Forsythe

Forsythe is the ghost of a man who was once mayor of Skara Brae. The Avatar encounters him in Ultima VII.

Description
Forsythe was mayor during the time of the wizard Horance's transformation into a liche. When the newly undead magician turned the dead of the settlement against the town, the still-living citizens of Skara Brae banded together in an attempt to stop him. Mordra, a powerful magic user who acted as the local healer, concocted a plan to strip Horance of his powers of undeath. She gave Forsythe a list of ingredients for a magical potion which was to help her in this cause, instructing the official to give the instructions to Caine, the city's alchemist, that he might produce the needed mixture.

Unfortunately, Forsythe forgot the correct proportions for the brew, telling the poor alchemist to use several thousand times more mandrake essence than the recipe called for. As a result of this misstep, Caine's attempts to craft the potion created a massive conflagration, razing Skara Brae and killing all within it. Caine, convinced that the error had been his, went mad with guilt, imagining himself forever afterward to be caught in the flames which had destroyed the city.

When the Avatar came to the ruins of Skara Brae, Forsythe was initially afraid of the hero, mistaking them for one of the liche's minions as he hid in the remnants of the city hall. Once the frightened spirit recognized the champion of virtue, however, the dead mayor mistakenly deduced that they had been sent by Lord British to defeat Horance, and matter-of-factly asked the Avatar how long they thought the mission would take, doing his best to affect a demeanor of professionalism despite the absurd circumstances.

The hero did, in fact, eventually manage to undo the magics that made Horance a liche, and thus freed the ghostly populace of Skara Brae from bondage to him, but in doing so the hero learned that the magician had bound up many spirits not free to roam the earth in a construct known as the Well of Souls - and that to destroy it, a ghost of the island would have to sacrifice themselves, erasing their consciousness from all metaphysical existence that the device might be destroyed. Forsythe, believing that somebody else would take up the burden, agreed to undertake this task should no other volunteer be found.

After interviewing every other soul on the island, however, the Avatar found no one willing to go to such an extreme. Forsythe, realizing he must honor his word, resigned himself to his fate, and followed the hero to his final end, hoping that his sacrifice would in some way atone for the mistakes he made as a living man.

Trivia

 * After he briefly joins the player's party en route to the Well of Souls, other ghosts will react to Forsythe's presence in their dialogue. His conversations with Mordra and Paulette are particularly amusing.