Ultima IX Map of Britannia

As with previous installments, a physical cloth map of Britannia was included with Ultima IX: Ascension for its original release. It was illustrated by veteran Ultima artist Denis Loubet.

Description
Compared with previous renditions, the map is highly detailed and varied, with a top-down oblique projection reminiscent of Ultima VI: The False Prophet's map of Britannia and Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle's map of Serpent Isle. As well as the usual shrine and moongate locations, the Guardian's eight columns are also indicated.

In itself, an identical map is supplied to the Avatar by Lord British during their first conversation in the throne room of Castle Britannia. While this may largely render the physical cloth map redundant as a navigational aid, the in-game map of Britannia is unavailable for a time after the Avatar's belongings are confiscated during imprisonment in Dungeon Deceit.

Source art
In December 2015, Loubet made the source image file publicly available at 50% resolution through Patreon. This file, however, is not the final print-ready design; while the cartography itself is as seen on the released map, a number of extra details such as the coordinates grid, various decorative illustrations, runic labels, and the main "Britannia" title are absent, while the border, although functionally complete, shows a different arrangement of the Virtue symbols than the final design. The file as released by Loubet can be found at his Patreon page, linked below.

Releases
The cloth map is identical in American and European copies of. However, releases in less prevalent gaming markets throughout Europe (such as Russia and Portugal) and elsewhere (China, Japan) did not include a cloth map; rather, it was made of paper. This also held true for later European releases after Origin had exhausted their supply of cloth maps. The original cloth map exhibits a cooler color temperature and higher contrast than the later paper version (seen below).