Below are the six winning entries from Great Lakes for the Memorable Moments contest ~

Many of my most memorable UO moments occurred in and around Kazola’s Treetop Keg and Winery in what is now Feluccan Yew on Great Lakes. Located under a majestic yew tree southeast of the Yew Moongate, Kazola’s was a beacon of community in the sea of chaos that saturated Sosaria in those heady early years.  As long as patrons respected one another, all were welcomed within its wooden doors.  However, this did not stop fierce battles from raging in the tavern’s courtyard as various bands of thieves and murderers sought to make a name for themselves.

Citizens of the community, whom the tavern fostered, often availed themselves of many opportunities to converse with the notable, though often strange, personalities of the realm.  One could frequently find the benevolent Rhysart the Hermit relaying the tales of Azhur the Dragon and Mordread the Lich, or the fall of Hebban Olla to a captivated audience.  Conversely, you might also have encountered the realm’s worst enemies of the time skulking about, the Followers of Armageddon’s founders: Martoo Saul, Zendella Kxriss, and Junin Pince. Distilling out one single event from the treasure trove of fond memories, however, brought one moment into sharp focus. During the tavern’s first anniversary celebration, March of 1999, the most famous personage in all Sosaria graced the festivities with his august presence.  Lord British appeared before a humbled Lady Kazola and congratulated her on the accomplishment of carving out a stable, thriving community center in the wilds of Britannia.  He affixed two “Proclamation of Distinction” plaques to the tavern’s western wall for all to see as continued inspiration to maintain community as foremost in patron’s minds.  Awed revelers promised their liege that they would persist in the tavern’s mission for years to come. Kazola’s Treetop Keg and Winery did indeed enjoy many more years as a vital community center, even seeing the rise of the merchant-run hamlet of Arcodia spread out around it.  The tavern managed to endure the rough transition wrought by Nystul during the renaissance as the majority of citizens fled to Trammel, retaining its light in Felucca’s darkness. Fortunately, the hard lessons learned during the tavern’s formative years helped to mold a stronger more unified community, one that still perseveres to this day. ~

A Great Find    My name is Nurgle and once I was a struggling swordsman in need of a much better suit of armor. Unfortunately, my funds left much to be desired. Not knowing a faster way to make gold, I spent many a night in Despise wreaking havoc on the monsters residing there. First it was the Ettins and Earth Elementals, then the Trolls and Ogres. Finally, I was able to take on the Titans and Cyclopeans. It was slow and monotonous, but still I fight on saving every gold coin I could gather.   After one such adventure, I made the journey to Luna. I needed to check my bank balance and wanted to see if anything was going on there. Usually, the place is fairly crowded with bank sitters and people hawking out their items for sale. However, this late in the night, it was very quiet with only the minter and bank teller present. Oh well, I should really be heading home to my nice warm bed anyway.   I was just about to turn and go when something in the corner caught my eye. Walking over, I see that it is a backpack holding 125 items. You see this often throughout the towns. Many low level crafters will sit and grind to gain their skill and leave full packs of junk sitting about. A bit rude if you ask me, but no one has so I’ll keep it to myself. Thinking I would find it full of spyglasses, oil cloths, wild staffs or even city maps, I took a peek. Imagine my surprise when I discovered bottles of powder of fortifying. I nearly fell off my mount in my astonishment. My first thought was “new suit I can feel you now!”. The second, how am I to get this home? I do not have enough room in my backpack to hold it, nor do I have a pack mule. A quick glance at the bank tells me it is still empty. I knew my brother Kahrn the Betray had a few pack animals so I recalled home and got him as fast as a flash.   Thankfully, it was still there waiting for him. I did feel just a bit of sadness for the poor soul that lost this. But you know how it goes, “one man’s loss is another man’s gain”. Needless to say, I never fail to stop and peek in backpacks. ~

In 2006, the Event Moderator of Great Lakes announced that in approximately one week’s time, players were given an opportunity to prove their skills in fishing, stealing, and crafters.  Fishers had a week to capture a fish of the same exact weight as a fish on display.  Thieves had to steal as many items hidden throughout Sosaria with the name “I Stole This” item.  Tailors had to recreate a 6 piece leather armor set with the exact resist modifications as the 6 pieces placed on display. Since I was a Grandmaster Tailor, I decided this was my best opportunity to actually win something in Ultima Online.  I wish I knew what an impossible task I was about to embarked upon.  I took what little leather I had, and got to work crafting one piece at a time until I had exact match of 5 modified resists.  Thankfully I was a student in college with no job, because I worked at it all day until I ran out of leather, and I still didn’t have a perfect match.  How was I going to do it? I asked my boyfriend to collect as much leather as he could buy, or collect off of animals.  I asked my Sister to cut up my leather pieces that didn’t match, to hand me back recycled leather.  I asked them both to verify that my pieces did not match.  Finally I started to create exact matches.  I might actually be able to do this after all. On the day we needed to present our fish, our stolen goods, and leather armor sets, I finished creating a near matching leather armor set in the very last hour.  Unfortunately, I was off one resist percentage on my leather gloves.  I think I spent close to 70 hours on this, that’s 10 hours a day.  When I arrived to the event, they used moongates to split us all up into 3 groups, and closed the gates 15 minutes after we arrived.  There must have been 300 players there.  Most of us were crafters.  I suddenly became very concerned that someone else might have an exact match.  All that work for nothing, and I still didn’t know what the prize was. The thieves went first since there were so few of them, and first place through third place got these beautiful two-tone shrouds with stealing modification on them.  I was really excited now.  The fisherman were given spell channeling fishing poles.  Finally after checking all the crafter contestants, I actually won a two-tone colored shroud with my name on calling me Lily – The Great Lakes Crafter Champion. On a sad note, I lost my shroud when my house collapsed due to a billing issue.  I was devastated.  Yet I saw it for the first time the other day on a player at the Luna bank on Atlantic of all places.  Amazingly it still exists.  It may no longer own the shroud, but I’ll never forget how incredibly difficult it was to get it. ~

I am by no means a talented writer but I will try to tell you what Ultima Online has and still does mean to me, I am sure there are many people that have far more exciting stories and can tell them far better than I can, however here is my story straight from my heart      My most memorable moment about Ultima Online was in 1997 when I logged on the first time, I had watch my friend play in Beta and when the world went live he let me make my first character on his account. I was amazed that I could communicate with people from all over the world, I had to learn how to talk and walk in this new world it was far different than anything I had ever experienced. It took no time at all and I had my own account up and running and still have that account to this day.      I made my first character in Trinsic and that is still my favorite town,  I logged on every chance I got, I made a tailor and spent all my time in the Trinsic tailor shop, after many months of sewing and selling my goods to the tailor I had enough gold saved to get a small house, I was overjoyed that I finally had a little spot of this magical world that belonged to me.      After I got my little house I then spent time exploring the land and learning how to kill things, I will never forget when I was first learning how to fight I got killed by a cow, it was not funny at the time but I now get a good laugh out of it. As time went on I met many wonderful people and am still friends with some of them to this day.      Ultima Online still has a special place in my heart and always will, I still love to login and play, material things mean nothing to me, the people I knew and people that I am still getting to know mean more to me than anything I can acquire in game. Thank you. ~

REAPERS AND IMPS

Memories of death by Reapers and Imps have haunted me throughout the amazing game known as Ultima Online.  As a novice player I fell victim during my first exploration romp through the forest. I was enjoying the lush landscape and variety of plants and animals during my ride on my first horse named Fiercy Von Fiercy.  Although I knew and looked forward to encountering the dangers of the kingdom I did not know that a tree would be the cause of my first death. I was building skills and not quite sure how my character would develop.  Soon the answer would come to me.  I would need to fight magic with magic! Most people remember by which means they died in the realm the first time.  I avoided Reapers as much as possible.  The faces these trees have remind me of the evil apple throwing trees in the classic film, The Wizard of Oz. It is a fearful memory. My second death was that at the spells of an Imp, those nasty annoying green flying casters.  With that death I put down my sword and shield and made magery my new direction. To this day I say to myself, at least I was not killed by a mongbat. That was over ten years ago and magery is still the way I maneuver about the realm. One would usually not think of death as a fond most memorable memory but I do as these deaths carved my path and made me the good and sometimes wicked mage I am today.  As with many memories there are scars that come along with them. To this day I kill every Reaper that crosses my path with great delight and I avoid Imps as much as possible as they still annoy the heck out of me. ~

My most memorable moment is the story on how I got my leather gloves (Santa Gloves). It was 1997 and it was Christmas Time in Ultima Online. Their were Santa and his reindeer just about in every town in Britannia. Santa was wearing red pants a red tunic dark grey boots, and these dark grey leather gloves that matched his boots. And was something us players had never seen before. Well finally I started seeing Santa’s missing parts of their outfits, pants, shirt, etc. Or sometimes Santa was naked! At first I figured maybe the Game Masters, were just giving Santa a new outfit or something like that. But the longer Santa stayed naked the more I started to wonder about it. Well I have two Ghost chars, my second Ghost char was smith/tinker I made to repair armor/weapons for my guild Fellowship (FS) and then Dracul. But my first Ghost char was my thief. So I thought you know what? I’m going to try and steal Santa’s outfit right off his paper doll and see what happens. So I looked around for a Santa that was still fully clothed, I brought up his paper doll and hit my steal macro. Targeted a piece of his clothing and YES! I was stealing the clothes right off Santa’s back! I don’t remember just how many Santa’s I hit up that year but I had a bunch of Santa outfits and Santa gloves. Some I did sell/trade to friends. I remember once giving all the outfits I had including the gloves to my friend Ballyhoo to hold onto for me. I’d looted this red plate helm out of a house on Buc’s Den once, and thinking it was dyed with the old dye bug I only wore it at server down. Well a Counselor (Smurf) seen me wearing it and told me to turn it in. I said no, they said I was being rude and a GM WOULD be talking to me. So yeah I gave Bally my helmet and Santa outfits to hold for me just in case a GM did come to talk to me. I never did see a Game Master and Ballyhoo gave me back my red plate helm and Santa outfits. I still to this day wear my Santa gloves as part of my outfit, with my Ghost purple, that I tried matching the color to the purple potions. Because I enjoyed trapped chests and thought the purple clothing my little warning/clue. That I was the one placing chests around town. I was also able to get a item bless deed through another friend Frostbite. People thought me weird for wanting to waste a item bless on leather gloves, I’m pretty sure I might have the only pair of double blessed Santa gloves. I’ve not seen another pair, people want to buy my gloves. But their part of my outfit and something my char is known for, so I could never sell. ~