Upheaval Overview

Upheaval Overview

Upheaval is a persistent Ultima Online shard based on the Publish 15 era, running under a Felucca ruleset.

At its foundation, Upheaval retains the classic Ultima Online experience: character development, exploration, crafting, treasure hunting, housing, player conflict, and a player-driven economy. But Britannia is no longer a static world.

The Orcish clans have invaded.

Towns and surrounding territories may fall under Orc control. Players can fight to reclaim occupied territory, but liberation is not necessarily permanent. Control of the world can shift over time, changing the dangers players face, the people willing to help them, and even where they can safely conduct business.

Upheaval extends this conflict beyond combat. Occupation affects commerce, travel, NPC behavior, access to supplies, and relationships between towns. The people of Britannia have their own loyalties, and those loyalties do not simply change because control of a town does.

The result is a world intended to be learned rather than completely explained.

The Orcish Invasion

Britannia is locked in a continuing struggle between civilization and the invading Orcish clans.

The Orcs occupy towns and surrounding territories, establishing occupation forces and disrupting normal life. Human players can organize resistance, defeat the occupying clans, and eventually liberate entire districts.

Liberation, however, is not permanent.

Orc-aligned players have objectives of their own and can work to reclaim liberated territory. Through the Gypsy Seers found throughout Britannia, Orc players can gather the trophies of fallen enemies and ultimately challenge the forces protecting a liberated town. If they succeed, the district falls once again under Orc control and the occupation begins anew.

Territorial control can therefore shift repeatedly over the life of the shard:

Occupation → Liberation → Orc Recapture → Liberation → ...

There is no final state in which Britannia has been permanently saved or permanently conquered.

These changes affect more than the creatures occupying an area. Territorial control influences:

• Access to merchants
• Vendor behavior
• Trade and supplies
• Travel and safety
• Courier routes
• Player movement
• The relative danger of different parts of Britannia

A liberated town may be considerably easier for human players to use, while that same town may become hostile territory for Orc-aligned players. If the Orcs reclaim it, those relationships reverse again.

The war is therefore part of the continuing state of the world rather than an event that players eventually complete.

For detailed information about territories, Orc clans, liberation, Gypsy Seers, and the mechanics of conquering and recapturing towns, see The Orc Invasion.

Orc Alignment

Players may align themselves with the Orcish side of the conflict.

Orc-aligned players are recognized differently by occupation forces and by the inhabitants of Britannia. An occupied town that is dangerous or commercially inaccessible to a human player may be considerably more welcoming to an Orc.

The reverse may become true when territory is liberated.

This makes territorial control a matter of perspective. The same town can represent friendly territory to one player and hostile territory to another.

Vendors Under Occupation

The people of Britannia no longer react uniformly to war.

Eligible town vendors have persistent personalities that influence how they behave during occupation and liberation. Some support the ruling power. Some sympathize with the opposing side. Others may serve as spies or trusted contacts.

These loyalties persist.

A vendor who quietly helps humans while living under Orc occupation does not suddenly become a different person when the town is liberated. Likewise, an Orc sympathizer may remain sympathetic to Orc players even after human forces regain control.

Players must learn whom they can trust.

Commerce Under Orc Control

When a town is occupied by Orcs:

• Orc-aligned players may trade normally with most vendors
• Human players may need to locate sympathetic vendors willing to trade secretly
• Some vendors may refuse service
• Particularly hostile vendors may respond aggressively

This can make ordinary supplies considerably more difficult for human players to obtain in occupied territory.

Commerce After Liberation

When a town has been liberated:

• Human players may once again trade normally with most vendors
• Orc sympathizers may continue assisting Orc-aligned players
• Vendors hostile to Orcs may refuse to serve them
• Some vendors may respond aggressively to players they consider enemies

Liberating a town therefore changes control of commerce without erasing the individual loyalties of the people who live there.

Discovering Vendor Personalities

There are no icons identifying sympathizers, spies, loyalists, or hostile vendors.

Instead, vendors occasionally reveal something about themselves through conversation.

Their remarks may depend upon:

• The current occupation state
• The allegiance of the nearby player
• Their own persistent loyalties

A sympathetic vendor may hint that friends remain elsewhere. A spy may suggest that appearances are deceptive. A hostile vendor may make their opinion considerably less subtle.

Players are expected to discover these relationships through observation, conversation, experimentation, and information shared with other players.

Hidden Vendor Networks

Sympathizers and spies may belong to networks of trusted contacts extending across Britannia.

A player who finds the right person and asks the right questions may learn about another sympathetic vendor elsewhere in the world.

A contact might tell you something like:

"You might speak with Harlan, the blacksmith in Vesper. Keep your voice down."

These are not conventional quests.

There is no quest log, glowing marker, objective arrow, or scripted sequence of NPCs to follow. They are pieces of information that players can use to gradually learn the social and commercial networks operating throughout Britannia.

Those networks support two distinct activities:

• Finding merchants and supplies
• Working as a courier

Finding Supplies

Occupation can make obtaining ordinary equipment and supplies considerably more complicated.

A human player in an Orc-controlled town may discover that the local blacksmiths, healers, mages, or provisioners refuse to do business with them.

A known sympathizer may be able to suggest someone who will.

For example, a player searching for reagents might ask a trusted vendor for help and receive the name of a sympathetic mage in another town.

The player must then find that person and determine whether the information was useful.

Through these networks, players may gain access to:

• Weapons
• Armor
• Reagents
• Bandages
• Tools
• Training
• Food and provisions
• Other supplies made difficult to obtain by occupation

There is no formal assignment and no quest interface.

The player has a need. The network provides information. What the player does with that information is up to them.

Courier Work

Trusted vendors may also have work that needs doing.

Players can ask appropriate vendors about jobs, tasks, deliveries, or other work. A vendor may entrust the player with a document, ledger, manifest, parcel, supply order, or similar item intended for another member of the network.

The courier is told whom the item belongs to and where that person can be found.

The rest is up to the player.

There is no quest gump or objective arrow. The entrusted item physically exists in the player's possession and must be carried through the world to its recipient.

The journey itself is the assignment.

A courier may choose to:

• Take the direct road
• Travel by a safer but longer route
• Avoid enemy patrols
• Seek help from another player
• Wait for conditions to change
• Risk entering hostile territory alone

At the destination, the item is delivered directly to the intended vendor.

Successful couriers are rewarded according to the undertaking involved. Distance and danger matter, and conditions in Britannia can therefore affect the value of a delivery.

Exactly how that value is determined is something players are encouraged to discover for themselves.

Courier Rewards

Courier assignments are not created equal.

A short journey through friendly territory may represent relatively routine work. A long journey involving hostile or contested territory may represent a much greater undertaking.

Rewards can include goods associated with the merchants of Britannia, including:

• Weapons and armor
• Reagents and scrolls
• Potions
• Tools and crafting materials
• Gems and gold
• General supplies

The exact reward is not revealed when an assignment begins.

A courier can judge the journey, the destination, and the state of the world, but there is always some uncertainty about what awaits at the other end.

An Emergent World

Upheaval deliberately avoids turning occupation into a conventional quest system.

The systems are intended to create situations rather than prescribe solutions.

A courier crossing Britannia might encounter Orc patrols, hostile players, resistance forces, travelers, newly liberated territory, or a town that has fallen since the player last visited.

Other players may become involved naturally.

This can create informal roles such as:

• Courier
• Merchant
• Scout
• Escort
• Caravan leader
• Highwayman

None requires a new character class or skill.

They emerge because the state of the world gives players reasons to travel, cooperate, protect one another, interfere with one another, and learn what is happening beyond the walls of their own town.

Competing Interests

Liberation is not necessarily advantageous to everyone.

One group of players may want an occupied town liberated because doing so restores safer travel and easier access to commerce.

Another group may have reasons for preferring dangerous territory.

Orc-aligned players experience the territorial conflict from yet another perspective.

As control of Britannia changes, so do trade routes, merchant relationships, travel risks, and economic opportunities.

Players may therefore find themselves supporting different states of the world based upon their own interests rather than simply because one side is universally "better."

A Connected Britannia

In traditional Ultima Online, Britain, Vesper, Minoc, Yew, and the other towns can easily become little more than separate collections of vendors and services.

Upheaval attempts to make them part of a connected world.

People know people.

Merchants have loyalties.

Information travels.

Goods need to move.

Roads matter.

Territorial control matters.

A blacksmith discovered while searching for equipment today may become a valuable contact tomorrow. A courier assignment may lead a player to a merchant or town they would otherwise never have visited. A previously safe route may become dangerous, while an occupied town may suddenly be liberated.

Knowledge of Britannia itself becomes useful.

Core Rules

Upheaval is built upon the classic Publish 15-era Ultima Online experience.

• 1 account per IP
• 1 character per account
• 1 house per account
• 225 stat cap
• 700 skill cap
• Felucca ruleset
• Publish 15 era (pre-Age of Shadows)
• Mounts enabled

Classic UO Foundation

Upheaval is intended to remain recognizably Ultima Online.

Creature placement, loot, skills, crafting, housing, treasure hunting, PvM, and PvP retain the classic Publish 15 foundation wherever possible.

The occupation systems are layered onto that world rather than replacing it.

The goal is not to turn Ultima Online into a scripted quest game. Upheaval instead gives the existing world additional state, relationships, and consequences so that familiar places can behave differently depending upon what is happening in Britannia.

Server Wars

Upheaval hosts weekly Server Wars to provide a consistent opportunity for structured conflict and large-scale player interaction.

• Every Friday
• 7:00 PM CET
• 7:00 PM Pacific

Server Wars are not required for progression.

Staff-Hosted Events

Upheaval emphasizes player-driven gameplay.

Staff-hosted events are limited and are intended to support the world rather than drive progression.

Donations

The Angel Island family of shards does not accept donations, sell in-game items, or offer any form of pay-to-play or pay-to-win mechanics.

All shards are provided freely to players. Progress and success are determined entirely through gameplay.

Why Play Upheaval?

Upheaval is designed for players who want classic Ultima Online in a world that does not simply wait for them.

Towns can fall.

Towns can be liberated.

The people living in those towns remember where their loyalties lie.

Commerce changes. Travel changes. Opportunities change. What one player considers dangerous territory may be friendly territory to another.

The systems deliberately leave room for players to discover how the world works, share information, form alliances, protect trade, disrupt trade, reclaim territory, or exploit the opportunities created by conflict.

The Orcish Invasion is therefore not simply an event occurring on top of Ultima Online.

It is part of the state of the world.

And that state can change.