Snowflake Challenge - Challenge The Fifth

[lebateleur]

Challenge #5


In your own space, promote a canon/talk about a part of canon that you love. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I'm going for a deep cut: the Ultima computer games, particularly Ultima VI: The False Prophet. It was the first for-adults computer game I played solo, and from beginning to end. It had a huge impact on me in a bunch of ways.

In the series, the player assumes the role of the Avatar, who is periodically summoned from earth to a fantasy world called Britannia to save its inhabitants from various dangers. The Avatar advances by modeling the Eight Virtues (Compassion, Honor, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality, and Valor), which he attains through study, mantra recitation, and meditation at shrines and cities throughout Britannia.

I'd started playing dungeon crawlers as soon as I could read, but the Ultima games were the first ones that incorporated any sort of mechanic that awarded or punished players based on the morality of their actions. Steal, or kill a wild--but not evil--creature, for instance, and the Avatar will face consequences.

Ultima VI starts as the previous games did: with the Avatar being summoned from earth to Britannia. But instead of materializing in the ruler's castle, the Avatar finds himself bound to a stone altar, about to be sacrificed by gargoyles. The Avatar's saved in the nick of time but spends the rest of the game traveling throughout Britannia, battling the gargoyles that are invading through moongates (i.e., stone circles) scattered throughout the land.

Eventually, the Avatar journeys to the other side of Britannia (this world is, indeed, flat) to confront the gargoyles in their own land. I vividly remember going around, thrilled that my once-formidable monster opponents weren't even attacking me. I couldn't wait to finish them off and return to Britannia a conquering hero.

Meanwhile, I was slowly discovering artifacts that let me decode the gargoyle's language. It became clear that they were intelligent creatures with a distinct culture. Eventually, I encountered a hermit sage and learned that the gargoyles were invading Britannia because Britannians'--and my--actions were destroying the their world. I--as the Avatar--had to explain the gargoyles' actions to Britannians and save their civilization.

Only this was 1990, and the game ran off of several 5.5" floppies with a limited number of save slots. And I had been running around, happily overwriting them after I slaughtered each new group of gargoyles. In fact, I'd killed every last one of them, and with no pre-slaughter saves I could reload, there was no way to win the game except by starting over.

That made a powerful impression on me, to say the least. And it's influenced how I've approached every computer and tabletop RPG I've played since.

In fact, be it Buddhism, or pre-modern European cultures, or ceremonial correspondences, or foreign languages, or Tarot or runes, you can draw a straight line from the Ultima games to more of my present-day interests than you'd expect.

これで以上です。

Comments

[lebateleur]

I sheepishly admit to buying the original three games a few years ago but not having played them through; they're just a little too primitive now. I keep hoping someone will reboot the entire series a la FVII or even enhance it a la Baldur's Gate. I'd love to replay them with modern graphics and interfaces.