Gaz7 The Northern Reaches - the seventh BECMI Gazetteer set in the Known World (Mystara)

[@anarionelendili8961]

As for the Nine Worlds, I'd frankly just say that the Northern Reaches mythologized Alfheim and Rockhome (Swergheim) into outer planes, before they realized that wait a minute, they are just a long way away. Frankly, taking some tunnel into a dwarven city in Rockhome would FEEL like traveling to another plane. Heck, Muspelheim might be inspired by the deserts of Ylaruam, and Nilflheim by the Frozen North of Norwold (see CM1 which references the Frost Giant invasion). Midgard is obviously the Northern Reaches. Jotunheim might simply be some of the mountain ranges and foothills, home to many types of Giants. This would just leave Asgard and Vanaheim, and I am happy to keep those as actual outer planes. Obviously Hel would have her own home plane (Helheim), too. Svartalfheim could simply be some garbled retelling of he fight against the Shadow Elves that happened in Alfheim a few centuries ago, or it could even have referred to some group of isolationist elves on the mainland when it was being colonized by the Northmen, before they were exterminated / driven out.

[@spartaninvirginia]

Vikings in Mystara. Gotta love it.

[@becmiberserker]

Well, if you can have Spartans in Virginia then why not? 🙂

[@newtpondskipper]

I have this and resisted cutting the buildings out. Now thanks to scanning technology I can scan them and build them. Thanks for the great review!

[@becmiberserker]

That’s a good idea!

[@docsavage8640]

Gotta love that Caldwell art. No wonder they gave him his own castle.

[@shaneflickinger]

Thanks for the review. Really impressed with the character generation, so thanks a lot for covering that. Cheers.

[@becmiberserker]

My pleasure!

[@SimonAshworthWood]

I appreciate this video. The rune magic section has inspired me with an idea of how to solve a creative problem I’ve had for years in the D&D campaign I am running. 🤗

[@becmiberserker]

Glad it helped!

[@solomani-42]

Great Gaz 👍

[@Rich_H_1972]

BECMI heaven! Really went for it in this vid, Mr Berserker!

[@SuprousOxide]

I like your new artwork. I guess the berserker has leveled up to Lord and rules over his own domain from his own throne

[@anotherelvis]

The BECMI gazetteers were great.

[@StarkMaximum]

It was worth the wait, and it was worth the length! It was a delight listening to you go deep dive on this gazetteer! I was really worried early on that you wouldn't like it, based on some of the comments about what the booklet was missing, but my fears were dispelled over the next hour or so as you went in detail and showed how much you love it. I'm a big fan too; I love vikings in my fantasy, and the close proximity to Rockhome gives me a great excuse to use both of these gazetteers together, and a great excuse to skew heavily towards dwarves in my Northern Reaches, which is always a joy for me because dwarves are my favorite! I should make a few characters using those excellent trait charts just for fun. This is one I'd love to go used books diving to try to find myself a copy of, even if it's a reproduction!

[@manuelgarcia-ve5vm]

great work as always ... you re becoming part of my group's mystaran canon ... i hope the heldannic freeholds wont come out too late ... it happens to be the current scenario used by my mystaran playing troupe

[@FlameQwert]

BECMI Berserker covering the land of the berserkers! 😁 and just in time for the new profile picture

[@michaelberry6016]

great review! One of my favorite of the Gaz series. Loved the additional character generation material and used them to further flesh out all characters not just those from those nations. Also loved the beginning on the differentiation of clerics based upon their immortals. Weapons and abilities. Not just having 'generic' clerics. Sword and spear wielding Clerics rule woo hoo!!! Led some of us to begin the process of taking that a step further and creating different spell lists for clerics of the different immortals. Clerics of Vanya are now no joke!!!

[@johnmccabe2687]

Another great Gaz review. A high standard for others to match. I appreciate your efforts.

[@becmiberserker]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[@teranelson826]

An hour of becmi lore, can't wait to dig in, thanks for all the hard work on this one.

[@boskvonlivingdreams4269]

Great video! Well researched, structured, and presented. Totally worth the time watching! I like the new Berserker image.

[@AAron-gr3jk]

I mostly overlooked "the known world". I've since "discovered" Greyhawk and that kept me attention for a long time. However, thanks to these lore videos on the Gazzeteers I can see there was interesting ideas on offer. It's worth listening to these for ideas

[@becmiberserker]

I hope you enjoy the series.

[@AAron-gr3jk]

@@becmiberserker I absolutely do. Thank you for these. It's such an overlooked setting because of the kitchen sink approach... but those have proven themselves to me since Midgard/Southland setting from Kobold Press and The Inner Sea setting by Paizo. They offer a lot of ideas within a lot of Genres. Perhaps, if you feel very retro you van go back all the way to 1930s pulp Conan the Barbarian Hyborian Age setting... that was a blast for me to discover. There's a great deal of rich content there.

[@rpick7546]

DM 'Some poor masochist'. Totally feeling that.

[@Grogeous_Maximus]

Scandinavian here, and your "vikingish" pronunciations are excellent!

[@becmiberserker]

Well that's a relief! :)

[@Bargletheinfamous]

Can't wait til I'm done with work to dive into this!

[@NefariousKoel]

The Personality Trait rules were obviously lifted from the Pendragon RPG, although they're a bit fewer in quantity here.

[@drmann15]

Loved this video. No worries about going over an hour: it’s so dense with fascinating and helpful information without any waste or padding that felt like it was over just after it had begun. Really appreciate your dedication to this series. Now if only the folks in charge of writing the timelines and dominion maps were as dedicated..

[@becmiberserker]

Glad you enjoyed it! And thanks for the kind comment.

[@steveyoungwork]

As usual, very informative! Excellence!

[@becmiberserker]

Thank you! 🙂

[@Monkey_Spunk]

This is the best thing I ever saw.

[@midshipman8654]

“a world that needs no introduction, but needs exploring nonetheless” - You got a real way with words Mr. Berserker

[@docsavage8640]

Except for "comprised of" and "pronounciation," 😆

[@tednovy7762]

I have not listened yet, but have to post. BIG THANK YOU! Every other issue in the series has been great and I'm sure this will be no exception.

[@bjornh4664]

My one gripe with "Viking" realms in fantasy RPGs are the names for places lifted from real places in Scandinavia. Sometimes they aren't even Norse... In Ostland, there's a place called "Abisko", which is Northern Sami meaning "the forest by the great water". Columbia Games' setting module Ivinia has a score of Swedish placenames which kinda disturbs the immersion. Still, Gaz7 sounds like a solid entry and one that captures a well thought out culture.

[@becmiberserker]

Funny you should say this, as I was going to raise it due to the same issue being present in Gaz2 for Arabic culture. I raised the issue in that review, but figured people would be more forgiving of the issue in a Viking setting, but perhaps I wasn’t considerate of those overfamiliar with the culture.

[@bjornh4664]

@@becmiberserker What I did with the Ivinia map was to replace the Swedish placenames (like that of the town near where my mother was born) with Norwegian names... As for Gaz7, the Falun mine has it's namesake in Sweden, which was one of the most important mines and in operation from the 9th century to 1992.

[@anarionelendili8961]

As a quick history point... Unless Middle East was referring to Constantinople, the Swedes had little to do with it. They did trade with the Muslims on the Caspian Sea, though, so there is that connection. I think it was the Norse and the Danes that managed to get to the Emirate of Cordoba in the Iberian Peninsula, but they mostly ended up getting their behinds handed to them if they tried raiding, as the Emirate was still on the upswing during the height of the Viking era.

[@stevenkennedy4130]

I've always enjoyed playing characters with lower ability scores. All the better when they survive and become powerful. Thanks for the share!!

[@AntonioEstevez2toast]

it came out! i havent even watched it yet just have to share how excited i am to enjoy this later tonight

[@becmiberserker]

Hope you enjoy it!

[@AntonioEstevez2toast]

@@becmiberserker Ive seen it 3 times already

[@becmiberserker]

@@AntonioEstevez2toast😮

[@matthewesch8758]

Took me a while to get to this, but like how much time devoted to the video, the amount of material to cover was needed.

[@doodlesquatch277]

Ahha been waiting for this one.

[@SimonAshworthWood]

“Ahha”? Sure you don’t mean “Abba”? 😉

[@FrankMacIntyre-k8y]

this was really cool --I love the GAZ series

[@becmiberserker]

@@FrankMacIntyre-k8y Thank you.

[@WizardDeadloss]

Loved this episode. Were there any adventure modules set in this realm? I think the box sets, as they are, are excellent. But these gazetteers really do take the game leaps further. How many people watching this are suddenly thinking that they need some viking wanderer, loitering in a tavern, to join their party? I do.

[@becmiberserker]

X3 Curse of Xanathon and X13 Crown of Ancient Glory were both set in the Reaches.

[@ethankly12]

Found your channel recently, getting into older styles of play and really enjoying it. I'm really looking forward to the next installment and hope you cover all the gazetteers eventually!

[@becmiberserker]

@@ethankly12 Many thanks. I’m currently working on Gaz8 The Five Shires and hope to have it released in about a week or so.

[@Axiie]

Perhaps the discrepancy between the Dwarves being created and the exiles arriving is the reason for their exile? Personally, I wouldn't have corrected it and let this contradiction exit in the setting as a point of contention. Afterall, we have ideaologies that claim humans were created by gods when evidence suggest otherwises; if those ideaologies had power over those who had the evidence, I can imagine exile being a realtively tame punishment. Hel seems like an interesting choice of god to turn evil for a culture that venerates a warrior-esque mentality. I can imagine someone following the deity in a 'We're all heading to the grave... I'm just ensuring your arrival is honourable' way. The Runes are very interesting, and are something I've felt is missing from modern games. A price for magic, so to speak. It enforces the idea that magic is a smidge dangerous and shouldn't be toyed with, as well as having a price associated with it. I do love the traits and trait modifications; that definately feels like something that could build a starting character with a bit of history, perhaps a level or two, and some good flags for a DM to stick hooks in. A bit of back and forth with some humble backstory, and you can drop these in at some stage in the future for a more directed narrative arc. Great video. As always, looking forward to more in the future!

[@Khaldryn]

I love all your videos. ❤

[@harmonicaman79]

Epic video. 1000 thanks.

[@paulofrota3958]

Amazing video. Well spent hour here. Thank you for all your hard work, BB.

[@becmiberserker]

My pleasure!

[@richardgray9133]

Thank odin...or thor. I was going through becoming Beresford withdrwals...an hour was just enough to possibly get me through to the next video. Excellent job sir. You are a professor of the bench world...and I for one love being reeducated.

[@anarionelendili8961]

The Personality Trait system is very very reminiscent of the King Arthur Pendragon Personality Trait system, with just names of the traits changed. There are a couple of pairs that differ, but I find it very hard to believe that the people behind it came up with the 1d20 sliding scale fully on their own, since that is what KAP uses since 1985 (GAZ 7 is 1988). Ken Rolston was working on RuneQuest in early 1980, and Greg Stafford, the creator of Glorantha (RuneQuest world) and KAP, may have crossed paths at Chaosium. I know this similarity has been discussed in various forums, but I forget if anything official was ever said about it. KAP rules, though. :) Wiki says: "Elizabeth T. Danforth is an illustrator, editor, writer, and scenario designer", so I don't know what her exact contribution to GAZ 7 was. She is credited with Design and Editing, so clearly she was the editor as well as a collaborator, but the exact contribution is elusive.

[@becmiberserker]

I bow to your knowledge, sir. 🙂

[@sunsin1592]

Did Liz Danforth do the images? She was an illustrator used by Iron Crown in this era, assuming it's the same person.

[@becmiberserker]

Interior illustrations are by Stephen Fabian. I put the book credits in the video description.

[@shinigamiauthor]

Sven. we thought we were making a viking, but it turns out, we were making a welshman

[@becmiberserker]

How do you say “if you close your eyes it feels the same.” in Welsh? 😊

[@PvtSchlock]

This one is one of my faves but it took a lot of modifications. Fostering is a very ancient custom and the highest would foster their sons with the least. It gives the elite broader knowledge of life and wisdom in working with common men. Expanding this gives you a lot of depth. Sorcery is something anyone can learn; a charm against the evil eye or wellness in childbearing etc. Witchcraft is an inborn magic talent and is always hated in every human society on earth: the evil eye is universally despised. The Sodorfjord Jarls: A written what? No, oath taking and keeping is how that works. Furthermore, how does centralized government mean absolute enforcement? Minor quibble but a written constitution doesn't hop off a shelf and enforce rights. Blood price/man price eh, take your pick. A mechanism for honor is useful as you can show a Jarl who mistreats his Thralls (in the Jarldom say) having less honor amongst his peers. Ultimately people are motivated by status. Yes people say the rich are greedy but its status. Ask V. Lenin about this. Ineed the rase dead limits feed into the grim, hardness of the environment. The traits, prior life experiences and fostering can feed into one another with a bit of work. Anyway this Gaz is a real treasure and treat. Fun video and great breakdown man!

[@anarionelendili8961]

Frey/Freyja are not spellings of the same immortal, but a brother and a sister pair. In the Wrath of the Immortals, their 'domain' is intelligent warfare (cool and smart and only when necessary), and love and friendship. I might actually go as far as assign fertility to them as well (Frey was the agricultural god, while Freyja was the goddess of love in the Norse myhos). Interestingly, WotI gives their clerics the ability to use swords and daggers, nothing said about druids. I might actually split them, so that Frey is the god of the agriculture and communal friendship, and his clerics are druids, while Freyja would get love (familial, platonic and passionate) and war, and her clerics get the swords and daggers. Speaking of druids, the lack of metal armor is a huge disadvantage at low levels, so it more than makes up for the expanded spell list. Thus, I am happy to allow druids from 1st level. The lack of protection from evil spells is another limit that Druids suffer. As for the clerics of Loki, I think your changes are good ones. I'll steal them for my campaign if it ever comes up. Hel's cleric being able to cast Animate Dead already at 4th level is huge, as it usually takes them to get to the 8th level to be able to do it. It is much easier to be a necromancer if you worship Hel, which makes sense. There are a whole lot more clerics of 4th level than there are of 8th level, too.

[@nikiraki4526]

I heard there was a class or option called ,Wise Woman, in this very book but I can not find them... Suposedly they are Divine/Arcane spellcasting witches which use Runes mentioned in this book

[@MizZar82]

1:06:37

[@yezfoster8614]

Great review as always. There is a small ding against it, the pronunciation of Godhi should be Go-thee, not Go-dee.

[@becmiberserker]

@@yezfoster8614 Useful to know. Thank you!

[@yezfoster8614]

@@becmiberserker I love your videos, I am really enjoying learning more about The Known World, and I am glad to help in any small way I can.

[@davidbrennan660]

Just think the “Swedish Chief”..... his mock Swedish with his issues of chicken eggs that are ping pong balls....the Dwarves may have the Blunderbuss for a price.

[@davidbrennan660]

BB has found his natural home....

[@Shepherd1OFH]

Does rune crafting cost permanent constitution points or temporary ones?

[@becmiberserker]

Permanent.

[@prodigalsorcerer1415]

I loved your old barbarian thumbnail pic. Not loving the new one, sorry to say. Your content is still top notch, thank you!

[@becmiberserker]

No worries! I loved it too but it was Creative Commons and I needed something I could call mine. A very generous artist designed and donated it to me.

[@Eruidraith]

cut out 3d Viking buildings sounds amazing! I would have gone feral over cool little paper craft buildings as a kid.

[@johnstorm9314]

I'm playing a (slightly modified) dervish right now in a BECMI game, and so far having druid characteristics isn't game-breaking in any way.

[@EriktheRed2023]

The names seem to be anglicized to greater or lesser degree. I wouldn't worry too much about the pronunciation. Edit: Or freely made up, or inspired by something that kinda sounds right, as I'm hearing more.

[@becmiberserker]

I can't help but try accents, no matter who I offend!

[@EriktheRed2023]

@@becmiberserker I, for one, stand entirely unoffended. 😃

[@richardgray9133]

Damn spell correction... Of course I meant becmi berserker

[@becmiberserker]

🤣 I was a little confused…

[@anarionelendili8961]

There is another timeline issue, tnolls. If we trust the Nithian origins of the Gnolls, they should not have risen prior to the Nithian Empire. Indeed, they should not have escaped until the fall of the Nithian Empire, but that conflicts with the Karameikan history of 1000 BC for the Beast-man Invasion. Of course, the other explanation is that these "hill gnolls" are not the Gnolls, but their own separate species (maybe the origin species that was mutated by Nithian magics?). They are described as giant-kin, and live in villages, and seem to do agriculture, etc. They are clearly different from the more beastial, raider, nocturnal gnolls of the Basic Set.

[@becmiberserker]

Thanks for that, although you did confuse me as to what a tnoll is. 🙂

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@becmiberserker my dear sir, it is obviously a portmanteau of a t/ypo and a g/noll, therefore tnoll. :)

[@krinkrin5982]

Your correction causes the dwarves to arrive after humans. That makes the dwarves newcomers rather than an established civilization, and reduces the potential for conflict between them and the non-humans already in the region being old history ripe for grudges.

[@becmiberserker]

Well, the dwarves of Rockhome were extremely insular at this time and didn’t mix with humans much, if at all. So, I’m not sure if that’s a real impact.

[@briansmaller7443]

I never got into this game. By the time it had come out I was done with AD&D and moved on to other games. I like the sound of it.

[@DolFan316]

5:50 Dating yourself a bit 😋You certainly don't sound at least as old as I am.

[@becmiberserker]

Am heading towards mid-fifties. 🙂

[@DolFan316]

@@becmiberserker I'm a month away from 51 myself. Long live the '80s and '90s!!!

[@Sutorenja]

I look away for a bit to do something else and hear "these northmen are crafting semen". had to do a double take.

[@becmiberserker]

@@Sutorenja Well, you only have to take a cursory look at the people of northern England to know that they were rather good at it. 🙂

[@robbabcock_]

Wow, what a deep dive! The video is terrific but I'm a bit disappointed by world building of a lot of the old TSR products. Tolkien invented his own languages along with races and cultures! Obviously using Tolkien as a standard is expecting a bit much but at the other end of the spectrum we get the extreme laziness of much early TSR. To me it's jarring to have so many cultures, regions and race being transparently plagiarized from real-world history. Yeah, for this supplement it's simply living up to what they offered- Vikings in D&D- but I think they could have done a lot more. Still, great video!

[@becmiberserker]

Thanks for this. I’ll be doing a wrap up video when I get to the end (probably end of this year at this rate!) and this is exactly the kind of thing I’ll be talking about.

[@cpmf2112]

A constitution point seems high to me, i would probably switch that to XP.

[@cragland94]

lfg dude