Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 1 - Flip-through and Review

In which I cover the first volume of Gods of the Forbidden North, a (massive) setting and adventure collection for OSE by Robert Alderman. It's incredible!
Highly recommend.
Here's where you can find it:
preview.drivet...
Track: "Norður", Alexander Nakarada
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Track: "Nomadic Dawn", Alexander Nakarada
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Track: "Skaga", Alexander Nakarada
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Track: "Traveler", Alexander Nakarada
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Track: "Vopna", Alexander Nakarada
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Track: "Celebration", Alexander Nakarada
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Track: "Entertainment", Alexander Nakarada
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[@PulpHummock]

Wow! I am truly humbled and thankful for the kind and encouraging words about the book, RedMage. Your points of criticism are all valid and I have taken them to heart, to be sure. After publication, one thing I did to combat the map problem (which, admittedly, got a little rushed through production to meet my KS fulfillment deadline) was to supply a free PNG, full-color copy of the maps along with any purchase of the book on DTRPG. Hopefully, that will satisfy folks enough until I have the funds to go back and re-do this at some point down the road after the trilogy is finished. My apologies to anyone turned off by the size of some of the maps (Fort Ikenvar & World Maps, in particular). I am shooting for a Volume 2 Kickstarter launch date of Tuesday, February 27th, 2024 @ 12:00pm EST. The campaign should end on Thursday, March 28th. The Volume 3 Kickstarter launch date will likely be Tuesday, April 29th, 2025 @ 12:00pm EST. It will last all of May. Volume 2 is about 70-80% finished and Volume 3 is about 30-40% finished. The good news is that the "lore" work is pretty much done, which honestly, was the hardest part of writing this entire book. Now that it's finalized, the rest should come much quicker. I just need to wrap it up and start playtesting to make sure everything works out as planned. Volume 1 covers the history, society, and surface wilderness locations. Volume 2 covers the underworld (Underdark) and 5 mid- to high-level dungeon locations. Volume 3 covers the entire Castle Thar-Gannon, which is the megadungeon proper. It is for 8th-9th level characters or higher. Again, RedMage: thank you so much for the review. I really do appreciate it. Very Best, Rob, PHP

[@RedMageGM]

It really is my pleasure! This is such a fantastic addition to the hobby. You and the whole team should be very proud!!

[@PulpHummock]

@@RedMageGM Thank you for saying so. They did an incredible job, all of them. (And I'm sure Ian Baggley will especially enjoy your admiration over his work. I think you mentioned every one of them. Lol.) V Best, Rob

[@RedMageGM]

Sounds like I need to look up more of his work! :)

[@PulpHummock]

@@RedMageGM He is quite a talent.

[@PulpHummock]

Thank you so much, Odysseus!@user-sp5cl9we4w

[@Grumpy-Dice]

Thanks so much for doing a flip through. This is a definite purchase for me. I'm with you on loving the Jacob Fleming art. There also seems to be some similarity in style and atmosphere to Jacob's campaigns (In the Shadow of Tower Silveraxe, The Scourge of Northland, ...).

[@RedMageGM]

You're welcome! Yes, it's definitely similar in style.

[@mykediemart]

This was already on my wishlist, having missed the KS. This makes me "need" it even more.

[@RedMageGM]

haha yes - when I first saw this, I felt the need. :D

[@rrekrut]

Man, you never fail to review the books and settings I'm interested in. Another awesome flip-through! Great Channel, keep it up!

[@RedMageGM]

Thanks man!! Glad that you're enjoying it!

[@sergiocamcar8]

This looks exactly like what I was looking for when I discovered the OSE books and had no setting to play in. It looks good for Lamentations of the Flame Princess also.

[@RedMageGM]

I have a feeling this will become a go-to setting for a lot of OSE players. It fits the tone of the old-school perfectly! However, the setting seems to have a much clearer distinction between good and evil than Flame Princess products do. Which I appreciate. Shades of grey gets old after awhile. :D

[@sergiocamcar8]

@@RedMageGM Yeah, sadly a lot of the OSR is expecting new players to find, understand and transcribe modules/settings from almost 50 years ago

[@paulbigbee]

Fantastic review, and timely: I’m thinking of running this with Shadowdark as well, though the vibe reminds me even more of the Black Sword Hack. I hope we get to hear more of your experience with this, perhaps your prep for running it, or maybe an interview with the author for Volume 2!

[@RedMageGM]

Awesome! Thanks! I've been considering picking up BSH - I should probably get it at some point. And I'll definitely be following this up with more! I hadn't considered doing an interview, but I'd be open to something like that.

[@lairdbarron5297]

It's fabulous. Thanks for the review.

[@RedMageGM]

It really is! My pleasure! :)

[@robertwaluchow1034]

Great flip-through of an amazing work!

[@RedMageGM]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked the video!

[@PulpHummock]

thanks Robert!

[@thereluctanthireling]

This is one of the products that was under my radar until your video. Decided to pickup the pdf to read over the holiday break and man is it so good, I want to run this as my next campaign for my group.

[@RedMageGM]

I know, right?! The awesomeness keeps going as you read through the book.

[@paavohirn3728]

I'm having to slap myself so I don't go get the pdf right away as I'm waiting for the Kickstarter to finish and get the pdf I've already paid for 🤣

[@gommechops]

There are so many cool influences they have poured into this. The Trow seem like a direct influence from the PC game Myth the Fallen Lords, they even have a brutal kick attack. Love it, love the art. Bought it based on this review about a week ago, PDF is great but I cant wait to get the physical copy.

[@RedMageGM]

Glad to hear the review was helpful! I can't agree more - so many great ideas mixed together here! :)

[@PulpHummock]

Lol! Remember the narrator's voice? Still haunts me!

[@gommechops]

@@PulpHummock I can still remember him talking about his snot freezing I think in Bagrada pass! Epic game..

[@PulpHummock]

"The Watcher has entered Covenant from the north, and his tireless undead are raping the old city a second time..." Amazing voice!

[@gommechops]

Amazing, still gives me goosebumpsI loved the levels in the Trow city of Rhi annon. I know it's just a matter of timew before I run something in that setting. 'Before he left, Alric told us Madrigal had fallen'

[@paavohirn3728]

I'm watching this again as I can't wait for the Kickstarter to finish so we'll get the vol1 pdf 😅 You really did a great job introducing this book!

[@RedMageGM]

I can't wait for the new map - the single fact that that's fixed up makes me hugely excited for Volume 1 again! :D

[@paavohirn3728]

@@RedMageGM Oh yeah! It looks gorgeous from what I've seen.

[@sonicexpert986]

My ears perked up when you said you're gonna run it for Shadowdark! Does it seem like there will be a lot of conversion? I've never actually run or played OSE. I have been running a ton of Shadowdark since last year. It does look like the writing and editing here is... a lot more wordy compared to Shadowdark's style...

[@RedMageGM]

Yeah, it would definitely be a bit of a labor. Still, I'd like to give it a try! My current "timeline" for campaigns is to finish out the ones I'm running, start Dolmenwood when those books hit in the late fall. Run that until this series is complete (maybe 2025) and then run a GotFN campaign through from beginning to end.

[@michaelolz]

There's a LOT of HP Lovecraft influence in this one. (That's a good thing.) The cover has a real black metal feel to it. I'll have to at least get. the PDF and read it.

[@RedMageGM]

Absolutely man - it's definitely a must-have for me!

[@devonsharkey414]

My name is in the back!

[@RedMageGM]

I missed this one, but mine'll be in the next two! :)

[@patrickgaron1728]

Great presentation of the book. I want to support this kinda of work. The price is high but it comes with original art and lots of contains. I will need to retire and become a full time DM to play all the adventures. But it would be fun to read them... I will need maybe a sabbatical for 1y. You mention you will convert it to Shadowdark? How did it go in play sessions? Would you do a video on how you convert OSE to Shadowdark? I'm curious to more about this. I got SD and started to read ot. In convertion of monster from OSE to SD: monster hit point (it's quite low in SD), do their atk use the STR bonus to dmg, tips for monster AC to scale? Or you just find the equivalent in SD? :-) It reminds me of Frog God Games' Northland saga. It's also an epic adventures in a Viking/Nordic world. It was when they where doing their own Adventure Path series (from level 1 to 20 or something). I saw that they are republising them now for OSE with an updated layouts.

[@RedMageGM]

hahaha I know what you mean about the time! Never seem to have enough of that! I plan on it - haven't done it yet! I might do it in a video series. That could be fun.

[@stillmattwest]

This doesn’t say OSE to me so much as it says Worlds Without Number.

[@RedMageGM]

It really does have a WWN vibe at times!

[@PulpHummock]

Haha! I'll take that as a compliment! Kevin Crawford's work is peak OSR.

[@stillmattwest]

​@@PulpHummock Great! Since I wrote the comment above I learned more about your amazing campaign and Kickstarted the new volume to get casebound copies of both books. I'm beyond excited to get my digital copy of volume 1 next month so I can start digging in. Thank you for putting so much into this campaign, I hope the rewards come pouring in! I'm definitely doing my part to spread the word.

[@PulpHummock]

thanks Matt! i'll have the digital pdf for v1 to you very shortly when the campaign ends. i hope you enjoy it! and i truly am appreciative of your help in spreading the word! immense help! @@stillmattwest

[@paavohirn3728]

Very, very much looking forward to getting my hands on the pdf (and later the physical books)! WWN is indeed brilliant! It does take a little bit of work to keep things as challenging and deadly. Also perhaps revamping the xp system to one similar to OSE (I'm currently using a system where everyone advances on the OSE cleric xp chart. Fighter works if you want it a bit slower still). I used an xp system close to that in WWN but recently swapped to the aforementioned system for its perks.

[@Curratum]

Just seeing the size of that thing and I know immediately that it will be completely useless at the table, and using it just for prep would mean way more work than I would ever want to do as well... :(

[@RedMageGM]

That's too bad!

[@paavohirn3728]

I've come to rely mostly on pdfs on my tablet and another one open on my phone. But there's nothing like holding a hefty tome when you're reading it on the couch or an armchair. 😁

[@Diggilicious]

Ugh... you had me until you said aliens and time travel. Not interested in mingling those topics with my fantasy. Great review though.

[@stillmattwest]

It can be done well and it’s a strong tradition in Appendix N era fantasy. Empire of the East, Book of the New Sun, Kane, Dying Earth, many more.

[@RedMageGM]

Well, you can definitely rework that stuff - it's present, but not entirely central. You could make the big bad something from a different plane, and the celestial beings just gods and goddesses. In fact, going back through it recently, I'm fairly certain that the intention is for it to be more Divine than alien.

[@paavohirn3728]

Yup. Sounds more like a flavoring thing with almost no effort.