ultimaiv

A love letter to Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar's character creation — the wagon, the Gypsy, the cards of virtue, the abacus of stones.

Live: https://ultimaiv.pages.dev/

A single-page recreation of the 7-question virtue bracket, in original art and voice. Eight tarot cards laid on a velvet table; an otherworldly voice weighs your soul against itself; one stone stays lit while the others go dark; the chosen virtue is named, and the wagon fades. Then the deck opens so you can read about every virtue you didn't become.

Not the game. Just the ceremony.

The two ways in

• https://ultimaiv.pages.dev/ — full ceremony. Enter the wagon, hear the Gypsy's greeting, weigh seven dilemmas, watch your stones go dark one by one, see the chosen card revealed and named.
• https://ultimaiv.pages.dev/cards/ — skip the ceremony, just flip through the deck. The intro screen also has a small "skip ahead" link.

The end of the ceremony lands you in the same deck browser, with your chosen virtue selected, a permalink to your reading, and a way back to the wagon door if you want to begin again.

What's here

.
├── index.html              single-file prototype (open via local server)
├── _redirects              Cloudflare Pages routing for /cards
├── seed/
│   ├── virtues.json        canonical bundle for each of the 8 virtues
│   ├── script.json         the Gypsy's fixed lines (locked)
│   ├── parables.json       28 short medieval-parable dilemmas, one per pairing
│   ├── cards.tsv           art-prompt seeds for the 8 tarot cards
│   └── gypsy_script.md     authoring notes for the script
├── cards/
│   ├── v1/                 first-pass deck (archive)
│   ├── v2/                 current deck — virtue + mantra + stone + town
│   └── v2_fix/             targeted re-rolls of Honor + Compassion
├── scenes/
│   ├── wagon_interior.jpeg
│   ├── card_back.jpeg
│   └── gypsy.jpeg
├── audio/
│   ├── gypsy/              16 fixed Gypsy lines (entry, transitions, 8 closings, whisper)
│   └── parables/           28 parable scenes, one per virtue pairing
└── scripts/
    ├── gen_cards.sh        parallel xAI Grok render of the deck from seed/cards.tsv
    ├── gen_scene.sh        one-off scene image
    ├── gen_voice.sh        ElevenLabs render of every line in seed/script.json
    ├── gen_parables.sh     ElevenLabs render of every scene in seed/parables.json
    └── deploy.sh           Cloudflare Pages deploy (stages dist/, then wrangler)

Stack

• Front-end: vanilla HTML / CSS / JS, single self-contained file
• Hosting: Cloudflare Pages (free tier)
• Art: xAI Grok image generation (~$0.10/card, $0.80 for a full deck)
• Voice: ElevenLabs — voice ID set via ELEVENLABS_VOICE_GYPSY in .env
• Future: D1 for permalink/session storage and live LLM parables

Run locally

cp .env.example .env       # fill in your own keys
python3 -m http.server 8765
open http://localhost:8765

file:// doesn't work for the audio (browser security); use any local server. The /cards/ subpath is only set up by the deploy step — locally, hit / and use the on-screen skip link or invoke openCardBrowser(0) from the console to test the deck view.

Regenerate the art

./scripts/gen_cards.sh v3                # full deck → cards/v3/
./scripts/gen_cards.sh v3 honor valor    # just those two
./scripts/gen_scene.sh scenes/foo.jpeg "prompt..."

If you re-roll into a new versioned folder (v3, v4…), update the card: paths in DATA.virtues inside index.html so the browser picks up the new art. The deploy script copies whichever directories live under cards/.

Regenerate the voice

./scripts/gen_voice.sh                          # 16 Gypsy lines
./scripts/gen_parables.sh                       # 28 parable scenes
./scripts/gen_voice.sh    <ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID> # swap voice for the Gypsy
./scripts/gen_parables.sh <ELEVENLABS_VOICE_ID> # match voice for parables

Both scripts refuse to clobber existing files; delete or move the target mp3s before re-rolling. Settings are tuned for ceremonial pacing (low stability, high similarity, mid style).

Deploy

./scripts/deploy.sh

Requires CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN, CLOUDFLARE_ACCOUNT_ID, and PAGES_PROJECT in .env. The token needs Cloudflare Pages → Edit permission for the account. The script stages dist/, copies index.html to dist/cards/index.html (so /cards/ works alongside the existing cards/ image directory), then runs wrangler pages deploy.

Canonical Britannian bundle

Virtue	Principles	Class	Mantra	Stone	Town	Companion
Honesty	Truth	Mage	AHM	sapphire	Moonglow	Mariah
Compassion	Love	Bard	MU	yellow	Britain	Iolo
Valor	Courage	Fighter	RA	red	Jhelom	Geoffrey
Justice	Truth + Love	Druid	BEH	emerald	Yew	Jaana
Sacrifice	Love + Courage	Tinker	CAH	amber	Minoc	Julia
Honor	Courage + Truth	Paladin	SUMM	amethyst	Trinsic	Dupre
Spirituality	all three	Ranger	OM	white diamond	Skara Brae	Shamino
Humility	Void (absence of Pride)	Shepherd	LUM	black	New Magincia	Katrina

Each card in the deck browser also carries an original prose description and four short suggestions for cultivating that virtue, in the same archaic register as the Gypsy's voice.

License

Original art, voice, prose, and code in this repository are mine. The Ultima setting, virtues, mantras, town names, and Britannian iconography belong to their respective rights holders; this work is a fan tribute, not affiliated with or endorsed by anyone associated with the Ultima series.