On August 9, 1997, one of gaming's most beloved characters was brutally and publicly exterminated mid-speech in the early beta stages of Ultima Online. The act heralded the dawning of a new era of PC gaming. The assassin, a Minneapolis software consultant named Rainz, belonged to a guild dedicated to maintaining the balance of power in Ultima Online (UO) and could not resist the opportunity to immolate the "ultimate wielder of tyrannical rule" in the series' fictional world.