Richard Garriott's alter-ego Lord British has been appearing in his games since he launched his career with Akalabeth in 1980. The special thing about his in-game incarnations? They're indestructible. You can't kill them through conventional means. Except gamers aren't very good at accepting the word 'can't'. Over the years, the kill-Lord-British phenomenon has evolved from canny players exploiting holes in the game's logic to game developers actively hiding murder methods for players to discover in an Easter Egg fashion. The Tabula Rasa 'Kill General British' mission is only the latest in a long and glorious history...
Ultima I: Bored British He's not indestructible - he's just really hard, with a mass of hit points and an array of guards. Try anything early in the game, and you'll be taken to pieces. But towards the end, when you've developed sufficient power, if you persist you should be able to wear him down.
Ultima II: The Tedium Strikes back Same as Ultima I, basically. Persistence is your cardinal virtue here.
Ultima III: Cannonade Surprise Yet again, Lord British's apparent indestructibility comes down to high stats. But even the Lord of a magical realm can't resist the wonders of technology. The item in question is the ship in the nearby harbour. Anger British to get him to the coastline, and then - making sure you have open water between you so he can't retaliate - open up with the cannons.
Ultima IV: Magma Flow Here British's indestructibility is ruptured by a mixture of cunning and incredible patience. Only a handful of spells can touch him. Filling the area with lava will damage him, albeit only slightly. Do it repeatedly and you can kill him. Quicker results can be had with the Skull of Mondain, which kills everything in the area... but such is its negative effect on your status that it makes the game almost impossible to complete.
Ultima V: Time Kills An easy one. The game is all about rescuing Lord British. Spend too long messing around, and eventually you'll be told of the great man's demise. What... I was meant to save you? Sorry, man: I was too busy baking this lovely bread.
Ultima VI: Keg Party There are a few neat ways around our target's borderline invulnerability in Ultima's sixth outing. Our favourite is the most industrious. Find kegs of gunpowder. Pack them all into Lord British's throne room. Ignite one, stand back and try not to get bits of Lord British all over yourself.
Ultima VII: The Killing Joke Here the true comic potential of offing British came into play. Every day at midday he would walk beneath the castle gate. Click on the gold plaque and it falls, hits him, and kills him. Rumour has it this was inspired by a real-life accident at Origin, where a metal bar fell on Garriott's head, requiring a quick trip to hospital.
Ultima VIII: Abdication Ultima VIII upset the fans. For one thing, it was released in a very buggy condition. By a complete coincidence, this was after Ultima developers Origin had been assimilated by Electronic Arts. Another reason the fans didn't like it was that it was set on the world of Pagan, not Britannia, so there was no Lord British to kill.
Ultima IX: Use Your Loaf British's invulnerability can be circumnavigated by tricking him into eating poisoned bread you brought with you from your home dimension. The full Looney Tunes style death sequence has been immortalised online. We especially like how he chokes, falls down, gets up again and finally dies. Good going.
Ultima Online: You're Fired Arguably the most iconic of all British's many deaths happened in the course of the Ultima Online beta test. Lord British and Lord Blackthorn were addressing a crowd when a firefield spell hit the pair of them. It came from a player by the name of Rainz, who figured it was simply too good an opportunity to miss and was expecting nothing but annihilation for his troubles.
It was a strike so spur-of-the-moment that he actually had to use his thief skills to root around everyone else's backpacks to find someone with a suitable spell. Rainz recalls a comment of "Nice Try"... but the laughs turned to astonished gasps as British grunted and fell over. Someone had forgotten to turn on British's invulnerability against that sort of attack. Victory!
General Disorder Wiping the blank slate clean - and not with blanks
Friday, October 26, 2007. They're moving. They're closing in. There are hundreds of them. They're armed with every single weapon imaginable and some which you imagined especially for them. Oh, the irony. What can possibly be going through your mind?
Since it's the last days of the Tabula Rasa beta and you're General British, the latest in-game alter-ego of the game's visionary Richard Garriott, there's only one thing that can be going through your mind: "Oh no, not again."
Tying into the history of British-killing, and to round out the beta, the Tabula Rasa team had an event where players got bump to off General British. But while the Ultima Online assassination was done by one man, this was a more messy affair, with no one sure who laid the killing blow.
It's an impressive demonstration of Tabula Rasa's main strength: fast-flowing combat and lots of guns.
lol... the TR screenshot... I was there... I lagged to death
If I'm not mistaken for U4 and U6, I did the other ways to kill LB. The one the article mentioned was not the method I did to kill LB. I wish I can recall, was fun fighting LB.
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