Filbercio

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Filbercio
Filbercio.gif
Filbercio, from Ultima VII Part Two
Species: human
Appearances
Ultima VII Part Two
Location: Moonshade

Filbercio is the MageLord of Serpent Isle’s city of Moonshade. He appears in Ultima VII Part Two.

Description[edit]

At the time of the Avatar’s adventures on Serpent Isle, Filbercio was Moonshade's reigning MageLord. Hailing from the city's most prominent bloodline of magicians,[1] he was noted to be a cunning politician, skilled at playing his fellow mages against one another.[2][3] His appointment as MageLord was somewhat controversial, and in an attempt to quell opposition, he established the Mountains of Freedom shortly after his rise to power. This magical dungeon, built within the confines of a former stoneheart mine, served as a prison for those who broke Moonshade's laws or who earned Filbercio's ire, although it was decreed that any who could survive them would be pardoned for their transgressions.

More so than his politicking, however, Filbercio was famous for his womanizing. At the time of the Avatar's arrival in Moonshade, Filbercio had taken the ice sorceress Frigidazzi as his paramour,[4] having recently discarded his former lover Rotoluncia, an adept with whom he had briefly rekindled a passionate affair begun when they were apprentices.[5] He was additionally rumored to have had an affair with Julia, the commander of the city's rangers, and he was in the midst of attempting to coerce Columna, the Green Enchantess, into a tryst with him, using a pair of her moonsilk stockings given to her by her lover Torrissio as blackmail material. This plan eventually failed, however, when the stockings were exchanged with the Avatar's blackrock serpent by one of the teleport storms plaguing the land. Outraged at this turn of events, Filbercio banished Stefano, the thief who had been commissioned to steal the stockings and in whose care they had vanished, to the Mountains of Freedom.[6] Furthermore, although he personally undertook such efforts to compel women to submit to his lusts, he did not suffer his fellow magicians to do the same, and sometime before the Avatar's landing on Serpent Isle, he exiled the adept Ensorcio to the mainland for the crime of casting some manner of fascination on a woman to attract her attentions.

After arranging an audience via Flindo,[7] the Avatar first met Filbercio after being teleported to the MageLord’s presence for a formal banquet. The subsequent festivities, however, were disturbed by an outburst from Rotoluncia, who held a grudge against the hero for refusing to give her knowledge of controlling daemons, and by the untimely arrival of Pothos the apothecary, who came bearing news that he had been unable to locate a sufficient cache of blood moss as Filbercio had requested. The meal ended abruptly following these disruptions, with most of the Council of Mages their taking leave and with Filbercio left fuming in light of Pothos' failure. Following this event, one of the Avatar's companions was abducted by Rotoluncia in an attempt to force the hero to reveal to her the information she sought. After conducting an investigation into the matter and searching Rotoluncia's mansion, the Avatar went to Filbercio, who revealed to them his past relationship with the sorceress and told them of a small retreat that he had built on an islet on the Lake of Enchantment for the purposes of bedding her. He bade the hero investigate, offering his personal yacht as transport, and they found both the their kidnapped friend and Rotoluncia there, the latter of whom was killed in the resulting confrontation.[8]

Later, the Avatar became the subject of Filbercio's wrath when discovered in Frigidazzi's bedchambers. Enraged, the MageLord convened the Council of Mages for an immediate trial and sentenced the hero to imprisonment within the Mountains of Freedom. While the hero managed, with the assistance of Stefano, to become one of the first prisoners to escape the dungeon, the Avatar would have no further interactions with Filbercio, who was absent from his palace, presumably having some manner of business or pleasure to attend to elsewhere. They would have opportunity to see him (or some simulacrum taking his shape) within the realm of dreams, where he could be seen suffering torture at the hands of the vengeful Ensorcio, but the next encounter the Avatar might have with the MageLord on the material plane would be to come upon his body following the release of the Banes of Chaos. Here, in the wake of Shamino the Anarch’s assault Moonshade, Filbercio's corpse could be found alongside Frigidazzi's in her bedchamber.

Lore[edit]

“ When we reached the palace, the guests had already begun to arrive. I was ushered into a huge banquet hall. At the head table stood a man who could only be Filbercio. His robes where lushly embroidered and he dripped gold jewelry. He greeted me with flowery language and bade me sit at his right hand.
...
Filbercio certainly had his share of that famous wine during the evening, and more than once I had to remove his wandering hand from my knee. He asked if I had yet found a place to stay in Moonshade. I told him I had. He smiled and leaned closer to me. "I have a lovely little place on an island in the middle of the lake, very — private. Perhaps thou mightest like to stay there." I politely declined, since I had already paid for my room at the Blue Boar Inn. He shrugged his shoulders and said if I changed my mind, his offer still stood.

Trivia[edit]

  • The model for Filbercio's character portrait is Ultima VII Part Two programmer, Phil Sulak,[9] who also provides the voice of the Order Serpent.
  • Filbercio is the author of Observations of Pain, a treatise on psychological torture.[10]
  • Should the Avatar speak to Filbercio while his automaton servitor is present, the construct will interject at some point to alert his master of some manner of business to which he must attend, causing Filbercio to teleport himself elsewhere. Speaking to Filbercio's automaton will reveal that the MageLord has enchanted his servant's feet such that it might not be heard approaching.[11]
  • Talking to Filbercio about his love life gives very different conversations, depending on the gender of the Avatar. A male Avatar will hear Filbercio's bragging and a description of his philandering ways, together with a subtle warning. Filbercio is more closed up to a female Avatar on that topic, instead implying she is interested in him, and then describes how Frigidazzi is an especially jealous woman.
    • There also is a difference in his laments after Rotoluncia's manor was searched. A male Avatar hears much more, while Filbercio wisely stays silent about most of it to a female Avatar.
  • Searching the belongings of Vasculio will reveal an artifact known as the "living scalp," which the undead magician apparently stole from Filbercio as revenge for having sentenced him to death.[12] According to the design documents for Serpent Isle, this item appears to have been planned as having carried some sort of curse, which Filbercio would be able, at some point, to assist the Avatar in dispelling.[13]
  • Should the Avatar ask Bucia about the slippers that a teleport storm exchanged for swamp boots without showing them to her, she will mistakenly believe them to be fine enough to be owned by a mage and will direct the hero to ask the magicians of Moonshade if any of them are missing a pair of slippers.[14] Should the Avatar present the slippers to Filbercio, he will grow irate at being questioned about his footwear and teleport away.[15]
  • The design documents also indicate that at one stage of the planning for Serpent Isle, Filbercio was meant to have survived the coming of Shamino the Anarch and to have been reduced to the position of street-sweeper in the new imbalanced order, and there exist unused lines of dialogue within the game's usecode in which characters mention his fall from grace and how the rest of the city's inhabitants have been forbidden to aid him.[16][17] Eager to get his throne back, Filbercio was to attempt to recruit the Avatar as an ally, giving the hero one of his serpent teeth as compensation for assistance.[18]
  • A description of Fibercio's character is also present in the documents, and it differs slightly from his portrayal in game. He is described as practical in politics, easily enthused when sure of his goals, and very proud of his hats. Also in the documents, it is mentioned that Filbercio has a daughter, and given the absence of other adepts with children, it is possible that this daughter might have been intended to be the woman seduced by Ensorcio.[19]
  • Both the design documents and pieces of unused dialogue within the usecode indicate that at one point it was intended that the Avatar would be able to given Columna's stockings to Filbercio in exchange for gems, although these jewels would turn out to be ordinary rocks which had been enchanted such that they looked valuable.[20][21]
  • All the inhabitants of Moonshade have Italian or pseudo-italian names. The name Filbercio is very similar to the Italian name Filiberto, a compound of "Filippo" and "Alberto", corresponding to the English "Phillip" and "Albert".

References[edit]

  1. ↑ Torrissio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "ruling family".
  2. ↑ Fedabiblio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "Filbercio".
  3. ↑ Melino. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "Filbercio".
  4. ↑ Filbercio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "life".
  5. ↑ Filbercio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "secret".
  6. ↑ Torrissio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "Stefano".
  7. ↑ Flindo. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "connections".
  8. ↑ Filbercio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "love palace, kidnap, Where is it?".
  9. ↑ Armintrout, Bill. Ultima VII Part Two: THE SERPENT ISLE – Moonshade Townplot (MOONSHAD.DOC) (Ultima VII Part Two). September 8, 1992. Page 18.
  10. ↑ Filbercio. Observations of Pain (Ultima VII Part Two – in-game).
  11. ↑ Automaton. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "servant".
  12. ↑ Vasculio. My records (Ultima VII Part Two – in-game).
  13. ↑ Armintrout, Bill. Ultima VII Part Two: THE SERPENT ISLE – Moonshade Townplot (MOONSHAD.DOC). September 8, 1992. Page 13.
  14. ↑ Bucia. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "slippers".
  15. ↑ Filbercio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "slippers".
  16. ↑ Flindo. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "fallen Filbercio".
  17. ↑ Ensorcio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "welcome".
  18. ↑ Armintrout, Bill. Ultima VII Part Two: THE SERPENT ISLE – Moonshade Townplot (MOONSHAD.DOC). September 8, 1992. Page 13.
  19. ↑ Armintrout, Bill. Ultima VII Part Two: THE SERPENT ISLE – Moonshade Townplot (MOONSHAD.DOC). September 8, 1992. Page 17.
  20. ↑ Armintrout, Bill. Ultima VII Part Two: THE SERPENT ISLE – Moonshade Townplot (MOONSHAD.DOC). September 8, 1992. Page 12.
  21. ↑ Torrissio. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "buy spells".
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