Lore from the Sister's Grim Contest

I'm glad to see people are enjoying this. I'm having a good time going through these again.

From Twilight Air

The writing style of this story was interesting in part because it reads like a poem. Indeed if you convert it to a poem-like format it still works very well. Just an interesting commentary.

It's difficult to really derive any lore from this one because it appears to describe an afterlife experience. I took from this that the main character was a boy from a farm that had been killed but without specifics we really couldn't pin down time or place.

What we could say though is this story could reflect the beliefs of some of what happens when you die. Perhaps a rural community or region. It's possible not everyone in New Britannia believes spirits go to the Void. Or perhaps this experience is all part of the process? The Void itself is very much a mystery in many ways. The big question I would want to know the answer to is.. who is the woman in the story? What role does she play in this vision of transitioning to the afterlife?

 

From Selected Works of The Paean Bards

Interesting entry.. this is actually a collection of poems. Love seeing stuff like this as poetry is a reflection of culture.

The first poem is about a cannibalistic liche named Barum-Kul. There are two things I really take away from this. First that poems like this are often about actual people or famous mythological figures. Barum-Kul would not have been just any ol' liche. He was significant. He had his own domain and he had a reputation for being particularly nasty it seems. Well known at one time enough to be remembered and feared. The real or mythological? The fate of this character so far is unknown. He might still be out there somewhere.. sleeping perhaps?

Love it! Now I'm not a bit poetry fan really but what I love is how stories and poetry like this have potential to be used for player-driven storylines in-game. Definately one I could possibly have fun with.

The second thing I take from this is naming convention.. Ultimas did not have many hyphenated names.. particularly for humans though I seem to recall a handful.. maybe a dragon or two had names like this? I'd have to go back and review those.. but the point is the name is uncommon for most humans. So it would be likely that either Barum-Kul is from a particular region, clan or tribe that did not share the common culture of the land.. or this liche adopted the name. A rarer possibility is that the liche was never human to begin with.

Second poem looks like an old witches curse. This represents at least one spell that would only exist in lore, outside of game-mechanics if not suggesting a school or system. Probably something unique to witches or perhaps a particular coven is also a possibility. This would not be common magic. What I like about this one is the mention of reagents. One could role-play that any witch looking for these particular reagents may be keen on using this particular spell on someone. Unfortunately, we don't really have a name for this spell or school/system but the lack of information in itself is sometimes fun.

The final poem I'm not sure what to make of. It's a fun little riddle. If there's an answer to it I'm not sure what it is. If not than it may be something unique. A mythological creature maybe?

Edit: Oh something I overlooked.. The Paean Bards as a group. All we really know about this group is that they've written these poems and have other works to their name. Still, we can say that this group exists or has existed at one point.

 

So this is for only the winners? I may be a bit biased, but I really like the idea of apparitions from the towers

 

No we're looking at all the submissions for lore. It won't be just contest winners but will also extend to pretty much everything people submit to us. The winners are just the first ones I looked at.

 

Hrrmmm a cannibalistic lich lol, sounds some what familiar.......

 

Ex wife?

 

mother.

 

ok moving on... there are 7 more to go..

From The Stranger

The big challenge to lore here is that nearly the entire story is a hallucination. There are one or two points of interest though. Reference to lap dogs.. we haven't seen any small breads of dogs yet in the world but in order for this reference to be commonly understood, small breeds must exist. I suppose the same name could be applied to large breeds who attempt to lay across one's lap but I just don't see that happening. I think 'lap' can also imply size here.

There is a reference to something called a blood zombie within the hallucination. This one may be sketchy. The name could be a unique 'class' of zombie or an alternative name for another kind of zombie. It could be mythological as well. There are no further details given.

In the end, the experience the 'stranger' had was all a test by the "sisters" who are never identified. What I find interesting here is that being put through this test could have been some sort of ritual or rite of passage of some kind. The purpose of which is unknown.

Of course, as per the final line the entire thing could've been nothing more than a dream. Or he could've passed out at the end and woken up later on. I think it can be read either way.

 

From The Well

At first glance I didn't think I'd get anything from this one. Then I saw it was from a diary found near Braemar. It is interesting to imagine what kind of stories might have circulated around Braemar if this story were true. Local man or traveler being driven to homicidal insanity by what essentially amounts to Chinese water torture. The committing a murder by hanging.

So somewhere in or near Braemar these is a well that has a good chance of being the subject of rumor and/or superstition as the result of the afore mentioned murder.

I do not recall however seeing a well in Braemar. Perhaps someone has? If there isn't one then I could speculate that the locals filled in it. I would also date this story as happening prior to Body Count in Braemar.

 

From Field Observations Part I

I rather liked this story. I rather suspected the author might have been inspired by ghost hunter shows. The story is about a man investigating sightings related to the tesla towers and speculating the nature of what people reported seeing. The big take away for me is that there is some kind of unexplained phenomenon surrounding the towers where people believe they're seeing ghosts but they might just be optical illusion produced by the tower's energy.

There are scientists of a sort in New Britannia.. this may or may not include the study of magic but I'm inclined to believe magic is also a field of scientific study. Mages in Ultima have often been portrayed as the world's scientists, particularly in the field of astronomy though there is no correlation with astronomy here.

The people have a concept of electricity. Natives may also think of it as ethereal energy. I don't think it would be much of a stretch that an Outlander dubbed the energy "electricity" at some point and the word was adopted,

As this story was written as a scientific journal it's one of the few entries I personally read as purely non-fiction. So I'm hard pressed to point out every little piece of potential lore as the story focuses very heavily on specific details.

 

From Darkness

This story raises a question that I'm sure many people have wondered but has been a subject largely untouched by Ultima. That of the believe in deities specific to Britannia or New Britannia. Whether the subject of the story believes in a deity or not is less important than the mention of an unspecific god within a context that suggests there's more than one.

The nature of who or what the main character may have been thinking of is anyone's guess. Ultima did have several beings that dwelled in the Void that may have been considered as gods at one point. Such as the Great Earth Serpent and the serpents of Chaos and Order. Perhaps there are other beings.

"no beneficent god" is a pretty vague and uncertain reference but it highlights for me a possible cultural mindset. The potential belief in a pantheon. The members of which are unknown. Of course, the phrase was just a figure of speech but it must come from somewhere to have any meaning.

 

From Chronicles about the Death

My impression regarding the 'author' is that he may in fact be a lich referring himself as "The Death". I'm actually reminded a bit of the vampire from Serpent Isle. He was technically a lich but retained a youthful appearance. I come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons.

The story seems to imply the author has the ability to enter a place possibly within himself. At first I thought it might have required you to die but I'm not so sure about that after reading the entire story. Point is though that your typical native wouldn't have this ability. The author is seeking to unleash chaos that has been building up inside him for "decades and centuries". In the very least he must be a mage if not undead to have lived that long.

I speculate on keeping a youthful appearance for the sake of a love interest. Though it seems apparent this is an unrequited love so perhaps this author is a tad insane. Poor lass has a lich for a stalker! *cringe* How's THAT for creepy? This person's view of the world is obviously skewed either way you look at it.

As for the imagery of where this chaos energy is the author is tapping into. I see this as rather metaphorical. Imagery of the mind as it were rather than an actual place. Since it's clear the 'chaos' is inside him. This itself could be a subject of much speculation and perhaps better left undefined?

Another good basis for player-driven story. This "The Death" character could make a nice antagonist. Seeking to claim his unrequited love and turn her away from the virtues. I can easily see such a character mistaking any poor virtuous damsel for his love. Go take this story is a lot of different directions.

 

From Yalanah's Songbook

Like poems, some songs like the ones in Yalanah's Songbook could be based on actual people, events or mythology.

The first song sounds like just a scary story to me. It's pretty vague what the woman in the song is or is doing. She could be anything from an mage/thief/murderess to a vampire. I imagine the song to be possibly derived from local folklore. Well actually I imagine all the songs are based on folklore from small communities.

The 2nd song is more obviously a ghost story steeped in tragedy. Classic really. I'm inclined to think there's a little more truth in this song. A noble lady wants a child.. finally gets one but he dies and so she commits suicide. This much can probably be considered fact. Whether or not her ghost roams about we can probably consider this true given the history of ghosts in Ultima. Whether or not the ghost is a threat or not.. could be true or could be embellishment. Another good starting point for player-driven story/RP.

The last song doesn't have anything I'd consider new lore but never the less it's well written. Song or poem I have to admit I like it for what it is. Well done.

Ah.. but I just considered something.. being a song about Ravensmoor we have to consider the dating of the song and known activity in Ravensmoor. In this song Ravensmoor is a very dangerous place. This suggests the undead were active during the time the song was written. So how does this fit in with A Tale of Braemar and Body Count in Braemar?

I started thinking this as I recalled "some" of the songs were taught by Yalanah's grandfather. The natural assumption then is that the songs are old.. but that is assumption as the grandfather may very well be alive and had written or learned any of the songs recently. So there's two directions to go in dating the 3rd song. Either the song is very recent or very old implying another period of time when Ravenmoor was active with undead, then went quiet and later became active again. The latter of which we can infer by the presence of a sleeping lich. The lich would've been up and about before going to sleep right?

Just some thoughts to ponder for the last song.

 

and finally..

From Camping Tales

One thing really stands out. The possible ability of a lich to possess a new body. The lich in the story is unknown but apparently dwells in a keep with a hedge maze and may possible be local lord mentioned in the story. We could also surmise that magic was used to lure the victim in with illusion. Probably not something we'll see in-game but story often mentions details like magic not available to players so it's not a problem.

Also this lich has other undead servants. This isn't something really new but it relates to location so I think it's worth a mention.

This concludes my lore review of the 19 entries for the Sister's Grim contest. Discussion/feedback is welcome.

 

Thanks for your point of view. It shows me again, that you can write something with a specific idea and someone else can still read it in a different way.

Here are some explanations with which thoughts I wrote the story.

"The Death" was intended as the grim reaper of New Britannia, who we call in german also "der Tod", so came the name. Nearly every culture has such a figure to get along with the end of live and so this person was born. He could be indeed be a lich, but as long I don't know if the lichs are just a product of the obsidian, I can't confirm it, because the time, when the story was told and written should be the time short after the cataclysm. The story itself should just show another way to explain the cataclysm. We learned one tale in BotA, but there won't exist only one of them.
The inner hell was also inspired by BotA and how the sorcerer produce there magic. He also went in himself to take some of the chaos there and produced magic.

I want to write more stories about "The Death" dated before this story so you ge more of his character and I made the story open enough, that he would go back to action when the avatars return *evil grin*

 

Interesting. The imagery did remind me the initial meeting in BotA with the Titans. I wondered about the character name a bit but Ultima has never had a grim reaper figure. Lich's on the other hand have existed in Britannia since early Ultimas and have often been used as significant antagonists in dungeon scenarios. Notably in Ultima VII.

That's not to say a grim reaper figure is in conflict with anything. It's just never been part of the known belief systems. Whereas a lich is traditionally more or less an evil mage who's used (usually forbidden) dark magic to become undead.

When I'm looking at these stories I frame everything in the context of Britannia/New Britannia.

 

As one of the few who came to this game without playing any Ultima or UO I don't have this knowledge^^ and because this is not UO2 I thought it can't harm if I write about something which has so far no place in this world. He is not the bad guy we see at the moment.

 

For all intensive purposes, UO can't really be considered for any lore as it represents alternate realities that no one is even aware of. Of course, officially we can't make direct Ultima references either and to be fair there is a lot of room (Ultimas included) for new ideas. The Ultima series spins a good yarn as it were but it never delves deeply in the world's culture or alternate belief systems until Serpent Isle where we get a look back at an extinct culture that developed for a brief time prior to Ultima III.

There's always room for something new.. and while I'm commenting on that I would like to point out that an author's insight into their own stories is welcome and I'm sure will be considered. I will otherwise try to fit what I read into what I know of the Ultima universe. A grim reaper never occurred to me. However, if there are more stories regarding this character and knowing what he's intended to be would make a big difference.