The Virtues

From the principles of truth, love and courage are born the eight virtues, an important and enduring aspect of the Ultima universe.

The Three Principles

Truth

Its home lies in the Lycaeum in Moonglow, the city of mages.
The book of truth stands for the Principle of Truth

Love

Has its home in the lush Forest of Yew at the Empath Abbey
The candle of Love represents that principle

Courage

Courage claims Serpents Hold as its home, hidden inside the deep walls of the keep
The bell of Courage rings for those brave warriors there

Together those 3 principles combine into one;
The Axiom of Infinity (represented by Castle Britannia) and form the eight Virtues of Ultima.

The eight Virtues

The Virtues are represented by Shrines inside Ultima online.

Virtue System:

To activate your Virtues simply double click your virtue Button, found at the top of the paperdoll in classic client or in a slot of the default hotbar in enhanced client:

Click on the icons on the gump in game to use the virtue.
Click on the links below the image to read about each virtue.

Compassion | Honesty | Honor | Humility | Justice | Sacrifice | Spirituality | Valor

 

Ankh Pendant:

The Ankh Pendant is a Virtue Artifact, obtained as a drop when hunting in the ‘anti-virtue’ dungeons, ie Covetous, Deceit, Despise, Destard, Hythloth, Shame, Wrong. Wear the pendant and chant the relelvant mantra at any of the eight shrines and receive a regeneration bonus.

Each principle is related to a regeneration statistic as follows:

• Truth – Mana Regeneration
• Love – Hit Point Regeneration
• Courage – Stamina Regeneration

Each of the shrines gives a unique combination of regeneration bonuses based on the virtue for that particular shrine. The bonus can only be activated once per day, it is not necessary to continue wearing the ankh once the bonus has been granted.

Compassion

Compassion is Love of others

Shrines of Compassion: Trammel, Felucca & Ilshenar

• Derived From: Love
• Anti-Virtue: Despise
• Original Class: Bard
• Original Home City: Britain
• Opposing Dungeon: Despise
• Mantra: Mu
• Color: Yellow
• Sigil: Heart of Compassion
• Rune: Heart
• Word of Power: Vilisz
• Companion: Iolo
• Ankh Pendant: +2 Hit Point Regen

The Virtue of Compassion

in Ultima Online

Virtuous Ability:

The reward for following the path of this Virtue is the ability to increase the amount of health another player receives upon their resurrection, as long as you are the one that resurrects them through the use of magic or bandages. Under normal circumstances, players only have one point of health when they are resurrected. With this ability, you can increase that amount up to 80% of their maximum hit points based on the level, or step, of Compassion you have attained.

• First step: Resurrected character returns to life with 20% of their maximum Hits.
• Second step: Resurrected character returns to life with 40% of their maximum Hits.
• Third step: Resurrected character returns to life with 80% of their maximum Hits.

This ability may be used as often as the player wishes, provided compassion points remain.

• Players who resurrect pets may restore a certain amount of the pet’s HP
• Up to 20% of the pet’s Max HP at 120.0% Veterinary and 120.0% Animal Lore
• Up to an additional 20% based on the player’s Compassion level
  • Seeker of Compassion: 5%
  • Follower of Compassion: 10%
  • Knight of Compassion: 20%
• Resurrection health bonus is capped at 200 HP
• Added a ten second timer before pets can be resurrected (helps prevent accidental bandage use)

Gaining Compassion:

To gain compassion, you need to first find either an NPC that is seeking an escort, or an NPC prisoner that needs to be rescued from the clutches of foul creatures, and then complete the task of accompanying them to their desired destination.

NPC escorts can be found hanging around most towns, while NPC prisoners are usually found in the wilderness, trapped in a camp made by their captors. (New Haven escorts are an exception; you will not be able to gain Compassion points from New Haven escorts.)

Points in Compassion may be earned up to five times in a given day, with a 5 minute delay between escorts.

Players that are [young] will not be able to earn Compassion points.

The amount of points gained for completing a prisoner quest will be more than those gained for completing an escort quest.

You can find more information about escorting NPCs in the questing sections Town Escorts and Prisoner Escorts

Virtuous Titles:

Once you have achieved any number of Compassion points, you are considered to have achieved a certain step on the path of Compassion. By achieving each step, you are able to acquire a special virtue title that is displayed whenever you hover your cursor over the Compassion symbol (the heart) in the virtue menu. The steps and titles available are as follows:

• First step: Seeker of Compassion
• Second step: Follower of Compassion
• Third step: Knight of Compassion

Compassion points are consumed on use of the virtue, or if the character is not logged in for some time, which means you can lose your virtue title. In order to keep your title, you will need to continue to gain Compassion points.

Honesty

Honesty is respect for Truth

Shrine Locations:
Trammel, Felucca and Ilshenar

• Derived From: Truth
• Anti-Virtue: Deceit
• Original Class: Mage
• Original Home City: Moonglow
• Opposing Dungeon: Deceit
• Mantra: Ahm
• Color: Blue
• Sigil: Writ of Honesty
• Rune: Open Hand
• Word of Power: Fallax
• Companion: Mariah
• Ankh Pendant: +2 Mana Regen

The Virtue of Honesty
in Ultima Online

As you travel the lands of Trammel and Felucca, you may find lost items. These items will say ‘Lost Item (Return To Gain Honesty)” when you mouse-over them. These items are never in dungeons or in guard zones.

Use ‘object handles’ (ctrl+shift) to help you find them

To turn in a lost item for Honesty credit:
In a bank of each of the Virtue Towns there is a lost and found box.

Lost and Found Boxes
Britain (East)	Jhelom
Minoc	Moonglow
New Magincia	Skara Brae
Trinsic	Yew

Put the item in the box for Honesty credit, but make haste, there is a time limit! (approx 3 hours)

You may use Forensic Evaluation skill to gain more information about the owner of the item, it may be necessary to examine the item several times to gain as much knowledge about the item as is possible.

If you turn the item into the Lost And Found Box in the city where the owner lives, you will get double Honesty points for your extra effort.

If you give the item to the original owner, you will get quadruple honesty points.

Returning an item lost in Felucca gains more credit than one lost in Trammel, however there is a risk of being caught in a Virtue v Vice battle.

It is perfectly acceptable to let a friend discover the owner for you.

Honesty gives you discounts at NPC merchants. The higher your rank in Honesty, the bigger your discount. The discount is applied to the total purchase. The discount is not shown in the merchant window, but you will see a system message once you make the purchase.

Honor

Honor is Courage to seek and uphold the Truth

Shrine Locations:
Trammel, Felucca and Ilshenar

• Derived From: Truth, Courage
• Anti-Virtue: Shame
• Original Class: Paladin
• Original Home City: Trinsic
• Opposing Dungeon: Shame
• Mantra: Summ
• Color: Purple
• Sigil: Chalice of Honor
• Rune: Chalice
• Word of Power: Infama
• Companion: Dupre
• Ankh Pendant: +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Stamina Regeneration (50% chance to get one bumped up to +2)

The Virtue of Honor in Ultima Online

Virtuous Ability:

Embrace Honor

The reward for following the path of Honor is the ability to move peacefully among aggressive monsters, as well as a damage bonus to melee combat.

You can activate Embrace Honor by double-clicking the Honor icon on the Virtue gump, and then targeting yourself. Activating this ability will cause all monsters to ignore you for a limited amount of time. The duration you embrace your Honor increases as you achieve higher levels on the path of Honor.

If you are in combat when you embrace your Honor, any opponents already aggressive towards you will not be affected.

Honor also works hand in hand with Bushido in that activating it with a skill of 50 points or more also initiates the Perfection system.
Perfection grants you a damage bonus dependent on the amount of consecutive hits you deal to a certain target. It is not activated directly; in order to use it you must have at least 50 Bushido skill points and then Honor a target creature. Perfection may not be used against other players.

Once this is done every successful blow will increase your perfection while a miss will lower it. As your level increases each strike will deal more and more damage (to a maximum of a 100% bonus at the highest level), so the use of equipment with a Hit Chance Increase bonus is desirable. The Bushido ability Lightning Strike is also useful for sustaining a combo.

If you defeat your target while at the highest level of perfection, you will regain some Hit Points, Stamina and Mana.

Your effective Luck level is also boosted by ten percent of your squared perfection score. At it’s maximum this score is 100, so therefore the best luck bonus is (100^2)/10 = 1000.

Once the target creature is slain you lose all perfection and must start over when you honor the next. Originally perfection could also be used against players, however a later publish removed the ability to Honor them.

Gaining Honor:

You can gain Honor by engaging in honorable combat with monsters or NPCs. You can do this by double-clicking the Honor icon on the Virtue gump and targeting an appropriate opponent.

You then must defeat your opponent in an honorable fashion.

Honorable combat is defined as:

• Allowing your opponent to damage you first.
• Engaging in one-on-one combat.
• Not using ranged weapons, unless you stay in the same spot where you honored your opponent, or you only damage your opponent while adjacent to them.
• Not allowing your pets or summoned creatures to help you during the battle.
• Avoiding the use of poison.

To engage an opponent in honorable combat, your opponent:

• Must be one that you can perform negative actions upon.
• Must be at full health.
• Must not already be honored by a nearby player.
• Must be close to you, in your line-of-sight, and have a clear path to you.

The amount of Honor you gain from defeating your opponent is determined by how closely you followed the above guidelines for honorable combat, as well as your opponent’s level of fame.

Virtuous Titles:

Each virtue has three steps on the path to enlightenment, each more difficult to attain than the last. Upon reaching each step, you will be given a new Virtue title, which is displayed when you mouse over the Virtue’s associated symbol (in this case, the Chalice of Honor) in the Virtue Gump.

Humility

Humility is the opposite of Pride, which is the absence of Truth, Love or Courage

Shrine Locations:

Trammel, Felucca and
Ilshenar

• Derived From: Truth, Love, and Courage independently
• Anti-Virtue: Pride
• Original Class: Shepherd
• Original Home City: Magincia, New Magincia*
• Opposing Dungeon: Doom aka the Abyss
• Mantra: Lum
• Color: Black
• Sigil: Shepherd Crook
• Rune: Crook
• Word of Power: Veramocor
• Companion: Katrina
• Ankh Pendant: +3 Random Regeneration

*Magincia was destroyed by demons for its Pride (Pride’s mantra is Mul, the reverse of Humility’s mantra). New Magincia, built in its ruins, was founded on Humility.

Humility is the most difficult Virtue to describe, as it cannot really be understood without its Anti-Virtue, Pride. Pride merely has nothing to do with Truth, Love and Courage; Humility is similar, but rather than being a complete antithesis, it exists independently of the Principles and acts as their foundation.

The ghosts of New Magincia also have a few things to say about Humility and pride, from which the following may be constructed:

Humility: The absence of Truth, Love, and Courage is Pride. Pride is the surest measure of goals never attained. Pride goeth before, Shame cometh after. This Shame leads to awareness of Humility, the root from which all Virtues grow. Humility is to strip oneself of all conceits

Virtuous Ability

Through the virtue menu, double click the Humility virtue to bring up a targeting cursor.

Targeting a pet will provide that pet with a 20 minute Hit Point Regeneration buff based on Humility path and consume some Humility points

• Seeker: +10 HPR
• Follower: +20 HPR
• Knight: +30 HPR

Gaining Humility

• To begin the Humility Hunt, say the words “lum lum lum”.
• During the Humility Hunt players, pets, and summons receive a -70 resist debuff to all resists.
• Hiding via hiding skill, spells, potions, or turkey feathers is prohibited while on a Humility Hunt.
• Players receive Humility points for killing evil aligned creatures while on the hunt.
• To end the hunt a player can speak, “lum lum lum.” After 30 seconds resists return to normal. There is a 60 second cooldown to re-initiate the hunt.

Justice

Justice is Truth, tempered by Love

Shrine Locations:
Trammel, Felucca and Ilshenar

• Derived From: Truth, Love
• Anti-Virtue: Wrong
• Original Class: Druid
• Original Home City: Yew
• Opposing Dungeon: Wrong
• Mantra: Beh
• Color: Green
• Sigil: Quill of Justice
• Rune: Scales
• Word of Power: Malum
• Companion: Jaana
• Ankh Pendant: +1 Mana Regeneration, +1 Hit Point Regeneration (50% chance to get one bumped up to +2)

The Virtue of Justice

in Ultima Online

Virtuous Ability:

The reward for following the path of this Virtue is the ability to protect the innocent, and through such protection comes a greater benefit.

Whenever a character that you’re protecting receives a “Scroll of Power” as a reward for killing a Champion of Evil

(the “boss monster” from a dynamic spawn area), you, as their protector, will also have a chance to receive a scroll of power.

Each step gained in Justice will increase your chance of receiving a scroll in this manner.

• First step: 60% chance
• Second step: 80% chance
• Third step: 100% chance

The benefits of Justice-based protection are only in effect while both characters are within the same champ spawn area.

If you receive a scroll of power for protecting another character, you will see the following message:

“You have been rewarded for your dedication to Justice!”

Using the Special Ability:

You must have achieved at least the first step in Justice in order to be able to offer protection to another character. The character you wish to protect cannot be a criminal or murderer.

You can activate the Justice Virtue ability by double-clicking the Justice icon on the Virtue window, then targeting an innocent character.

You’ll only be able to offer your protection while the target innocent character is within a non-consensual Player-versus-player (PvP) ruleset area (i.e. the Felucca facet). However, moving into a consensual PvP ruleset area (i.e. the Trammel or Ilshenar facets) will not break the protection relationship.

Players that are offered protection will be given a special request notice:

“{Player-one} is offering you protection. Do you accept the offer from this pursuer of Justice?”

The innocent may decline protection by selecting “no” on the request window. If the innocent declines your offer of protection, then you may not request to protect any innocent again for at least 15 minutes.

If the target character is already protected or in a consensual PvP ruleset area, you will receive a system message stating:

“You cannot protect that innocent right now.”

The target of the protection offer will not be disturbed in any way (they will not receive any message or window). This condition will not count against the player’s 1 offer per 15-minute limit.

If you are inside your 1 offer per 15-minute limit, you will receive a message stating:

“You must wait a while before offering your protection again.”

Although a character may protect any number of innocents, an innocent may only have one protector at any given time.

Ending the Protection Relationship:

At any time, a protected player may break the protection relationship by selecting a context menu option on their own character labeled “Cancel Protective Relationship.”

Upon cancellation, both players that were in the protective relationship will receive the message:

“The protective relationship between {Player-one} and {Player-two} has been ended.”

The protective relationship will also be broken should either character log out.

Gaining Justice:

In order to gain points in the Justice Virtue, you must seek out and defeat murderer characters (red-hued players). Whenever you kill such a character, you may receive the message: ‘You have gained in Justice.”

There is a limit on how often you can gain points in Justice. You will have to wait 5 minutes until you can acquire more points in the virtue. The amount of Justice points you can gain is dependent on the skill of the murderer you kill. The higher in skill the murderer is (in comparison with your own skills), the more points you will be able to gain.

Virtuous Title:

Once you’ve achieved any number of Justice points, you are considered to have achieved a certain step on the path of Justice. By achieving each step, you are able to acquire a special virtue title that is displayed whenever you hover your cursor over the Justice symbol (the scales) in the virtue menu. The steps and titles available are as follows:

• First step: Seeker of Justice
• Second step: Follower of Justice
• Third step: Knight of Justice

Justice points will wear off over time, which means you can lose your virtue title. In order to keep your title, you’ll need to continue to gain Justice points.

Sacrifice

Sacrifice is Courage to give oneself in name of Love

Shrine Locations

Trammel, Felucca and Ilshenar

• Derived From: Courage and Love
• Anti-Virtue: Covetous (also Greed)
• Original Class: Tinker
• Original Home City: Minoc
• Opposing Dungeon: Covetous
• Mantra: Cah
• Color: Orange
• Sigil: Tear of Sacrifice
• Rune: Drop of Blood
• Word of Power: Avidus
• Companion: Julia
• Ankh Pendant: +1 Hit Point Regeneration, +1 Stamina Regeneration (50% chance to get one bumped up to +2)

 

The Virtue of Sacrifice
in Ultima Online

Virtuous Ability:

Pursuit of Sacrifice will be designed to allow players to interact with ‘monsters” in a manner other than one of combat.

Sacrifice & Redemption:

Characters that attain a level of Fame will be able to ‘sacrifice” their Fame in order to defeat certain monsters. Upon encountering a related, ‘redeemable” monster, players will be able to sacrifice their Fame to defeat the monster in the following manner:

• Open up the Virtue gump.
• Double-click the Sacrifice (teardrop) symbol
• Target the monster

The following is a list of monsters which may be redeemed with the sacrifice of one’s Fame:

• Lich
• Enslaved Gargoyle
• Gargoyle Enforcer
• (Regular) Demon
• Succubus
• Evil Mage

You cannot target a redeemable monster if:

• It has already taken more than 15% of its maximum hit points in damage.
• You cannot see it (you must have line-of-sight).
• You are invisible.
• You are dead.

Attempts to sacrifice Fame to anything other than the redeemable monsters will have no effect. Once a monster is redeemed, the following will occur:

• The character’s Fame is set to ‘zero.’
• The monster disappears in a cloud of particles
• The character will gain a certain amount in Sacrifice, depending on how much Fame was lost in the redemption, the greater the Fame loss, the more Sacrifice is gained.
• A given character can sacrifice his Fame only once per 24 hour period.

Virtuous Title & Abilities:

When a character has achieved any number of Sacrifice points, he is considered to have achieved a certain step on the path of Sacrifice. When a player moves his cursor over the Sacrifice symbol, a title will be displayed, indicating the step currently achieved in Sacrifice for that character.

• First step: Seeker of Sacrifice
• Second step: Follower of Sacrifice
• Third step: Knight of Sacrifice

Using the skill will ‘spend’ virtue points.
There will be certain notable benefits & caveats of self-resurrecting:

• Players will be able to instantly resurrect their characters which have achieved any number of steps on this path of Virtue.
• Self-resurrecting characters will not suffer any stat or skill loss normally associated with ‘insta-resurrection.” However, effects such as Murderer-based stat-loss, Faction-based stat-loss, etc., will still apply.
• Self-resurrected characters will only have 1 Hit Point and 1 Mana Point upon resurrection, just as if he was resurrected by a healer, friend, or shrine.
• Characters which self-resurrect will instantly recover all the items they had on their corpse, except for any items which have been looted or decayed.
• Self-resurrecting characters will not be able to recover items in this way if they move across a server boundary into another server region. Characters in this situation will receive a notice to his effect before allowing such a self-resurrection.
• Characters will not be able to self-resurrect:
  – within a ‘multi-object” (a house, boat, etc.).
  – within a faction stronghold
  – while flagged as a criminal or aggressor

Spirituality

 

Spirituality is to seek Truth, Love and Courage from one’s own self and the world around

Shrine Locations:

Trammel, Felucca and Ilshenar

• Derived From: Truth, Love, and Courage
• Anti-Virtue: Hylotheism (also Sacrilege)
• Original Class: Ranger
• Original Home City: Skara Brae
• Opposing Dungeon: Hythloth*
• Mantra: Om
• Color: White
• Sigil: Ankh of Spirituality
• Rune: Ankh
• Word of Power: Ignavus
• Companion: Shamino
• Anks Pendant: +1 All Regenerations (25% chance (3 independent rolls) to get each bumped up to +2)

*Pride has never had a Dungeon formally associated with it, but the Shrine of Humility was situated closest to the Stygian Abyss. In Ultima IX: Ascension (non-canon) Abyss and Hythloth are reversed in roles; Hythloth is associated with Humility, and Abyss is associated with Spirituality.

The Virtue of Spirituality
in Ultima Online

Virtuous Ability

• Through the virtue menu, double click the humility virtue to bring up a targeting cursor.
• Targeting a living player or pet will grant a Spirituality shield that will absorb incoming damage based on Spirituality path and consume some Spirituality points,
  • Seeker: 5% shield, with 50 shield HP
  • Follower: 10% shield, with 100 shield HP
  • Knight: 20% shield, with 200 shield HP

Note: you may not cast Attunement whilst a Spirituality Shield is active

Gaining Sprituality:

Spirituality is gained by using targeted heals and resurrections on other players including:

• bandages (healing skill)
• close wounds (Chivalry)
• heal, greater heal (Magery)
• gift of renewal (Spellweaving)
• cleansing winds (Mysticism)
• rejuvenate (Chivalry mastery)

Valor

Valor is Courage to stand up against risks

Shrine Locations:

Trammel, Felucca and
Ilshenar

• Derived From: Courage
• Anti-Virtue: Dastardly
• Original Class: Fighter
• Original Home City: Jhelom
• Opposing Dungeon: Destard
• Mantra: Ra
• Color: Red
• Sigil: Dagger of Valor
• Rune: Sword
• Word of Power: Inopia
• Companion: Geoffrey
• Ankh Pendant: +2 Stamina Regeneration

The Virtue of Valor
in Ultima Online

Virtuous Ability:

The reward for following the path of this Virtue is the ability to initiate or advance the progression of Champion Spawns. Under normal circumstances, champion spawns cannot be started by players. Their activation is based on a random timer; so, the ability to activate any champion spawn at anytime is quite a perk for those adventurers that seek Power Scrolls

You can activate your Valor Virtue ability by double-clicking the Valor icon on the Virtue window, then targeting the Idol of the Champion which sits on a nearby champion spawn shrine. The champion idols appear as large grey skull statues at the center of an inactive or active champion spawn shrine. Issuing a “Virtuous Challenge” to affect a champion spawn will cost a number of Valor points.

Activating a Shrine:

If you are a Knight of Valor, you will be able to activate a champion spawn shrine. This will cost you a large portion of your Valor points. However, if you are successful, activating such a shrine will summon forth the first wave of the respective champion spawn.

Advancing a Champion Spawn:

If you are a Seeker of Valor, or higher, you will be able to advance a champion spawn shrine–the more advanced the spawn, the greater the required Valor title. The first levels will require no title, while higher levels will require Seeker, Follower, or Knight titles before you can even attempt a Valorous Challenge. Advancing a champion spawn level will cost you a portion of your Valor based on the current level of the champion spawn. The higher the current level, the more Valor it will take to affect the spawn.

A champion spawn will only accept one such Virtuous Challenge per session. Only one person may affect a given champion spawn session, and only once during that session. Once a champion spawn’s level has been increased by a player, no one else can increase its level until the spawn has been completely defeated and has restarted.

Gaining Valor:

You can gain Valor by participating in the champion spawns that appear within Felucca’s dungeons, Felucca’s Lost Lands, and the Ilshenar areas. Battling the creatures that guard the shrine will increase your Valor. The number of Valor points awarded per creature is dependant upon the difficulty of the creature; the tougher the creatures from the champion spawn, the more Valor points are awarded.

Virtuous Titles:

Once you’ve achieved any number of Valor points, you are considered to have achieved a certain step on the path of Valor. By achieving each step, you are able to acquire a special virtue title that is displayed whenever you hover your cursor over the Valor symbol (the sword) in the virtue menu. The steps and titles available are as follows:

• First step: Seeker of Valor
• Second step: Follower of Valor
• Third step: Knight of Valor

Valor points will wear off over time, which means you can lose your virtue title. In order to keep your title, you’ll need to continue to gain Valor points.