Ultima Online: A Newbie Guide

Whether you are a new player to Ultima Online, or a veteran player starting a new character, visiting Swoop can get you off to a good start in a very big way.

Who is Swoop?

Swoop is a named monster that lives in the Twisted Weald. He is a purple eagle that will not attack you, unless you attack him first, sometimes he won't attack you even then ! In order to go visit Swoop you need to get the Dreadhorn quest from Lorekeeper Calendor in Heartwood.

Getting the Quest :

Go to the nearest Moongate. If you have not yet started your character, consider starting it in Moonglow. Moonglow Moongate is very easy to reach from the city. Gate to the city of Yew and walk to the center of town, which is due south of the Moongate (Head to the bottom left of your screen). You will see Winn the Elven Emissary standing next to a gate. Take the gate to Heartwood.

Go down and then to the right, past the bowcrafters and talk to Lorekeeper Calendor. She will tell you all about Dreadhorn.

Accept the quest and don't worry, you don't actually need to kill anything.

Getting to Swoop:

Go back to Yew and then back to the Moongate.

Click on Ishenar and on Spirituality.

Follow the path of carcasses and you will see the Mushroom Caves, which are covered with vines.

Enter the caves and head up and to the right, and you will find a ring of toadstools with a sparkling center.

This gate leads to the Twisted Weald. If you did not get the quest, nothing will happen. Please note that if you are "evil" the pixies will kill you pretty much instantly. ( Been there, done that) If you are going to be evil visit Swoop first, and be evil later, after you have your armour and a good start.

Once you get To Twisted Weald :

Ignore the pixies and other critters for now. Run to the right and you will see a little section that contains Swoop, and very likely, some Swoop corpses, and people hunting Swoop.

It pays to be friendly at this point. People hunt Swoop for different reasons, some hunt for money, some for gold, some for artifacts and some for Lower Reagent Count (LRC) armour. Many people who are hunting for the first three reasons will leave all the rest of the loot behind. That is why you are here ! If you click on Swoop corpse, you will likely get a message, "You did not earn the right to loot this corpse". That is ok, wait a while, check the other corpses, and talk to people. Eventually, the corpses will become lootable and you can get very nice armour, rings and bracelets to help you on your chosen path. If you have talked to people, don't be surprised if they take you home with them and start giving you what you need. People at Swoop tend to be good like that. The catch is that you have to tell them what you need. Very often, older players will drop gold on you if they don't need it themselves.

Take the newbie dagger, or a dagger or sharp weapon you found on Swoop, double click on it and then single click Swoop's corpse to skin it. Why ? Swoop's corpse will give you 75 feathers. That may not seem like a lot but you can take them to a Fletcher and sell them. Sometimes feathers will sell for as much as 10 gold pieces each, if you manage to skin 10 Swoops that is 750 feathers, or 7500 gold, a much better start than most new characters can make in only a few minutes.

If you are a fighter, take your weapon of choice. If you are not sure what a good weapon to take is, ASK. Chances are people will be more then glad to help you.

If you are a mage take the reagents you find on the corpse, chances are the people hunting Swoop don't want them and left them just for you. Aren't they nice !? If you want to be able to cast spells with out using reagents, take any armour you can find with a LRC of 12 or more. Don't worry if you can't find an entire suit yet, you can visit Swoop again, until you are too evil to do so, or you have all your armour. Even if you do not get a full LRC suit, you will have better armour, then you could loot from what you can kill, or buy, And if you talked to people chances are you have some friends willing to help you now. And that will give you a start that money can't buy !

(Many thanks to Shadow and Midnight Sun for walking my newbie character though this on both Chesapeake and Oceania, and Lord Boggles of Atlantic, for finding this clueless newbie and taking her home and giving her a "newbie kit")