Imbuing

Imbuing is the magical crafting skill of binding specific item properties — resists, hit effects, regeneration, slayer types, skill bonuses — onto existing equipment. Introduced with the Stygian Abyss expansion in 2009, it sits alongside Blacksmithy and Tailoring as a stand-alone profession; an artificer need not be able to craft the items they imbue. Where Runic Hammers and Runic Sewing Kits roll random properties at the moment of crafting, Imbuing gives the artificer deliberate control over what lands on a piece. Tancred put it best: "Runic Hammers are a high-stakes roll of the dice. Imbuing is loaded dice."

The Soul Forge

Every imbuing or unraveling attempt requires the artificer to stand next to a Soul Forge. Public Soul Forges are scattered through Ter Mur and the Royal City; the Queen's Soul Forge in the Queen's Palace gives the highest success bonus of any forge, but requires 10,000 Loyalty Rating with the Gargoyle Queen Zhah to use. The standard Ter Mur public forge gives a small success bonus and no loyalty requirement.

Unraveling

Magic items are converted into imbuing ingredients via Unraveling — the artificer selects an item, attempts to unravel it, and on success destroys the item to extract one of three ingredient tiers:

• Magical Residue — the most common; any skill level can yield it.
• Enchanted Essence — requires more than 45 Imbuing skill; comes from decent magic items.
• Relic Fragment — requires 90.1+ Imbuing skill; yielded by artifacts and items with near-maximum intensities.

Unraveling always destroys the source item and is a one-way operation. Items that cannot be recycled, or items made of special material, cannot be unraveled at all. The Unravel Container option processes every item in a chosen container in one pass — the standard workflow for a tailor or smith working through a stack of low-end magic loot.

Imbuing an Item

A successful imbue adds a magical property at a chosen intensity to an item; an item may carry up to five imbued properties in total. Each attempt's difficulty rises with both the number of existing properties on the item and the intensity selected. On the first imbue, the item gains the (Imbued) label permanently — once labelled, the item can no longer accept Powder of Fortification, though it can still be repaired. Failing to imbue does not destroy the item; only failed unravels destroy.

The Five-Property, 500-Weight Cap

Two hard limits govern imbuing's power:

1. Five properties maximum per item. Every item starts at zero and counts up.
2. 500% maximum total property intensity — the "weight" cap. Each property has a weight multiplier; the imbuing weight of an applied property is (intensity / max) × (weight × 100). The five applied properties' weights, summed, may not exceed 500.

The weights vary by property — combat-defining properties carry higher multipliers so they cost more of the cap. A worked example for a ring with Hit Chance Increase 13, Lower Mana Cost 7, Damage Increase 20, Fire Resist 11:

• HCI: 13/15 × 130 = 112.7 → 112
• LMC: 7/8 × 110 = 96.3 → 96
• DI: 20/25 × 100 = 80.0 → 80
• FR: 11/15 × 100 = 73.3 → 73

Total: 361. There is room left for a fifth property, but only a low-intensity one — pushing every property to maximum on this ring would exceed the 500 cap by 240 weight.

Property Weight Multipliers

The base multiplier for each property type, used in the calculation above, is:

Ingredients

Beyond Magical Residue / Enchanted Essence / Relic Fragment, every imbuable property requires a specific gem and a specific special ingredient unique to that property. Gem requirements scale with intensity — higher intensity means more gems per attempt. The special ingredient is consumed in fixed quantity per attempt. Both can be browsed in the imbuing menu before committing.

The full list of magical ingredients is extensive — over fifty distinct items including Bottle of Ichor, Daemon Claw, Goblin Blood, Bone, Lava Serpent Crust, Slith Tongue, and many more. NPC alchemists carry a handful; the rest must be looted from specific creatures or harvested from world content.

Imbuable Properties — Armor

Armor (Custom / Reforging mode)

Custom mode unlocks property choices that exceed the standard imbue rules — used in conjunction with reforging on suit-planning runs that intentionally bust the 500-weight cap.

Imbuable Properties — Weapon (Melee)

Weapon (Custom / Reforging mode)

Imbuable Properties — Ranged

Ranged weapons share the melee weapon property list with two adjustments: Use Best Weapon Skill is unavailable; Hit Chance Increase, Defense Chance Increase, and Luck caps are raised; and ranged weapons add a Velocity property.

Imbuable Properties — Jewelry (Ring & Bracelet)

Jewelry has the broadest imbuable property list: combat, casting, stats, all skill bonuses across five skill groups, and resists.

Jewelry — Skill Bonuses

A jewelry piece may carry one skill bonus per "skill group" — five mutually exclusive groups from which a single skill may be chosen on each piece. Bonus value 1–15. Weight 1.4×.

Jewelry (Custom / Reforging mode)

Imbuable Properties — Shield

Shield (Custom / Reforging mode)

Bonuses

Several factors increase imbuing success rate or unraveling yields:

• Soul Forge tier: Queen's Soul Forge (Royal City) > Gargoyle Capital Forge (Ter Mur) > standard public forges.
• Race: the Gargoyle racial ability Master Artisan grants higher unraveling yields and a flat success-rate bonus on imbues.
• Skill 100+: Gargoyles gain a separate enhance bonus past 100 skill, paralleling the Blacksmithy enhance bonus.
• Mysticism synergy: Imbuing skill amplifies the power of certain Mysticism spells, rewarding artificer-mages.

Power Scrolls

A standard skill cap of 100 is raised to 120 by completing a chain of three quests at the Soulforge in Ter Mur:

1. Secrets of the Soulforge — raises the cap to 105.
2. Knowledge of the Soulforge — raises the cap to 110, then 115.
3. Mastering the Soulforge — raises the cap to 120.

Unlike most skill power scrolls, Imbuing power scrolls are obtained from quests rather than Champion Spawn drops.

Training

A new artificer is best started with forty skill points purchased from one of the Gargoyle Artificers around the public Ter Mur Soulforge. From there, several methods scale.

Method 1 — Single-property cycling

The simplest progression. Imbue a property on a fresh item, then move to the next item once the success rate falls.

• 0 – 40: buy from NPC artificers.
• 40 – 50: craft Leather Caps; imbue Reflect Physical Damage at 8% rising to 11% (Magical Residue + Citrine).
• 50 – 70: craft Butcher Knives or Daggers; imbue Hit Dispel.
• 70 – 120: craft Exceptional Heavy Platemail Jingasas; imbue Reflect Physical Damage.

Method 2 — Multi-property efficiency

The most cost- and gem-efficient method. Each item supports up to twenty imbues before yields fall off, so layering multiple low-intensity properties on each item is more material-efficient than burning one item per attempt.

• Place a low-cost first property (e.g. 4% Cold Resist on a Leather Cap — 1 Magical Residue + 1 Sapphire).
• Then 1% Reflect Physical Damage (1 Magical Residue + 1 Citrine).
• Use Reimbue Last to replay the second imbue 9 more times before retiring the item.
• Adjust the ratio of initial to repeated imbues to keep the success rate displayed in the bottom-right of the imbuing gump near 50% — the sweet spot for skill gains.

It is faster to train Imbuing as a human (no Master Artisan bonus, so success stays low enough to gain at lower property intensities), then transfer the skill to a gargoyle character via soulstone or race-change token.

UO Assist Macros

Two reliable training macros for the third-party UO Assist client:

Macro 1 — Single-property cycle

1. Activate Imbuing skill.
2. Press Imbue Item.
3. Target the item.
4. Select property.
5. Select intensity.
6. Confirm imbue.
7. Press Unravel Item.
8. Target the same item.
9. Stop recording. Right-click both target lines and select Target Item Type.

Warning: UO Assist does not differentiate between intended-to-imbue items and others in the backpack. Keep only target items in inventory before running the macro.

Macro 2 — Adjustable intensity

1. Activate Imbuing.
2. Press Imbue Last Property.
3. Press Unravel Item.
4. Target same item.
5. Stop recording. Right-click target lines, Target Item Type.

This macro reuses whatever property and intensity were last selected through the imbuing menu. Open the menu and change the intensity any time the gain rate stalls.

Related Skills and Tools

• Mysticism receives a power bonus from Imbuing — natural pairing for an artificer-mage.
• Tinkering crafts the gems and tools used in imbuing.
• Tailoring and Blacksmithy produce the bases that artificers imbue.
• The Imbuing Calculator elsewhere in this site lets you simulate item builds before committing materials, including custom-mode and capacity tracking.

History

"Ah yes, magical items. They are the cornerstones of power in a mythical world. They are plundered from the legions of vanquished monsters and adversaries, rewarded from fallen enemies, and even created by ambitious artificers aspiring to create legendary relics of power. For artificers, constructing magical items is an extension of themselves, akin to an artist aspiring to paint her magnum opus. With the appropriate ingredients and a soul forge, artificers can imbue items with whatever properties they desire. Imbuing items with transcendent power is a time-consuming and costly undertaking. Like any great experiment, the result is often failure."

— Patrick "Leurocian" Malott, Lead Game Designer, Ultima Online

Imbuing was introduced with the Stygian Abyss expansion in September 2009 and has been progressively expanded since — Custom Mode (Reforging) added later in the High Seas era brought the eaters and additional combat properties; the skill mastery system added new training depth.