Ocean Travel with a Boat
Before we take our trip to the next station in this plot railroad, I wanted to take a step out of the normal fabric of time to discuss several important elements of Ultima 9 that we are introduced to in Buccaneer’s Den. Those are your new Companion Raven, her boss Samhayne (who plays some significant roles in the overall plot), and the last major mechanical system in U9: Ocean Travel – by boat not the other way with 8 loaves of bread, 3 staves, and infinite casts of the Gust spell.
Raven the COMPANION
While the major Companions from prior Ultimas do make an appearance in U9 and even contribute significantly to the plot (with one annoying exception – poor Gwenno); many of the less principal companions are absent from Britannia completely. In fact, few NPCs from prior Ultimas make a return in this penultimate finale to the Trilogy of Trilogies. While some of this can be explained by yet another 200-year time gap (stated only once in the entire game by the way), this still leaves the experience of Ascension feeling a bit hollow. Traveling Britannia with your oldest friends for one final adventure is a sorely missed feature in Ultima 9. You don’t even get to talk with your Companions extensively in game; and I mean either directly or through their regular, unsolicited, yet dearly absent commentary.
Despite this, it cannot be said that the Avatar is alone in his journey. A new Companion has joined the Compantheon: the tough Pirate Action Girl Raven. Raven mostly spends her time on the boat, but she does provide lots of plot-related dialogue as well commentary on your current situation at various points. Actually, Raven has by the far the most dialogue of any NPC in the game – believe me, I compiled the transcript for Ultima IX on the Ultima Codex wiki. Seriously, her dialogue rivals that of whole towns.
As a Companion, Raven’s main role is to drive sail you around in her ship: the Silver Hart. In fact, she doesn’t even have the ability to fight in the game; those daggers are purely for show. Despite this, she does engage with the Avatar quite often during various segments of the game.
You first meet Raven when she rescues you (via cutscene) from Blackthorn. The cutscene is a bit rough actually, which appears to be one of the later ones made – maybe it was rushed. The Wyrmguard that ambushes the Avatar gets instakilled by a single dagger – yikes. Then she manages to throw a dagger at Blackthorn’s face, hitting him in the eye. Somehow this leaves Blackthorn blind in one eye.
Geez, Raven, where did you get those daggers? The Nazgul.
Raven, who appears to be stronger than the Avatar, is rather skeptical of your identity. I mean who else looks … this joke has been redacted for overuse … So Raven, do you really think Blackthorn doesn’t know who the Avatar is?
Anyway, she says she has to be sure, so whatever. In any case, you can prove your identity by getting the Rune of Compassion, which means figuring out this Shrine Cleansing business and completing the first segment of the game’s plot. This train doesn’t leave the station until everyone is on-bound. Toot-toot!
Raven takes us to her employer Samhayne in Buccaneer’s Den. Raven does have some dialog before you meet Samhayne, which actually clues the player in that they don’t need to go straight to him. Raven is also involved in the subplot to find the Guild’s word of passage for their special (and rather useless) tunnel to New Magnicia – more about this later. I will give kudos to the plot designers in having not one or even just two, but three ways to go about getting the password. Talking to Raven is certainly a very sensible option given she probably is with the Guild. There is also finding the password on a note in one of the pirate homes. And there is asking around town. Once you have the password, Raven will remain with the ship until you cleanse the Shrine of Humility … on New Magincia… yeah, another massive change in the game world without explanation.
Once the Shrine is cleansed, Raven will be waiting for the Avatar with Samhayne and Blackthorn at Samhayne’s manor. She will later explain that they had no choice but to betray the Avatar due to Blackthorn threatening Buccaneer’s Den. Really, it just seems like the devs ran into a problem with fitting cutscenes made from different game plots. I’ll discuss the Betrayal part in another article as that deserves a rather more involved discussion than a single paragraph.
Raven will later come to Deceit to rescue the Avatar and apparently go through parts of the dungeon somehow missing the Avatar. She keeps your backpack and leaves the Avatar with nothing. There is a just a note left next to the Deceit entrance – which is very very easily missed by most players. I imagine many players end up cleansing the Shrine of Honesty and then have no idea where to go to next. I suppose they just end up back at the docks and see a ship there.
At the docks, Thou Must Forgive Raven in order to move on with the plot. Then somehow over the next two segments of the game, the Avatar develops feelings for Raven. Quite a shift from the earlier Betrayal. Something to keep in mind though is that the Avatar and Raven do spend many hours together in-game. You thought that fade-to-black was just for map transitions. During each journey, four hours have passed in-game. Still, this love angle to their relationship should be discussed in more detail in its own segment in a later article.
Next up in the game, the Avatar can go to Minoc or Yew by way of Britain. Despite being given the option of two places to go (Minoc and Yew), if the Avatar goes to Britain and walks away from the boat, Raven will be captured by Vasgralem and you are locked into rescuing her and completing the Justice plot. Since Britain is probably your hub and your main location for spell binding, traveling to Britain locks you from getting back to Moonglow for reagents and spells.
Alternatively, if you travel to Minoc/Cove, you can still take the ship to other locations. Interestingly, if you get the Orb of the Moons and use it while Raven is in prison, the boat will appear at different towns anyway. I’ll briefly talk about the Orb during the Sacrifice plot segment.
After her significance in the Justice segment, Raven doesn’t contribute much to the Sacrifice plotline. At this point, Raven and the Avatar trust each other enough for joint control of the Silver Hart and entrance into the Guild and possibly more. However, the Guardian decides to be a third wheel and drives the pair to Terfin instead – how cozy. Here, the Avatar learns that Samhayne is Raven’s father plus lots more important plot information. After revealing Samhayne’s paternal position and death, Raven is clearly distraught implying she was well-bonded to the man as a father figure, anyway.
The dialogue here does get a little odd given the circumstances. Raven goes back to being somewhat chipper about what she can provide the Avatar while also looking to bed the Avatar. The implication is that this connection is borne from a growing and genuine love between the pair. We are thus left to view the tryst as not a conquest on her part nor simply a strong desire for connection after the death of someone so close. The dialogue and plot weren’t given much time to be written let alone edited, so much of what we see should be viewed in simple terms. There is more that I will discuss in another article, but I will just add here that both Raven and the Avatar would be feeling very vulnerable and exposed at this point in the plot. The burgeoning connection could thus explode in such a situation.
Raven continues to help by playing a less significant but helpful role in the Valor and Spirituality plots of the game, which both require lots and lots of ocean travel. Raven will also be the final Companion and last surviving character in the game to see the Avatar before his ultimate sacrifice and Ascension. In my opinion, her mechanical value in Ultima IX, her constant presence in the Avatar’s quest, and her significance to the plot and to the Avatar thus warrant her inclusion into the Companions of the Avatar.
Ship Travel
Speaking of ocean travel, the Ship Travel system in Ultima IX is a bit simple, but it is functional (when it doesn’t cause a graphics crash) in terms of design. There are two methods by which you can travel the “high” seas. First, you can tell Raven to take you to one of the plot available docks in the game. The second option lets you take control of the vessel, itself. This option, however, doesn’t become available until much much later in the game following the Avatar’s second (first in-game) visit to Terfin in U9. Once you reach this point in the plot, the ability to travel anywhere in the game world won’t break anything too significant. You can visit Skara Brae and start to deal with Shamino or even travel to the Isle of the Avatar. While the plot scripting won’t be broken, you do start to break the plot narrative a bit. At least, you can’t visit the ruined Skara Brae before the Terfin visit. That would be really awkward.
While Raven is available to take you to any allowed location even before cleansing the local shrine, there are many times in which you are landlocked in the game. The first time is after you have been taken to Buccaneer’s Den at which point Raven hasn’t joined you as a companion. Once you cleanse the Shrine of Humility, Raven isn’t on the boat and is instead waiting for you in Samhayne’s manor. After your imprisonment in Deceit, you find that Raven isn’t waiting for you at the docks either. After cleansing the Shrine of Honesty, Raven and the Silver Hart are finally at the docks – what a coincidence. You are finally able to travel to a handful of locations with the ship. Unfortunately, if you go to Britain, you will again be landlocked. Then there is that visit to Terfin and afterward at Buccaneer’s Den you have to get the sea charts and either accept or deny entry into the Guild. Hmm… who is the party leader here?
Driving the Boat
When you finally have access to the ship, 5/8s of the game is complete. Once you have the boat, you can explore beyond just the docks areas. Controlling the vessel is quite simple following Ultima IX’s intuitive interface design – why Gothic 1 didn’t take inspiration from U9’s interface, I’ll never know.
Clicking on the ship when off of it, pops you onto the boat. This is quite useful if you are in the water or on a sandbar or just can’t simply jump onto the ship itself. Clicking the ship when on the vessel, transfers control of the ship to you and transfers the camera to the ship. Movement controls work the same way as for the Avatar including going sideways, though the speed is really slow for the motion. Turning is handled in the same way as well. If you hit the spacebar, you fire the forward cannon. If you wish to change from the overhead view (which can cause crashes or weird graphics problems), you use press the k-key to go to first-person mode – yes, the game can be played first-person (outside of conversations/cutscenes). Heck, you can zoom way out for overhead 3rd person view with either the ship or the Avatar.
The slow speed does make travelling to places time-consuming, which is surprising given the small game world. The small game size also means that there is little to explore or find when travelling by ship. Still, there are a handful of things to find by ship travel: the ruins of Serpent’s Hold, some unexplained underwater city ruin with a training book, and a couple of tiny islands with goodies on them.
Overall, the ship system is functional yet underdone in terms of capability. The biggest failing is the lack of content to make the ship a valuable in-game feature. The slow speed is rather annoying, but almost understandable given the game size. To be fair to Ultima IX, the Ultimas have not been seafaring adventures. The ships have mostly been an alternative to travel with combat being an extension of the systems already used throughout the games. Rarely, have the game worlds included islands just there to be found and explored. Each island beforehand has contributed in some way to the major plot of the game even in Ultima 6 where islands were places to find the pieces of eight (map pieces). I’d rate Ship Travel in U9 a C.
Samhayne – Ally or Enemy
Lastly, we will talk about Samhayne. Samhayne is a businessman who focuses on shipping goods throughout Britannia. How this is possible to maintain with the whirlpools seemingly be a disastrous problem for 20 years is not clear. The man is the head of the Guild, which is supposed to specialize in illegal goods and smuggling. Okay, so there is Serpent Venom, but what other goods are there to sell illegally? How is piracy a major occupation after years of shipping problems and with the Guild/Samhayne seemingly being the most profitable and successful of the shipping businesses in Britannia? There aren’t even indications of other shipping operations. I suppose we just need to pretend that there is much much more going on in Britannia than we get to see in the game itself. You could say the same about previous Ultimas too, but at least, in those games you could see hints and representations of a larger world and economy.
Anyway, Samhayne runs an organization that includes pirates and is responsible for the Serpent Venom selling and the loss of Serpentwyne production. None of this sounds like the markers of a good man. He also shows signs that he has left a number of children in his wake, but at least, he takes care of those kids when he becomes aware of them. Hardly a marker of a moral or ethical individual. We also gain hints to the level of aggression and violence that the Guild is capable of throughout the game. While the head of an organization is not entirely at fault for the actions/methods of his subordinates, the way he leads and disciplines them as well as the rules he imposes are his responsibility. He also has to know the activities of the kind of people he employs. We are thus left to conclude that Samhayne is not altruistic or virtuous and he says something to this effect in conversation. Interestingly, given the dialogue and morality in Ultima IX, Samhayne is probably most grey character there is.
Any desire to help the Avatar or improve the situation in Britannia comes from a place of supporting his business interests and his own people. Though I’m not entirely sure with these whirlpools that he cares much about the lives of his subordinates; especially if the whirlpools have been a problem for 20 years. We can place him in the category of ally of convenience. We will discuss his betrayal with another article but let me just point out that he probably views the Guardian/Blackthorn as untrustworthy and dangerous foes to handle with care.
With the next article, we will do a deep dive into Buccaneer’s Den. This town is one of the larger ones with multiple elements to find and explore at different points in the game. As a result, the next article will also draw from across the game’s plot. We will discuss exploration in terms of Ultima IX, the city of Buccaneer’s Den both past and present, and take a deeper look at the Guild as an organization.
