Sorry for the late notice on this one - we'll be offline for an extended period of time while we sort out some urgent maintenance. Ideally we'll return to service by 11am UTC (approx 1h 45m after this message) though we'll notify you all if we're able to come online sooner.

Thank you for your patience.

The louui custom asset bundle is being updated today. This update adds more dynamic window textures or graphics for GUIs, for future updates. Once the update becomes available, your client will automatically download the latest bundle the next time you log in to a character. Please keep this in mind as it may delay your login by a minute or two while the download completes.

Attention all SoB faction members! The highly anticipated first-ever faction raffle is now officially open and will run for the next 6 months exclusively for faction players. Purchase your raffle tickets using faction coins and get ready for a chance to win amazing prizes! For full details, ticket purchasing, and prize information, visit Raff — the official lottery NPC. Good luck, and may the odds be in your favor!

This is a friendly reminder that the Winter Holiday activities are currently scheduled to end on Jan 7th at 9am UTC.

Update: The Season 6 recovery option has been re-enabled and those still waiting to claim rewards from Season 6 should now be able to.

Due to an issue with the Season 6 recovery grace period feature, the option to pick the prior season's rewards may be unavailable temporarily while we work on it. Please check the option again later if you are expecting to use it still. Note: this will not affect the deadline

Newest Changes

• Fixed issues with Mark spell sometimes not resulting in a cursor target due to auto-target being enabled

Changes

• see last month's changes here: https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/changelog-for-december-2025

Season 7 has officially started! We know some of you were caught off guard by the transition and didn't get a chance to claim your Season 6 rewards. No worries – we're making some improvements to prevent this from happening again.

What's New:

• Season Countdown Timer – A new countdown display in the Challenge System window shows exactly how much time remains in the current season, so you'll never miss the deadline again.
• Grace Period – Starting today, players with unclaimed rewards get 7 days after each season ends to claim them. Your prior season rewards will remain available during this grace period.
• Note: these changes will be available after the daily restart on Jan 2nd at 9am UTC

Season 7 Reward Additions:

• Shadow Leather Equipment – New armor pieces and shields
• Dragon Dyes – Swamp, ice, and fire variants for your pets
• Decorative Items – New birdcages, masks, and fishtanks
• Rare Plant Seeds – Banana plant, carnivorous plant, dragon tree, and more

For Season 6 Players: If you had unclaimed Season 6 rewards, a hotfix will deploy later today. After tomorrow's daily restart (Jan 2nd @ 9am UTC), log in and your Season 6 progress will be automatically restored – just open your Challenge System window and claim your rewards!

🎄 Frostfang's Cave Christmas Challenge! 🎄

A magical boulder has sealed the entrance to Frostfang's Cave! Only those who complete the festive Candy Cane Puzzle can break the seal.

How to Participate:

1. Find and activate 8 candy canes in the correct sequence
2. Once solved, the boulder becomes vulnerable to magic and explosions
3. Destroy it using Earthquake, Meteor Swarm, explosion potions, or exploding barrels
4. You have 60 minutes from your first activation to complete both phases!

Location: Near the entrance to Frostfang's Cave
Reward: Open the dungeon for everyone to hunt!

Event Details:

• Challenge resets if not completed within 60 minutes
• Once the boulder is destroyed, the dungeon stays open for 3 days
• After 3 days, the puzzle and boulder reset for a new attempt
• Work together or race against the clock!

Happy Holidays, adventurers! 🎅🎁

Santa has made his escape from Frostfang's Cave! Unfortunately, behind him, the cave has crumbled and become inaccessible. Santa is now parked at his workshop and will be trading for candy for the rest of the holiday season! He will be working on responding to the letters you all wrote him. Thanks for participating!

UPDATE: Santa has sent replies to all of the letters you sent him and for those who sent letters, you can expect to see a wrapped gift box in your bank box with a handwritten note directly from Santa!

Newest Changes

• A bug was fixed where the Wand of the Gardener’s Lens displayed the wrong plant name. Because of this, new hybrids were not labeled with the name of the crossed plant but with the name of the mother plant. For example, a seed from the Rushes plant (Gen 3) was identified as a Lily plant (Gen 2).
• Mobs (like the Dark Overseer) will cast firefield and other AoE again

Changes

It might be a good idea to double-check your plant seeds just in case.

• Plant pollination logic fixed. To clarify: only mature plants can be pollinated. When a plant produces its first seed without having been pollinated beforehand, it will self-pollinate. The player has one growth-cycle period to pollinate and cross-breed new plants—from the moment the plant becomes mature until the moment it produces its first seed.
• Self-pollinated plants will generate seeds for the same plant/color.
• Another fix for pollen not stacking correctly.
• A few (!) new items have been added to the holiday-related loot tables.
• Holiday lights have been fixed (finally). The light is now limited locally to the string of lights.
• Updated journal features - read more: https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/journal-updates-item-logs-feature
• Fixed issue with pack animal inventory closing unexpectedly while idle
• The number of seeds and resources has been slightly increased. Please note that we are still balancing the effects of this new system on the overall game.
• When you gather pollen from a plant, they will now stack correctly only with pollen from the same plant and the same color.

The server is going to be restarting in a few minutes for a quick hotfix to resolve some issues surrounding quick travel or travel between regions. The downtime is expected to be very short

We've deployed a minor update to the Shards of Britannia Launcher. Please make sure to close the launcher entirely (check next to the clock, in the system tray, for a SOB Launcher icon, right click it and choose Exit) and re-open it to receive the updates. This will ensure you have the latest update.

UPDATE on CDN Issue: We've been informed that the Brail CDN server has been updated now and you should be able to load the game like normal.

⚠️KNOWN ISSUE: Some users in certain regions are experiencing stale cache issues with our CDN provider, causing their SoB launcher to downgrade each time they try to upgrade it to the latest version. This issue is causing a mismatch with the game when loging in and it will cause a popup warning before ejecting you from the game. We're investigating and hope to have it resolved as quickly as possible. We're very sorry for the inconvenience and we appreciate your patience through the rough patches!

Looking For Group (LFG) System

Finding other players for activities just got easier! The new LFG system lets you create and browse group listings for dungeons, boss hunts, PvP, treasure hunting, crafting, quests, and more.

How to Use:

• Type /lfg to open the LFG window
• Browse active groups or create your own listing
• Set your group size (2-40 players), activity type, and optional scheduled time
• Choose between Open (instant join) or Approval Required (you review requests)
• Use /lfg followed by a message to chat with other LFG users

Key Features:

• Timezone support: Set your timezone in Settings to see scheduled times in your local time
• DST automatically applied for supported timezones
• Staff events are marked as Featured and last up to 7 days
• Regular listings expire after 12 hours to keep the list fresh
• LFG chat channel connects you with other players looking for groups

Discord Integration: (coming soon)

• LFG chat messages are now relayed to Discord and vice versa
• Stay connected with the community even when not in-game

Guidelines:

• You can create up to 3 active listings at a time
• 10 minute cooldown between creating new listings
• Your listing automatically closes when the group reaches maximum size or expires after 12 hours
• Staff events are identified with a special Featured marker

🎄 Winter Holiday Activities Are Here! 🎁

Activities have begun while Santa prepares for the big day—he'll make his grand appearance soon. In the meantime, here are some exciting activities to dive into:

🎅 Write to Santa! ✨

Santa's Mailbox is now open at his workshop, eagerly awaiting your Letters to Santa!

📜 Here’s how you can write to Santa:

• 1️⃣ Purchase a Note from any Innkeeper or Provisioner.
• 2️⃣ Pen a heartfelt letter, sharing why you’ve been good this year and what’s on your wish list.
• 3️⃣ Drop your letter in Santa’s Mailbox, located in Santa’s Workshop!

Santa will reply to letters—make yours extra special. Don’t wait—write Santa today! 🎅✨

🎄 How to Find Santa's Workshop:

Santa’s Workshop can be accessed via the Cellar Doors at Windemere Bank, right next to the giant snowball.

⚔️ Christmas Paragons

• Special Christmas Paragons will spawn throughout the event and drop Gift Boxes that may contain Elf Food.

🍬 Collect Elf Food

• Obtain Elf Food by killing monsters, opening stolen gift boxes, and rescuing prisoner elves.
• You can also get Elf Food through Ice Fishing and Snowball Fights.
• Good news: Last year's Elf Food candy is still valid this year!

⚔️ Save the Elves (Now Active)

• Wintry monsters of Dagger Isle (Windemere) have kidnapped elves from Santa's Workshop!
• Rescue the elves by seeking out monster camps, smashing stolen gift boxes, and leading the elves back to Santa’s Workshop.

❄️ Winter Dungeon — Rescue Santa! (Now Active)

• Watch: https://youtu.be/JXPgtI7p24M
• The story: Frostfang, a fearsome Wendigo boss, has kidnapped Santa and holds him in the icy caverns. Brave the Winter Dungeon, defeat Frostfang, and rescue Santa to save Christmas.
• How to enter: From Santa's Workshop, travel north and look for the hole in the ground marked "Tunnel" on the minimap. A Wandering Healer patrols nearby to help.
• Dungeon rules: The Winter Dungeon is no longer a Guarded Zone, an update from last year.
• Rescue & escort: After defeating Frostfang, speak to Santa and escort him back to his Workshop in Windemere. Santa is invulnerable; protect yourself on the return trip.
• Unlock trading: Santa must be rescued before his Workshop opens to trade Candy for festive gifts.
• Rewards: Adventurers may find a few exclusive Frostfang-inspired items and other holiday loot.
• Rally your allies, sharpen your blades, and prepare for the frozen depths — the holidays depend on you!

🎁 Santa's Rewards

• Once Santa has been saved from Frostfang's Cave, he will appear at his workshop indefinitely, but beware! He may end up being kidnapped by Frostfang again!
• Santa will reward you with gifts in exchange for Elf Food, so stock up while helping the elves!

🪙 Winter Bazaar/Vendor Mall (Coming Soon)

• The Winter Bazaar will be hosted at Windemere Bank or Santa's Workshop

🎁 Login Handout

• Log in between Christmas Eve (Dec 24) and Jan 1 to receive a special gift on your account.

⌚ Limited-Time Items

• ✨ Garnet Dyetubs: Available on Donation Vendors from December 25th to January 9th.
• ✨ Necromancy Vendor: Grab the Ethereal Undead Reindeer Statue, available now through January 9th.

⌚ Scheduled Ending

The events are scheduled to end on January 7 at 9:00 AM; this may be extended. If anything changes, we will update this post.

Happy Holidays and thank you for spending your free time with us! 🎄

We've added a survey to gather some data about players' recent connection experience with the game, please take a moment to fill this out when you've time: https://forms.gle/DmhqFNEh8Ho2rWuj9

Journal Updates

The Journal has received an update with improved logging reliability and expanded action tracking throughout the game.

Accessing the Item Log

• Right-click on your character to access the Item Log option
• or use your Journal hotkey to open the full Journal interface and click the Item Log button

New Item Log Tab

• Tracks your item activity: pickups, drops, looting, equipping, crafting, purchasing, trading, and more
• Shows where items came from and where they went (your backpack, a container, a corpse, or the ground)
• Click any entry to open a detail view with more information about the item and its history

New Controls & Settings

• Added a Recent Items button to quickly view recent item activity with options to locate or pick up items
• Added a Filters button to toggle which log categories are shown (Combat, System, Item, Chat)
• Added Window Width setting (small, medium, large) to adjust the Journal's width alongside the existing height option

Display Improvements

• Journal text now wraps properly when entries exceed the visible area
• Timestamps now display in 12-hour format with AM/PM

🎅 Write to Santa! ✨

Santa's Mailbox is now open at his workshop, eagerly awaiting your Letters to Santa!

🎄 How to Find Santa's Workshop: Santa’s Workshop can be accessed via the Cellar Doors at Windemere Bank, right next to the giant snowball.

Here's how it works:

• Purchase a Note from any Innkeeper or Provisioner.
• Write your heartfelt letter, explaining why you've been good this year and what you’re wishing for.
• Place your letter in Santa's Mailbox, and it will be delivered directly to Santa!

Santa plans to write back to everyone, so make it a letter worth reading! 🎄

Start writing today and share your holiday cheer! 🎅

Newest Changes

• Happy Thanksgiving, and enjoy the weekend! Each account will receive a jellyfish parachute sky lantern(!) as a gift upon login.

List of Changes

• Fixed an issue with line of sight not being taken into account in some cases for spellcasting
• Increased seed drops and added seed drops to higher-level elementals.
• Reintroduced the skull token vendor in Vaelthar (young players can hunt mobs for skull tokens and exchange them for useful gear).
• Resolved a critical bug where the mature plant would remain when placing the plant in decorative mode (if you have such a plant, please submit an in-game bug report with the coordinates; they need to be deleted by a GM).
• Seed drops added to some (!) mob types of dragons, elementals, reptiles, arachnids — and of course, to fishing.
• The teleporter at New Haven Bank to Britain Bank is now accessible to non-young players. This serves as a means to leave the island once you lose your young status.
• “A Spot to Plant” locations have been added to the world as spawn points. These spots are used to plant green thorns and will trigger certain world effects when planted. https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/gardening_greenthorn
• Fixed an issue with player characters' Polymorphed flag getting stuck after a Halloween Costume is removed (if this is happening to you at the moment please log out and back in)
• Fixed issue with creatures sometimes getting stuck allowing players to damage them without the creature moving
• Fixed issue with Hireling Combat NPCs getting stuck in combat in some cases
• Fixed issues with boss encounters continuing to spawn in the Weekly Dungeon erroneously
• Fixed issue with bounty hunters being able to use portals to enter the Trading Post no-combat area
• Fixed issue with pets not following in some cases
• Fixed issues with some mobiles showing "Invulnerable" while wandering or idling erroneously
• Fixed issue with Ocllo/New Player Haven not appearing for new characters in some cases
• Fixed issues with players and mobiles not being able to cast offensive spells on non-PVP targets on Ocllo island
• Fixed issues with skills raising above 80.0 in the Young Player Dungeon (Ocllo & New Player Dungeon are capped at 80.0 for the new player experience)
• Fixed raffle announcements not being sent to Discord
• Changed res-kill protection to be prevented for thieves for balance
• Improved stamina loss to pets from damage; this should help White Wyrms, for example, manage their stamina better, as we've received several reports of users with white wyrms running out of stamina too often recently
• Fixed issue with Passive Animal Taming trying to gain while you are starved, now it will skip consuming your Passive Points and instead warn you that you're starved and cannot gain right now
• Added periodic starvation reminders to players; this is a vital part of gameplay and can prevent skill gains if starved, so this was added to reduce confusion in cases where skills won't gain at all
• Fixed issue with Crafting Tools not being usable in some cases after being traded via hireling vendors
• Fixed issues with throwable spider eggs not consuming charges
• Fixed Gravedigging not working at some grave sites like Moonglow graveyard
• Fixed issues with Fishing where some objects cannot be obtained during the holidays when special loot overrides have been added
• Fixed issue with Mining Caves kicking players out too quickly (should be 15-20 minutes normally)
• Improved label scrolling in vendor dialog windows
• Fixed issues with the subregion label under the minimap displaying incorrectly in some cases
• Fixed issues with new player books not being readable in some cases (please let us know if they continue to present issues)
• Fixed issue with Hireling Combat NPCs getting stuck in combat in some cases (duplicate of earlier? kept in high-priority list only)
• Added ability for house owners to destroy a guildstone on the property, even if they are not the guildmaster (note: this does not disband a guild ever; the guildmaster can always place/replace their guildstone freely in
• Fixed sound effects for Bandits from Daemon to Human
• Gardening Phase 2 has been activated on the live server. All UO T2A seeds are now available in-game, along with the cross-pollination, color hybrid system, and plant resources (which are useful, not just decorative).
• Seeds will drop from some mobs and can also be found during certain activities. This will be expanded further over the next few days.
• Spiderlings will no longer drop gold.
• Halloween shoulder parrots will no longer display “2024” in their name.
• New Haven/Ocllo market stalls are now rentable by all players; rent per week has been lowered to 350g/week.
• UPDATE on the plant growth bug: In some cases, the bug fix does not appear to work for plants that were planted before November 3rd (before we rolled out the fix). If you encounter this issue and find an empty plant pot, please open a ticket. Do not release the pot — we need it as evidence to verify the case. A bug was fixed that could cause plants to continue growing in very rapid cycles after reaching maturity. This usually led to the premature death of the plants and left behind an empty flowerpot.
• A new seed has been introduced and added to the gardening quest giver’s sales inventory.
• Intensive logging has been added to the gardening system so that errors can be better traced and corrected.
• Plants placed in “decorative mode” can now create a deed in the player’s backend instead of an actual plant object. This feature will help us handle larger plants more efficiently in the future.

The winners have been selected for the 2025 Halloween House Decoration Contest!

The top 3 winners are:

1. Tommesatan's "Welcome to Tommesatans Hall of Helloween" - https://discord.com/channels/369023244038045697/1437162441627664454
2. Grueslayer's "Hall of Hallows" - https://discord.com/channels/369023244038045697/1437334046005923951
3. Guybrush's "Headless Horseman's Hideout" - https://discord.com/channels/369023244038045697/1437738626799894558

Prize packages will be sent to the winners soon and will include:

• 100/175/250 Halloween candy
• a customized Halloween item
• an engraved scroll commemorating the event and your win

Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone who participated! We look forward to exploring your creative designs each holiday and you never disappoint! Thanks for playing and spending some of your free time with us.

🎃 Halloween Vendors Just a quick reminder that the Halloween vendors will remain available until December 5th at 9am UTC. Make sure to grab your goods before they depart!

🏆 Decoration Contest The deadline for the Halloween Decoration Contest has now passed. While we had a quieter contest this year, we appreciate everyone who entered! We are currently ranking the winners and will be distributing prizes soon.

🦃 Thanksgiving & Winter Plans While the team is focused on development in our free time, which is naturally reduced due to the holidays, we don't have a major event planned for Thanksgiving. However, as usual, we will do our best to add some small festive activities or handouts to mark the occasion. We are looking forward to the Winter Holidays ahead!