Our top Wizards have been working tirelessly, and we're happy to announce that the city of Skara Brae, as well as the mainland region to the east of it, will be available in game very, very shortly- and we mean REALLY shortly. While expanded landmass is awesome in and of itself, we wanted to give you a preview of some of the things that come with it:

• Housing will be enabled in the region on launch
• A new, mysterious puzzle questline will open up. Players are encouraged to seek out information about strange events in the area- one clue of which is already in the world today.
• A second faction pillar will be activated in the overland.
• A new automated/regularly scheduled miniboss will be activated.
• A celebratory Treasure Hunt Event (similar to the christmas elf's treasure hunt) will occur shortly after launch.
• A few new, never before seen mobs will be in the region
• More content in this region undoubtedly will follow.

We're excited to share the team's hard work with everyone VERY soon!

• Fixed an issue preventing moving/using objects inside secured containers
• Fixed issue with Friends, Co-Owners, Ban List not being retained properly when relocating a house
• Fixed issue with house sign not updating properly when relocating a house
• Added prevention for being able to add items to the trade window when it would put either party overweight
• Fixed issue with items being dragged out of a player vendor's backpack sometimes being removed from the sale but moved back to the vendor, causing the item to become stuck
• Fixed issue with not being able to pick up items on player vendors that have been erroneously removed from the sale and moved back to the vendor, now vendor owners should be able to pick these items up and move them to backpack
• Fixed issue with stablemasters not being able to find pets in some cases when using the Retrieve Pet Out of Range option
• Added heat source functionality to Stove decoration to be used for cooking
• Fixed issue with not being able to place 2020 Holiday Hearth & 2020 Winter Throne (from Celador)
• Reduced cooldown for Pet Stuck option
• Fixed issue with some AOE spells not damaging hidden players
• Fixed issue with losing typing progress in the Whisper Reply window if a new whisper is received while typing a response
• Fixed issue with some secure house containers not having the Security option causing issues with using/opening them; you can now say "i wish to secure this" target the affected container and it will be re-secured

If you relocated your house during the first few hours of the land rush this past weekend then you may have noticed that the Friends, Co-owners, and Ban List was not retained. This issue was already fixed but is not retroactive, sorry!

Another issue was identified in which after moving a house the sign may show the owner's name incorrectly while the name inside the menu shows correctly, especially if you relocated the house with a different character. This does not affect ownership and is just a display error, so nothing to be alarmed about but we will work to correct this as well.

In some cases, items that were locked down in a container (not secure) in your house, the items may have inadvertently moved out of the container and put into the center of the house. If this happened to you, sorry! Right now we don't have a workaround or an easy way to move these items back to a container in one swift movement, so you will need to release and move them individually for now. Apologies if this happened to you, and appreciate your patience.

UPDATE: If you have a large amount of items that ended up at the center of your house and would like assistance, please send a Help Request from in-game and we will be able to quickly move items for you.

An issue preventing placing houses in some designated housing spots due to "you cannot claim that land" has been resolved. This was due to a designated Treasure Map location being nearby blocking placement, which has now been optimized. In some cases, this may open up a piece of land that previously could not be claimed. This hotfix will go live after the daily restart

• Areas outside of Britain, Minoc, and Cove are now open for house placement
• A new "Pack and Relocate" option has been added that will allow you to pack your house up and move it to a different location

Relocation details:

• Initial cost is 20,000gp which is doubled each subsequent move
• Packing a house for relocation will move all of the house's contents (lockdowns & secures & vendors) to a deed which you can use to re-place the house again somewhere else
• You will have 2 days to complete the move, after which the house and its contents will decay automatically
• House relocations have a cooldown of 2 days after a relocation occurs (make sure you are happy with your spot when moving!)
• In the rare event that it will take someone more than 2 days or an emergency comes up, we will do our best to accommodate players' needs

The landrush updates have been applied and the server will be coming online at 2:15 pm UTC (in about 5 minutes)!

Some maps have been added to the wiki page https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/housing#housing-allowed-areas to reveal what areas are Housing Allowed for each region.

After next restart, two new Necromancy spells have been added:

• Ghost Blade (6th circle) - increases your effective Tactics melee damage bonus, scaled up based on your Spirit Speak skill.
• Vampiric Touch (7th circle) - a chance to siphon some health from your enemy on a melee hit if the hit is successful. Its effectiveness is scaled up based upon your Spirit Speak skill.

Bone Armor (existing spell), Ghost Blade, and Vampiric Touch are exclusive- only one of these may be active at a time.

https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/necronomicon

We've got an update regarding the landrush announced earlier this month https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/housing-plan

The landrush will begin at 2:00 pm UTC on 1/1/22 and to see this in your time zone please see the time listed on the Discord Event: https://discord.gg/CuwaP9sbep?event=919129668781748256 as it is reflected in your local time.

At 2:00 pm UTC on 1/1/22 we will restart the server with the update to allow housing around Britain, Minoc & Cove.

We hope this accommodates most people's time zones and you're able to attend and secure the spot of your dreams!

Fixed an issue causing Escorts to not recognize that they have reached their destination in several cases

The 3 year veteran reward hitching post and ankh have had a couple bugs patched- they now properly obey their owner and the ankh's placement issues have been resolved.

Some have reported that you cannot bless the Reindeer Mask with a Clothing Bless Deed: Head Slot, this is because the Reindeer Mask fits in the Mask slot and not the Head slot. Sorry for the confusion.

A bug allowing use of the Necronomicon when not considered Undead has been patched. As a result, the Necronomicon now requires a minimum of 60.1 in Forensic Evaluation, Spirit Speak, and Magery to use.

• A bone armor dye tub has been added in game, as an ultra rare drop.
• The Dark Guardian summon has had its damage output increased a bit.

• Fixed an issue with Santa Claus not handing out presents
• Fixed an issue with presents sometimes not giving any items
• Fixed an issue with Meditation not working at all

We'd like to welcome the newest member of the team, Wize! He has extensive software development and unity experience, and will be focusing primarily on Unity for the moment (as we heard some of you wanted to see the map expand....). Please give him a warm welcome!

Pending a nightly restart, the following changes have been made:

Bone Crafting has been introduced! This will allow players to harvest bones and ethereal bones from gravedigging, and craft bone armor, as well as bone crafting stations for their houses. Bone Armor will become more useful, as players with > 80 Forensic Evaluation (e.g. Necromancers) may meditate in Bone Armor and will enjoy the benefit of the passive mana regen being cut in half compared to non-necro players. Bone items require both Tailoring and Forensic Evaluation skill to craft.

Additionally the following changes have been made:

A bug allowing players to actively meditate in armor heavier than leather has been patched. The Necromancer spell Death Ward now lasts 5 minutes, with a one minute cooldown.

Happy holidays from the Shards of Britannia staff!

Twelve days of Xmas is about to commence. Santa has set up shop outside of Britain in Paws town. For naughty Britannians, Evil Santa has set up shop outside of Minoc next to the Buccaneer's Den archway teleporter. You will be able to talk to Santa each day, per account, to receive a gift. There may be appearances of Krampus or other evil holiday spirits throughout the event as well, stay tuned for more updates.

Note: Santa will not start handing out presents until 9am UTC Christmas Morning, but if you are logged in starting at midnight UTC on Christmas Eve you will get a gift to open early! :)

Event details from Discord: https://discord.gg/CuwaP9sbep?event=922085498011398165

• Some noxious decay bug fixes have been added to avoid the "endless heal" scenario.
• A bug causing the faction pillar to be a stingy bastard has been fixed.
• Fey slayers have been removed from crafting tables, as we have very few fey mobs at this time.