind would turn their younger generations out into werewolf, goblin and nightmare infested wilderness and expect good results? Fostering also has an ancient real world correlate. As well I like to impose horse racing and breeding as a pastime for the native "Traldar" (imo this name sucks; are they Carpathian oriented, or some sort of creature dwelling under bridges?). The latter published Northlands Gaz had a soothsayer/wise woman archetype featured in it and I port a version of this into the rural village life and I like to work fortune tellers into the character generation tables/process you walk through in your video production (good job again!). With Stephon freeing and urbanizing the native population there's plenty of room for conflict with the population as traditional family-clan groups are disrupted as their youth are lured off to be wage chasing subjects of Thyatian townspeople. I too prefer the smaller population figures and square the circle by moving extra population out into villages and settlements surrounding these towns or population centers. But overall this is my favorite Gaz product and favorite setting. OK, I'll admit to placing elements of the Ravenloft setting into the forested hills, but only elements that don't conflict with the Beast Men narrative. The writing of Hendricks is the only gripe I have, it just seems they could have been a bit more subtle and defined the ruling elite better in order to frame the situation. Bargle and the Red Box intro aside, it leaves something to be desired. Great into to Gaz 1, fantastic job!

[@Khaldryn]

Can't wait for the entire Gaz series to be complete as well as Hollow World.

[@colinmerritt7645]

The 10x population jump could be urban pop. vs "metro" pop. (Nearby towns, villages, farms.)

[@AgranakStudios]

Awesome breakdown! I played a lot of Kingdom of Karameikos boxed set for 2e. I’m planning on doing a video of that pretty soon probably not as thorough as what you just did here but I think people need to be re-introduced or introduced for the first time to this awesome area of Mystara.

[@becmiberserker]

Go for it!

[@jameskerr3258]

I am truly looking forward to you showcasing all of the gazetteers!

[@becmiberserker]

Emirates should be out in a few days.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Re: Social classes. My 'fix' would be to just bump up the military equivalents up a step, so starting from Freeman = Soldier. Given Thyatian militarism, it seems very wrong that they would be considered convicts. As for Clergy, I would introduce an 'Itinerant priest' as the Freeman equivalent, and then add a senior priest / abbot between Priest and Bishop. This would push the Patriarch to Landed Knight level, and I might even have an archbishop rank there instead to get Patriarchs to Baron level, which would sound more appropriate to me. I'd need to double-check if it is one patriarch per church (in which case yes, Baron-equivalent), or one patriarch per deity (in which case, Landed Knight-equivalent). EDIT: Oh, I would toss the level-titles (for clergy but also others) into the dustbin. You are a bishop when you have a bishopric, my son, not before. And yes, I know this contradicts explicitly what is stated in the book. It just feels right to me that some itinerant adventurer would have much harder time social-networking than say, a Bishop of Kelvin with numerous priests and temples under their authority.

[@becmiberserker]

Great ideas! I love how the content at least gets you thinking. 🙂

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@becmiberserker It definitely does that, and your videos on BECMI and Mystara is very much hitting the nostalgia bone and making me eager to do an Old School D&D campaign.

[@VioletDeliriums]

neat-o video :) i played the first version AD&D in the 80s so I did not do BECMI, but I did get the 1981 Basic and Expert Sets and read those before I started playing AD&D, and I learned a lot from trying to DM the Keep and Isle, and those lessons carry over into any time I design adventures (and any needed rules to support the feeling I am trying to create in the players) to this day!!! this video makes me want to go back and look at some of the gazeteers (none of which I own) to mine ideas that will make me even better at DMing!!!

[@LightbulbUK]

Thank you for this wonderful video, I'm about to start my first game of BX and the DM has selected this as the setting.

[@becmiberserker]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Subcomandante73]

With regards to the Clergy I would make a distinction between the general functionaries of the church and the Clerics who can manifest the powers of the immortals through spells. This raises their status. And of course this gives the players a reason to stay in good standing with their immortal patron lest they lose the ability to cast spells and thus drop down in status.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Re: Calendar Given that the world has Immortals of the Sphere of Time, it is not that much out of the blue that they may have synchronized the year and the moon. I don't remember off the top of my head if it is discussed anywhere else. Personally, I like 13 lunar months of 28 each, getting to 364 days, which would be just 1.25 days off the Earth year, rather than 336 days of the Mystaran calendar. I don't care enough to mess with it, though, especially when using a Poor Wizard's Almanac... In one homebrew setting, I had seven 7-day weeks to a month = 49, plus a special feast day for the patron god of that month = 50 days. I had 7 gods, so that meant 7 months, coming to a 350-day year. I forget if I added a 'gods-week' at the end of the year to make it 357 or not.

[@JRChiossi]

Great!

[@phildicks4721]

I still run campaigns in the Duchy.

[@Axiie]

Fantastic video, I look forward to the rest. Few thoughts on Calendars; I did go through a phase where I made up my own, had a whole bunch of things and events, lunar cycles and custom names for months/days, that sort. But recently I've just been using our real world calendar. I rationalise it as it being a tool and artifact for the players, and for timekeeping, which is outside the game events and such. I have made notes of name substitutions incase anyone asks, but I've found players are far more engaged with a familiar calendar than a shiney custom one. For that, the sacrifice is more than worth it, and in the end, if I do go big with some campaign inspired epic novels, I can just Find & Replace real world names in the editing ;)

[@becmiberserker]

I tend to do similar if I’m honest.

[@LangeloScuro]

Population I know others have already touched on it and just wish to add that real world examples to exist. A place like Threshold is perfect for showing the parallels. The town proper may only cover a square mile or two, but its borders may be much larger if homesteads, farms, ranches, and the like are taken into account. Those on the edges could fall victim to a number of travesties being far from the town proper, so it still has that frontier feeling. Another thought occurred to me. The previous census might only have counted adult males. The later census may have done a better job of capturing the proper numbers. Historically we have seen this happen in our own past. Bottom line, a well done review that presented much of what I recall from the setting over the years. I look forward to what you have to say about GAZ 2 next.

[@NoWay1969]

This reminds me of Robert E. Howard's Hyborian age Poitan.

[@KabukiKid]

What was with the 3-hole punch on the wrong side of that copy of B6? lol

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

Just obtained all the gazetteers. They’re amazing resources! I probably won’t run it as is, but I’m reading through and getting so many ideas. I know this gazetteer doesn’t hit on it, but I have a Sneaking suspicion that a certain faction in Critical Role season 2 was heavily influenced by the Mystaran shadow elves… Please go through the rest of them! I would gobble up that content. I also lined up my lunar year to my solar year in my recent campaign world 😂

[@alexmacdonald1998]

Some thoughts: - soldiers having social rank of convicts was actually less of a public opinion thing and more of a game mechanics thing, ie. Which table a character would roll on. - many older cultures had calenders that very closely aligned with the lunar year, I think this would dovetail very nicely with a "civilized" colonizers (rome) VS. A barbarian indigenous (celto gaelic) population. With the old calendar, based on nature, being retained over a newer, based on political history. - In my head, I always thought that the population discrepancy was based on urban residency as opposed to regional occupation + transitory population The smaller number is solely those who live inside the town at a fixed address VS. Farmers,drivers, seasonal residents, adventurers, merchants, etc - It's really evident, at least to myself being descended from such cultures, that the Traldarians were Slavic. As a kid, and this book was literally the 1st d&d book I read that wasn't a ad&d 1st ed rulebook or a Dragonlance novel. At the time, I just took it for granted that this was the case as my experience with "European" stuff was king Arthur and my Babas story's. Later in life, I came back to D&d and I realized how unique the gazeteers were for trying to create cultural backgrounds that weren't just Tolkien expys or whitewashed anglocentric high middle ages settings. Bravo gazeteers. - this book,and bear in mind, I have never in my life dm d or even played a game in karameikos, is hand down one of the most valuable supplements published for d&d, particularly for its Era.

[@becmiberserker]

Great comment. Thanks for watching.

[@alexmacdonald1998]

@@becmiberserker great video thanks for being awesome

[@aethon0563]

Very interesting as an example setting. Where can I find a copy of this Gazette? I'd love to read through this myself, as I'm working on making my own setting.

[@becmiberserker]

Try DrivethruRPG. They have all the BECMI stuff. Thanks for commenting.

[@ThomasPercy]

Very good video, thank you. What precisely does it mean "cloak is cut or sheared" (I'm not native speaker)?

[@becmiberserker]

Thanks for the comment. It means the cloak is cut at the bottom and left looking torn. To shear is to make a long tear or cut, so the cloak is cut all along the bottom, meaning it is sheared. I hope this helps.

[@ThomasPercy]

@@becmiberserker Yes, thanks. I agree the Shearing Ceremony is very clever idea.

[@Arcboltkonrad13]

I prefer the larger population numbers which put Karameikos more on point compared to similar IRL borderlands of Eastern Europe, for instance. Specularum and Kelvin are a smidge large but most towns and villages even in regions such as Belarus and Transylvania around 1300-1400 would have had populations of a few hundred to a few thousand and still been considered rather dangerous and such.

[@mysticx0]

more details you may not know about (my fav "country") karameikos: **karameikos always got divided by civil war in my games because its nearly impossible to keep together, if played right.** thyatis political plots and spies, same goes for traladarans (and we lookin at you too darokin...you got skeletons in your closet too), the diabolical iron ring mafia, a deadly, sinister, genocidal coward of a wizard named Bargle who performs horrible mengele-like experiments on dwarves to find the secret of their MR and the black eagle barony they both call home, the gnomes of the shires KIDNAPPING king stephan (just one of the many incredibly stupid things from WotI), the two different groups of elves, etc. lets not forget how wild and unsettled the land is meaning powerful monsters and mysteries are everywhere ("eye of traldar" mod gives a literal artifact to 1st level toons!) oh, and lycanthropes. have fun with that, seriously, its a wide open plot point here. there is barely a military and what there is remains made up of various peoples who may not necessarily get along while swearing loyalty to a very weak, new nation where crime and terrorism run rampant (the iron ring dont play around for example even crazier is stephan being kidnapped and then RETURNED with no one noticing). why would penhaligon have loyalty to mirros when realistically penhaligon is more powerful and by far more secure? the kings family barely gets along with each other. have i mentioned Ludvig? the king may need to quickly establish more duchy's to powerful people who can afford to found one but even if he settles a few as security the populations would have to come from darokin and thyatis who wouldnt be too pleased at losing thousands of people each...to direct border neighbors...thats IF anyone would want to move there anyway. stephan is not halav. i refuse any and all ideas otherwise lol.... mages are very few and far between even with the sadly underoccupied new school of magic. its looked at as one of those diploma schools you see in TV commercials and sadly its kind of true because the staff and teachers have all just met, come from various places with diff methods and expectations and like all gov projects it was rushed to open ASAP and didnt really attract the "best of the best" applicants if you know what i mean. its also beautiful. untouched. high grasses. bright flowers, voice mimicing birds, cliffside-climbing double tail foxes, butterflies whose wings glow at night as purple magical light shimmers and falls like disney sparkles as they fly. lots of undead. **hrumph-hurrf** let me clear my throat, um what i mean to say was LOTS OF UNDEAD. plenty of archeology work to do here but most places are just infested with undead that has grown very powerful over time. just some tips to help anyone get started in karameikos. these are not "problems" but more like doors of opportunity. fate is funny. any of these could go any way at anytime. JUST HAVE FUN. play the political game. be werewolves in a clan hidden in dymrak. be merfolk who live off of the coast of mirros. barbarians have long lived in these lands and dont wish to change their ways. maybe you escaped being a gladiator in thyatis? some druids hate the traffic and noise and disturbance of a new kingdom while others celebrate the chance to teach others preservation and conservation. or just be a murder hobo. its all good.

[@democracymmmk]

Does it have has wanderings monster tables for in each realm × hex area?

[@becmiberserker]

No wandering monster tables, but suggestions on what monsters live there, so you may design your own.

[@TKFKU]

Good video. The only human based GAZ I had was The Northern Reaches. Orcs of Thar and the Demi-human ones held more appeal. Mostly because the human cultures were all based on real world ones which we already knew and we wanted more with the non-humans.

[@KeyserSoze1972]

80% of our gaming was with this world, my players as did I not really cared for Forgotten Realms.

[@davidbrennan660]

Forgotten treasure and quick death was a ( now Bechi) D&D thing back in the day...did that several times.

[@ChadJonesAYelpInTheDark]

Re: the calendar. It’s the immortals’ fault. They all suffer from OCD. That’s why they can’t let things change in the inner world.

[@solomani5959]

Maybe it was just me but I assumed Kareimekos was a Byzantine type Empire. Been a long time since I read this gaz so maybe it was just the way I played it.

[@becmiberserker]

Thyatis is the Byzantine type empire and Karameikos (Traladara) was one of its territories, but the Duke now has an independent nation, made up of a mix of both. Karameikos is definitely a lot less 'tamed' than other well established nations though.

[@danielpoirier9599]

Ah, Karameikos! Our group back in the day kept resetting the story just so we could go and kill Baron Ludwig "Black Eagle" von Hendriks over and over again. Those were fun times lol

[@becmiberserker]

🤣

[@plotsmeanswaysanddevices]

I have always pronounced it as “speck-you-lair-re-umm”

[@michealbohmer2871]

The reason things like the Shearing Ceremony in real world cultures are for males is because such ceremonies symbolise a coming of age; going from a boy to a man, and girls don't require such a ceremony because nature provides a sign of their transformation from a girl to a woman -- menstruation. It can be seen in many cultures and religious organisations.

[@ThomasPercy]

Funny thing. Sukisyn (thorp name) from 'Night's Dark Terror' in Polish language means (almost) "son of the bitch". As far as I know the sense of humor of the creators of Warhammer, it does not have to be a coincidence. 😀

[@lugzgaming5074]

I wish there was a more visually pleasant way to read through the Mystara gazetteers. I don't like the massive blocks of text and the weird background image behind the text.

[@becmiberserker]

Yeah, accessibility wasn’t a thing back then, or at least certainly not in TSR circles.

[@franciscocabral2701]

why `ì'll say no more`` for cornwall? help me, im not british

[@becmiberserker]

I was making a suggestion that the duchy of Cornwall may have offered some inspiration for the duchy of Karameikos, especially as the original work on Karameikos was made by TSR UK with Night’s Dark Terror.

[@franciscocabral2701]

@@becmiberserker awesome! Your videos are great btw! Congrats

[@KageRyuu6]

The "Shearing" custom makes no sense historically, particularly among agricultural communities which would undoubtably make up the majority of medieval life within any fantasy setting. I say this because the primary source of labor on farms were the family's eldest sons, so denying a family access to the labor of their strongest most skilled sons could very well lead to starvation and death of said family if not community if practiced widely enough. Now if this was a custom practiced solely by city folk as some alternative to apprenticeship, then maybe I could see it functioning as intended instead of the potentially disastrous ramifications it will likely have otherwise.

[@polrua]

It depends on how rigourously it's practiced. For some traditionalists, it might mean "Don't come back until you've made your fortune" but for others, it might mean, "Go to your Uncle Godimir's house where you'll work for him and live in the stable for a month, and then, when his eldest, Mirek is old enough, he'll come here and I'll do likewise for him".

[@HereComeMrCee-Jay]

This kind of thing was very common in traditional societies. A handful of coming-of-age ceremonies still exist today, although mostly in a religious context. I agree it may be a little awkward in this medieval setting... and I think working it in as BB suggest could be a lot of fun.

[@nancyserabian7317]

Well the Shearing may not make sense in a real medieval society BUT it is a perfect explanation as to why there are so many young men out in the wilderness adventuring! The Known World is after all a D&D world and this tradition provides an evocative explanation for "Adventurers".

[@paavohirn3728]

I just browsed through this a week ago I think and happily listened to your walk-through. I come out with mixed feelings. The population numbers struck me as completely out of whack as well. Throughout there's an embarrassing quality of racism and a particular disconnect as colonization is presented as mostly a positive for the locals. Meanwhile there's a welcome richness in the presentation. I was particularly impressed by the NPC's in the court with their individual motives as well as their own nation's interests in Karameikos (though racism snuck in there as well). Thanks for putting in such an impressive amount of work into this video! Looking forward to future ones!

[@becmiberserker]

Thanks for the kind comment.

[@HereComeMrCee-Jay]

The modern concept of inalienable human rights didn't exist in the middle ages, nor did a modern concept of colonialism. Of course people didn't take kindly to being conquered, but the harsh reality that winners take the spoils and rule the land was taken for granted. And if the new rulers were reasonably fair (by medieval standards!), then people might accept them just fine. The bar would have been very, very low back then. Again, I'm not saying they would have liked being ruled by foreigners, but that there's a moral/ethical perspective today that would not have existed then. By racism, do you mean that acceptance of certain stereotypes and cultural tropes as being generally true or acceptable? Throughout human history, this has only been considered racism in the very recent future, and even then only in a subset of people, mostly inhabiting in Europe, the US, and Canada.

[@MrRourk]

Threshold is a better Hommlet

[@DoctorEviloply]

Compare this to Wizard's current output. This just gives you a setting and some plot hooks. The GM is expected be creative enough to do cool things with it. Above all they never told you explicitly that NPCs were good or evil. You decided for yourself. Wizards can't do that now. They can't help but tell you exactly how to use races, cultures and factions, and exactly what they do and how they do it in such a way that one can't add any creative flair for themselves. And you better not use those things in "problematic" ways because DnD is a safe space.

[@johnathanrhoades7751]

It also tends to be far less evocative than this stuff. It works to give a sketch if it sparks inspiration, but Faerun as it currently stands just doesn’t do that.

[@johndoucette6085]

You're using the word 'parody' incorrectly when referring to the cultural aspects of BECMI. To parody something means to mock or insult via imitation. I think using words/phrases like 'echo', 'inspired by' 'inspiration', etc would be more appropriate for what you're trying to say.

[@becmiberserker]

You're right, of course. I realised after recording what I'd written. I meant parallels. I was too tired to do it again. Very unprofessional!

[@johndoucette6085]

@@becmiberserker Still an awesome video, as always. This whole series on BECMI has brought back some truly great memories of my early days of D&D.

[@wushubear1]

@@becmiberserker Ah, I thought you said "parity"!