Ultima Lore

The Shadowland uses a lot of plot and history from the Ultima series of games. For those unfamiliar with this lore, the following briefly touches some of the major points and notes how they are entwined into the Shadowland plot.

The Ultima Trilogies...

In the Lycaeum one may read of the first two of the Ages of the Avatar. These Ages correspond to the three trilogies of Ultima games. These are as follows:

Ages of Darkness Ultima 1 (Mondain) Ultima 2 (Minax) Ultima 3 (Exodus)

Ages of Enlightenment Ultima 4 (The Avatar) Ultima 5 (Blackthorn) Ultima 6 (Gargoyles)

Ages of Armageddon Ultima 7 (The Guardian) Ultima 8 (Pagan) Ultima 9 (Armageddon) (This Age has not yet occurred in the Shadowland.)

The first trilogy features the rise and fall of three evil powers: Mondain, a sorcerer who tried to become immortal and all-powerful; Minax, Mondain's apprentice and lover; and Exodus, the entity the two had created together and left behind as their legacy.

The second trilogy chronoicles the adventures of the Avatar, a visitor from modern-day Earth who learned to embody the eight Virtues and three Principles, and brought forth the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. This visitor traveled to and from Britannia multiple times using moongates and the Orb of the Moons, acting as a guiding light when Britannia was in need.

The third trilogy centers around a powerful evil being who called himself the Guardian and set his sights on Britannia...and the Avatar's home world of Earth.

Ultima Online...

In the Ages of Darkness, the Avatar traveled to Britannia (then known as Sosaria) three times to help destroy the Triad of Evil--three separate but connected threats plaguing the lands. However, few know that it was the Avatar who performed these deeds. As far as most of the populace is aware, "a stranger" appeared from another world to save them...and then vanished when the task was complete.

During the very first struggle, the battle against Mondain, this stranger destroyed Mondain's Gem of Immortality which was a major source of Mondain's power. Unbeknownst to the hero, doing so shattered space itself, rending the fabric of reality. Mondain was killed and the tainted gem shattered, but in its wake a multitude of alternate universes was born. Each universe was a duplicate of Sosaria, but each developed in its own way, with its own people.

As a consequence, multiple Avatars from Earth answered multiple calls to the Quest of the Avatar and gained enlightenment. But in addition, multiple versions of important people in Sosaria, such as Lord British and the witch Minax, were spawned. In some of the alternate universes (known as "shards" in Britannia lore), Minax was brought down by the Avatar. In at least one other, she somehow survived. And this would prove to be disastrous indeed.

The Shadowland...

Using the time gates that she had mastered in many universes during the Second Age of Darkness, the surviving Minax managed to twist time itself. By doing so, she restored her lover Mondain to life and destroyed the Avatar that had killed him.

Alive once again, Mondain went in search of his shattered Gem of Immortality. He eventually discovered that the core of the gem existed in five pieces on the alternate universe known as the Shadowland. Mondain traveled to this shard of Britannia and began his plot to gather together the golden stones and rebuild his gem.

These five fragments of the Gem proved powerful enough to create moongates into other dimensions. Specifically, they were employed to open the Black Gate and bring into Britannia the one known as the Guardian, another foe which the Avatar had once faced, and whose destruction would, somewhere in some shard's future, ultimately be accomplished only through the sacrifice of the Avatar and of Britannia itself.

Meanwhile, on many of the shards existed a version of Lord Blackthorn who, like Minax, escaped the fate of many of his counterparts. For during the Second Age of Enlightenment, Lord British's regent was corrupted by the Shadowlords that were spawned from three of the fragments of the Gem of Immortality. Blackthorn's evil reign was ended by the Avatar, and Blackthorn was banished from Britannia by Lord British for his terrible deeds. However, on some shards Blackthorn managed to either avoid or return from this exile, and even gain a high political status in the kingdom. His continued presence on one shard in particular--the Shadowland--would quickly begin impacting the entire multiverse.

Although giving a surface illusion of being lawful, under the cover of secrecy Blackthorn quickly allied himself with the forces of darkness. In his quest to gather the five golden rocks for Mondain, Blackthorn summoned a new evil to Britannia, the undead Lord Soth. Being a foreigner to Britannia did not stop this necromancer for long; with frightening speed, Soth uncovered many of the secrets of the land and began to sow his own brand of terror.

And Now...

And so, Britannia finds itself facing a host of foes, both old and new...

Minax, master of time, uses the silver time gates to rewrite history to her pleasing.

Mondain, master of space, is gathering together the shattered pieces of his Gem of Immortality. As a result, the various alternate universes that were a direct result of the gem's sundering are now being slowly merged once again into a single space and time. And as a consequence, some people and places from the various shards are being erased and are simply ceasing to exist.

Blackthorn has taken over the throne of Britannia once again and works behind the scenes to aid Mondain. He remains ever anxious for his reward of being the ultimate ruler over the singular Britannia--the one and only shard that will exist once the dimensional merging is complete.

Soth, the evil general displaced from his home world of Krynn, commands his undead armies in petty routes of revenge and death, unaware or uncaring of the fact that the universe is literally being brought down around his ears.

The Guardian waits in his world of Pagan--with Lord British, Dupré, and Nystul as his prisoners--for the day when he will finally rid himself of what he considers to be the only threat to his existence--the Avatar.

And in the meantime, the remnants of the brainchild of Minax and Mondain--the entity of destruction known as Exodus--awaits its revival...

"And we breathe of Armageddon..."