Linguistic Dragon has begun his playthrough of Savage Empire, and has published some opening thoughts about the game:

Released in 1990, mere months after Ultima VI itself, Savage Empire was the first in a sadly short-lived spin-off series, giving the Avatar further adventures outside of Britannia. While having little to do with the main series, being only tangentially related at best, they’re referenced enough by other games that it’s fair to accept them as canonical. This first entry transplants the Avatar from the medieval-esque world of Britannia into the Lost World-style Valley of Eodon, populated with numerous and varied tribes, prehistoric beasts, and dinosaurs.

My previous experience with Savage Empire isn’t particularly extensive. I’ve mentioned before the problems that I’ve had in the past with Ultima VI’s engine, and the fact Savage Empire is basically that with a new coat of paint didn’t help with my enjoyment. In addition, while it’s neat to see the series’ take on other genres, I’m not overly fond with the lost world-type stories. I mean sure, I had something of an interest in dinosaurs when I was a kid, but as a genre… eh. I’m not sure why it’s never really clicked that well with me – and that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy a well-told story in that style either – but that coupled with the fact that steampunk very much is a genre I like, and, well, I always found myself favoring Martian Dreams over Savage Empire when I got the hankering to give the Worlds of Ultima games a whirl. But while the game itself hasn’t held as much interest for me as compared to its subsequent entry – the manual.

Oh man, the manual.

It’s worth noting that you can find some of the images used in the creation of the Savage Empire manual — scans of the original photographs, that is — in this gallery which I should really get around to moving off of the Savage Empire subdomain at some point.

Anyhow, Linguistic didn’t get too far into the game in this first sesssion, but he did manage to create his character:

Last order of business was character creation, and I’ll admit it was nice to take another virtue quiz of sorts, albeit much abbreviated and modified slightly to stick with the theme. Only three questions this time around, and they’re phrased to feel more ‘tribal’ than medieval, but it’s good to see that the game continues the tradition of basing initial parameters for the player character by a series of moral dilemmas. Presented as a dream sequence that may not actually be dream, Intanya says he is working to heal you, but needs to know your spirit in order to do so. He asks three questions – in Aric’s case, he first asked whether he would disobey a chief’s directive to fight alongside his companions, and he most certainly would. Next he asked about a warrior who borrowed another’s spear, then did not return it. Upon finding said warrior’s own misplaced spear, Aric chose to give it to the one owed the spear. And when forced to decide whether to uphold an oath and protect his chief or break it and honestly reveal him as a murderer, he chose the latter option.

And this just in time for the Time of Legends release. Fitting!