Moongate
Simply stated a Moongate, or gate, is a form of magical transportation. Some are static features, while others can be created by characters or put up by developers for specific events. There are moongates to every facet, and travel between different locations within each facet can also occur. However, gates cannot be cast in facet Felucca dungeons or anywhere in facet Ilshenar.
Moongates come in several colors: blue, red, and black are the most common. However there have been orange, white, and grey gates as well. Red moongates always exit in Felucca.
Moongates cannot be used when a character is flagged as a criminal or as an aggressor on another character. Sometimes a moongate will not function and a player will see the system message, "Your spirit lacks cohesion." This is because of a "cohesion" timer. There is a flat minimum to how quickly a character can go through a moongate again. That minimum increases for each time a character passes through a moongate within a certain span of time. By waiting approximately thirty seconds, the minimum returns to the initial value.
Contents
Static Moongates
A character who steps into a static moongate is presented with a checkbox menu of destinations. The menu feature was introduced to game-play in January of 2001. Below is a list of current static moongates, save for Magincia, which may or may not be rebuilt:
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Most of the Ilshenar moongates are proximate to an ankh, and are often referred to as shrines, although the actual Virtue Shrines are located elsewhere in Trammel and Felucca. The Ilshenar Chaos moongates does not have an ankh and thus offers no resurrection, karma lock, or tithing.
Magery Gate Spell
- See main article: Gate Travel
Mages can cast a Moongate to a particular location, as long as they have a rune or runebook that is marked with a spell called Mark.
Special Moongates
There are several types of moongates that fall outside the course of routine gameplay. Special events have revolved around corrupted moongates.
Magincia Invasion
- See main article: Magincia Invasion
Harrower Gates
Once a Champion is slain, the hued skull that remains must be taken through the dark moongate that will appear. The gate will lead to a Star Room, which contains an altar for each Champion. Once all six skulls have been placed on their respective altars, the Harrower will spawn in a random dungeon in Felucca, and another dark moongate, leading to that dungeon, will appear on the altar.
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.
See Also
- Five on Friday - March 16, 2007 regarding cohesion.
- Mark
- Recall
- Sacred Journey