The Book of Mystic Wisdom

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The Book of Mystic Wisdom

The Book of Mystic Wisdom is included with Ultima IV as a companion manual to The History of Britannia. It is 61 pages long and written by Dave Albert, fictionally as Lord British's court magician Philpop the Weary.

Description[edit]

The book details the mechanics of Britannian magic and its individual spells. The book appears in the introduction sequence of Ultima IV when discovered by the player's in-game counterpart, who for the moment shies from opening it for fear of its ominous appearance. The Book of Mystic Wisdom contains numerous full-page illustrations, including one to accompany each spell. Detailed casting instructions for each spell and many of the required reagents are covered, though apart from the reagents most of the content is flavoring. Metallic gold runic text is inscribed into the faux-leather cover, however some editions of the manual lack this embellishment.

Translated, the runic script framing the cover reads, "Being a compendium of the processes and effects of combining human will and natural forces as discovered and recorded by the greatest sorcerors [sic] since the beginning of time."

Book Content[edit]

Within, the following topics are described:

  • The reagents of magic
  • The 26 magic spells

Other Editions[edit]

There do exist different versions of this book. The release by the publisher U.S. Gold was printed on smooth, yellowish paper and the cover is just black on the same paper. The release for the Japanese MSX-computers was translated (it stayed content-wise the same) but the cover had the correct colors. The also Japanese release on the FM Towns got a totally different cover, but is content-wise like the original, apart from the translation. There also is a rare French release that combines both books and is fully translated.

For the Sega-port of Ultima IV, the book was somewhat shrunk down in size, but stays content-wise the same. Each of the three languages sports a different cover color (blue=English, red=French, yellow=German) and it was fully translated.

The book was later re-printed in The Age of Virtue manual. The book was compressed onto less pages, the full-page illustrations for each spell were shrunk down to fit beside the text and the illustrated page borders were removed.

Alternate Covers[edit]

  • Cover of the U.S. Gold release

  • Cover of the Japanese MSX-version

  • Cover of the English SMS-version

  • Cover of the German SMS-version

  • Cover of the French SMS-version

  • Cover of the Japanese FM Towns-version

External Links[edit]

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)
Ultima Console Games Manuals
Age of Darkness Ultima III (manual), (Hint Book)
Age of Enlightenment Ultima IV (NES) (manual) ☥ Ultima IV (SMS) (History of Britannia, Mystic Wisdom) ☥ Ultima V (manual) ☥ Ultima VI (Japan) (Compendium)
Age of Armageddon Ultima VII (Japan) (Fellowship)
Others Runes of Virtue (manual) ☥ Runes of Virtue II (manual) ☥ Underworld (Memoirs) ☥ Savage Empire (Ultimate Adventures)
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