Shadowlords

The Shadowlords are three wraith-like, demonic entities — the cosmic embodiments of the three Anti-Principles that oppose Britannia's foundational principles of Truth, Love, and Courage. Astaroth, Shadowlord of Hatred (Anti-Love); Faulinei, Shadowlord of Falsehood (Anti-Truth); Nosfentor, Shadowlord of Cowardice (Anti-Courage). Born of the shards of Mondain's Gem of Immortality, manifested through the murder of three sailors by Captain Johne in the Underworld, they are the principal villains of Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny and the orchestrators of the Warriors of Destiny event cycle in UO (2007–2010), through which they recruited Casca, corrupted Lord Blackthorn, and very nearly conquered Britannia.

The Three Shadowlords

Each Shadowlord embodies one Anti-Principle, paired with one of the Three Principles (Truth, Love, Courage) — the philosophical bedrock from which the Eight Virtues are derived. Each Shadowlord is paired with a specific artifact (the Word of Power the Avatar must use against them), with a Britannian relic (the Candle, Book, and Bell), and with a specific flame that destroys them.

The principle-relic-flame triplet is load-bearing: in Ultima V, the Avatar's only path to defeating the Shadowlords is to trick each Shadowlord into entering the corresponding flame, while simultaneously casting that Shadowlord's gem-shard into the same flame. Both must happen at once. Either alone fails.

Origin — Captain Johne and the Underworld

The canonical origin of the Shadowlords (established in Ultima V) is one of the saga's most chilling vignettes:

Captain Johne and his crew, aboard the ship Ararat, were sailing the Sea of Britannia when they were overtaken by a whirlpool. All went dark. When Johne awoke, the wreckage had washed up on a subterranean shore of the Underworld (the cavernous realm beneath Britannia, geographically corresponding to the dungeon network in UO).

Examining the crew, Johne discovered that only he and three others had survived. Exploring the area, he located three shards of a once-great gem — the long-lost pieces of Mondain's Gem of Immortality — and in finding them, he awoke a great corrupted magical force.

Years later, Johne told the Avatar, in his own words:

"The shards, full of evil, drove me to kill my three companions, and from their blood sprang the Shadowlords. They spared me, only to taunt me until my dying day."

Once the Shadowlords became manifest, they took possession of the gem shards that had created them and immediately secreted them away in the far corners of the Underworld. Then, once they reached full power, they:

1. Kidnapped Lord British, hiding him in the Underworld.
2. Corrupted Lord Blackthorn, aiding him in subverting the Eight Virtues. (For example, violating Honesty under Blackthorn's regime meant the offender's tongue was cut out.)
3. Roamed Britannia, twisting the Virtues into evil parodies of themselves.
4. Haunted the towns, with their approach announced by the appearance of a comet in the sky.
5. Made their citadel in Stonegate, a remote island fortress in the Underworld where they guarded Lord British's stolen Scepter.

The Avatar's victory in Ultima V required:

• Recover the Word of Power (the Mantra) for each Shadowlord.
• Locate the gem shards in the Underworld.
• Trick each Shadowlord into the corresponding Flame of Truth, Love, or Courage, while casting the gem shard into the same flame.
• Free Lord British from his prison in the Underworld.

Once all three Shadowlords were destroyed and British restored, Ultima V ended — but the three were not gone forever in the wider Ultima cosmos.

In Ultima Online — appearances

The Shadowlords were referenced for years in UO without being directly seen. Two examples of their textual presence:

• The Darkness — a recurring threat in BNN articles and lore books, hinted to be a Shadowlord-class entity but never named.
• The Principle Pieces — relics scattered across Britannia, treated as the surviving fragments of the Ultima V Mantras and Words of Power.

End of beta event

The Shadowlords appeared at the end of the UO Beta event — the final pre-launch storyline. The graphic originally attached to them was the same sprite-signature later given to the Harrower (the high-end Champion Spawn boss) and to the Time Lord.

The Mad Mage event (Spring 2008)

After many years of being referred to but never directly encountered, the Shadowlords were finally seen when Kronos the Mad Mage unleashed his Blackrock Detector upon the world in early Spring 2008 (as part of the Warriors of Destiny event cycle). Kronos's machine brought the Shadowlords into the world; ethereal "echoes" of them could be engaged, fought, and slain by players.

Astaroth and Love (Spring 2007)

Astaroth, the Shadowlord of Hatred, was behind a coordinated attack on the Shrines associated with Love during the Spring of 2007 — a precursor to the full Mad Mage outbreak the following year. This was Astaroth's signature role: striking always at the Compassion-axis of Britannia, since Hatred is precisely Anti-Love.

The Astaroth–Time Lord confrontation (January 2009)

Astaroth had a brief, unfriendly conversation with the Time Lord near the Blackrock Detector during the Mad Mage event. This is the only documented direct exchange between a Shadowlord and the Time Lord; both are entities outside ordinary Britannian biology, and the encounter ended without combat.

Battle of Fire Island

The climactic defeat of the Shadowlord invasion in UO was the Battle of Fire Island — a multi-shard event where the three Shadowlords' echoes were finally driven from Britannia. Casca falsely claimed credit for ending the invasion (see Casca); the actual victory was the Royal Knights' (the Order of the Silver Serpent) and the players'.

The Shadowlords Faction

The followers of the Shadowlords formed one of the four original Factions in UO's pre-2014 PvP system:

Faction PvP included Town Sigils, Stronghold sieges, Faction Traps, faction-only artifacts. Publish 86 (December 2014) eliminated the Faction system entirely, replacing it with Vice vs Virtue. Shadowlord followers were dispersed.

In broader Ultima cosmology

The Shadowlords are introduced in Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny (1988) and their cosmology is elaborated across:

• Mondain's Gem of Immortality — their physical substrate.
• Stonegate — their island citadel in the Underworld.
• The Three Principles (Truth, Love, Courage) — the principles they oppose.
• The Eight Virtues — derived from the Three Principles by combination; the Shadowlords' Anti-Virtues invert all eight.
• The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom — the cosmic artifact they fear; the Shadowlords avoid it.
• The Pillars of the Eight Virtues — the cosmic monument the Avatar uses in Ultima IX.

See also

• Mondain — the Gem of Immortality whose shards birthed them
• Casca — their political pawn in Britannia
• Lord_Blackthorn — corrupted in Ultima V; later redeemed
• Lord_British — kidnapped in Ultima V; their eternal opponent
• Avatar — destroyed them in the Flames of Truth, Love, and Courage
• Time_Lord — antagonistic counterpart entity; Astaroth confrontation
• Guardian — the next-tier cosmic villain after the Shadowlords
• Virtues · Britannia — the moral and political order they oppose
• Ramuz — the high lord of Stonegate in Ultima V
• Warriors_of_Destiny — the UO event cycle
• Blackrock · Blackrock_Detector — the mechanism that brought them on-screen