Housing¶

Placing a house¶

Buy a house placement tool from any Architect (627 gp, reusable) and double-click it to open the House Placement Catalog. Browse small homes, large homes, and estates from the left rail while a large preview and the full details for your selection stay visible on the right. The catalog shows the footprint, storage, lockdowns, vendor capacity, price, and how much bank gold will remain. Pick a house and press TRY PLACEMENT to move its ghost around the world. Trying a footprint is free even when you do not have enough bank gold or have reached your house limit; those checks only stop the final purchase. The cost is withdrawn from your bank when the house actually goes up. Classic house deeds still work the old way if you prefer a single-use deed.

Press SURVEY LAND, then target the center of the area you want to study. The search grows with the selected house: small homes test at least 11 by 11 possible center positions, while the Keep and Castle search a much larger grid based on their real footprint. When placements are available, green diamonds mark their centers, the nearest center is gold, and its complete house footprint is painted green with the four-tile safety zone in amber. Rejected centers stay hidden so usable land is easy to read. If the entire search fails, the tested centers appear faint red instead. The catalog reports how many placements work and how far away the best one is.

Press FIND LARGEST HOUSE when you have land in mind but have not chosen a design. Target the middle of the area and the catalog checks a 21 by 21 grid of possible house centers, starting with the largest classic designs. It stops at the nearest valid center for the first size that fits, selects that house in the catalog, and paints its footprint and safety zone on the ground. You can study the result for free, then press PLACE BEST if you want to try the real house there. A short cooldown keeps repeated searches from overloading the placement checks.

Press PLACE BEST to move the real house preview to the gold center. You still receive a confirmation showing the house, price, and location before anything is purchased. Confirming rechecks the land, your house allowance, and your bank balance, so a survey never reserves land or bypasses the normal placement rules.

The ghost of the house follows your cursor. As you move it, the ghost and the ground beneath it now show you exactly where the house can go:

Green tiles and a green ghost: every house piece has enough room and its foundation is level, clear, and buildable. Low walkable features can remain green beneath raised parts of a house when they do not actually touch.
Red tiles: that specific tile is the problem. The ground may not be level with the rest, something may be in the way (a tree, a hedge, a rock), water or a road may run under the footprint, or another house may sit too close. The placement ghost itself is ignored by this check, so its center tile does not turn red merely because that is the ghost's anchor point. The rest of the ghost stays green, so you can see exactly how far to shift.
The amber safety zone: every house needs four clear tiles between its foundation and another house. Amber shows that required space; a conflicting tile turns red. The inner edge also turns red if the foundation would sit directly beside impassable terrain.

Click the ground as often as you need to fine-tune the position. A failed attempt keeps the same house on your cursor; press Escape when you want to stop and return to the catalog.

Small decorations like flowers and grass do not count against you, and loose items on the ground are fine. They get tucked under the house sign when the house goes up. The preview covers what your client can see; server-only rules such as no-housing regions can still refuse an otherwise green spot with the usual message.

The management panel¶

Double-click your own house sign to open the house management panel. (Non-owners still see the classic info menu.) The panel is the one place to run your home.

Decorating your house¶

Press Decorate in the house management panel, or double-click an Interior Decorator while you are in your house, to open the Lyonspyre Decorator. The Decorator remains active throughout the full house footprint, including the far side and open courtyard of large homes such as castles. Its targeting cursors scale to the house's real dimensions instead of stopping at a fixed distance from the sign. The selected item and its position controls share one workspace on the left. Target an item once and keep working with it:

Lock Down, Secure, and Release use the normal house permissions and storage limits.
A secured container shows its current access level. Press Change Access to reopen the normal Owner / Co-owners / Friends / Anyone / Guild chooser.
The curved arrows beside the pad's center rotate any flippable item or fixture to its previous or next facing.
The direction pad nudges a locked, secured, or installed item one tile north, south, east, or west. The pad's center shows the selected item's current Z.
Raise sits between West and North, and Lower sits between South and East. They move one Z at a time, while Snap to Floor brings the item back to its current floor.
Send To gives you a targeting cursor: pick any spot in the house and the item teleports there, landing on top of whatever you targeted. The same placement rules as the pad apply.

Every move is checked by the server. An item cannot be moved outside the house or above the normal decoration height, cannot be pushed into a wall, and can never land on a tile where someone is standing. Beyond that, stacking is allowed: put a chest on a table, pile two crates on one tile, raise a lantern over a shelf.

The active item is washed in bright gold in the world or in its open container, and its row remains selected in the studio. When the item sits inside a container, the chest that holds it (and any bag in between) is washed gold too, so you can see exactly where it lives. Its actual item graphic, stack quantity, and location appear in the selected-item card. Target Item becomes Clear Selection while something is active, so you can remove the gold wash without closing the studio. Choosing any entry immediately makes it the active item. Actions that apply to that item become available automatically; actions the server cannot safely perform are dimmed. With no active item, the compass and rotation arrows become batch tools: press West, Rotate, Raise, or another action, then click as many locked-down house items as you like. Each target receives that action without becoming the active gold-highlighted item, and the cursor stays ready until you press Escape.

The position workspace follows what you explicitly choose, not which catalog tab you are browsing. Its width, selected-item card, compass, and action buttons stay in the same place across All Items, Flooring, and Decor. A selected chest remains active while you browse. Press Select Placed Flooring, Draw Flooring Area, or Preview in House when you want the same compass to take control of that floor design or decoration preview; selecting another house item switches it back.

Items stored inside containers can be worked on in place: select one from All Items and Lock Down or Release it right there. Locking an item inside a chest requires the chest itself to be locked down first, and contents of secure containers are already protected, so they cannot (and need not) be locked individually. Moving and rotating still require the item to be placed in the house.

The right side of the studio has three tabs:

All Items scans loose items, lockdowns, secured containers, fixtures, and the contents of containers inside containers. Every row carries a storage badge - LOCKED, SECURE, IN SECURE (protected by the secure that holds it), LOOSE (at decay risk), or FIXTURE - and the filter chips under the search box narrow the list: ALL, LOOSE, LOCKED, SECURE, or CONTAINERS. The Loose filter lists every unprotected item resting on the house floor, plus released items inside locked-down containers; secure-container contents remain protected and do not appear. The Containers view lists only the containers placed in the house itself (not bags inside other chests), and each row shows the container's item count and weight instead of coordinates - a one-pane overview of every secure and locked-down chest you own. Search by an item's name, then press its result to select it, open the container path, and highlight the item and its containers. Stack entries show their quantity, so a search can distinguish a pile of 200 bandages from a smaller pile. A lightweight change check keeps the list current while the full nested catalog is only resent when something actually changes.
Flooring contains carpet, rug, grass, water, and lava planning, plus dye and vault controls.
Decor contains the growing decoration collection and its real-house preview tools.

Previewing and buying decorations¶

Open the Decor tab to browse collectible house decorations. Search by name or use the left and right category scrollers for tags such as Beds, Chests, Furniture, Seating, and Storage. You can also browse the global Store without owning a house; its Housing tab separates Furniture, Beds, Storage, Carpets and Rugs, Terrain Tiles, and Dyes into scrolling shelves. That route is useful when buying a future decoration as a gift or trade item. Multi-piece furniture is assembled into a complete thumbnail in the Decorator catalog. Press Preview in House, then target a floor tile inside your house. A translucent copy appears on the real floor before you own or pay for anything. Once active, its thumbnail, location, Cancel, and Place Owned + Lock controls stay pinned above the scrolling collection while the large compass nudges the preview one tile at a time. The curved arrows immediately to either side of Ghost rotate the real world preview; the catalog thumbnail remains still so the collection does not jump around while you compare facings.

If you like the result, buy it with one of the listed currencies. Global Store offers can be repriced in AP, Crown Marks, gold, doubloons, or Lyonspyre Coins by clicking that wallet badge. The server controls every price, and the purchased copy goes into your account-wide Decoration Vault instead of taking backpack space. Press Place Owned and Lock Down to turn the preview into a real, automatically locked-down decoration.

The catalog uses two ownership styles:

Multi-piece decorations such as assembled beds and couches remain account-vault assets. Place them as one fixture, return them with Return to Vault, or press Withdraw Deed to create a tradeable deed. The recipient double-clicks that deed to add the exact decoration to their own account vault. Decoration deeds have no NPC resale value.
Ordinary furniture and usable containers become normal physical items when placed or when you press Withdraw Item. Release one, carry it, trade it, lock it down again, or secure a container through the normal house rules. Furniture with more than one orientation, including classic wooden chests, can be cycled with the curved rotation arrows. Press Return to Vault on a selected catalog item, or Deposit Item in Decor and target it in your backpack, to convert the physical item back into account inventory. Containers must be completely empty. Classic wooden chests are approved for this vault even when they came from crafting, a quest, or an event. Deleting a physical item never creates a hidden refund.

If your backpack is full, a withdrawn item or deed appears at your feet instead. Quest and event rewards may also be explicitly approved for Deposit Item; unapproved lookalikes are refused by the server.

Some decorations may be earned from events instead of sold. They use the same account vault and preview workflow, but their card shows the source rather than a purchase button. The catalog can contain ordinary furniture, usable containers, fixed hues, and several rotation facings. Multi-piece furnishings preview and rotate as one object, and the Studio validates their complete footprint before placement.

The first free playtest collection includes the two-facing Stone Bed, 4-Poster Bed, Victorian Couch, and functional Combination Chest. Claim as many as needed while their cards show Free.

Drawing flooring¶

Open the Flooring tab in the Lyonspyre Decorator to draw a custom surface directly on your house floor:

Choose Carpet, Rug, Grass, Water, or Lava. Carpet is the patterned floor covering already available in the Decorator. Rug is a quieter solid weave with subtle recessed edges. Each material has its own account-wide vault balance. Packs contain 10 tiles and can be purchased with gold or doubloons.
Carpet and rugs can be dyed. They may use automatically fitted borders, or Place Without an Automatic Border for a solid field, single tile, or straight runner. Natural grass, water, and lava keep their original colors and use seamless surface art.
Press Draw Flooring Area, target two opposite floor corners, and study the translucent preview on the actual house floor. While it is active, the Studio stays focused on Redraw Flooring Area or Place and Lock Down. Opening another tab cancels the plan and removes its ghost.

Fitted-border carpet and rugs may be from 2 by 2 up to 12 by 12 tiles. Borderless coverings and the other floor materials may also be a single tile or a one-tile-wide straight line. The Decorator chooses the correct carpet and rug edges, snaps land clicks to the house floor you are standing on, validates that every tile is inside the house on one floor, prevents crossing a wall or overlapping other flooring, and locks down the complete design. Water begins as a plain static field and provides 13 shapes that you can cycle through by rotating individual tiles to build your own banks and borders. Water and lava are visual floor overlays: they do not block walking through your house. Every visible flooring tile counts against the house lockdown limit.

After placement, press Select Placed Flooring and target any tile to move the complete design with the same large compass, with west in the upper-left. For directional natural surfaces such as water and lava, the curved arrows rotate the complete selected floor together. For fitted carpet and rugs, they rotate the exact tile you targeted through the available corner, edge, and center shapes so you can make custom borders one tile at a time. To edit any individual flooring tile without selecting the complete design, clear the active item, press a curved rotation arrow, and click as many tiles as you like. The cursor stays active until Escape, including after you clear a newly placed floor. Clearing another house item no longer jumps the compass back to an older flooring selection. A move that would cross a wall or leave the selected floor is refused.

One dye charge recolors one dyeable tile. Dye Whole Floor spends one charge per changed tile and recolors the full design together; Dye One Tile lets you create borders, patterns, and accents, and its targeting cursor remains active until you press Escape. Lift Flooring removes the complete design and returns each material tile to its matching account vault balance.

Premium colors remember who purchased each dye charge. Recoloring a premium tile with a regular color returns that premium dye credit to its buyer instead of destroying it. Lifting or deleting premium flooring returns both tile and premium dye value to their purchasing accounts. Aurora Teal is the first premium flooring color, uses a vivid cyan-teal palette in the game, and is free during the current playtest.

The direction pad follows Ultima Online's isometric view: north is upper-right, east is lower-right, south is lower-left, and west is upper-left.

Status at a glance¶

Condition - how close the house is to decaying (refreshes when the owner visits).
Lockdowns - items stored vs. your maximum. This counts what is actually in the house: each locked-down item, plus each secured container and every item inside it. An empty secure costs 1, not a big up-front reservation.
Secures - secured containers vs. your maximum.
Vendors - how many player vendors you're running.

Trash barrel¶

Say "I wish to place a trash barrel" inside your house to get one; anything dropped in is deleted three minutes later, permanently. Say it again anywhere in the house and the barrel moves to where you are standing instead of complaining that you already have one. It cannot sit next to a door or steps. To get rid of it entirely, chop it with an axe (co-owners and up).

Managing people¶

Three tabs - Friends, Co-owners, Bans:

Add - click the add button and target the player ("I ban thee" style). Adds work on anyone you can target.
Remove - one click on any row removes that person.

Who can do what (same rules as always):

Action	Who can do it
Add/remove friends	Owner or co-owner
Add/remove co-owners	Owner only
Ban / unban	Co-owner (works on public or private houses)
Rename the sign	Owner or co-owner
Public/private, transfer, demolish	Owner only
Upgrades, list for sale	Owner only

Friends can come and go and use most of the house; co-owners can also manage lockdowns/secures; bans keep a player out.

Owner actions¶

Rename - type a new name for the sign and click Rename.
Public / Private - the flag mainly affects vendors and decay now; anyone can walk into either kind (see Open, but defended below). You can't go private while you have vendors.
Transfer - hand the house to another player (they confirm via a trade).
Demolish - tear the house down and get your deed back plus 75% of any gold you spent on upgrades. Two clicks to confirm.

Upgrades¶

The Upgrades tab lets you spend gold on permanent improvements to that house. Limit upgrades have several tiers, and every tier costs more than the last:

Upgrade	Per tier	Tiers	First tier cost
Lockdowns	+25	5	50,000
Secures	+2	5	50,000
Friends	+5	4	75,000
Co-owners	+3	3	100,000
Bans	+10	4	40,000
Swinging Sign	Sign sways in the wind	1	50,000

Each successive tier of a limit upgrade is double the previous one's cost. Swinging Sign is a one-time cosmetic upgrade that makes that house's sign sway in the wind. It belongs to the house, so it stays active if the house is sold or transferred.

Gold is drawn from your bank first, then your backpack. If you later demolish the house you're refunded 75% of everything you spent on upgrades, including the Swinging Sign upgrade.

Selling your house¶

Owners can list a house for sale from the For Sale tab: set a price and click List for Sale. Another player can then buy it straight from the sign - the gold goes to you and the house (minus its friends/co-owners/bans) transfers to them. Buyers must have room under their house allowance. Change your mind any time with Unlist.

Two houses per account¶

You can own up to two houses at once (co-owning someone else's house doesn't count against your allowance).

Open, but defended¶

Anyone can walk into your house - there are no keys and no locked-out message. What protects your home isn't a wall at the door, it's who answers for being inside: anyone who isn't on your friends/co-owners lists (or an opted-in guildmate) shows up grey - attackable - to you and your household, so you can defend your home without going criminal. Your belongings are still safe regardless: locked-down items can't be moved and secured containers can't be opened by non-friends, and you can restrict individual doors and chests (see Restricting doors and containers). Banned players are the one exception - they still can't get in at all, and get bounced to the ban spot if they try.

Getting out of a house¶

Houses are open to walk into, so if you ever end up stuck inside one - a closed door you can't open, walls with no way out - you can always remove yourself. Standing inside any house, left-click yourself and choose Eject (or type [eject); you're moved to the house's ban spot just outside. This works for anyone, friend or not - it only ever moves you, never anyone else, so no one gets trapped.

To keep an unwanted person out of a house you own, Ban them (they get bounced to the ban spot and can't re-enter). Intruders who aren't friends already show grey and attackable to your household, so you can defend your home directly (see Open, but defended above).

Guild access¶

If you're in a guild, the panel has a Guild Access toggle. Turn it on and your guildmates are treated as friends - they can open your doors and use anything at friend level, but nothing at co-owner level. Turn it off any time.

While Guild Access is on, the house sign shows a Guild access line with the owner's guild abbreviation, both in the sign's tooltip and on a single click. It disappears when the toggle goes off.

Restricting doors and containers¶

Use Set Access to lock down parts of your house. Click it, target a door or a secured container, and pick who can use that one thing:

Owner - only you.
Co-owners - you and your co-owners.
Friends - your friends and above.
Guild - your guildmates and above (only if you lead a guild).
Anyone - no restriction.

That lets you, for example, keep a back room owner-only while the front of the house is open to friends - set each door and chest to exactly the level you want.

Reset to Owner¶

Next to Set Access is a Reset to Owner button. One click (it asks you to confirm) sets everything with a Set Access level - doors, secured containers, locked-down items, and fixtures - back to owner-only at once: a fast way to lock the whole house down to just you without targeting each thing. It only changes access levels (nothing is moved or lost), and you can re-open access per item with Set Access afterward. Your co-owners keep access to their own personal strongboxes.