Toggle Background Color
Prologue: The Fall of Fevrith
Opening Cinematic
Now let’s begin the cycle anew…
The Fall of Fevrith
…we go straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Onto a castle besieged…
I beg you, my queen. Take leave of this place while you’re still able.
To where, I might ask? Nigh every last of Cornia’s lords has forsaken us in favor of the traitor Valmore. No refuge remains for a crowned fugitive. Yet the general seeks my death, and mine alone. I shall not flee from that fate.
Take him, Josef, Raise that delicate seedling into a sturdy tree capable of weathering the harsh climes that await.
Hold it close to you until Alain is a man grown. He will have need of the power it bears.
My queen, I…
Are they coming for us?
Heed well these words, Alain. I say this not as your mother, but as your queen. From here forth, you’re to treat Josef’s command as though it were spoken directly with my tongue. Do you understand?
Of course, but… Is there something amiss?
Farewell, and may the heavens guide you.
Why are you just standing there, Josef? Aren’t you going to help her?
Would that I were able, my prince.
Come. We’ve not a minute to spare.
You’ll find my head not so easily parted from my shoulders, Valmore. I wonder if you can say the same.
Come, everyone. We march this day for Her Majesty Ilenia!
And with that, the unit assembles, with Ilenia as its leader.
You select your unit and then a destination to move the unit toward, whether it’s an empty piece of dirt right next door or an enemy unit on the other side of the map. The game will then automatically map out your unit’s path. In this case, Ilenia’s unit will reach Valmore’s to the south by way of the west.
Your units will be detected by whatever enemy unit’s range you walk into as soon as you do so, and will have to fight any enemy units they come across en route to their target. Now, Ilenia has a full unit of 5 and is engaging an enemy unit of 3. Now for the first battle of the game…
As you just saw in painstaking detail, battles in UO are a back-and-forth between two units until either has been annihilated, or until units have exhausted their Action Points (the red diamonds) and Passive Points (the blue diamonds). So each individual battle would take up a ton of screens, and this would make every update unreadably long for large maps with high enemy density and where both the player and the enemy have 5 characters per unit, for every unit! Once we’re out of tutorial mode I’ll be showing particular highlights or what certain characters are capable of, or just general method behind my madness.
After beating that first enemy unit, Ilenia’s unit’s stamina drops from 6 to 5, and she continues on the path to Valmore, effortlessly eviscerating another scrub squad on the way.
And since this is our last opportunity to do so: let’s take in these names, the loyal few who were the last to stand by Ilenia as Cornia fell. The queen herself has a huge death flag waving over her head, but who knows? Perhaps this isn’t the last we’ll see of the rest of her entourage. Anyway, once Ilenia’s unit reaches Valmore’s…
Enlighten me, Valmore. To what end do you seek to usurp my throne?
Self-centered fool. It’s not merely your throne I aspire towards–it’s all of them. Zenoira are the rightful sovereigns of Fevrith, and I, the blade to restore our world to its natural order.
You seek to plunge the continent into war? Hmph. Fevrith need not suffer your delusions.
A proper ruler demands unity, not pointless politicking with insufferable neighbors. Now… I shall achieve that unity through conquest, and reclaim that which is rightfully mine.
Preordained or no, let’s not forget the point of Ilenia’s last stand:
I promise you, my queen, the royal lineage shall endure. ‘Tis but a great shame I couldn’t aid you further…
Ilenia 
and that sure is an evil wizard villain we have here
And yet our work only just begins. We stand now at a new dawn for Fevrith. One which will see Zenoira’s dominion restored at last. Curious, though, that we’ve no trace of the old knight’s captain.
About that, my lord. A lone cavalry unit was spotted riding through the eastern gate before it was barred.
…Then the boy is lost to us, a truth obscured only by his mother’s futile attempt at a counteroffensive. It would seem I underestimated her penchant for deception.
stood unshirking as the shield to her son Alain’s safe flight–
and mustering what meager forces remained by her side, she rallied a defense as valorous as it was damned.
Embers of resistance burned on,
yet the downtrodden could cling only to furtive hopes of liberation–
desperate prayers which fell upon deaf ears night after unceasing night.
This all seems pretty bad tbh! What will our runaway prince, now in his late teens, do about it?
…Follow and find out!