The Great Ultizurkian Underland is another part of Dr. Dungeon’s series of Ultima clones, Ultizurk. It is set between Ultizurk II and III and while the non-numbered title implies it to be a spinoff, the story told in it is canon and ties the second and third games together. The title Ultizurkian Underland implies that it was inspired by Ultima Underworld, but unlike that game it doesn’t switch the perspective to first person: it runs in the exact same engine as the first two games, and uses the exact same keyword dialog system, tile-based movement, and simplistic real time combat.
The game begins when the protagonist finds a history book on the floor in his guildhall, which relays the geography and politics of the underland. Lord Thomas Baldwin is the ruler of the underland, which is located inside a dormant volcano with many caverns. The underland is accessed by climbing down the open top of the volcano. At the bottom of the hollow volcano rules Lord Henry, whose realm is almost as great as Lord Baldwin’s. In between those two realms is the lush jungle realm of Queen Melissa, who is of the race of sirens. And within that complex underworld there lives the great archmage Leomund whose name you have heard before – from him you can receive instruction in magic lore. This Leomund is the one who placed that book in the protagonist’s room, for he worries about recent events in the underland: people have been forming secretive guilds and communicating with passwords. He worries that a portal may soon be opened that could unleash evil into the underland, and so the protagonist ventures there to put an end to it.
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