Vasel
| Vasel | |||||
 Vasel, from Ultima VII Part Two | |||||
| Species: | human | ||||
| Appearances | |||||
| |||||
Vasel is a Serpent Islander who works as a custodian in the service of the Mad Mage, Erstam. He appears in Ultima VII Part Two.
Description[edit]
Vasel's account of his origins was rather fantastic. He claimed that he had been kidnapped from his parents and raised by an evil sorceress until such time as she was hanged for her various crimes; thereafter, he reported that he was employed briefly by a freakshow before being taken in by Erstam, who gave him the name 'Vasel' and employed him as an assistant in his various magical experiments into the nature of life and its creation.[1]
Vasel possessed a ghoulish sense of humor and would joke freely about Erstam's messy disposal of past assistants, who lay strewn about the mad mage's manor as animate body parts. He was emphatic, however, regarding his disgust for having to clean up after his predecessors.[2] If Erstam was nearby while the Avatar spoke to Vasel, the magician would upbraid, abuse, and threaten the servant. Eventually, however, the much maligned servant would let slip the secret of his employer's mastery of teleportation, revealing to the hero the significance of the magician's serpent jawbone.[3][4]
In the days following the cataclysmic release of the three Banes of Chaos, Vasel and his master numbered among the few denizens of Serpent Isle to remain unaffected by the unfolding disaster wrought by the loosed Banes. At the time that the Avatar took leave from Serpent Isle, Vasel was still hale and well, having not yet met a fate similar to those of the assistants who preceded him.
Lore[edit]
| “ | When I arrived, I was greeted by a strange, twisted little man. His hunchback gave him a queer gait as he ambled down the dock. He greeted me and introduced himself as Vasel. He reported that his master was expecting me and bade me follow him. – from Balancing the Scales (Ultima VII Part Two)
|
|---|
Trivia[edit]
- Vasel appears to be an homage to the hunchbacked stock character who appears in various cinematic iterations of the Frankenstein story as an assistant to a scientist in the business of creating monsters. He bears similarities to both Dwight Frye's character, Fritz, from the original 1931 Frankenstein and to Béla Lugosi's Ygor in the 1939 Son of Frankenstein. He also briefly mentions a penchant for eating insects,[1] which may be a nod to the classic horror character R. M. Renfield from both the novel and film Dracula.
- "Vasel" is an anagram for "Slave" whereas "Erstam" is an anagram of "Master."
References[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Vasel. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "master, orphan, What art thou called?".
- ↑ Vasel. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "housekeeping, other assistants, Why hate cleaning?, Why so much cleaning?".
- ↑ Erstam. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "teleportation".
- ↑ Vasel. Paul Carr’s Ultima transcripts. Ultima VII Part Two. "teleportation".