The Era Window
This shard replicates the live Ultima Online ruleset of January 9 – April 22, 2002 — from the day Publish 15 hit production to the eve of Publish 16's bard overhaul. That is the final form of the UO: Renaissance ruleset, running the Lord Blackthorn's Revenge (February 12, 2002) client and art as its baseline. Everything that existed then, exists here. Everything that came later — does not.
🌙 One Facet: Felucca
This shard runs Felucca, and Felucca alone — open PvP outside the guardzones, one economy, one Britannia. The historical Publish 15 carried Trammel and Ilshenar too; we run the world the way the Felucca community lived it. (A ruleset choice, proudly disclosed on this very page — every other rule below is era-verbatim.)
| Rule | Here |
|---|---|
| Facets | Felucca only. There is no Trammel. Characters made elsewhere wake up in Felucca. |
| Resources | No Felucca bonuses — double ore is a Publish 16 myth here. |
| Young players | Young protection exists — but this is Felucca. Everywhere is Felucca. |
Travel
- Dungeons are recallable — in and out.
- Recall while flagged as an aggressor is legal. Recalling out of a fight is era-defining.
- Moongates serve Felucca's eight towns. There is no Malas. There is no Tokuno.
💀 Death, Murder & Bounties
- Five murder counts — on either the short-term or long-term counter — turn you red.
- Red deaths suffer permanent ~20% stat and skill loss. Not temporary. Not buyable-off.
- Victims fund bounties; murderers' heads are turned in at the bounty boards for gold. (Publish 16 removed this system. Publish 16 never happens.)
- No item insurance. No blessed-by-gold anything. What you carry, you can lose.
- Statloss for faction fighters: 33% for 20 minutes, per Publish 8.
"The bounty board in Britain still remembers thy name, Dread Lord."
🔥 Combat & Magery — the numbers that matter
Casting ladder (by circle)
| Circle | Cast time | Circle | Cast time |
|---|---|---|---|
 1st | 0.50s |  5th | 1.50s |
 2nd | 0.75s |  6th | 1.75s |
 3rd | 1.00s |  7th | 2.00s |
 4th | 1.25s |  8th | 2.25s |
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Recast delay | 0.5s TUNE-IN-BETA |
| Spell damage delay | exactly 1.0s (Lightning included; Harm instant) |
| Explosion fuse | 2.0s TUNE-IN-BETA |
| Resisted direct damage | flat 50% |
| Disturb recovery | flat 0.5s — no "daggering" asymmetry (freeshard lore, not era) |
The mage's craft
- Spellbooks cast from memory (Publish 13 rules) — no book in hand required.
- Equipping a weapon while casting is blocked; releasing a held spell auto-unwields.
- A new cast may abandon a held target cursor — precast like it's 2002.
- One defensive spell at a time:
Magic Reflect or
Reactive Armor or
Protection.
Steel & sinew
- HP = STR/2 + 50 (Publish 13). Anatomy adds up to 30% damage; Lumberjack axes up to 35%.
- Two-handed special procs: Concussion, Crushing, and Paralyzing Blow. Wrestlers stun and disarm.
- Unarmed defense is Wrestling only. Anatomy/Eval "mage wrestle" is a Publish 16 invention.
- Bandages run on fixed era timers: 15s on thyself, 5s on another — dexterity be damned. Cure ≈80% at 60/60; resurrection ≈25% at 80/80.
- Weapon poisoning corrodes blades; keep an oil cloth handy (Publish 5).
⚒ Crafting & Economy
- Blacksmith Bulk Order Deeds per Publish 14 — including small plate and male plate-tunic BODs added by Publish 15. Runic hammers with era-sanitized rewards.
- Tailoring BODs do not exist (Publish 16). Sew for love, not deeds.
- Commodity deeds, repair contracts, Maker's Mark, exceptional quality, colored ore, unified crafting menu with Make Last.
- Tools and resources must be in thy backpack; crafting breaks meditation (Publish 15).
- Player vendors pay rent. Barkeeps serve through context menus. NPC shopkeepers buy 250 of an item, 500 total.
- Stabling is free — Publish 15 abolished the upkeep fee.
🏰 Housing & the Wider World
- Classic housing only — no custom foundations (an Age of Shadows invention).
- Houses auto-refresh; multiple houses per account are legal, as in the era.
- Character start: the classic chosen-city flow — all nine cities on Felucca, with Ocllo as the newcomer's island. New Haven does not exist.
- Stats: 225 total, 100 per stat. Skills: 700, and veteran rewards never inflate it.
- Pets: no control slots, no bonding. Thy dragon follows because it respects thee — and dies forever like everything else.
- Virtues: Compassion and Sacrifice only — including Sacrifice self-resurrection, fresh from January 2002's scenario storyline.
- Bards entice; Discordance arrives with Publish 16, which — say it with us — never happens.
🚫 What Is Not Here — and Never Will Be
- Item insurance, blessed runics, or any way to keep loot on death
- Power scrolls, 120 skills, stat scrolls
- Age of Shadows item properties, artifacts, or custom housing
- Necromancy, Chivalry, Bushido, Ninjitsu, Spellweaving
- Pet bonding, pet slots, pet ball summons
- Trammel and Ilshenar — this shard is Felucca-only (disclosed ruleset choice)
- Malas, Tokuno, Ter Mur, or any post-era landmass
- Tailoring BODs, Discordance, Felucca resource bonuses
- New Haven, quest arrows, floating damage numbers
- Veteran rewards and ethereal mounts
- The Age of Shadows. It never comes. You're safe here.
⚖ The Era Accuracy Ledger
This shard is a transparency program. Sixty-six documented deltas separate stock RunUO from the January 2002 ruleset — each one sourced to patch notes, era demos, or contemporaneous records, and each one tracked publicly. Contested values ship tagged TUNE-IN-BETA with candidate ranges, and get a published verdict during beta.
| Phase | Scope | State |
|---|---|---|
| 0 — TRAP DISARMS | Expansion flag, vet rewards off, bonding off, 100-stat ceiling, power scrolls stripped, BODs era-gated | ✓ Done — 2 in-game checks pending |
| 1 — CORE MAGERY | Recast, damage delay, Explosion fuse, resist, disturb, Publish 13 equip rules | ✓ Done |
| 2 — DEFENSE & TRAVEL | Reflect/Reactive/Protection era models, recall-while-flagged, travel matrix, meditation | ✓ Done |
| 3 — MELEE & RANGED | Special procs, parry model, magic-armor AR tiers, wrestling-only defense | ✓ Done |
| 4 — POISON & HEALING | Corrosion loop, era cure rates, fixed bandage timers, late-era potion strip | ✓ Done |
| 5 — MURDER SYSTEM | Permanent red statloss, bounty boards, dual-counter red status | ✓ Done |
| 6 — WORLD & ECONOMY | Chosen-city start, champion spawns, housing policy, virtues, moongates | ✓ Done — champ world-gen pass pending |
| 7 — FACTIONS & BETA | Faction activation, public TUNE-IN-BETA review of every contested value | ◈ Factions live — beta review next |
| R — RARE SPAWNS | Server-up dailies (fruit basket, rocks, barrels, jars…), blood-tile mage camps, interval rares — deep-researched from era collector guides | ✓ Done — tile verification pass pending |
Corrections welcome — bring citations. Every value in the spec lists its primary source, and 28 corrections from spec v1 are logged openly in v2.1 §11.
⚓ Claim Thy Place in the Beta
The moongate is open. Point ClassicUO at 65.21.200.56 : 2593 — new accounts are created on first login. Bring an old friend, roll a dexxer, and argue about Explosion fuses with us in the Tavern.