Ultimate Adventures

Ultimate Adventures

Ultimate Adventures is the Savage Empire game manual. It is 46 pages long, and it is written by Aaron Allston. The magazine lists the creators of the game as the magazine staff. Some of this book’s information is used for copy protection and is needed when speaking to Intanya.

Description

The manual is written like a pulp magazine, similar to those of the early 20th century. Several of the articles appear to be written by game characters, such as the Avatar, Dr. Rafkin and Jimmy Malone. It contains numerous articles based upon Eodon, and is written tongue-in-cheek. This is especially noticeable on the second-to-last page, where Aiela models the Wild Basin Expedition t-shirt. The final section about the return of the Wild Basin Expedition actually shows photos of the Origin staff in safari outfits, including Richard Garriott.

Book Content

The following topics are part of the book:

• The story of the game
• The tribes of Eodon
• Weapons
• Creatures of Eodon
• Totems
• The return of the Wild Basin Expedition

Other Editions

For the Japanese ports to various systems, the entire book was translated. Interestingly, the cover is totally different, sporting a newly drawn image. Content-wise however, it stays the same, with the exception of the removal of the t-shirt advertisement. The book also was fully translated to Chinese (Taiwan) and Korean, but with again vastly different covers. The Taiwanese edition also got retooled and is in a square format.

Surprisingly, the Japan-only SNES-port of Savage Empire does contain Ultima Adventures in a book combined with the manual. While being somewhat traunced with some sections removed, most of the content is present. Most interesting, all the original illustrations were actually colored, thus giving them a totally different feel compered to the monochrome original ones.

Alternate Covers

• 

  Japanese cover

• 

  Japanese Famicom cover

• 

  Korean cover

• 

  Taiwanese cover

Trivia

• There is some inconsistency between the story of the Avatar’s coming to Eodon in the manual and the story told in the actual game itself. The manual clearly states that the black gate that transported the entire lab to Eodon was caused by Dr. Rafkin’s experiments on the ruined moonstone sent to him by one of Spector’s former students. The game contradicts this by stating it was Rafkin’s experiments on the Avatar’s Orb of the Moons that created the Black Gate. According to the manual, the Avatar only showed the Orb of the Moons to Rafkin, then pocketed it while Rafkin got to work on the ruined moonstone.
• The shots for the return of the Wild Basin Expedition, featuring the entire game team, were done in an interior yard of Origin headquarters, which already looked jungle-like. In the unprocessed photos, the walls of the building are clearly visible, revealing the true dimensions of the yard.

Gallery

• 

  Photo of the Wild Basin Expedition shot

• 

  Photo of the Wild Basin Expedition shot

External Links

• Ultimate Adventures (PDF)
• Ultimate Adventures (PDF) – high quality
• Ultimate Adventures (PDF) – Japanese edition
• Ultimate Adventures (PDF) – Japanese Famicom edition

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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)

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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)