Beyond the Serpent Pillars
Beyond the Serpent Pillars is included with Ultima VII Part Two and acts as the game's manual. It is 35 pages long and drawn upon as part of the copy protection, by having Thoxa and Fedabiblio ask questions about the book. In-game, Erstam is the author of the book, while in reality the scribe is Andrew Morris.
Description[edit]
The book is written from Erstam's point of view, and many of his personal beliefs, biases and opinions flow into the text. The history section at the very beginning of the book is a one-sided demonisation of Lord British for example, and his personal opinion and belief in magical superiority colors things like shops and weapons. The book should therefore not be taken as an authoritative narrative, especially in regards to the history of Sosaria; the readers have to be careful of what to believe and make their own conclusions by reading between the lines.
Book Content[edit]
The following topics are part of the book:
- Foreword
- Lessons of the Past
- Runescript and Ophidian alphabet
- A Guide for Travelers
- Shops, commerce and the classes
- Weapons and armour
- Bestiary
- Magic and its assorted topics
Other Editions[edit]
In the European editions, the book has a somewhat smaller format and was printed on more glossy paper while losing all the shades of red, being printed purely in monochrome. The cover image is different, too. The book also was translated to German, French and Spanish. The cover of the Spanish book is entirely black with white text (like The Book of Fellowship). The German book, unlike The Book of Fellowship, suffers from a translator that obviously was not familiar with Ultima-lore, additionally to not having German as a first language. The inconsistencies (even towards The Book of Fellowship), mistranslations and awkward sentence structure leave no room for other explanations.
The book also got translated into Chinese for Taiwan and into Korean. The Korean edition got a totally new cover, which imitates the re-designed game box, only in blue monochrome.
Later budget editions only got the book as a PDF, being notorious for the, even for 1995, poor quality of the scanned illustrations.
Alternate Covers[edit]
Cover of the Spanish book
Cover of the European edition
Korean cover
Fan Versions[edit]
Sir John again translated Beyond the Serpent Pillars, correcting the faults in the original German translation. However, the layout of that first new translation was somewhat bland and not optimal, while still containing errors of the original. In 2021, together with the language patch Ultima VII Part Two auf Deutsch, a second translation was done, this time Tribun Dragon proofread while also providing all the illustrations and page borders in high quality to re-create the original layout. This version actually holds more illustrations to compensate for the sometimes lacking original and both books got new covers.
The books coming with the patch have the lowest quality due to size issues. Sir John offers higher quality downloads on his page.
Cover of the new Beyond the Serpent Pillars
History section
Language section
Professions section
Magic spells section
External Links[edit]
- Beyond the Serpent Pillars (PDF)
- Beyond the Serpent Pillars (PDF & txt)
- Beyond the Serpent Pillars (PDF) – high quality
- Die Heimstatt des Sir John – fan page including fan-tanslated German manuals
| Ultima Game Manuals | |
|---|---|
| Age of Darkness | Akalabeth (manual) ☥ Ultima I (Playbook, manual) ☥ Ultima II (manual) ☥ Ultima III (play guide, cleric guide, wizard guide) |
| Age of Enlightenment | Ultima IV (History of Britannia, Mystic Wisdom) ☥ Ultima V (Book of Lore, journal) ☥ Ultima VI (Compendium) |
| Age of Armageddon | Ultima VII (Fellowship, Isle of Fire) ☥ Ultima VII Part Two (Serpent Pillars, Silver Seed) ☥ Ultima VIII (Chronicle) ☥ Ultima IX (Spellbook, journal) |
| Underworld | Underworld (Memoirs) ☥ Underworld II (Safe Passage) |
| Worlds of Ultima | Savage Empire (Ultimate Adventures) ☥ Martian Dreams (Red Planet, Time Travel) |
| Compilations | Ultima Trilogy I (Trilogy manual) ☥ Ultima Trilogy II (The Age of Virtue) ☥ Ultima Collection (Ultima Atlas) |
| Other | Shroud of the Avatar (Adventurer's Manual) |