Ultima V: Things I Discovered While Replaying

You can't even kill Blackthorn in bed.

As I noted in an edit to my last posting, I was able to find a backup of the saved game that I had made on September 1. This meant that I hadn't killed the Shadowlords, visited the dungeons, or explored the Underworld yet, but with the notes I had, these things ended up not taking as long as I thought--especially since I hex-edited my saved game so that my characters would have the same experience as when the file got corrupted. (Thus, the only thing I didn't have to re-do was the long "grinding" process.) I took the opportunity, while running around Britannia to solve the game again, to learn a few things I hadn't figured out in my initial play. Most of these involved reloading.

Q: What happens if you give Blackthorn the Mantra to the Shrine of Honesty?

A: He kills your companion anyway. I feel better about Shamino.


Then, when you visit the Shrine of Honesty, you find it destroyed. I'm not sure if there's a way to restore it.


Q: What happens if you get caught in Blackthorn's castle, but you don't have a companion for him to execute?

A: He just tosses you in his dungeon. The moral: the Avatar should work alone.


Q: How does Blackthorn treat you if you show up with the "black badge" of the Oppression?

A: Supposedly, he treats you nicely and the guards don't seize you. I didn't experience that--I got caught and thrown in jail just like before. Maybe it was because I had already killed the Shadowlords and stolen the crown.

[Later edit: As Claus notes below, you have to actually be wearing the badge. Then the guards let you pass (if you give the Oppression password) and Blackthorn is nice to you.]



Q: Can you kill Blackthorn, even with the glass sword, magic axes, invisibility rings, and the crown in effect so he can't summon daemons or cast spells?

A: Doesn't look like it. However, if you don the invisibility ring, Blackthorn flees from battle and the game tells you that you have achieved "VICTORY!" Blackthorn doesn't appear in his castle anymore, even if you leave and return. I don't know if this is permanent.


Q: What happens if you attack the Shadowlords?

A: I don't know why I didn't try this before. If you engage a Shadowlord in combat, first, he takes back the scepter. Then, you enter combat with your party members divided by magic fields (which you would need the scepter to dispel).


He's a little tougher than a daemon, but you can defeat him without too much trouble. The only problem is that when he gets "critical," he retreats to the center of the screen, where you can't hit him unless you have a pole-arm. I did, and was able to kill him (I used the glass sword just for the heck of it), but the game only tells you that he "vanishes." Later, he'll reappear in towns, or Stonegate, just as if you had never fought him.

Q: What if you're not on the magic carpet, and you fall down the trap doors in Stonegate?

A: You take a long fall to the center of the world, and everyone dies.


Q: What happens if you commit a crime (theft, murder, refuse to give guards their tribute) and "go quietly"?

A: You end up in jail in Yew, in a cell next to Jerone. You have all your equipment but no keys. However, you can cast an "unlock" spell or wait for Jerone's brother to show up at noon and ask him for keys.

I missed another opportunity to use the Avatar's trademark "SOD OFF."

Q: Are there any reasons to visit the shrines after you do the shrine quests?

A: You can meditate, and the shrines ask you to donate gold. If you choose to donate, the game says "ALAKAZAM!" and your karma, if it's less than 99, increases.

So basically I can just buy my way out of my crimes.

Q: What if you ruin your karma through theft and murder?

A: Lord British shows up at night and tells you to get your act together. But he still heals everyone first.

I don't want to tell you what I did to get this message. All the gold in the world donated to shrines shouldn't get me out of it.

Q: Can you ever get to the point where you can kill guards?

A: Aside from Lord Blackthorn, who is un-killable, guards have to be the toughest foes in the game. The have a devastating missile attack. IN VAS POR YLEM ("tremor") does virtually nothing against them, they're very hard to hit, and they attack in waves of 8. I was able to take them out with multiple "negate time" spells and invisibility rings, but only with significant losses. They hardly leave any treasure, and at 25 experience, they're not worth the time. Also, you lose 5 karma for attacking them.

I fought the law and the law won.

Q: What happens if you go to the Dungeon Doom before killing the Shadowlords?

A: You get lost in the darkness surrounding the dungeon. You don't move anywhere, and the only possible exit, as far as I can tell, is either to reload or, if you were unfortunate enough to save in the darkness, keep holing up and camping until your food runs out and you die. [Later edit: Okay, this might be a consequence of going without the Amulet. Now I'm not sure what happens if the Shadowlords are alive.]

The "locate" spell shows me at the same location even though I moved two spaces to the east.

At the end of a long day and a half of gameplay, my party was where it was before my game got corrupted: in the first room of the Dungeon Doom--with, apparently, no way back to the surface. I hope in my rush to get here, I didn't forget anything.

The scepter would be very helpful right now.