Nystul

Nystul is Lord British's royal magician, and long served as one of his close advisers. He is a powerful mage, and like many sorcerers of his caliber he appears to have a slightly slower rate of aging than most Britannians.

Age of Enlightenment
Nystul was first seen in the capacity of court magician during Ultima VI. In the wake of Lord Draxinusom's attempt to summon the Avatar to their death upon a sacrificial altar, it was he who first learned of the hero's peril through the mystic arts - prompting Lord British to send Iolo, Shamino and Dupre to the trapped hero's rescue. After the harrowing battle against the enraged gargoyles which followed the Avatar's deliverance, Nystul continued to assist the champion of legend in their efforts to end the gargish war, directing them to seek Mariah's assistance in translating the Book of Prophecies. Eventually, when the misunderstandings at the crux of the conflict were deciphered and their eventual solution enacted by the hero in the banishment of the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom to the Void, Nystul was among those present to see the momentous occasion of Lord British and Lord Draxinusom's accord.

Age of Armageddon
In the two centuries that followed the peace with the gargoyles, the once sharp-witted magician fell prey to the ethereal waves distorted by the Guardian's machinations, suffering memory loss and senility as his magically-attuned psyche attempted to cope with the interference. By the time the Avatar encountered the once great wizard in Ultima VII, Nystul had been reduced to a pathetic state, forgetting even his own name in the wake of the psychic assault.

Eventually, the tetrahedral generator responsible by the distortions was destroyed by the hero's efforts, and Nystul regained his former mental faculties. As if to make up for lost time, the newly restored mage set to working penning an extensive and ambitious chronicle of Britannian history, zoology, philosophy and magical theory over the year that followed - delving into the arcane study of runic magic and other occult systems as he worked on potential defenses against the onslaught of the Guardian.

Such works, compiled in a document titled A Safe Passage Through Britannia would later prove an unexpected boon when the magician, and a numerous of other notables, found themselves imprisoned within a blackrock gem of the Guardian's contraction during a celebratory festival in Ultima Underworld II. In this dire situation, Nystul's expertise proved invaluable in breaking the spell which imprisoned the revelers. His theoretical knowledge allowed him to treat the variety of smaller gems the Avatar collected in their journeys to other planes, and to furthermore decipher the spell book of the red titan's champion, Mors Gotha. Eventually, at the conclusion of the ordeal, it was Nystul who performed the incantations which broke the blackrock dome in conjunction with the Avatar's sounding of the Horn of Praecor Loth.

Sadly, after such a display of heroism on the aged sorcerer's part, records of his involvement in Britannian history have nothing to say, and come the time of the Avatar's eventual return to the dark Britannia of Ultima IX, no trace remained of the once-famed wizard. The only hint as to Nystul's fate lies in a taunt issued by the Guardian during the Avatar's exile in Pagan, where the malevolent entity claimed that "Nystul [sent] his best." Given the Guardian's penchant for deception, however, it cannot be ascertained if he was ultimately responsible for the mage's downfall, or if Nystul simply succumbed to the weight of his years in the interim before the hero's return.

Trivia

 * Nystul's counterpart in reality is Mike Nystul, a table-top role playing game author who lent his name to a unique magical spell in  Dungeons & Dragons: Nystul's Magic Aura. Freelancing throughout the 1980s, Nystul was co-writing the manual for Origin's 1989 RPG, Knights of Legend, at the time Ultima VI was in development, leading to his inclusion as a character within the game.


 * Nystul is the author of a book on the topic of Runic Magic known as On the Properties of Runestones.


 * In Ultima Underworld II, Nystul offers training in the Casting and Mana skills.


 * In Runes of Virtue II, Nystul is responsible for summoning the Avatar to Lord British, that they might fight against the Black Knight. He also tells the hero about a magical chalice in the Cavern of Selfishness that restores health.


 * Nystul was to have been mentioned briefly in the canceled Ultima VIII expansion, The Lost Vale, as having managed to pierce the Guardian's veil of magic encompassing the world of Pagan and send a message from Lord British to the Avatar.


 * In a fan-made dialogue patch for Ultima IX, a mage in Valoria becomes Nystul.

Goods
For Nystul's prices for spells and reagents in Ultima VII, see Ultima VII Magic Shops.