Smith the Horse

Smith the Horse is, as the name says, a speaking Horse living in Iolo's stable at Yew. For a speaking horse, he has a real fable for sarcasm and tries to give useful hints. However, his hints, while crucial in their own way, are useless to the Avatar since they are always hints for the Avatar's previous adventure.

Smith first appeared in Ultima IV. Appearances in Ultima V, Ultima VI, Martian Dreams, Ultima VII and Ultima VII/2 followed. In the last appearance, he was sleeping, and woke up before he could give his hint in the dream world. Despite his strange personality quirk of being one game behind the times (or, perhaps, because of it), Smith is one of the more beloved NPCs among Ultima fans.

Trivia

 * The thing with the useless hint came up because Smith was supposed to give a hint in Ultima IV, but the programmers forgot to add it to his conversation tree. When designing Ultima V, they decided to put Smith back in the game, and as a joke have him give the hint he was supposed to provide in IV. Following that, it was a running gag in the series to make Smith one game out of synch.


 * In Ultima IV, Smith can be located with other horses in the Paws stables.


 * In Ultima IX a woman named Cleo in Prison Wrong who is being accused of killing all the horses, claims to be a friend to Smith, and says that he is in a tree near Paws. The Avatar was supposed to find Smith's body there, and upon returning to Cleo she would have given him an hint (which, in typical Smith fashion, related to Ultima VIII). However, while there are horses hanging around, none of them seems to be Smith, and the easter egg can not be triggered.