Moongate
A Moongate or gate is a form of transportation across large distances in Ultima Online.
Moongates are magical warp portals connecting two or more places together. The most common Moongates are the constant Moongates next to or in every major town, all of which connect to each other, but players with sufficient Magery may also temporarily create Moongates linking only two areas together utilizing a Rune.
Gates are available in many colors; red ones always exit in Felucca.
Player gates cannot be created in Felucca's dungeons or anywhere in Ilshenar.
Moongates cannot be used when a character is flagged as a criminal or as an aggressor against another character, and will occasionally refuse to operate and tell the player "Your spirit lacks cohesion." when they have been teleporting through gates too rapidly. Waiting a few seconds will fix this.
Contents
Static Moongates
A character who steps into a non-player-created moongate is presented with a menu of destinations - all of the static moongates on the server. This menu feature was introduced in January 2001.
Below is a list of current static moongates:
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Most of the Ilshenar moongates are close to an ankh, and often referred to as shrines; although the actual Virtue Shrines are located elsewhere in Trammel and Felucca.
The Ilshenar Chaos moongate does not have an ankh and with it no resurrection, karma lock, or tithing.
Nujel'm has a moongate that serves as an exit and not as a destination.
Magincia moongates were damaged and served only as destinations, not exits from either Magincia. Shards of the crystal of duplicity that are recovered from the Virtuebane duplicates are used to create a new moongate and link it to rest of the Britannia during the Rebuilding of Magincia.
Other gate methods
- Mages may cast a Moongate to the location Marked on a Rune.
- Special events have utilized or created corrupted or compromised moongates.
- During Halloween 2006, one holiday feature of Shard of the Dead II was a series of special orange moongates that would change a character into a Daemon, Dragon, Gazer, etc. The effect was annulled by entering a grey gate.
- Slaying a Champion allows the player to take a special dyed skull through a dark moongate. Placing all six such skulls on the altar within will summon the Harrower in a random Felucca dungeon, and provide another dark moongate leading to such a dungeon.
Moongate Lore
Moongates made their initial appearance in the single-player Ultima games. Rather than the familiar ovals of today, they were rectangles. Early UO static moongates appeared and disappeared depending on the cycle of Britannia's twin moons, Trammel and Felucca. Trammel's phase affects where the moongates appeared, while Felucca's phase affects where they transported a character.
- New Moon -- Near Moonglow on Verity Isle
- Crescent Waxing -- Near Britian, on the mainland just off Britanny Bay.
- First Quarter -- Near Jhelom on the Valarian Isles.
- Gibbous Waxing -- Near Yew in the Deep Forest.
- Full Moon -- Near Minoc off Lost Hope Bay.
- Gibbous Waning -- Near Trinsic, northeast of the Cape of Heroes.
- Last Quarter -- Near Skara Brae on an island northwest of Spiritwood.
- Crescent Waning -- Near Magincia.
However, players often would simply walk their characters through the moongate over and over again until they were able to reach their intended destination. To help improve server performance, a feature was introduced whereby single clicking the left mouse button on a moongate will gave a description of what lies through the gate, which allowed players to know where the gate was going without having to jump through them over and over again.
Moonstones
Once found on various monsters, a moonstone would tell a character what phase a particular moon was in. When placed on the ground, they would create a temporary moongate. At the time there were only two facets and a moonstone would gate a character to the same coordinates on the opposite facet. Allegedly, other characters could not follow one through such a gate unless they were partied. Moonstones still exist and can be purchased from player vendors, however they no longer serve as a means of transportation.
Notes
- As an interesting aside, the Luna moongate will speak on certain occasions. Named Barry the Moongate, it will chastise characters who do not use their actual pet's name when issuing commands.
- Nystul of Lord British’s Court created a special moongate during the Trinsic invasion of 2000 that transported characters from Trinsic to Britain.
- The Buccaneer's Den moongate was introduced to allow murderers, or red characters, to be able to travel to Ilshenar once a month during the Third Dawn expansion. However this ability was removed later on, yet the moongate remains.
See Also
- Five on Friday - March 16, 2007 regarding cohesion.
- Mark
- Recall
- Sacred Journey