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Being first at Server upPermanente Trammel/Felucca Moongates are now in place (Feb 2000) In addition to the ease of Travel for normal commerce between the worlds it doubles your options for server up rares hunting. If 1 guy is hogging the rares consistently on the side your on, try the other side. (and if its on Felucca Try with your PK! :) Just be careful, or you might go through what my friend did
The Big fish is one of the new rares, and falls right into line with the New generation of rares being developed by OSI, rather than an Item that spawns in a location, something has to be done (fishing for this) to get one.
Supposedly they can be fished up at 65 Skill level, I can tell you from several hours of experience that it would be hard to fish one up anytime soon at that skill level.
At 91 Fishing skill on Baja, I Finally got one (I went from 82 fishing to 91 in the process). All included I would say it took 6 Hours.
On Test center, my sweetheart and I were able to get 4 in just under an Hour, On test center you can turn your skills up to GM in an instant, and we were fishing on a boat at the GM level for them. I actually got one, and she got 3 in that Hour.... lol Two were caught while parked, another while trolling, and the last she caught while I was fishing up an MIB (message in bottle).
Having a High skill level in fishing defiantly appears to help.
They weight 100 Stones each and come out of the water with a Nice blue almost Marlin or tuna fish color. When they were first being pulled up several were ruined because the fisherman would unknowingly or accidentally stack them together, however it appears that they are no longer stackable (Hence no longer ruin-able in this manner).
These are cool on their own, but even cooler when used with a Taxidermy Kit that you can Buy for 80k from an NPC tanner. In order to use the kit you need to be a Master carpenter 90+ skill. In fact the tanner wont sell it to you unless your 90+ skill in carpentry.
Right now Big fish are selling for about 50k on most shards, I would expect the price to remain steady for a few months, but not drop to far below that.
Also, there is really only one type of Big fish you pull up, what color the trophy is depends on the facing of the wall its mounted on. You can take the green fish down, and remount it on the opposite facing wall and it will be a Blue one, and Vice-versa.
These were designed as a gold sink. There is a debate about whether or not there should be craftable rares. I don't really think my opinion matters on where I stand in that debate, but I will say hats off to the Dev team, these are Awesome :)
All it takes Is a Taxidermy kit, the corps of the trophy (must be done at the place the animal or monsters was taken with the exception of the big fish), 90+ points of Carpentry Sill and 10 Boards in your pack.
Simply double click the Kit then the corps and you will have a deed for your Trophy.
When placing the Trophy at your house you can put against any wall, and if you don't like it, you can click it to get a deed back and then try it somewhere else.
The Big fish Trophy is also available in 2 colors depending on the facing of the wall that you mount the trophy. Neat-O :)
The Khaldun hay has been out for a while, but missed the last update deadline by a narrow margin. This is only available in Felucca, and its located outside the entrance of the Khaldun Dungeon T2a, Lost lands, Felucca only. On some shards it has been locked down by some Bean Counters but thankfully it hasn't been locked down on all shards. Its still hard to get at the Un-locked down hay, but you can do it. Reach into the crate and try and get some underneath the Vase at server up. Also as a side note, since this is only on the felucca side You might keep an eye open for PKs. (lol or if the same guy is hogging the spawn several mornings in a row you might log in with your PK....)
Daemon Bone Armor
This is one of the coolest new rares available. Its similar to bone armor in the aspect of you find it one piece at a time. Its found as loot on Efreets, you have to kill about 100 of them in order to get a piece. Efreets look like a red air elemental, and they are tough, probably 30% to 50% tougher than an Air elemental. You can solo one of them with a melee fighter, but you will have to Cure and heal a lot, they cast poison more than Air, water, and fire elementals do, and unlike air elementals these babies can Punch! There melee attack can be over 20 Points of damage to even a well armored character.
There is still a Much larger danger about Hunting Efreets than the Efreet itself, and that is the swarm of other monsters that spawn in the same areas. Efreets spawn in the South East part of the T2a Desert (Just north of the City of Paupa in the lost lands) they also spawn in the Deluca passage (On the Deluca side, not the Britannia side) in the far north east corner. Both places have heavy spawns of fire elementals, hell cats, and Lava lizards. The Desert spawns also include Giant Lava serpents, Predator hell cats, hell hounds, Giant serpents, and Swamp tentacles. Most of these monsters by themselves are respectable foes, however the huge numbers they spawn in, and the frequency of the spawn rate makes that area of the desert an extremely dangerous place.
The Deluca Passage on the other hand has its own set of problems, you wont be bombarded with 15+ Hardcore monsters at the same time, but it is a very tight and constricted area. Most things here spawn in 2s. An experienced melee fighter can probably handle two lava lizards, but if the fight moves much in one direction along the narrow corridor or another you will get the next spawn pair involved, so instead of fighting 2 lava lizards, your fighting 2 Predator hell cats -and- two lava lizards. You can only recall into the lost lands I would highly recommend marking a rune in a safe spot (like in the City of Deluca or Paupa), the only way other than recalling, which isn't always possable if monsters are right on your tail is to go into the cave heading back to the lands of Britannia or out the exit that leads to Paupa. It may not sound that harsh from just reading it, and it wont be if you remember not to run around too much with monsters chasing you. If you can keep the fight more or less in a small area you wont be ganged up on and you can work your way steadily back to where the Efreets spawn.
Once there still exercise caution one or more Efreets will spawn alternately with pairs of fire elementals, if your not done with combat on the Efreets by the time the next pair of fire eles spawn you could be in some serious trouble. More than once I had to high tail it back down the passage with about 1/3 of my hit points left, and all through the passage more and more monsters will be chasing you because there is only 1 way in or out and you have to run through several spawn points in the narrow corridors to make it out of the passage. Its not uncommon to pull a train of fire eles, hell hounds, and numerous lava lizards right up to the server boundaries. (lol If you can, try Hard to avoid that. A lot of people use that cave traveling from the lands of Britannia to the lost lands. Many are tradesmen or mere apprentices of the way of arms! Such a motley assortment of creatures in such an important causeway can wreak havoc!).
The best type of rares hunter to amass a set of Daemon bone armor is probably the Tamer. Dragons/Wyrms make short work out of just about anything in the spawn areas. Not to belabor the point be careful not to get overwhelmed by fresh spawns, in the Quest for Demon bone armor My tamer lost 2 Dragons and a handful of mounts over two days.
Mages can also do well hunting for Daemon bone armor, most of the people selling sets are mages.
A BOLD melee fighter with a LOT of cures, and a good connection can probably handle a single Efreet, I was content to find one, draw Blood, then get the heck out, as they really love throwing that poison spell around!
Here are some screen shots of the Desert areas:
Deluca Pass (inside, Efreets spawn in the north east section, you can occasionally find one that another adventurer dragged out in the more central sections.
Deluca Pass (Lands of Britannia side, this mountain is located south west of the city of Trinsic)
Fishing net (a special fishing net)
Around 90 Skill Fishermen will start pulling these up with some regularity. Its possable to get them earlier and some people have gotten them at very low skill levels (below 80) but those are the Very rare exceptions and not the rule. However they are available on player Vendors for anywhere from 4k to 15k.
1 to 4 Creatures will generally spawn, and it will be things like Sea Serpents, Deep Sea serpents, Water Elementals, and Krackens. Sea serpents and water eles are not much of a problem for Experienced players, but Deep sea serpents and Krackens you need to watch out for. Krackens have an Amazing melee attack and a LOT of hit points. It is best to Kill them with archery or magery and run to heal several times in the Process. Deep sea serpents are Much tougher serpents and are generally green in color.
As far as I know you can only do this from a boat because you need to be in "deep water" (usually about 3 full screens from the nearest coast) I have heard rumors that their are deep water locations that are near coast lines but I have yet to find any. This is ok tho, because if you pull up a Kracken it will chase you down on land as well as sea (its one of the few creatures that can do both). But if you are on the boat and not next to the rail it wont be able to melee you and can only use its Breath weapon.
You do not have to have any Fishing skill to use these, as illustrated below I did it with my wimpy little 50 Hit point Inscriptionist character, he only has 12.3 Fishing skill points. Of course when the monsters spawned I ran like heck!
Gargoyle Pick Axe
These are found as loot on an occasional stone gargoyles. I would estimate the odds to be about 1 in 25 for a pickaxe to be found as loot on one. When you use them mining you can mine ore 2 levels higher than your current mining level, and an Ore elemental can spawn :) Ore eles are one of the newer monsters to UO, you can always find some Dull copper elementals in the second level of shame dungeon.
A dull copper elemental is like an earth elemental on anabolic steroids. They take damage at about the same rate as earth eles, but they hit significantly harder, and as an added Bonus, when they Die, they Explode! :) so If your low on hit points at the moment they keel over you might too! (Heal and come back to administer the killing blow)
The Dull copper is also the wimpiest of the Ore elementals, and you have the possibility of getting any one of them. One for each type of ore from dull copper to Valorite. Rumor has it that the valorite one by Bug or Design is Immune to a Dragons and other pet attacks.
But before worrying about the ele that will spawn, here is where and how to get one.
Stone gargoyles are most plentiful in the T2a (lost lands) Desert, especially the western parts of the desert. You can access the Desert by going to the city of Paupa and heading north along the trials, their are a few entrances (Bridges over the river). It can also be accessed at several locations by Boat (If you do the boat method you might have to use the teleport spell to get off the boat, as the ground seems to be higher than the boat in moist places.
Stone gargoyles are a significant monster, but by no means an impossible one. Melee fighters will need to heal a few times in the fight, and archers or mages can just get up on one of the many Mesas in the desert and dispatch the beast at their leisure. (The mesas seem to be to long for even the improved Monster AI to figure out how to negotiate). If you have a Tamer character with a Dragon/Wyrm then gargoyles are a snap, (Both the Pick axes I have shown were taken with my tamer, the melee pictures were just to show that it could be done)
Careful, they can spawn pretty fast here.
Also A lot of these Axes are never used and just sold to be put on display, they are pretty cool but be careful not to use an Item ID wand on them, as it will change the title (for you) to: "A large pickaxe of Ore extraction"
Glacial Staff
These are Extremely cool and command a very high Price 50k to 120k on most shards. They only spawn as occasional loot on Giant Ice Serpents (Found in the Ice Dungeon), and roughly only on 1 in 100. Glacial staff hunters also report they have a better change of getting one in Felucca over Trammel. I have spent a little time trying to chase down one of these Trophies to no avail. However I have learned that the ICE dungeon is a Much tougher place to venture into than I had remembered it in the Pre glacial staff days. The spawn can be overpowering especially at the entrance. So do exercise caution.
This is the entrance of the Ice dungeon. Its located North of the entrance of The Dungeon Wrong. (The other side of the mountains that Wrong is built into)
These are -Ice Snakes- Worthless for finding a Glacial Staff, but a lot of people make the mistake and kill them for about an hour or so until a "Giant Ice serpent" meanders on by... Glacial staffs will only spawn on the "Giant Ice Serpent"
Giant Ice serpent and friends...
Whoo Haaa!