Food

Food, as in real life, is a general term for items that can be consumed in-game by both characters and pets. As far as monsters are concerned, player characters are food.

There are two classes of food: plain and magic. Plain food can be: purchased from NPCs; found as loot; carved from corpses; picked or collected from fields and under certain trees; created by practitioners of the cooking skill; and as a result of the Magery spell, Create Food. Magic food, however, is made exclusively by cooks.

There are five types of food: fish, fruit, hay, meat, and vegetable. Pets only eat their preferred type of food. Of the five types, only fish and meat come in both the raw and cooked forms.

Food & Characters

In terms of player characters, food currently has few important uses. Eating magic food can cause a variety of temporary changes, such as: raising a character’s statistics; removing curses; and preventing (or lessening) poison damage. Some examples of magic food are: enchanted apples; orange petals; Roses of Trinsic; and fruit bowls.

Food & Pets

Food is one of the determinants of a pet’s loyalty. Feeding a tamed pet at the right time will cause it to bond with the character. Failing to feed a pet will eventually result in the pet returning to a wild state.

Food in History

Food has had a varied past in Ultima. In Ultima V, food that was carried by a character was consumed automatically and deducted from the total carried following an appropriate period of time. The automatic eating feature was removed in Ultima VI, but the importance of food was lessened; a character could go several days without eating and suffer no ill effect. Ultima VII maintained the need for manual eating, but the importance of food was increased severely. Death by starvation was not uncommon.

See Also

What to feed your pet at the Taming Archive.