The vote is in for the Winter House Decoration Contest!

Firstly, we loved ALL of your creations! You all have some fantastic scenes and designs and it was a blast to look through all the houses and decorations. Thanks for sharing your time with us and participating. Now let's get down to business.

The staff and the public have voted and here are the winners:

• Taria: Staff Choice (holiday)
• Spacestripe: Staff Choice (general)
• Goldfinger: People's Choice (holiday)
• Zarnack: People's Choice (general)

Participants get:

• special house sign with engraving

And winners get their choice of ONE of the following:

• Customized Reindeer Antlers, three special colors to pick from (wearable deer mask with engraving)
• Customized Santa Chair (candy cane chair furniture deed with engraving)
• choice of 1 item from Santa vendor, not customized

Winners: The staff will open a private thread with you in Discord to arrange the award of your choice

Participants: The staff will lock down your custom sign at your house soon!

We've set up a Housing Display Area which you can access via the stone teleporters at each of the Architect shops around the world.

• All the undead invading Paws now have a chance at dropping Rotting Hands.

This faction pillar has been split into its own region as a test case. It's in the same location, however you'll now transition out of Minoc proper and into this new region when going to this Faction Pillar.

Please let us know of any weirdness, however we expect this should greatly improve the performance of this pillar. All going well, we will look to do the same for other pillars in the future.

We're working on a couple of improvements for Factions:

• Separation of Faction Bases into their own server regions to isolate the Faction fights from Housing in the adjacent areas

• Guild Faction Assignment:

  • guilds will be required to have a faction assigned, determined by the guildmaster, in order for members of the guild to be part of a faction
  • upon logging in, if you are in a guild and in a faction and your guild does not have one registered or it is registered to a different faction then you will begin the Faction Resignation process and be kicked from your faction after 7 days unless you leave the guild or your faction is assigned to the guild
  • if you are in a guild and trying to join a faction, your guild must be assigned to a faction and you must join the assigned faction
  • only the guildmasters can assign a faction to a guild
  • it's optional for guild members to be in the faction or not, but players wishing to be in a faction must be in the same faction as the guild
  • if you are trying to create a guild while in a faction, you will be warned that the guild will become registered to your current faction when you form the guild - you cannot form the guild with players of another faction

We're giving you some time in advance to prepare for the Guild Faction Assignment changes, so please adjust your characters accordingly to prevent being forcibly removed from your faction later on

These changes are still being worked on and they will be released separately & we'll post patch notes with all of the details when they go live.

• Rotting hand drop rate has been adjusted

• New items have been added to the lottery boxes

Winter Holiday House Decoration Contest voting has begun for the People's Choice categories, please cast your votes in https://discord.com/channels/369023244038045697/1054518657411190864/1065067764458467388

Are you looking for Donation Vendors? They have set up shop inside the Yew Bank, Empath Abbey.

This is a reminder that the following events are coming to an end at 9:00 AM UTC on Jan 15th:

• Winter Bazaar (vendors next to Windemere bank)
• Christmas Candy Cane Conundrum (Elf camps & Xmas Paragons)
• House Decoration Contest (deadline)

If you still have a vendor rented at the Bazaar when the deadline passes, the vendor's equipment, gold & contents will be moved to your account vault, and you will receive a notice in-game to retrieve it.

Santa will remain at his workshop until the end of the month to give players time to wrap up any pending trades & purchases, however, the Elf Camps and Christmas Paragons will no longer spawn.

The staff will take 1 week after the House Deco Contest deadline to vote on the winners & to do a public People's Choice vote, please stay tuned for more about that.

We hope you've enjoyed this season's activities, and thanks to everyone who has participated.

Good news, we're extending the deadline for the Xmas Event & House Deco Contest by 1 week, from Jan 8th to Jan 15th. A lot of the team and players have been extra busy through the holiday season and we want to make sure both the staff is prepared and players have had time to participate. We hope you've all had a good holiday season & thanks for spending some of your time with us, cheers to the new year! :)

The Necromancer's spell cocoon, blocks the first incoming damage before breaking (The shield has 60 seconds cooldown before it can be re-applied). This is how the spell was originally intended to work.

Citadel Studios has pushed a new client update, and we understand that a few folks are having trouble updating. The client update is not mandatory, so you can simply run ‘Legends of Aria.exe’ directly from the game folder to bypass the launcher, and create a shortcut icon to make this easier.

Our guide at https://wiki.shardsofbritannia.com/play recommends this method and has more detail. If pain persists, you can download a full version of the client here: https://cdn.legendsofaria.com/Legends%20of%20Aria-1.4.1.0.zip - this same link is also available on the Legends of Aria dashboard, under the 'Problems running the patcher?' link, though we expect this to be updated to 1.4.11 in the coming days.

There appears to be an outage with the LOA Login Server and we've alerted Citadel Studios of the issue. We hope it's resolved quickly, but in the meantime, players will be unable to connect to any servers. We'll alert you as soon as it's been restored, thanks for your patience

In case you missed it: Dungeon Deceit is now live! It can be accessed in it's traditional UO location, within the mountains of Dagger Isle

Safe travels and good luck!

The Necromancer vendor and Krampus, they did team, To bring some spooky creatures to the scene. But don't miss out, on these limited-edition beasts, The undead reindeer mounts, they're sure to feast, On your desire for adventure and thrill.

Act fast, for these mounts won't stay around, For long, they'll be gone, without a sound. Don't let this chance pass you by, To ride on the back of an undead reindeer mount, high.

So visit the Necromancer vendor's shop, And don't let these beasts come to a stop, From being yours, for a limited time, Don't miss out, on these fearsome beasts of mine.

It's time for a Winter House Decorating Contest, Snow us what you've got! Winners will be picked for the following categories: 1) Best Holiday decorations 2) Best non-holiday decorations 3) People's choice

View & Post entries in Discord: https://discord.gg/c4pWJPyrcW

Awards will be revealed in the coming days, stay tuned!

The deadline to enter is Jan 1st, 2023 & winners will be announced by Jan 8th

UPDATE: The deadline has been changed from Jan 1st to Jan 8th, winners announced the 15th

Santa's grateful for your help this year, The elves and candy canes, you've made it clear, That you'll do what it takes to save the day, And so, as a thank-you, Santa's lowering the price, hurray!

But oh no, a gust of wind has blown, Some gifts away, they're now scattered and sown, Throughout Dagger Isle, they're hard to find, But with your help, we'll gather them, that's no lie.

Beware the Paragon monsters too, They're spreading out, that much is true, But don't be afraid, have courage and might, Together we'll defeat them, it'll be all right.

So come on, let's search high and low, For the scattered gifts, let's make them grow, In number once more, let's make them shine, Thanks to you, it'll all work out just fine.

Winter monsters, mean and cold, Have come to take the candy canes, so bold. They've taken all the sweets, it's quite a feat, But fear not, for we can save Christmas, complete.

The Elves, they need the candy canes to make presents bright, But without them, Santa's workshop won't be right. The monsters have set up encampments all around, On Dagger Isle, the players must be found.

Beware the Paragon monsters in the Daily Dungeon too, They'll try to stop you, there's no doubt it's true. But don't be afraid, have courage and might, Slay the monsters, retrieve the candy canes, and all will be right.

Bring the candy canes to Santa at his workshop with glee, He'll trade them for gifts, just wait and see. Thanks to you, the Elves can work once more, And presents will be made, that's for sure.

So go forth, brave players, and do your part, Retrieve the candy canes and bring them to Santa's heart. The monsters may be mean, but you are strong, You'll defeat them, and all will be right before too long.

Happy holidays and merry Christmas to you all, Thanks for your help, we'll have a ball. Saving Christmas may be tough, but we'll do our best, With your help, we'll pass this wintery test.

In order to make room for the Snowball Fight arena Santa's Workshop has been moved to the bigger island nearby, but not attached to, Dagger Isle. You can get to this island from the Dagger Mountains tunnel.

Wondering when you'll get gifts? More news coming soon regarding more holiday treats and activities!

• Mannequin NPC deeds & Carpet Stretcher tools are now for sale at Architect vendors
• Mannequin NPCs can be placed in your house and can be styled, dressed, set in a pose & more. These are not refundable.
• Carpet Stretcher tools can be used to increase/decrease the size of a rug or carpet addon in your house. This item is blessed but can wear out over time.