The Book of Lore

The Book of Lore

The Book of Lore is the manual for Ultima V. It is 54 pages long. In-game, many sources are provided as authors, and the book is mentioned throughout the hero's adventures in Britannia. In real-life, Richard Garriott, Mark Hamner, Paul Isaac, Stuart Marks, Steve Meuse, John Miles, Toshi Morita, Chris Roberts and Dallas Snell are credited for the book.

Description

The Book of Lore is presented as an in-character guide to the land of Britannia, giving a very detailed account of things the traveler has to know about the land. It touches upon many topics that were not discussed in previous or subsequent game manuals, such as for example the exact workings of the Great Council or celestial mechanics. The last page holds the Ethics of Blackthorn, which were enacted in-universe during Blackthorn's reign just days before the book would go into printing, and thus are a late addition – and a warning how things have changed in Britannia.

Translated, the runic script framing the cover reads as follows: "Being a complete compendium of Britannia from ancient times to date, recorded for the reference and enlightenment of people throughout the land."

Book Content

The following topics are part of the book:

• History of Britannia
• Terrain
• Government
• Shops
• Travelling guide
• The classes
• Transportation
• Cosmology
• Runescript
• Music
• Combat
• Weapons and armour
• Bestiary
• The Eight Virtues
• Magic and all its topics
• Ethics of Blackthorn

Other Editions

For the port to the PC-9801 in Japan by Pony Canyon, the entire book was translated – including the title itself. Content-wise however, it stays the same. The port to the FM Towns in Japan was done by Fujitsu, and in that port all manuals – including the Book of Lore – were combined into one book with a new cover, but nothing as of now is known of the contents.

The book was later re-printed in The Age of Virtue manual. While the text is the same, the book otherwise was altered significantly. The section headers – in the original drawn words – were replaced by simple text, a large number of illustrations were removed, others shoved together (especially the shop signs).

Alternate Covers

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  Cover of the Japanese PC-98 edition

• 

  Cover of the Japanese FM Towns edition

Fan Versions

For Ultima V: Lazarus, a fan Book of Lore was created in PDF-format, containing all the same information one would expect from such a book coming with an Ultima game. This fan-created version however does not try to emulate the looks of the original Book of Lore and in general looks somewhat poor concerning the quality of the illustrations.

• 

  Cover

• 

  PDF version professions

• 

  PDF version monsters

External Links

• The Book of Lore (PDF)
• The Book of Lore (PDF) – higher quality
• The Book of Lore (PDF) – Japanese edition
• Ultima V: Lazarus Game Manual (PDF)

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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)