Pending a restart, the following changes have been made:

• Noxious Decay is now a 6th circle spell (instead of 7th)
• A bug causing Earthquake to give Spirit Speak gains has been fixed
• Bone Armor can only be used on yourself.
• Necromancers can now cast Invisibility

• Protection, Magic Reflection, Reactive Armor, and Arch Protect now harm Necromancers as intended.
• A bug causing Mass Dispel to dispel summons too frequently has been fixed.
• Blood Siphon's cooldown on a given target has been decreased.
• The Gravedigging vendor now sells Grave Dust- at a very steep price.

'Twas a month before Christmas and all throughout Yew, not a creature was stirring- the guards had all gone too! A cold wind came and quickly they figured out, that Santa Claws and his evil minions would soon be about!

Launching sometime this evening, Yew will be invaded by Santa Claws and his evil minions. Santa Claws will spawn once every 24h, while his minions will spawn very often. Of course rares will be out there for the taking!

Yew will thus be a war zone until Christmas. Yew've been warned!

• Poison Elemental summons now poison more often.
• A timing bug with wisp summon spellcasting has been addressed.

The Lithos necromancy event will end tomorrow. Its spawn rate has been increased until then.

• Reds can now use the gravedigging vendor
• You can no longer harm necromancers in town with beneficial spells
• Gravedigging will check your character notoriety settings before turning you grey

• Beneficial / Healing spells used to harm necromancers now behave properly and consume reagants.
• A new item has been added to fill the Necronomicon with spells instead of the Grave Dust- it is called Heart of Earth Shard and it can be obtained from undead mobs.
• Necromancers will now only be considered undead if their Forensic Eval AND Spirit Speak are above 60.

Necromancy is now live in Britannia! A method of procuring the Necronomicon has been introduced and players are encouraged to discover it.

For a short time, a boss event featuring Lithos, titan of Earth, is also active and is another possible way of obtaining the Necronomicon.

Please read the following articles which outline Necromancy- some changes have been made.

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

https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/skills/forensic_evaluation

The cost of gravedigging tools has been reduced greatly and their charges have increased to 100 in preparation for Necromancy,

Relics of Lithos, titan of Earth, have been sighted in Britannia- a dark omen of evil events on the horizon.

Necromancy is coming to Britannia and is currently in testing! Shout out to Stimwalt who designed the ideas behind much of this system before he departed the team. The following wiki articles will give you a good idea of what to expect. It is a more hardcore lifestyle than your average blue build.

https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/en/skills/forensic_evaluation

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

Some more decorations have been fixed in terms of an issue preventing placing them, included but not limited to:

• Wooden Display Case
• Small Three Shelf Market Rack
• Large Two Row Market Rack
• Arena Bleachers (these have been reduced in size to fit better)
• Medium Display Rack
• L-shaped & Large Bar with Brace

An issue has been solved preventing people from buying mounts like the Fire Ostard that can be ridden by anyone if their skill level is too low.

The following is a preview of the upcoming Bulk Orders and Crafting Changes. Testing is about to begin, but there is no expected release date at this time. Near the release, we will write some Wiki pages to further explain some of these changes, but for the most part a lot of the mechanics are borrowed from UO, so existing UO wikis can be used as a guideline for now.

Bulk Order Deeds:

• Blacksmithy and Tailoring only to start
• Bulk order deeds consist of 2 sizes: Small and Large. Small orders have just 1 item to craft and fill, while large orders require 3-6 small orders to be filled, and must have the small deeds to fill a large
• Read More About BODs here: https://www.uoforum.com/wiki/index.php/Bulk_Order_Deed

Mining & Blacksmithy Changes

• Material colors have been updated to better match UO's material colors
• Mining Veins are now permanent, allowing players to cherrypick certain ores
• Runic Crafting mechanics added
• Faction Runic crafting added, allows Faction members in a town their control to Bless weapons and armor for a period of time
• Granite mining added & Stone Crafting recipes added for Carpentry, regular stone and related recipes remain, 23 new stone craftable recipes (not yet available)
• Granite mining pickaxes added as a BOD reward, can mine High Quality Granite in the spectrum of metal colors to be used to craft new Stone recipes
• Mining regular stone with a normal pickaxe is no longer exclusive, instead, you will continue to mine the metal from the vein with a chance to get stone, granite mining works the same way
• Bulk Orders added with extensive rewards, including but not limited to & in no particular order:
  • Runic Hammers
  • Ancient Smith hammers, limited charges, when worn grants a skill boost to Blacksmithy
  • Sturdy Shovels/Pickaxes/Hammers (high durability tools)
  • Miner's Headlamp, when worn allows Miners of at least 80 skill to enjoy Nightsight
  • Miner's Apron, when worn gives a skill boost to Mining
  • Gargoyle Pickaxe, this allows you to increase the type of ore in a vein by 1 level and may spawn matching Ore Elementals
  • Prospector's Tool, which allows you to inspect Mining Veins for their contents
  • 2 new anvil types, comes in each ore color
  • Powder of Fortification, increases max durability of a piece of equipment by 10pts up to 3 times per item under 255, consuming the powder with each use

Tailoring Changes

• Sewing Kits added as the primary tool for Tailors and Scissors are now only used for cutting fabric and items
• Cutting cloth items will now retain the color of the item being cut, resulting in colored material returns, allowing you to turn that material into something else
  • Spinning wheel added as a workbench for spinning cotton with [cannot be crafted, received as loot for Tailoring, also exists in tailoring shops]
  • Cotton now requires being spun on a spinning wheel, which will spin it to thread, which can then be woven into Bolts of Fabric on the Loom via Tailoring (not really related to BoDs)
  • Bolts of Fabric can no longer be used to craft with, instead, they need to be cut into sheets of fabric
  • Bolts & sheets of fabric now retain their color when working with them, meaning if you have a pile of fabric that is Green, then the shirt you craft will be Green also
• Faction Runic crafting added, allows Faction members in a controlled town to Bless clothing, weapons, and armor for a period of time
• Clothes can now be crafted as Exceptional
• Bulk Orders added with extensive rewards, including but not limited to & in no particular order:
  • Colored cloth in a wide array of special colors not normally available, comes in different tiers of difficulty, similar to UO
  • Single-Use Dyes in special colors
  • Spinning wheel deed
  • Sturdy sewing kit (higher durability)
  • Clothing bless deeds, comes in 4 different kinds for each layer: Head, Chest, Legs, Cloak
  • Runic Sewing Kits and Runic Crafting mechanics
  • New recipes for some new Tailoring decorations like Table Cloths and fancy Rugs & Sectional Carpet

We've updated the Short and Long Spear to working models that properly show the weapon in your hands when you are in warmode. Spears made before this change will not reflect the updated models though, so you may want to hold on to one or two as they are now relics. :)

• A new endgame summon has arrived for the Summoner's Tome. It requires GM Spirit Speak, Magery, and Animal Lore to unlock.
• A new resource has been added to gravedigging that will soon prove quite useful.

• Corrected an issue with the Bear Ethereal Statue being listed under 3 years instead of 2 years
• Corrected an issue with claiming the Resurrection Ankh actually giving a Hitching Post.

If you claimed a Resurrection Ankh and erroneously received the Hitching Post instead, and would like to swap the Hitching Post for an Ankh please send a Help Request in-game and we will work with you individually to honor that request. Please be mindful we may require a day or two to reply to help requests but we will contact you back as quickly as possible.

• Summons should no longer create corpses upon death.
• A bug causing people with many long term murders but less than 5 short term murders to be blue has been fixed.

More house decorations have been fixed that previously gave users trouble when trying to place them:

• Holiday Tree 1 & 2
• Veteran Reward Banners 1, 2, 3 & 4
• Large Counter 1 & 2
• Inn Bar
• Large Display Shelf
• Fixed an issue with Gothic Torch deeds being named just "Deed" or "Unknown Furniture Deed" after being placed and then released
• Fixed issue with decoration deed from SOS rewards being named "Deed" or "Unknown Furniture Deed", it is the Large Booth Divider, and it can now be placed

If you find any other decorative items that give you an error every time you try to place it, please let us know the exact name of the deed in your reports, thank you!

• Fixed bug where bonded pets turned into laid down corpses upon dying
• Faction Ranks will begin launching after restart. Every day when the leaderboard is compiled, each member of a given faction will be ranked based on their kill points relative to their fellow same faction members and given a rank between 1-6 (with special names for each rank per faction). This will be viewable from the faction menu in your paper doll / character window. This is in preparation for faction crafted gear- your rank determines how many faction gear pieces you may equip at once.

• The Strange Gazer summon has been tweaked. A bug preventing it from casting has been fixed and it is now a caster as intended. It has been beefed up a bit.
• The War Horse mount will stop being a ridable human skeleton the next time it dies. New War Horses will not have this issue.
• Pets will no longer follow a target they're attacking if the target hides.