VIRTUES OF ULTIMA

The Ultima series of computer role-playing games featured a Virtue system that the player was required to follow in the game as the Avatar. These Virtues were inspired in part by the codes of chivalry and the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, and were created specifically for Ultima.

Strangely enough, The Wizard of Oz also played a part in the creation of the virtues, with designer Richard Garriott stating at one time that the three companions of Dorothy Gale could be linked to the three principles — Scarecrow (Truth), Tin Woodsman (Love) and Cowardly Lion (Courage).^[1] This is also alluded to in Ultima VI and Ultima VII, where one can find a copy of the book - the description blurb the game gives alludes to this relationship as well. Lord British claims it is his favourite book.

The Avatar Ethics

The canonical system of Ethics in Ultima is based on The Three Principles and the Eight Virtues. First introduced in Ultima IV, it marked a reinvention of the game focus from a traditional roll-playing model into an ethically framed one. In an in-game book in Ultima VI named "The Quest of the Avatar" (the same name as the game, Ultima IV, in which the Virtues were introduced) the virtues are described as

In days not long past, the Council of Wizards erected shrines to the eight virtues, that people throughout the land might meditate upon them. It was through studying the eight virtues and the three underlying principles that the great hero, who had defeated the Triad of Evil, started down the path that led to Avatarhood.
For verily it is known that the three principles are Truth, Love and Courage; And that from Truth arises Honesty; And from Love arises Compassion; And from Courage arises Valour; And that Truth comingled with Love gives rise to Justice; And Love comingled with Courage gives rise to Sacrifice; And Courage comingled with Truth gives rise to Honor; And Truth, Love and Courage all united create Spirituality; And the absence of all three principles leads to the vice of pride, which leads us to think of the virtue that is its opposite, that of Humility.
And on the quest to become the embodiment of the eight virtues, the Avatar recovered the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom, and discovered that the one underlying concept that leads to the three principles which lead to the eight virtues is Infinity. Ponder this well, oh seeker!

The Three Principles

The Eight Virtues explored in Ultima are based on Three Principles:

Principle	Place associated	Item
Truth	Lycaeum	Book
Love	Empath Abbey	Candle
Courage	Serpent's Hold	Bell

These Principles are themselves derived from the Axiom of Infinity, which is represented in Castle Britannia.

The Eight Virtues

The Principles are combined to form the following Eight Virtues:

Virtue	Principles	Towns associated	Mantra	Player Class	Dungeon	Color	Sigil	Word of Power
Honesty	Truth	Moonglow	Ahm	Mage	Deceit	Blue	Writ of Honesty (Open hand)	Fallax
Compassion	Love	Britain¹	Mu	Bard	Despise	Yellow	Heart of Compassion	Vilis
Valor	Courage	Jhelom	Ra	Fighter	Destard	Red	Dagger of Valor	Inopia
Justice	Truth, Love	Yew	Beh	Druid	Wrong	Green	Quill of Justice (or Scales)	Malum
Sacrifice	Love, Courage	Minoc	Cah	Tinker	Covetous	Orange	Tear of Sacrifice	Avidus
Honor	Truth, Courage	Trinsic	Summ	Paladin	Shame	Purple	Chalice of Honor	Infama
Spirituality	Truth, Love, and Courage	Skara Brae	Om	Ranger	Hythloth	White	Ankh of Spirituality	Ignavus
Humility	Independent of Truth, Love, and Courage	New Magincia²	Lum	Shepherd	none³	Black	Shepherd Crook	none⁴

[[:Image:Virtuegump max.jpg|thumb|227px|right|The Virtues Paperdoll interface Symbol in Ultima Online]]

Notes:

Britain is the original town of Compassion, Cove is nearest the shrine, but, in Ultima IV, was dedicated to the One True Axiom and housed the Shrine of Virtue, dedicated to the Path of the Avatar. Later, Cove became the towne of Love, due to the influence of the nearby Shrine of Compassion.
Magincia was destroyed by demons for its Pride (Pride's mantra is Mul, the reverse of Humility's mantra). New Magincia, built in its ruins, was founded on Humility.
Pride has never had a Dungeon formally associated with it, but the Shrine of Humility was situated closest to the Stygian Abyss.
The word 'Veramocor,' representing the One True Axiom that is the combination of the Three Principles, is needed for both the Stygian Abyss in Ultima IV and Doom in Ultima V.

The Embodiment of the Virtues in the game is the Avatar, the character who the player is roleplaying. He (or she) is commonly seen with an Ankh which represents life.

[[:Image:Codex_colored.png|thumb|right|The Codex Symbol]]

The relationship between the Principles and Virtues is often explained this way:

Honesty is respect for Truth
Compassion is Love of others
Valor is Courage to stand up against risks
Justice is Truth, tempered by Love
Sacrifice is Courage to give oneself in name of Love
Honor is Courage to seek and uphold the Truth
Spirituality is to seek Truth, Love and Courage from one's own self and the world around
Humility is the opposite of Pride - the absence of Truth, Love or Courage

Humility is the most difficult Virtue to describe, as it cannot really be understood without its Anti-Virtue, Pride. Pride merely has nothing to do with Truth, Love and Courage; Humility is similar, but rather than being a complete antithesis, it exists independently of the Principles and acts as their foundation.

The New Magincian ghosts also have a few things to say about Humility and pride, from which the following may be constructed:

Humility: The absence of Truth, Love, and Courage is Pride. Pride is the surest measure of goals never attained. Pride goeth before, Shame cometh after. This Shame leads to awareness of Humility, the root from which all Virtues grow. Humility is to strip oneself of all conceits.

See also The Codex Symbol, which explains the relationships between the virtues through colors.

For a similar additive conceptual model applied in contemporary psychology, see Robert Sternberg's triangular theory of love.

Perverting the Virtues

As all ethics, the set of three Principles and Eight Virtues can be twisted or perverted into something it was not intended for or outright its own antithesis, and this is a frequent theme in the Ultima games following Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. Ultima V: The Shadowlords saw Lord Blackthorn turn the virtue system into a rigid and draconian set of ruthless laws ultimately based on his arbitrary whims, a system actually nurturing the anti-virtues (discussed in the next section); Ultima VI: The False Prophet confronted the Avatar with that other belief systems can have as much validity as the Avatar Ethics; in Ultima VII, an order known as "The Brotherhood" displaced the Virtues with their own, strict belief system, casting Britannia into disarray; and in Ultima IX the Virtues had been inverted into their opposite anti-virtues.

Lord Blackthorn's Code of Virtues

In Ultima V, Lord Blackthorn, the tyrant who ruled in Lord British's absence, codified the Britannian Virtues into a set of draconian laws.

Virtue	Law
Honesty	Thou shalt not lie, or thou shalt lose thy tongue.
Compassion	Thou shalt help those in need, or thou shalt suffer the same need.
Valor	Thou shalt fight to the death if challenged, or thou shalt be banished as a coward.
Justice	Thou shalt confess to thy crime and suffer its just punishment, or thou shalt be put to death.
Sacrifice	Thou shalt donate half of thy income to charity, or thou shalt have no income.
Honour	If thou dost lose thine own honour, thou shalt take thine own life.
Spirituality	Thou shalt enforce the laws of virtue, or thou shalt die as a heretic.
Humility	Thou shalt humble thyself to thy superiors, or thou shalt suffer their wrath.

Blackthorn's Code is a good illustration of the fact that the Virtues always come from one's own self rather than the norms of society; codifying ethics into law does not automatically make evil people good. Further, unethical lawmakers can take the Virtues and turn them into something that is quite contrary to what Virtues actually stand for. Under the influence of the Shadowlords, the rigid system of Blackthorn in fact invites the polar opposites of the Virtues, f.i. the shame of losing ones honour necessitates taking ones life.

Anti-Principles and Anti-Virtues

In Ultima V the antitheses to the three Principles were introduced. Each of the Shadowlords opposed one of the three Principles, thus the anti-Principles are sometimes referred to as the Principles of the Shadowlords.

Principle	Opposing principle	Shadowlord
Cowardice	Courage	Nosfentor
Hatred	Love	Astaroth
Falsehood	Truth	Faulinei

The anti-Virtues, also sometimes referred to as the Eight Vices or Eight Sins, are the logical extrapolation of the anti-Principles. Though never explicated in the canonical games they have been an implicit and logical aspect of the Virtue system since the anti-Principles were introduced. In Ultima IX the Virtues had been inverted by the Guardian, reversing the ideals and behaviour of the populace of the respective towns. Correspondingly the Runes of the Virtues needed to be retrieved by the Avatar to purify the Shrines and restore the proper Virtues. Just as the Virtues are formed as combinations of the Principles, the anti-Virtues are derived from the three anti-Principles. However, as they have only appeared as inversions of the true Virtues, and then in the guise of the actual Virtues, no official (canonical) names have been given to the anti-Virtues.

Anti-Virtue	Principles	Associated dungeon	Antihesis	Symbol
Deceit	Falsehood	Deceit	Honesty	Insidious face behind jovial mask
Despise	Hatred	Despise	Compassion	Whip (originally a double-bladed axe)
Timidity	Cowardice	Destard	Valor	Skull
Bigotry	Falsehood, Hatred	Wrong	Justice	Unbalanced scales
Covetous	Hatred, Cowardice	Covetous	Sacrifice	Gold coin
Shame	Falsehood, Cowardice	Shame	Honor	Broken shield
Baseness	Falsehood, Hatred, Cowardice	Hythloth	Spirituality	Rock
Pride	Independent of the three anti-Principles	Possibly Doom or the Great Stygian Abyss	Humility	Black sceptre

Other Ethical Systems in Ultima

Though the Three Principles and Eight Virtues of the Avatar is the underlying guiding principles of all the Ultima games from Ultima IV, alternative systems of ethics have been introduced, some jocular while other are as serious as the Avatar Ethics.

The Virtues of Mandrake

The joyful Mandrake the bard, in Ultima VI, has his own set of three Principles, which also form eight Virtues.

Principle
Wine
Women
Song

Eight of the virtues are derived from these three principles:

Virtue	Principle
Drunkenness	Wine
Sensuality	Women
Harmony	Song
Lust	Wine, Women
Laziness	Wine, Song
Dance	Women, Song
Indulgence	Wine, Women, Song
Happiness	The opposite of Sadness, which comes from the absence of Wine, Women and Song

The relationships between the Virtues and Principles is not explained in the game, but the one presented in the table is the only logical deduction that has been made.

Presumably Happiness, just like Humility is to Pride, is the opposite of Sadness.

Somewhat related to this, in Ultima V it is explained that the mantra of eating is "yum".

The Gargoyle Virtues

The Virtues of the Gargoyles were first explored in detail in Ultima VI. Beyond dialogue, they are described in the in-game book "The Book of Circles", found in Ultima VI and Ultima VI as

All begins with the three principles: Control, Passion and Diligence. From Control springs Direction. From Passion springs Feeling. From Diligence springs Persistence. But these three virtues are no more important than the other five: Control combines with Passion to give Balance. Passion combines with Diligence to yield Achievement. And Diligence joins with Control to provide Precision. The absence of Control, Passion and Diligence is Chaos. Thus the absence of the principles points toward the seventh virtue, Order. The three principles unify to form Singularity. This is the eighth virtue, but it is also the first, because within Singularity can be found all the principles, and thus all the virtues. A circle has no end. It continues forever, with all parts equally important in the success of the whole. Our society is the same. It too continues forever, with all members (and all virtues) equal parts of the unified whole.

Thus, the Gargoyles have three principles based on Order, and its opposite, Chaos.

Principle	Mantra	Embodiment	Dungeon
Control	UN	Mondain	Shrine of Control
Passion	OR	Minax	Shrine of Passion
Diligence	US	Exodus	Shrine of Diligence

The Gargoyles have eight virtues based on their three principles.

Virtue	Principles
Direction	Control
Feeling	Passion
Persistence	Diligence
Balance	Control, Passion
Achievement	Passion, Diligence
Precision	Control, Diligence
Order	Absence of Control, Passion, Diligence
Singularity	Control, Passion, Diligence

The Ophidian Virtues

The Virtue system of the Ophidians, in Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle, is formed around the following three Principles:

Principle	Embodiment	Symbols
Order	Blue Serpent of Order	Diamond, Ice
Chaos	Red Serpent of Chaos	Ruby, Fire
Balance	Great Earth Serpent	Earth

In the Ophidian symbology, the Great Earth Serpent is the keeper of Balance, and lies around "in a vertical plane"; the opposing serpents of Chaos and Order wrap themselves around the Great Earth Serpent, each spiralling in a different direction (a symbol inspired by Caduceus).

The Ophidian system comprises six Forces, three from Order and three from Chaos; the Forces of Order are Ethicality, Discipline and Logic, while the Forces of Chaos are Tolerance, Enthusiasm and Emotion. Their descriptions are as follow:

Force	Description	Symbols
Ethicality	The belief that there is great value in abiding by rules of conduct.	A torch
Discipline	The drive to complete a task and avoid the distractions that will prevent its completion.	A dagger
Logic	Clear, reasoned thought, free from any instinctual biases.	The abacus
Tolerance	That which encourages the acceptance of all things.	A chain
Enthusiasm	The energy that allows one to perform great tasks.	A rose
Emotion	The ability to perceive those feelings that come from the heart, as opposed to coming from the mind.	A heart

When combined by pairs, these Forces form the Three Principles of Balance (not to be confused with the three Principles of Order, Balance and Chaos above). The Principles of Balance, their descriptions and relations to the Forces of Order and Chaos are illustrated in the table below:

Principle of Balance	Arises from	Description
Harmony	Ethicality and Tolerance	The ability to be at peace with the self, the individual and the world.
Dedication	Discipline and Enthusiasm	That which permits one to surmount obstacles and lead others.
Rationality	Logic and Emotion	The ability to comprehend life and understand the world around us.

There also exists Anti-Forces associated to the Forces of Order and Balance. These Anti-Forces arise from Imbalance between the Forces, and are essentially perversions of their corresponding Forces. The Anti-Forces also manifest themselves as a kind of malevolent spiritual being, collectively called the Banes of Order and the Banes of Chaos.

The Anti-Forces (and Banes) are:

Anti-Force	Arises from	Description
Prejudice	Ethicality without Tolerance	Disrespect for the beliefs and rights of others.
Apathy	Discipline without Enthusiasm	A spirit of hopelessness which retards positive action.
Ruthlessness	Logic without Emotion	Taking self-advancing actions without regard to the wants or needs of others.
Anarchy	Tolerance without Ethicality	A lack of standards of conduct.
Wantonness	Enthusiasm without Discipline	Acting without self-restraint.
Insanity	Emotion without Logic	An inability to overcome emotional impulses with rational thoughts.

Triad of Inner Strength

The Fellowship, in Ultima VII, followed the Triad of Inner Strength, consisting of three rules:

Strive For Unity
Trust Thy Brother
Worthiness Precedes Reward

Killorn Keep

In Ultima Underworld II, the inhabitants of Killorn Keep -- a parallel universe to Britannia -- observe the Guardian's eight virtues:

Sobriety
Punctuality
Obedience
Vigilance
Conformity
Efficiency
Silence
Diligence

References

^ "Inside Ultima IV", Computer Gaming World, pp. 18–21, March 1986{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

CODEX OF ULTIMATE WISDOM

The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom is a fictional book in the Ultima series of computer role-playing games. It first appeared in Ultima IV.

True to its title, The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom is the sum of all knowledge. When a reader opens the book, they are always able to read it, and can always find the exact piece of knowledge they needed - though this is not necessarily what they asked for, or what they wished they had found out.

The Codex appears to be a large leather and gold bound book. Emblazoned on the cover is the symbol of the Codex, a set of six lines and two circles arranged to touch three central circles in different manners. This symbol represents the eight virtues and three core principles of Britannian and Gargish virtue, which the Codex inspired.

The Avatar retrieved the Codex from the Great Stygian Abyss at the end of Ultima IV, thus completing the Quest of the Avatar and attaining his title.

In the games

The role of the Codex shifted through the series, from being a prize of enlightenment in Ultima IV, to a book of wisdom in Ultima V, to an object of conflict in Ultima VI.

The Codex was placed in the Ethereal Void at the end of Ultima VI. Though neither the Britannians nor the Gargoyles physically held the book, their leaders were each given a lens that could be used to read it.

The Codex went without appearing in Ultima VII and VIII, though the lenses were used to suck the Dark Core of Exodus into the void in Ultima VII's expansion pack.

In Ultima IX the Codex was mysteriously stolen from the void, and returned to the physical plane. Much of the game is spent chasing after the book and obtaining the lenses to read it.

The Codex Symbol

The Codex Symbol, colored

The symbol of the Codex in Ultima IV explains the relationship between Virtues and the Principles. Outside of the game, the symbol is typically shown in single color. The actual symbol is colored according to the following rules.

In the middle of the symbol, there are three circles, shown in blue, yellow and red; these symbolize the Principles of Truth, Love and Courage. The tangential lines are colors that are mixed from the colors that they touch, and each line touches the Principle circle the corresponding Virtue is based.

There are three lines that touch the Principle circles singly; these are Honesty (blue, based on Truth), Compassion (yellow, based on Love) and Valor (red, based on Courage).

There are three lines that touch two Principle circles; these are Justice (green = blue + yellow, Truth and Love), Honor (purple = red + blue; Truth and Courage), and Sacrifice (orange = red + yellow; Courage and Love).

In the middle of the symbol is a small white circle, the mix of all colors; this is the virtue of Spirituality, which is based on all three Principles.

Finally, surrounding everything is a black circle, absent of all colors; this is the virtue of Humility that exists independently of the Principles and is their foundation.

Game inconsistencies

Some have noted a continuity problem arising from the fact that players spend the entire game in Ultima IV following the virtues, meditating at shrines dedicated to them, and retrieving the Codex at the end. However, the events of Ultima VI imply the Codex's wisdom was used in the formation of both the Britannian and Gargish virtues.

In Ultima IX, the Codex was unreadable without the use of both the Britannian and Gargish lenses, and requires the Avatar to ask a question to the book. This seems to be contrary to its nature in previous games, where it was always readable without any special aid when the book was in Britannia. The lenses were supposedly only required to read the Codex while it remained in the void, and operated independently, not in tandem. The lenses were only used together previously when you wanted to throw something into the void. Ultima VII also seemed to imply that the Codex required both lenses to be read, but the facility to read the book was never implemented in the finished game, rendering the inconsistency moot.

These situations may be resolved however by understanding that the Codex was not created in Ultima IV, but merely allowed itself to be retrieved by the Avatar. Being an item of immense powers (magical and otherwise) it has its own history that spans many periods in time and many different worlds, and has continually adapted itself to fit its own needs towards shaping the universe towards its own goals.

External links

The Other Codex - Paulon Dragon's Ultima Hints and Solutions

fr:Vertu (Ultima)

Category:Virtue Category:Fictional books Category:Video game objects Category:Ultima

[CGW-1] "Inside Ultima IV", Computer Gaming World, pp. 18–21, March 1986{{citation}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

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