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Do you know the story behind your Shard Shield?

Dot_Warner

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Origin's is easy, since its the Origin Systems Logo.

Great Lake's is a tree, possibly a Yew (though it is awfully scrawny), and may be an allusion to Kazola's Treetop Keg & Winery which was a GL staple in Fel until shortly after Tram.

Sad thing is, its hard to tell what a lot of the shard logos even are... we need the originals from the old, old, old UO site.
 

Poo

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i always assumed that Sonoma was a sun as its named after a town in California that makes a lot of wine.
so its hot there id assume.
hence the sun.

Lake Austin im just gonna guess but because its server use to be in Texas, lone star.....
 

afk

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Not sure about the great lakes though someone from MOA might know since they use that symbol as well
 

Nexus

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i always assumed that Sonoma was a sun as its named after a town in California that makes a lot of wine.
so its hot there id assume.
hence the sun.

Lake Austin im just gonna guess but because its server use to be in Texas, lone star.....
Don't forget RG lives (or lived) in Austin as well.

Origin's is easy, since its the Origin Systems Logo.

Great Lake's is a tree, possibly a Yew (though it is awfully scrawny), and may be an allusion to Kazola's Treetop Keg & Winery which was a GL staple in Fel until shortly after Tram.

Sad thing is, its hard to tell what a lot of the shard logos even are... we need the originals from the old, old, old UO site.
Shard Pages - Old Stratics
 

Tyrath

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My Guess Legends AKA AOL Legends, AKA Legends of Sosaria come from the Legends of Kesmai Dragon (Which Legends is alleged to be named in honor of.

kesmai.jpg


Legends.gif
 

Mr Bug

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The British took that region from the French in the mid 1700's and called it Lake Superior, hence the crown.
 

Amber Witch

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Baja is obvious. Baja is known for it's large population of whales. Leaping, diving and it's common to see them with their tails out of the water. I could stretch it a bit and suggest that the tail can also mean tale as Baja has a long history of RP'rs who love to tell long tales.
 

Bennu

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So in early 1999 (I think), the Team at Origin enlisted the Seer fiction teams to come up with a shard logo that would represent their server.

The broken crown of Lake Superior references the Rebellion of Trinsic in 1998. Each logo should have a special meaning in relation to the history of that server, at least is does for the servers that existed in 1999... those afterwords may have a more generic meaning, Lake Austin and Origin for example. I'm not sure if the stories of each logo ever ended up being released publicly, hence this post. Some of the stories may be lost now.

I don't rightly remember what the red/gold color is for, but the Broken Crown was my idea and that is what the Lake Superior logo is about, the Trinsic Rebellion. ...I was also listening to "King Nothing" by Metallica a lot in those days. The colors may actually be the guild colors of the rebellion, I don't remember.

I am fairly certain that the Great Lakes Tree has to do with Kazola's tavern, but my memory isn't that reliable. So I could be wrong on that one.
 

Captn Norrington

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What does the Atlantic one represent? I assume you know since it's your shard heh.

Myself and every other Atlantic resident I've talked to have no clue what that is supposed to be. It does look cool though.
 

Great DC

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I think its has to do with atlantic coast and hurricanes from the warm water. Just a educated guess.
Catskills is most likely due to catskills mountain range is where server was.
 

Bennu

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What does the Atlantic one represent? I assume you know since it's your shard heh.

Myself and every other Atlantic resident I've talked to have no clue what that is supposed to be. It does look cool though.
I am working on that. I'm going to need an old friend to jog my memory on that one, I barely remember anything from 18 years ago :)
 

MalagAste

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So in early 1999 (I think), the Team at Origin enlisted the Seer fiction teams to come up with a shard logo that would represent their server.

The broken crown of Lake Superior references the Rebellion of Trinsic in 1998. Each logo should have a special meaning in relation to the history of that server, at least is does for the servers that existed in 1999... those afterwords may have a more generic meaning, Lake Austin and Origin for example. I'm not sure if the stories of each logo ever ended up being released publicly, hence this post. Some of the stories may be lost now.

I don't rightly remember what the red/gold color is for, but the Broken Crown was my idea and that is what the Lake Superior logo is about, the Trinsic Rebellion. ...I was also listening to "King Nothing" by Metallica a lot in those days. The colors may actually be the guild colors of the rebellion, I don't remember.

I am fairly certain that the Great Lakes Tree has to do with Kazola's tavern, but my memory isn't that reliable. So I could be wrong on that one.
Would make sense of GL's to be the Tree from Kazola's Treetop Tavern... Blessed place that it was...
 

ShriNayne

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Europa's looks like a black tower, with lightning and a jagged green background. I have no idea what that could mean. :(
 

Coco_Zamis_DF

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There is a Dragon Head on the shield of Drachenfels.
German "Drachen" means Dragon and "fels" means Rock, in this case a little mountain.
As a tamer i would say, "Dragons rocks" is absolutely true....

There is a location near the Rhine which is called Drachenfels. This is our server name.
Wikipeadia (English Version) says about Drachenfels
Drachenfels (Siebengebirge) - Wikipedia

If the head has something todo with an event, i don't know.
 

Nexus

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A lot of them are cultural references or historical references from outside the game..

Wakoku.. the symbol is the Kanji for "Wa" the oldest known recorded name for Japan.

Formosa.. the symbol is shaped like the island of Taiwan.

Arirang... it's the name of a Japanese a song part of which refers to place where the flowers bloom in winter, thus the flower.

Yamoto.. is the name for a province in Japan and the name for the largest ethnic group in the country. The province contained the capital of the country (Heijō-kyō) during the majority of the Nara Period.

Izumo.. pays tribute to the Izumo-taisha one of the oldest shrines in Japan. It represents the first torii leading into the shrine.
 

Tyrath

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Would make sense of GL's to be the Tree from Kazola's Treetop Tavern... Blessed place that it was...
It does, started out on GL and played there until Legends was born and always have a soft spot for shard lore of where I am playing. Kazola's was probably the most important place pre tram and I remember some discussion of making the shard symbol the tree. LOL that has been a day or two ago when I believe I was still living in my wood and plaster tiny house by the brit mine..........
 

THP

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pretty sure europas tower is a referance the the almighty tower of roses ...that was huge olde tower selling /trading SBods/LBods and procing them on a website for all to use back in the day when UO was great
 

Drakelord

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all I know is what I read

The Atlantic Shard is one of the original four shards that launched with the original release of Ultima Online in September of 1997, along with Pacific, Great Lakes, and Lake Superior. Originally Atlantic was named Eastern, indicating what time zone it was in. Later on it was changed to Atlantic when more shards in that time zone were going to be added.
 

Bennu

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pretty sure europas tower is a referance the the almighty tower of roses ...that was huge olde tower selling /trading SBods/LBods and procing them on a website for all to use back in the day when UO was great
BoDs were many years after the original logo designs though.
 

ShriNayne

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Maybe it's the tower of Babel, in reference to the many languages of Europa! :D
 

Tina Small

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View attachment 68959

Every shard shield logo has a story, do you know the meaning behind yours? Or how they came to be?
If you're in some kind of a time crunch for obtaining this information (maybe as part of the 20th Anniversary celebrations?), you might want to contact the guy who runs the Ultima Codex website (Contact ). He has been able to obtain or get copies of a lot of the old Origin information to post on his webite (at this location: The Origin Gallery ) and may have actually seen what you are looking for or know other people who can help you look for it.
 

GarthGrey

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The Atlantic logo is clearly a counter-clockwise symbol for hurricane. I'll wait for the OP to make the reference of a hurricane to any shard history, since it's his thread and he made an assumption that all shields have shard history significance.
 

Bennu

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The Atlantic logo is clearly a counter-clockwise symbol for hurricane. I'll wait for the OP to make the reference of a hurricane to any shard history, since it's his thread and he made an assumption that all shields have shard history significance.
Every shard logo/shield DOES have a history and a reason for being what it is. I was there when they were created and watched the process with my own eyes. It is not an assumption.
(*Note, this is for the servers that existed in 1999... which is why some of the others have a bit more of a generic design.)

Many/Most of these stories have been lost, I made the thread mostly because I am a history buff, and I wanted to know if any of the stories or histories of these symbols still existed or were ever published publicly.

Who better to ask than the players? o_O
 

Basara

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Bennu - as a historian, by any chance do you remember the original color assigned to Lake Austin? Not even the few of us still residing there for the last 14+ years can't seem to remember, other than at some point something approximating Abyssal cloth started being used for some of our stuff, years later.
 

GarthGrey

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Every shard logo/shield DOES have a history and a reason for being what it is. I was there when they were created and watched the process with my own eyes. It is not an assumption.
(*Note, this is for the servers that existed in 1999... which is why some of the others have a bit more of a generic design.)

Many/Most of these stories have been lost, I made the thread mostly because I am a history buff, and I wanted to know if any of the stories or histories of these symbols still existed or were ever published publicly.

Who better to ask than the players? o_O
So what's the UO fiction regarding a hurricane then ? And I've been around awhile too. I Rp'd in Kazolas when the paint was still wet. ;-)
 

Merlin

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Wasn't one of the on-going town invasions at the time described as a storm of some kind?

EDIT: Regarding Atlantic's Shard shield
 

Tyrath

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Wasn't one of the on-going town invasions at the time described as a storm of some kind?
Yes, Didn't all that lore used to be on Stratics? Seem to remember and this has been a long time ago there being a lot of that ancient info available on the main site.
 

BrianFreud

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Formosa, I believe is the island of Taiwan.

Mugen, Siege, and Baekdu are all the same shield with different backgrounds. (And I wish Baekdu were an option for decorative shields!)

Sakura = "Cherry Blossom"; it's shield is that flower.

Legends, no idea, but I'd guess that dragon thing is some sort of a "Legends of Kesmai" homage...

Napa - grapes, kind of obvious

As for my home shard, I've never been able to figure out just what that thing on Chessie's shield is; it kind of looks like a chess piece.

@Dot_Warner, take a look at Main Page - Stratics Community Wiki | Stratics Community Forums ; if you click on any shard, it'll show a larger image. I did a ton of digging, and a few shield images still existed in high-res versions, but the rest I had to rebuild by hand, especially Formosa, Baekdu, and Balhae.
 
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