The First Age of Darkness

The book "Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness" was packaged with the re-release of Ultima I and the Ultima Trilogy I II III compilation. Written by Dave Albert, within the text an unknown Sosarian is credited for his contributions. It is 39 pages long.

The original release of Ultima I contained a completely different manual: Playbook, which held little lore and was more an instruction booklet. With The First Age of Darkness, the re-released Ultima I builds a neater bridge between the original game and its sequels by greatly expanding the story from an in-game perspective. The lore of the world was vastly expanded with this new book (changing the before only rudimentary existing story to a more deeper plot) and it contains numerous completely original illustrations, most of which are never seen in other books.

The book was later re-printed in the Trilogy Manual with no changes, apart from removing the ornamental page borders.

Book Content
The book contains the following topics:


 * Introduction


 * Races and classes


 * Shops and facilities


 * Inside the Dungeons


 * Starwalking


 * Magic


 * Bestiary

Trivia

 * Trinsic and Jhelom are mentioned within the manual, while neither of these locations are actually available in-game.