The Second Age of Darkness

The original Ultima II manual came packaged with the original releases of Ultima II. It is 18 pages long, and was written by Mary Taylor Rollo. The Ultima II manual includes backstory from Ultima I, and attempts to bridge the gaps between the early Ultima games where little backstory existed. Original printings of the Ultima II manual were in black and white, and contained a number of important gameplay and grammatical errors. A small card containing a list of important errors was included with the earliest releases. These were fixed in later printings of the manual.

The manual was later released as The Second Age of Darkness, and came packaged with the Ultima Trilogy I II III and later releases of Ultima II. It is 31 pages long. In-game, Lord British is the author of the book. The manual has been partially rewritten to remove slang, and goes out of character less often.

The following topics are part of the book:
 * The story so far...
 * Instructions
 * Bestiary
 * Transportation & terrain
 * Magic
 * Time travel
 * Space Travel