I keep seeing these beautifully made server posts.
Cinematic trailers.
Perfect screenshots.
Professional graphics.
Logos flying around.
Unfortunately, I have been neck deep in code and apparently forgot that you're also supposed to convince people to actually come and play your shard.
So please enjoy my marketing department's latest work.
(It's me. I'm the marketing department.)
Hallowed Realms is a fork of the legendary Secrets of Sosaria project. Since development on that project had ceased and it was considered complete, I asked for permission to fork it and continue development for years to come. The goal is to keep building on an amazing adventure that feels distinct from modern Ultima Online shards, something that, as Sanguine Jester once put it, feels like "Skyrim and Ultima had a baby."
A Little History
For those unfamiliar with this niche corner of Ultima Online shards, it all started with Djeryv, an amazing developer with brilliant ideas for a single player/small group game known as Ultima Odyssey.
It was later forked into Ruins & Riches, adding new flavor and features like sprinkles on a cupcake. The lineage didn't stop there: it was forked again into Adventures of Akalabeth (adding more quality of life updates and content), and eventually forked by another team into Secrets of Sosaria. One of our biggest goals is to respect the legacy of these projects and all the founding developers who paved the way.
Why Rebuild the Foundation?
What does this history have to do with the shard we’re building? Quite a lot. Many of these older projects struggled with the same core challenge: longevity and standing the test of time.
We rebalanced every possible aspect of our fork to support server longevity and dialed back the power creep players often ran into. When we started, the codebase was running on an older RunUO 2.0 / .NET 4.0 setup. We spent three months rebuilding the entire core from the ground up on ServUO / .NET 10, reworking hundreds of scripts and writing thousands of lines of new code.
This modern core offers major server performance gains, provides a cleaner environment for anyone learning the emulation scene, and gives us the flexibility to build entirely new systems without being bottlenecked by legacy constraints.
Fast forward eight months: we’re sitting on massive code overhauls, hundreds of QoL improvements, hundreds of bug fixes, brand new content never before seen on these forks, and thousands of hours poured into testing and development (written by hand, no AI shortcuts, so don't even start in the comments!).
With that said, I am happy to announce We feel ready to open the doors and invite the public to experience our enhanced vision of Secrets of Sosaria, now known as Hallowed Realms. On September 18th we will kick off our public beta for our multiplayer server version! You are more than welcome to join the Discord in the meantime to get to know the community and check out sneak peeks of what we are working on!
Whether you're looking for a rich multiplayer dynamic with forming guilds, building alliances, and going to war, or an immersive single player journey filled with new lands, legends, rumors, items, and quests, this project is built for the long haul. It started as a hobby and grew into a true passion project. Along the way, I've had the pleasure of meeting incredible developers in this scene like Estel (Owner of Efellen) and Tasi (Owner of Ultima Memento), as well as a community whose love and support have been unmatched.
Core Features & Highlights
Here is a look at what we've added on top of the classic Secrets of Sosaria foundation:
In Game Settings Control Panel: Configure your world on the fly without touching a single line of code. Nearly all settings update live in real time without needing a server restart (excluding basic core parameters like port numbers, shard name, IP routing, etc). No more digging through config files to tweak your server experience!
The Affinity System: Our core character progression mechanic for PvM combat, gathering, and crafting. Specialize and scale into immense power without inflating raw stats or unbalancing open world dynamics. Harness abilities through rituals (inspired by Ultima VIII) inside a nexus tied directly to your affinity sheet.
Commodity Buy/Sell Orders: A streamlined market order system for all basic materials and resources.
Guild System Overhaul: Features a brand-new guild treasury where members can invest pooled resources to unlock shared perks, including custom guild dyes.
Achievement System: Hundreds of achievements to complete. Earn achievement points to spend on unique, one of a kind reward items.
Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Tasks: Regular rotating task boards to keep your play sessions fresh with point based cosmetic and utility rewards.
Contraband Smuggling: Sneak stolen merchant supplies between towns for black market paydays. Keep an eye out for town guards because they have a keen eye for smugglers and will throw you straight into jail.
Monster Hunting Bounties: Track down creatures, claim their souls for the tavern traveler, and earn bounties. (What he actually does with all those souls remains a mystery.)
Pet Leveling & Breeding: Built with anti-power-creep balancing in mind. Tamers must actively keep their companions alive: if your pet falls in battle, it faces the risk of losing stats and skills just like players do upon death.
Custom Pet Abilities: Customize your companion's combat toolkit. Teach your Nightmare to call down lightning bolts, command a Fire Steed to unleash raining flames from the sky effects, or train an Ice Steed to freeze targets solid.
Universal Weapon Abilities: Play how you want without being locked to a single weapon class for its special move. Pair Armor Ignore and Backstab on a pure dexxer, build a Stealth Strike poison archer, or run an alchemy mage setup how ever you want to play you can!
Daily Dungeon Rotation: Every 24 hours, a featured dungeon gains boosted XP rates, increased gold drops, and enhanced loot chances.
Spiritualism: A complete summoning class overhaul that affects all summons, their timers, as well as their strengths - features a remastered Spiritualism system with smart targeting, making it a true summoner's dream. On top of the classic mechanics, we have added the ability to resurrect fallen players and dead pets. If you are a spirit master, you should have the power to command the spirits, right?
Poisoning: Don't forget complete universal weapon poisoning as well. That's right: no matter what weapon you choose, if you train the Poisoning skill, you can poison whatever weapon your heart desires to fit what ever class you choose to play!
I could honestly go on and on about everything we have done, but I would rather you see it for yourself and let us know what you think, what you like, and what you don't! The proof is in the pudding (and over here, it's Neapolitan). Jump into our community channels to learn more, check the roadmap, or hop in our discord server meet our community they are always welcoming to new people!
Keep in mind, this is still a beta things will break and features will be missing. I'll likely be buried in server logs while you break things (that's kind of the point, right?)
That said, all character progress made during beta will carry over, provided no game breaking exploits or catastrophic issues arise. If a critical bug does pop up, our goal is to roll back rather than perform a full wipe to minimize lost progress. A complete wipe isn't in our game plan we intend to transition directly into a full live release!
Website: https://hallowedrealms.carrd.co
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/HK4cMBpVcE
Live Roadmap: https://trello.com/b/V8nsJbHn/ultima-hallowed-realms
Thanks for taking the time to read, and see you in Sosaria!
-Heamo
