Sherry the Mouse

Sherry the Mouse is one of Britannia's most enduring NPC characters — a talking mouse native to Castle British whose decades-spanning storyline ties together six major UO event cycles: the Castle Britannia rat-invasion (her arrival), her friendship with the once-haughty noble Aileen, her Magincia Invasion war-correspondent role for the Britannia News Network, her Royal Council membership through the Royal Council Massacre, her resistance leadership against Casca, and her friendship with Queen Dawn — being instrumental in Dawn's ascension to the throne. Sherry is also the canonical author of "My Story" — the in-game book in which the existence of multiple Shards is first revealed to Britannia, sourced from a conversation she overheard between Lord British and Lord Blackthorn. She also appeared in two Ultima single-player games prior to UO, making her one of the few cross-canon characters with continuity from the Ultima Prime line.

Profile

Storyline arc

1. Arrival — the Castle Britannia rat invasion

Sherry first appeared during a fateful day when Castle Britannia was under attack by untold numbers of rats (recorded in BNN: Castle British Under Seige). Sherry somehow ensured the rats would not return — the precise mechanism is not specified in canonical material, but the implication is mouse-diplomacy of some kind. She subsequently made herself a fixture at Lord British's castle.

The arrival storyline established Sherry's mobility-and-stealth characterization that persists across all later content: she moves through mouse-holes scattered throughout the castle, has access to areas no human can reach, and overhears confidential conversations.

2. Friendship with Aileen

Sherry's most significant interpersonal arc is her friendship with Aileen — a Trinsic noblewoman sent as Trinsic's representative to Castle British. Aileen's upbringing produced an arrogant, haughty young woman of noble ambitions, and she initially alienated all but the most stalwart of the castle's servants during her year-long visit. Her contemptuous quip — "This is why Blackthorn had a Keep on the other side of the city!" — characterized her early attitude.

A year is enough time for reflection, and Aileen learned about how Humility applies to Honor. After many contrite apologies, she found herself with friends. Sherry — seated on a pillow in Aileen's room nibbling cheese — became her chief confidante.

The friendship is canonized in BNN: Of Mice and Women (2007), in which Sherry shares with Aileen news of a Royal Guard raid gone wrong ("the entire dungeon was nearly destroyed") and discusses the suspicious appointment of Casca as Royal Ambassador. The dialogue establishes Sherry's role as the castle's primary intelligence-gathering mouse.

3. Magincia Invasion — war correspondent

During the Fall of 2007 demonic attacks on Magincia, Sherry was hired as a reporter and filed several stories from the embattled city for the Britannia News Network. The Magincia Invasion was UO's largest event-content of 2007, and Sherry's reporting brought a first-mouse perspective to coverage of the destruction, the Ancient Hellhounds, and the eventual sealing of the city's moongate.

This phase established Sherry as the canonical voice of the small-and-overlooked, providing eyewitness accounts that no human reporter could safely give.

4. Royal Council — and the 2008 Massacre

At some point following her Magincia coverage, Sherry was placed on the Royal Council, becoming a non-human voting member (a near-unique honor in Britannian governance). She was caught up in the Royal Council Massacre in the Summer of 2008 — a coup-by-Casca event that claimed several Council members and dispersed the rest.

Sherry disappeared for several months (along with Aileen), and players widely feared the worst. The disappearance was a major plot point of late 2008.

5. Casca's reign — cautious return

Sherry began to reappear in early 2009, around the time Casca ascended to the throne. Both Sherry and Casca were now played by the Event Moderators of the various Shards, so her personality varied shard-to-shard — but the canonical position was consistent: she greeted the new King with a combination of hope, apprehension, respect, and skepticism.

Sherry typically advised against open opposition to Casca but counseled caution and skepticism. She was a moderate voice in the resistance — until the resistance turned overt.

6. The mysterious mouse traps

Despite Sherry's reluctance to oppose Casca openly, mouse traps began to mysteriously appear in some key locations throughout Britannia on many shards. The traps' origin was never fully explained — the canonical interpretation is that Casca's faction was attempting to silence Sherry — and the traps' presence escalated tensions.

7. Resistance leader — and the Avery / Ricardo line

As Casca's evil became more obvious, Sherry emerged as a full-fledged resistance leader. She either sprang or established communication with the imprisoned Avery and Ricardo the Thief (canonical material is deliberately ambiguous — it has never been made clear which). Either way, Sherry became the central node through which the imprisoned-anti-Casca faction reconnected with the open resistance.

She was also revealed to be a friend of Queen Dawn and was instrumental in Dawn's ascension to the Throne of Britannia. The two — Sherry and Dawn — were canonically the last surviving links to the Lord British regime, and their alliance was the political foundation of the post-Casca government.

"My Story" — the Shards revelation book

Sherry's most lasting impact on UO lore is her authorship of the in-game book "My Story" — the canonical text in which the existence of different Shards is first revealed to Britannia. The book originated from a conversation Sherry overheard between Lord British and Lord Blackthorn while sitting in a mousehole during a private royal meeting.

"My Story" is the canonical Britannian explanation for the multi-shard nature of UO — earlier game cosmology had Sosaria as a single world; the book introduces the concept that the world is one of many shards of a shattered original.

The book was later turned into a talking book (Quotes from the Pen of Sherry the Mouse) — available as a 350,000-point Cooperative Collection reward from the Britain Library Collection. It is a decoration for player houses that, when locked down and turned on, speaks Sherry's notes on history. It comes in 5 hues: plain, yellow, gray, blue, or green.

Notable sayings from the talking book

Castle Britannia layout — Sherry's canonical guide

Sherry has the most extensive single-NPC keyword conversation tree in classic UO — she responds to dozens of keywords spoken near her, providing a guided tour of Castle Britannia from a mouse's-eye view.

Greetings

Castle features

Theology and lore

The full keyword tree contains 50+ entries including kitchen, dining hall, garden, tower, barracks, guard, noble, cook, kingdom, training area, shape, serpent, silver serpent, shield, council, slept, commander, study, secrecy, where, answers, layout, history, training, kings, counter, talk, countries, book, and more.

Mobility and mouse-holes

Sherry is a very mobile mouse. She acts differently depending on her location in the castle:

The mouse-hole network

Mouseholes are scattered throughout Castle Britannia, allowing Sherry to move between rooms that no human can directly traverse. The mouseholes have specific in-game mechanics:

• A player using Ninjitsu Animal Form can transform into a rat and use Sherry's mouseholes.
• A player using Magery Polymorph can transform into a slime and squeeze through.
• Only Sherry (in canonical mouse form) can pass through the mousehole leading to the throne area — no transformed-player has ever been able to reach this one.

Since Sherry's disappearance during the Royal Council Massacre, Mouse Holes have started to appear elsewhere — in obscure corners of Britannia and beyond. The implication is that Sherry has expanded her network and may be conducting reconnaissance from afar.

Cross-canon — the Ultima Prime appearances

Sherry is one of the few UO NPCs with verified continuity from the Ultima single-player canon. She appeared in two of the Ultima Prime games that preceded UO (commonly cited as Ultima IV and Ultima V), as a companion-or-tour-guide character at Castle British. The cross-canon continuity is unusual — most UO NPCs are UO-original — and ties her to the deepest layer of Ultima cosmology.

Affiliated items

Player culture and references

Sherry is canonically referenced in many places:

• BNN: Of Mice and Women (2007) — the Aileen-confiding canon
• Welcome to Britannia — official UO welcome material
• The cooperative collection talking book (350K points, 5 hues)
• The Sherry the Mouse Statue (rare Cleanup-Britannia reward)
• Multiple Royal Council fictions and Casca-era resistance material

She is also the canonical moral conscience figure for low-key roleplay characters — the small-and-overlooked who nonetheless witness everything.

See also

• Castle_Britannia — Sherry's home
• Lord_British — her sovereign and storyteller
• Aileen — her closest friend, the Trinsic noblewoman
• Queen_Dawn — the Queen Sherry helped ascend
• Ricardo — the imprisoned Thief Sherry communicated with during the resistance
• Casca — the false king Sherry and Dawn jointly opposed
• Lord_Blackthorn — overheard in the conversation that produced "My Story"
• Royal_Council · Royal_Council_Massacre — the body she served on and the coup that claimed it
• Magincia — the city she covered as a war correspondent
• BNN — her employer for the Magincia coverage
• Quotes_from_the_pen_of_Sherry_the_Mouse — the talking-book reward
• Sherry's_Pillow · Sherry_The_Mouse_Statue — affiliated decorative items
• Ninjitsu · Magery — Animal Form / Polymorph mouse-hole interactions
• Ultima_Prime — her cross-canon Ultima appearances
• Shard — the multi-world cosmology her "My Story" book reveals