A Question about Pagan the Beautiful and Ultima 8
I received an email from one Daniel, who had a question about Ultima 8, or rather about a particular depiction of its game world:
I saw this image, a map of all of Pagan (Ultima 8) on WtF Dragon’s page entitled “Pagan the Beautiful“. If you look between the Plateau and Fisherman’s Reef, there is a clearing with a pond and next to that is a tower up in the mountains and rows of Tenebraen guard in front of it. What is that and how does one get there? Just curious. This is one of my favorite games of all time and even today I still manage to discover things from time to time. Thank you for any help you could provide.
He’s referring to the area in the image above. Which is all well and good…but I’ve no idea what it is or how to reach it…if it even can be reached. I thought it might be Mythran’s abode, but as I recall that’s actually right in the middle of the Plateau area. So what this building is, and what purpose it serves (if any) I am at a loss to explain. I don’t even known if it exists in the game, and if so if it is at all accessible (with or without cheating).
The thing to remember about the “Pagan the Beautiful” maps is that the artist has connected them in ways that don’t necessarily match what is present in the game proper. Yes, the Plateau overlooks Fisherman’s Reef, but these are separate areas — separate maps — within the game; the interstitial space between them that is depicted in some Pagan the Beautiful images isn’t actually present in the game. And the same may be true of this building; that may just be artistic license.
Though, if so, it is a strange manifestation thereof.
So, I’ll turn the question over to the community: does anyone know what this building is, what purpose it serves, and if it can be reached (and, if so, by what means)?
I noticed those additions in Pagan The Beautiful maps. They do not appear to be in the actual game maps. There is also lots of filler tunnels to join the outdoor areas to the caves. As Kenneth suggested these were all individual maps that the player was teleported into. Many of them do not line up well. eg. walk from the Docks through central Tenebrae into west Tenebrae and then follow the wall south. The wall goes quite a bit to the south, much longer than you walked north from the Docks. Pagan The Beautiful expands the east and west Tenebrae areas over the Docks area.
I have been using those maps along with the Pentagram engine to look around the world to help with my Pagan Minecraft remake. The arrow and page up/down keys in Pentagram allow you to “fly” around the world very quickly to view all the areas of the map. For my remake I have had to add some filler space between the Docks and central Tenebrae. I’m not sure what to put in that space yet, maybe some more forest or ruins. To have a fully open world and not cut out any of the original areas it needs to exist.
There’s plenty of fake stuff on that Pagan map. I asked the creator about some of it myself a while back – a certain beach area that doesn’t exist in the actual game.
Pagan had a lot of areas removed from the game, so this doesn’t surprise me.