House Add-ons
House Add-ons
A House Add-on is a deeded interactive object that can be placed inside a player house to provide a permanent crafting station, storage container, vendor seat, decorative landmark, or utility function. House add-ons are fundamentally different from regular furniture: a chair or table is a normal item that simply sits on the floor, while an add-on is a multi-tile, locked, scripted entity with its own behavior — opening a Soulforge launches the Imbuing gump, double-clicking a Soulstone saves a skill, walking onto a Trash Barrel destroys carried items. Add-ons are the principal mechanism by which a UO house transforms from a four-wall storage shell into a functional crafting hall, vendor mall, taming ranch, or themed roleplay venue. Most add-ons are redeedable (placed via a deed, returnable to deed form via the House Sign menu), but a meaningful minority — Event Moderator gifts, Cleanup Britannia rewards, certain promotional items — are placement-permanent and lost forever if removed.
What makes something a "house add-on"
Three properties distinguish an add-on from ordinary furniture:
| Property | Add-on | Regular furniture |
|---|---|---|
| Placement source | A deed (one item) that consumes itself to spawn the add-on | The item itself, dragged from pack |
| Footprint | Often multi-tile (Anvil ≈ 1×2, Soulforge ≈ 2×2, Stable ≈ 3×3) | Single tile |
| Storage / lockdown count | Counts as 1 lockdown + 0–1 storage (varies by item; many count as 0 storage so they're "free" to place) | Counts as 1 storage + 1 lockdown |
| Movability after placement | Cannot be moved — only redeeded (if redeedable) | Can be locked-down or freely moved |
| Interactivity | Scripted behavior (opens a gump, transforms, accepts items) | Inert |
The "deed → place → use → redeed" cycle is the canonical add-on lifecycle. A player who buys a Soulforge deed from a Royal City Stonecrafter NPC double-clicks the deed, gets a placement targeter, places the Soulforge inside their house, uses it for years to imbue gear, then — when redecorating — clicks the House Sign → Customize → Redeed → targets the Soulforge → and receives the original deed back into their pack, ready for re-placement or trade.
How to place an add-on
| Step | Action |
|---|---|
| 1. Acquire the deed | NPC vendor, player vendor, BOD reward, event drop, Cleanup Britannia turn-in, or promotional code |
| 2. Be inside your house | The placer must have co-owner or owner access to the target house |
| 3. Double-click the deed | A targeting cursor appears |
| 4. Click a valid floor tile | The system checks for: enough flat tiles for the multi-tile footprint, no conflict with walls/doors, no existing locked-down or secure object on the tiles |
| 5. Confirm via popup | A confirmation dialog appears for some add-ons; others place silently |
| 6. The deed is consumed | The add-on appears, automatically locked-down, with the placer as owner |
Failure modes:
- "Not in your house" — placer doesn't have co-owner status
- "Cannot place here" — tile conflict (door, stairs, edge of platform)
- "Footprint blocked" — another item occupies one of the required tiles
- "Maximum lockdowns reached" — the house has hit its lockdown cap
How to remove an add-on (the redeed flow)
The House Sign is the universal control panel for the house and the only way to remove an add-on:
| Step | Action |
|---|---|
| 1. Single-click the House Sign outside the front door | The House Sign menu appears |
| 2. Choose "Customize" | Customization mode loads (no mobiles can be inside) |
| 3. Choose "Add-ons" | A list of currently-placed add-ons in the house appears |
| 4. Choose the target add-on | Either Redeed (if redeedable) or Demolish (if not) |
| 5. Confirm | The add-on is removed |
Redeedable add-ons return their original deed to the placer's bank box. Non-redeedable add-ons are destroyed permanently with no compensation. The decision to demolish is irreversible — the popup explicitly warns of this.
The placer of an add-on is the only player who can redeed it on most add-ons. Account-bound add-ons (Soulstones) cannot be redeeded by other co-owners even when they share house access.
The major add-on categories
Crafting stations
The largest single class of add-ons. They each provide a non-portable workspace for a specific craft skill that would otherwise require finding an NPC blacksmith or carpenter:
| Add-on | Provides | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Soulforge | Imbuing workbench (the only way to imbue without an NPC forge) | Ter Mur Royal City Stonecrafter |
| Anvil | Blacksmithy repair + crafting station | NPC blacksmith vendors; deed via Carpentry/Tinkering |
| Forge | Smelt ingots + Blacksmith crafting (paired with Anvil) | NPC blacksmith vendors |
| Mortar and Pestle | Alchemy potion crafting | NPC alchemists |
| Loom | Tailoring bolt-of-cloth crafting | Player carpenter or NPC tailor |
| Spinning Wheel | Cotton/wool → thread step in Tailoring chain | Player carpenter |
| Sewing Kit station | Tailoring bench (rare add-on form) | Promotional / event |
| Stone Oven | Cooking bake station | Player Mason via Masonry |
| Cooking Stove / Fireplace / Oven | Standard cooking surface | NPC vendors |
| Glassblowing Furnace | Alchemy/Glassblowing add-on (Sand → Glass) | Royal City Stonecrafter |
| Stone Carving Tools station | Masonry workbench (decorative + recipe gating) | Royal City Stonecrafter |
Storage and disposal
| Add-on | Effect |
|---|---|
| Trash Barrel | Walking-onto OR dropping items destroys them — used to safely dispose of ND/Brittle gear or to feed the Cleanup Britannia point system |
| Strongbox | Personal storage that only the owner can access — sub-cap secure container useful for holding event-rare items |
| Aquarium (Aquarium) | Decorative fish-keeping system with rare-fish breeding mechanics; the most elaborate add-on family with 70+ named fish species and a feeding/health management gump |
Pets and animal management
| Add-on | Effect |
|---|---|
| Stable | Adds 5 stable slots to the placer's character (caps at 30 total, including base 5 + Animal Lore + Veterinary stable bonuses); usable from inside the house tile |
| Beekeeping Apiary | Cooking ingredient generation + decorative |
| Hitching Post (replica) | Pet-management decorative — visual only |
Vendor support
| Add-on | Effect |
|---|---|
| Vendor Rental Contract | Single-use deed that, when placed, spawns a Player Vendor at that tile — the canonical UO economy unit |
| Vendor Rental Contract — Premium | Variant with longer lease |
| Bulletin Board | Player message board for guild/house communication |
| House Sign placement options | The House Sign itself is the gateway add-on every player house owns |
Soul management
| Add-on | Effect |
|---|---|
| Soulstone | Account-bound skill storage; transfers up to 1 skill at a time between characters on the same account |
| Soulstone Fragment | 5-charge Soulstone variant introduced via promotional code; charges deplete with each transfer |
| Personal Bless Deed | Non-add-on but related — single-target item bless; not technically an add-on |
Decorative add-ons (the long tail)
The largest population of placed add-ons in the live economy. None of these have crafting or interactive functions; they exist for theme and aesthetic:
- Goza Mat — Tokuno-themed decorative floor mat
- Statues of Heroes — Sosaria, Britannia, Lord British, Dawn — purchasable from event NPCs
- Christmas/Halloween/Valentine's Day seasonal add-ons (Snowman, Pumpkin, Candy Bowl, etc.)
- Replica add-ons — recolored, no-redeed versions of dungeon-drop trophy items
- EM Gift add-ons — Event Moderator-issued one-of-a-kind decorations (almost always no-redeed)
- Cleanup Britannia turn-in rewards — tiered cosmetic add-ons in the Reward Stone categories
Hueing and pigments
The dye-tub family is technically a related-but-distinct system — these are containers, not add-ons:
| Item | Effect |
|---|---|
| Dye Tub | Re-color compatible items with one of ~256 standard hues |
| Black Dye Tub | Tokuno-locked dye tub; black hue only |
| Tub of Sand | Special-hue dye tub from event |
| Pigments of Tokuno | Charge-limited dye tub for special metallic hues |
| Plant pigments / leather dye tub | Per-material specialty dye containers |
These are not add-ons because they are freely movable and don't follow the deed-place-redeed lifecycle. They can be locked-down inside a house to protect them from being walked off with.
Storage and lockdown impact
Every house has two independent caps that constrain how much can be placed inside:
- Lockdowns — the count of items pinned to a tile (cannot be moved by other players)
- Secures — the count of secure containers (a house-permission-checked storage chest)
Most add-ons consume 1 lockdown and 0 secures, but each add-on is individually classified. The detailed counts:
| Add-on | Lockdown cost | Secure cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard add-on (most crafting stations, decorations) | 1 | 0 | The "free placement" baseline |
| Aquarium | 1 | 1 | Secures the contained fish, food, decorations |
| Soulforge | 1 | 0 | Standard |
| Stable | 1 | 0 | Standard; the 5-slot character bonus is independent of house counts |
| Vendor (placed) | 0 | 0 | Vendors don't count toward house caps; they're separate entities |
| Trash Barrel | 1 | 0 | Standard |
| Soulstone | 1 | 0 | Per soulstone — a soulstone collection consumes lockdowns proportionally |
The lockdown cap for a house scales with house tier: a Small Marble house has ~150 lockdowns, while a Castle has ~1,500+. Add-ons compete for those slots against locked-down decorative items.
Sources of add-on deeds
Add-on deeds enter the economy through several distinct channels:
| Source | Examples |
|---|---|
| NPC vendors | Carpenter, Tinker, Blacksmith, Stonecrafter — most "core" crafting station deeds |
| Royal City of Ter Mur | Soulforge, Glassblowing Furnace, Stone Carving Tools (specialty crafters) |
| Player crafters | Carpentry and Tinkering produce deeds for many common stations |
| Bulk Order Deed rewards | Rare add-on deeds appear in high-tier Smith / Tailor / Tinker BOD reward pools |
| Cleanup Britannia Reward Stones | Tiered cosmetic add-ons exchanged for Cleanup points |
| EM events | One-of-a-kind decorative add-ons; almost always no-redeed |
| Promotional codes | Veteran Reward gifts (Soulstones), expansion-launch codes, EA store specials |
| Treasure Chest drops | Some elite-tier T-Map chests contain rare add-on deeds |
| Champion Spawn loot | Specific themed champions drop themed add-on deeds |
| Player vendors / trade | Secondary market for any of the above |
Redeed restrictions
A small set of add-ons are explicitly non-redeedable even though they look like normal placeable items. Removing them via the Demolish option destroys them permanently:
| Class | Examples |
|---|---|
| EM-issued unique decorations | "Statue of [hero name]", custom EM gifts |
| Cleanup Britannia tiered rewards | Many of the higher tiers — placement-locked to discourage flipping |
| Replica trophies | Most "Replica Of [boss item]" decorations |
| Anniversary gifts | Some early UO anniversary items |
| Christmas presents from EM | Most are no-redeed |
The non-redeed status is set at item creation and cannot be changed. A player who purchases a "Replica" decoration on the secondary market for millions of gold and then needs to move house should be aware that demolishing the item destroys it — the only way to retain such items across a house move is to transfer the entire house with all contents intact, or to never demolish.
House decay and add-ons
When a house decays (owner inactive for 90 days, IDOC ["In Danger Of Collapse"] state, then collapsed), all contents — including locked-down add-ons — are dropped on the ground in the house footprint. Any item lifted by a passing player becomes their property. No-redeed add-ons that are dropped become regular movable items in this scenario, which is one of the primary ways formerly-rare event items enter the secondary market.
The Customization tool (House Sign → Customize) temporarily evicts all locked-down items including add-ons, holding them in a "Moving Crate" inside the house for re-placement after the customization session. Add-ons can be re-placed in any compatible position during this window without consuming new deeds — the lift-and-restore is free.
See also
- Carpentry — primary crafter of add-on deeds
- Tinkering — secondary crafter for some metal-based add-ons
- Blacksmithy — Anvil and Forge deed sources
- Soulforge — the Imbuing workstation
- Soulstone — account-bound skill storage add-on
- Trash Barrel — disposal add-on
- Stable — pet stabling add-on
- Aquarium — fish-keeping add-on
- Cleanup Britannia — Reward Stone source for tiered add-ons
- Bulk Order Deeds — rare add-on deed source via crafter rewards
- Pigments of Tokuno — special-hue dye tub