The Beginning

'Twas a long, long time ago on Great Lakes. Two players, best friends in real life, logged onto Ultima Online for the first time, green, naive, and full of excitement. Both fans of the original Ultima games, these two friends sought adventure together, keeping in mind the 8 Virtues and the quests of the Avatar. They named their characters: Galad and Dagmar Ismaron.

As most newbies do, Galad and Dagmar experienced the usual hardships that come to those who are inexperienced. But even as they became more and more skilled, they still felt the wrath of the PKs. In an attempt to get a little revenge, and create a group of friends to adventure with in the saftey of a group, they formed a guild that was to ward off such villains as PKs and theives. They named the guild: WOE - The Warders of Evil. Their mission was to 'rid the land of evil' - WOE for those who practice Evil, for the Warders shalt vanquish them! Several other players joined this seeming worthwhile cause and they became friends.

However, Warders of Evil they were not destined to be. First, lag struck Dagmar horribly, making play very frustrating. Next, some PKs wiped out Dagmar and three of his guildmates in a battle in Cyclops Valley. This prompted Dag to take a short break from UO, out of sheer frustration. A few of his guildmates who died also left UO, but for a different game - Everquest. WOE was disbanded, but Galad continued to play.

The Dark Side of UO

Enticed by the stories of adventure by PKs, Galad decided to pursue this type of playstyle. In the meantime, the itch to play returned to Dagmar and soon he and Galad were discussing how they would begin as PKs. One night they decided to make a go of it. Approaching two adventurers in the wilderness of the Lost Lands, Dagmar asked one if he could heal. When the adventurer said that he couldn't, Dagmar told him that it was okay and ebolted him. The adventurers split and ran. Dag followed one and Galad the other. (Inexperienced, indeed!) Dagmar's prey got away, but meeting up with Galad he helped finish off the other. Blood pumping, they headed north to the skeleton ruins to look for more victims. When they got there, they met two adventurers guarding a corspe. Galad boldly walked up and began looting. One of the adventurers turned to Dagmar and told him to tell Galad to stop looting his friend. Dag said okay and ebolted him. Unfortunately, a skilled mage on horseback intervened and they had to recall out with their lives.

After several such ocassions, Dagmar decided that PK'ing wasn't really the life for him. There had to be something else out there. Being a good guy, or roleplayer didn't cut it - he learned that from his time in WOE. Plus the lag on GL was getting progressively worse, to the point of being unbearable. Finally, Dagmar made his decision: he would change shards, or else leave UO for good. After discussing things over with Galad, they decided to try a different shard. They may still return to Great Lakes evey so often (particularly Galad who later started a LuT branch there). Their pings led them to SONOMA!

During the transition, Dagmar remembered a time when he and his former guildmates were fighting Titans in Cyclops Valley. A ghost ran up to them for a res. Unable to res at the time, Dagmar apologized, but as he went to look for another Titan to lead back to the group, he came upon the corpse. Well, he looted it in full, but there wasn't much of value. He returned with a Titan and they proceeded to engage it. Meantime, the newly ressed player returned. Dagmar told her he had got her stuff and gave it to her. She asked where the rest of it was, but Dag told her that there had been nothing else. He gave her some recall regs and she thanked him and left. As his guildmates battled a newly spawned cyclops, Dagmar ran down to loot the freshly killed Titan. On its corpse it had two colored packs - it had been the one to kill that player, and had looted her skillfully! Excitement filled him at once and he looted the packs eagerly. Inside one he found a mage's delight, a load of regs. In the other was a stash of gold and items. Dag told the others he was going to find another Titan and ran off. When he was out of sight, he recalled to town and banked his loot!

This memory, plus the times when Dagmar and Galad would try to see who could kill and loot critters the fastest as they built their skills, prompted them to consider taking up the life of a professional looter. As they discussed their new plan, they came up with the idea of giving their characters the same name to fool their victims.

The Image

The name Galad comes from a series of books called The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. In these books the character Galad is an honorable paladin who always does the right thing. If he catches someone performing a dishonorable deed he will make sure they are punished, and if he himself commits a wrongdoing, he will turn himself in for it. Such is the irony of the scoundrel Galad known in Ultima Online, a character who thrives on wrongdoing and the misery of others.

The attitude Galad adopted was inspired by many swashbuckling characters from old movies and books. Actors Douglas Fairbanks Sr. who starred in films such as The Black Pirate and Thief of Baghdad, and Errol Flynn, star of The Adventures of Robin Hood and Captain Blood were among the favorites. Any films or books where the rogue character would save the day, collect the loot, and get the girl was kept in mind while playing their characters.

And so, with their new identities intact, the Galads came to Sonoma.

Sonoma

New characters once again, but this time they had done their research and quickly gained skill through macroing. Once the Galads had reached a certain level, they began to loot at the Orc Fort and the Terathan Keep. In no time, they had 100k in gold each. They bought houses and boats and quickly grew in riches and skill - and fame. During their looting expeditions, the Galads would try to outloot each other, making it that much more fun. Soon they began to develop new techniques, particularly to speed the death of others. They used a tactic employed by a blue PK on GL to lead critters up onto hills where players thought they were safe, then teleport off and let the critter finish the player off. They also perfected such tactics as blocking, the tele-hide trick, etc.

It wasn't long before anti-looters (such as MIGHTY HK) began to attack them, posses began to form, and the Galads had to perfect the art of escape. Sometimes, Galad (formerly Dagmar) would come to the Keep at the beginning of the night and an annoyed player would immediately attack him, or else a posse would chase him, thinking he was the 'other' Galad. Of course, it took everyone a while before they believed that there was more than one of them. Several other situations arose: there was the infamous Captain Crunch, who was jealous of the Galads and would attack them on sight; there were some players who used strange expressions, like "keke" and strange emote faces (later they learned them to be Azns). But it was all very, very, very fun and the Galads' wealth grew, as did their skills, and their notoriety!

The Liberators of Loot

The Galads soon decided to start a guild. The original Galad wanted to name the guild LOL - Liberators of Loot. Unfortunately, this abbreviation was taken. But during one day when they were discussing it and laughing about their exploits, the other Galad (Dagmar) suggested LuT (pronounced "loot") and they both broke up laughing and knew immediately that it was perfect. And so, LuT was born!

Around this time, the Galads were getting to be well-known, and some even admired them and became their friends: Fat Bastard, Phatty, and others. In order to differentiate between them, the original Galad took on the name "Evil Galad", since he was a little harder on his victims, and Dagmar became known as "Good Galad", primarly because he would help others when he wasn't looting them. Also at this time, Evil Galad began taking screenshots of some of his exploits. They both decided it would be great to start a website to show off their adventures. The site was started, albeit a little rough around the edges, but they found it funny as hell. Often they would give their victims a book with their web address to promote the site. Eventually, DrTwisTer happened upon their site and loved it. He offered to host their site for them and they readily agreed. And the site, and their popularity, grew and grew and grew!

Soon, other players were approaching them and asking to join their guild. Two such individuals, who became the first non-Galads in the guild, had come to Sonoma from Hokuto just to meet the Galads and hopefully share in their adventures. They were Ken and Whoopass, and they immediately proved themselves as phenomonal looters, and great friends. Others came to Sonoma to join as well, the cream of the crop. A friend of Whoop and Ken, one who Good Galad had enjoyed several discussions with on the DrTwisTer UO message board months earlier, Foo, came to Sonoma as SecretAznMan! Then there was Lewt and Galad (Notorooter) from Atlantic, Wyatt Earp (who always had his disguise kit on, so we never knew his real name! LOL) a native of Sonoma and others. The only problem with the growing guild was that there was less loot for the Galads! But there was lots of fun, even if they didn't earn gold, such as dispelling gates, stealing kills, and being generally obnoxious.

The Second Generation

'Twas a long, long time ago on Lake Superior. A player, talked into it by a close friend logged onto Ultima Online for the first time, green, naive, and full of excitement. Keeping in mind his enjoyment of pen & paper RPGs, he decided he would take the same route in this online RPG as a rogue. He named his character Darok Arion, a name he frequently used in his gaming. He spent weeks training his thieving skills and then using them against the citizens of Sosaria. To tell the truth, he wasn't very good at his trade as he had much to learn of the games mechanics, but he continued to train and plague the bystanders at the banks.

When he wasn't reaching into others' packs, or looting their houses, he spent a lot of time reading over some of the better UO-related websites in order to learn as much about the game as possible. One site he enjoyed more than the others was Dr. TwisTeR's. There was a great community on their messageboards and there was always something to learn from the posts of other players. However, there was a poster named Galad whose posts he always read. This fellow played the Sonoma shard and made his living by looting the corpses of fallen players. His threads always provided an entertaining read. He would boast of his great loots and escaping anti-looters by the skin of his teeth. Eventually this looter had a website of his own which he used to share his adventures... but this website used screenshots to chronicle his actions. It was everything Darok ever wanted in a UO webpage!

After about a year of reading the page religiously, Darok decided to create a Galad of his own (there were tons running around on Sonoma). Darok never invaded Sonoma, but instead decided to cause havoc on his home shard. After teaming up with some other looters, he plagued the Terathan Keep in his own way, capturing his own screenshots. He eventually set up his own sorry excuse for a website to post his 'adventures,' though he never showed them to anyone. He would occasionally submit screens and content to the official LuT site, and eventually got up the courage to send them his web address. Good Galad immediately took a liking and was there to give Darok advice on looting and technique. Soon Darok got up the courage to show his site to a few friends. It spread by word of mouth and eventually became a sister site to the Sonoma LuT page. Though it was never as good, it provided a messageboard and brought together looters from many shards.

It was a sad day when the Galads faded away from UO. Darok was one of, if not the biggest Galad fan and soon proved it by taking over Evil Galad's UO account. He packed up, left Lake Superior behind and re-settled on his new home of Sonoma. The first few months were like a whirlwind. He had instant celebrity status on the shard since not everyone knew he wasn't the famed Galad the looter, but decided that if people still wanted a Galad, he would do his best to be a Galad. It was a situation similar to one of his favorite movies: Whenever Zorro is needed, Zorro will be there. His site soon became a place to go to see new adventures and continued to grow and grow! After a while, Darok-Galad got a bit tired of being confused with Evil and Good Galad. Though he considered it an honor, he was trying to establish his own identity and took on the title "Neutral" in order to eliminate confusion. It took some time, but eventually worked. Another blow was struck when then LuT guildmaster, Lewt, decided to leave UO as well. He turned the guild over to Neutral Galad who promised to keep it running strong, and to this day has not broken the promise.

Conclusion

And so, that is a brief history of the original LuT guild and the Galads of Sonoma. Other Galads and LuT branches have popped up on other shards, inspired by the original Galads, but haven't reached the same level of recognition.

Though Galads come and go, their adventures will always live long and be enjoyed by players of UO, young and old, who have a rogue streak in them. Actually, don't we all? ^^

Galad the 'Good'
May 11th, 2000

Updated by 'Neutral' Galad
March 13th, 2003