Memoirs of Sir Cabirus
Memoirs of Sir Cabirus comes with Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. It is 30 pages long. In-game, Corby, the scribe of Sir Cabirus, is the author of the book. In real-life, W.G. Armintrout has written the book.
Description[edit]
Dictated by Sir Cabirus to Corby many years before the events of Ultima Underworld, his memoirs were designed to portray the Abyss colony in a positive light. The book does read a bit like an advertisement brochure where Cabirus waxes about the positives, but neglects to mention the negatives about which the Avatar later learns. The final pages of the work, written by Joye the Librarian, suggest that the colony had broken down after Sir Cabirus's death, and warns travellers to avoid the dungeon, for communication had been lost many years ago.
One the cover, the runic in the border lists the Eight Virtues, though on the bottom the writing still goes left to right, while the letters are correctly flipped vertically. Strangely, Honesty, Compassion and Valor are repeated, instead of listing the principles of Truth, Love and Courage.
Book Content[edit]
The following topics are part of the book:
- The proclamation
- History of Britannia
- Inhabitants of The Abyss
- The classes
- Runic Magic
- Bestiary
- Afterword
Other Editions[edit]
The European editions of the book are in a somewhat smaller format and the paper is more glossy. The Polish translation of the book was included in that country's package. The translations to French and German were only done for the Underworld Series, and only in PDF format, thus no hardcopy versions of the book in these languages exist. The German translation of the book is seen as very poor, as it manages to get many of the facts and terms of the Ultima-universe wrong. The translation of all later manuals would have much higher quality.
The book also was fully translated to Korean and Chinese (Taiwan), but the covers are totally different. The books for the various Japanese versions got fully translated and also have the correct cover, though with paler colors.
For the PSX-port of Ultima Underworld, the book was heavily reduced into a booklet. Besides being written in Japanese, it now only contained the most important facts and little more than that.
Alternate Covers[edit]
Japanese cover
The booklet of the PSX-port
Taiwanese cover
Fan Versions[edit]
Sir John again translated Memoirs of Sir Cabirus to German. He was forced to translate the book from English, since the original German translation was next to unusable due to countless grammatical and content errors. Doing this correct translation, the names from the translations of Ultima V: Lazarus and The Ultima 6 Project (also done by him) were used for things like locations and people. Also, the gaffe with the reaper picture was fixed as well. The book is available on his page Die Heimstatt des Sir John.
Cover of the new Memoirs of Sir Cabrius
Section about the Abyss
Professions section
Trivia[edit]
- In the manual, when discussing reapers, a picture of a greer plant is shown instead. This error was repeated in The Book of Fellowship.
External Links[edit]
- Memoirs of Sir Cabirus (PDF)
- Memoirs of Sir Cabirus (PDF or text)
- Memoirs of Sir Cabirus (PDF) – high quality
- Memoirs of Sir Cabirus (PDF) – UK edition
- Die Heimstatt Des Sir John The German fan translation can be found here
| 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) |