Lord Blackthorn

Lord Blackthorn (canonical spelling — never "Blackthorne") is, alongside Lord British, the most consequential political figure in Ultima Online's fiction. Friend and rival of British, founder of the philosophy of Chaos (the counterweight to British's Virtues), the abandoned regent who turned bitter when British's first absence did not deliver him the throne, the half-machine Borg-monster who attacked Yew at the climax of the Lord Blackthorn's Revenge expansion, the man revealed by Exodus to have been replaced by a "facsimile," and finally — at the close of The Awakening event cycle — the crowned King of Britannia, the real Blackthorn returned at last.

His arc — friend, philosopher, scorned regent, machine-monster, redeemed king — is the longest character through-line in UO and a key piece of the lore tying Ultima V through Time of Legends.

The friendship with Lord British

Blackthorn and British are friends since their youth. They debated philosophy, played chess, and remained personally close even as their political ideologies diverged. British's Eight Virtues asked the realm to live by Compassion, Honesty, Honor, Humility, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality, and Valor. Blackthorn's counter-philosophy of Chaos taught that any single moral system, codified and enforced, became a cage — that diversity, conflict, and the freedom to fail were the deeper goods.

They never reconciled the disagreement, but they never let it sever the friendship. While their followers slaughtered each other in the streets through the Order vs. Chaos PvP system (UO's first formalized faction war, predating the modern Faction system), British and Blackthorn played chess in private and continued the debate.

The Order vs. Chaos system was eventually retired and the original Order/Chaos shields removed from the game (gemmed, ornate, and held by a few legendary collectors today). The philosophical conflict survived in Blackthorn's character.

The bitter aristocrat

When Lord British vanished for the first time (the in-fiction explanation for his early-UO unreachability — events of Ultima IX preventing his return), Blackthorn expected the throne. He had been British's closest peer, the realm's second philosopher, the obvious regent.

He did not get it. The crown was kept vacant; the Royal Council ran the kingdom in trust.

Despite the tolerance and egalitarian sentiments of Chaos, at heart Blackthorn was an aristocrat. He believed — by right of noble birth — that he should hold the throne in British's absence. The slight rankled. It festered. Exodus, lurking in Ilshenar, found a vector.

Lord Blackthorn's Revenge — the Borg machine

UO's fourth expansion, Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge (2002, abbreviated LBR), is the storyline where Blackthorn falls. The expansion brought:

• Access to Ilshenar for 2D players (previously 3D-client-only).
• Over 30 new monsters from the mind of Todd McFarlane (creator of Spawn). The monster designs leaned toward Borg/biomechanical aesthetic — half-flesh, half-machine, all wrong.
• The Virtue System introduced (Humility was planned but never implemented).
• New mounts, new craftables, new ongoing fiction.
• A McFarlane-designed action figure of Blackthorn was packaged with the box.
• New player quests, the New Player Guide downloadable, and a Game Wizard tool tied to the website.

In the in-game fiction: Blackthorn succumbed to the temptations of Exodus and became true evil. He was rebuilt as a half-human, half-machine monstrosity — a deliberate visual echo of Star Trek's Borg — and took up residence in Central Ilshenar, in a castle Exodus had built him.

After Exodus's defeat in 2003 and the dispersal of the Juka invasion forces, the machine Blackthorn grew impatient and launched an all-out attack on the City of Yew. During this assault, he was slain by Dawn (then a Royal Knight). His grave can be found near his old castle in Felucca Britain. His Felucca castle remains accessible — gathering dust, used occasionally for player roleplay — as a monument to how easily Chaos can become Pride.

British's words at Blackthorn's memorial

Lord British's temporary return to Britannia was triggered by Blackthorn's death. At the memorial service, he gave a eulogy:

"My friend Lord Blackthorn is dead, and I am sorrowful at his passing. He became corrupted by great Evils, and now is no more. Though we were often at odds, the truth of his downfall wears upon my soul."

British also announced — in a striking concession — that as a monument to Blackthorn's ideas, he was abandoning his goal of uniting the Shards under the Virtues. Thus, philosophically, Blackthorn won the Chaos/Order wars even after his physical defeat.

The Awakening — Blackthorn returns

Years later, the Awakening event cycle (2013–2014) revealed the most consequential plot twist in UO's running fiction: the machine-Blackthorn that attacked Yew was not the real Blackthorn. From The Awakening — Act VII, Exodus's confession:

"Even now, the construction of your facsimile has begun. It will be you...with all the memories, stories, and ambitions you have told me...but stripped of this nobility and sense of compassion that you so disgustingly show. Even if it is defeated, it will forever tarnish your reputation, for daring to defy me...and will turn the people against each other. After all, if your precious King was so wrong about his friend, what else might he have been wrong about?" — Exodus

The real Blackthorn had been imprisoned, not corrupted. Exodus had constructed the Borg machine as a facsimile — a memetic weapon designed to ruin Blackthorn's reputation and turn Britannia against its own past.

Throughout The Awakening, the real Blackthorn appeared as The Mysterious Healer, an unidentified NPC tending to wounded across the realm. Only at Act VII is his identity revealed.

At the end of the Awakening event arc, with the Royal Council reconvened, Casca dead, Dawn dead (lost to the Virtuebane scenario), and the throne empty, Lord Blackthorn was crowned King of Britannia. The man who once ranted that the throne should have been his — and who turned bitter when it wasn't — finally inherits it, but on the kingdom's terms, after his name has been cleared of crimes he never committed.

He is the current sovereign.

Other Blackthorn appearances and references

See also

• Lord_British — friend, rival, philosophical opposite
• Exodus — Blackthorn's corruptor and the architect of the facsimile
• Britannian_Royal_Guard — the force Blackthorn now commands as king
• Britannia — the kingdom he rules
• Castle_Blackthorn_Dungeon — the modern endgame dungeon
• Followers_of_Armageddon — the cult he investigated in 1998
• Order_of_the_Silver_Serpent — the Royal Knights, who slew his facsimile
• Virtues — the philosophy he opposed and ultimately upheld