Here are three official or semi-official sources of information on factions that you may find useful:
- The Playguide on the
www.uo.com website (the official EA site for UO) has a section on factions. Just click the Playguide box on the left side of the screen and then select Factions from the drop-down list. You'll find a nice introductory summary of the lore behind factions, as well as much more if you click on the Topic box at the top of the screen.
- Stratics has a lot of the same information on their site. Go to uo.stratics.com, scroll down the right side of the page in the Essays & Guides box and pick the Factions link.
- The UO Knowledge Base you can access through the
www.uo.com site also contains some faction-related information. Click the Support box and select Knowledge Base from the drop down list. Use the Search feature to look for Q&A type articles on various faction-related issues.
When the old Stratics forums come back online, there should be a stickied post at the top of the Sonoma forum that includes a very nice Factions 101 post Poo made a few years ago.
Because being successful in factions depends on teamwork and because everyone participating goes through the same thing upon death (i.e., 20 minutes of reduced skills), you should find that your faction mates may be a little better about cross-healing than you may find elsewhere in the game. Of course, to benefit from this, you must also be willing to extend yourself a bit for others too.
There are, of course, times when faction characters are involved in activities where they aren't surrounded by other characters in the same faction. So what do you do? You play a little bit smarter than you might otherwise, doing things like locating the closest healer NPCs before you dive into a dungeon or making sure the mage characters you play with have runes to your favored hunting spots or runes to healer shops so they can help you avoid a long ghostly walk out of a dungeon.
If your character is not a tamer but owns non-ethy pets, they will inevitably die. If you never give them a command that turns them green (e.g., guard or kill commands), they will still be able to be rezzed by nonfaction tamers. If you forget though and they turn green on you once you are in factions, all is not lost. Another character in factions (any faction will do, even an enemy one) can rez your pet. If the faction you join manages to get control of a town and you think you will be able to kill at least a couple of enemies, ask the Commanding Lord or one of the finance ministers in your faction to put up a horse breeder. Go kill some faction monsters to get some silver and then go buy yourself a war horse. Once it bonds, you will never have to worry again about locating a tamer to rez it because you will be able to do that yourself by using a bandage on it (no veterinary skill required). (You do need to keep getting kill points, however, to be able to ride the war horse. Also, the names of your war horses pop up on the screen in your immediate vicinity when you log on and off. These two reasons make war horses a little bit impractical to own, even just for looks, for thieves and other stealthers.)
So once you get into the faction, what do you do if you're doing it solo? Well, I would recommend you check out the stone in the base first and see who has control of the towns and if any cities are up for grabs at the moment. If yes and they aren't in the base where you are, go check the town sigil posts and the other bases to see what's up. Proceed cautiously and if you do run into folks, you may just want to sit and observe. If you get killed, well all is not lost. Run into the base as a ghost or stick around where the action is and just watch and learn.
If your character has at least 80 stealing skill, try stealing a sigil. You'll have to empty both hands to do it. You'll get a nice message when you're successful and turn a lovely shade of purple. Now run like heck back to your base to place the sigil. You won't be able to teleport, shadow jump, recall, or use a player-cast moongate to get there; however, you can use the regular moongates in Fel. You have 30 minutes to get the sigil to your base before it pops out of your pack and onto the last post where it was located. If you place the sigil within 15 minutes of stealing it and the faction you stole it from is able to get it back within that time frame by killing you or stealing it out of your base, they won't lose the time they already spent corrupting that sigil. Sigils need to corrupt for 10 hours before they can be placed back into town. Corrupted sigils can sit in the base of the faction that corrupted them for 24 hours (I think) before they have to be placed back in the towns. If an enemy grabs them within that time, they have the opportunity to corrupt them for themselves if they can hold them for ten hours.
Once placed back in town, the sigil is not stealable for another three days. During that time, the faction that controls that town can put up ore, lumber, reagent, bottle, or war horse vendors and/or guards in that town. Vendor prices (other than for the horse vendors) can be changed once per day by the finance minister. They can choose whether to set the prices high so no one wants to buy but the vendor makes silver for the town treasury, or set them low and cost the town treasury silver. Sheriffs can place guards of various types (the better ones cost more). If the town treasury is low on funds or empty, the faction commanding lord has the option to transfer silver from the faction treasury into the town. (They can't pull it back out though, once transferred.) The faction treasury piles up silver when the commanding lord sets the tithing rate so that part or all of the silver faction members earn through various activities goes into the faction treasury.
There's more to factions than I've listed just here, but between the resources above and this information, perhaps this is enough to get you and some friends started. I'd recommend that you perhaps spend some time around your faction's base when sigils become stealable and see if you run into someone else from your faction. You may or may not be welcomed with open arms. If you get clobbered, take your lumps, go get a rez and go back. [Whether or not you give a murder count is up to you. I wouldn't, but that's just me.] You won't be in skill loss if someone from your own faction kills you. Stick around and HELP if the enemy shows up.
If you're new to Fel, don't forget that other characters have to push through yours and lose stamina when they do so. So be aware of where you are standing and try not to stand smack dab in the middle of the entrance to the base. Do your best, be a team player and give an assist if you can, don't be cocky if you do get a kill, and don't be offended if a faction mate doesn't take a rez (offer but don't be surprised if it's turned down). You may have to prove yourself a time or two by helping out, but you should eventually make some friends. You may or may not get an offer to join a guild that's in the faction you've joined. If you don't, start your own and maybe down the line ask for an alliance. Be patient with yourself if the PvP aspect of things is new to you and remember that EVERYONE went through the same learning curve and that most PvPers worth their salt will offer tips and pointers if they see that you are at least trying.
I hope this helps, and perhaps a few other people will also jump in here with some advice for you. Welcome to the world of factions, good luck to you, and have fun!
Tina I'm working the detect and lockpick skills at every town I can get to. That said at what lvl will I actually be successful at unlocking the bank chests? My skil is 38.5 and I tend to just break the picks at this lvl thou I'm hitting all the provisioners' shops and docks I can find. Also is it possible to use lockpick to get into the brit bank branch in trinisic? 
Well I'm off to train my char I can't wait it'll be hard but I'm looking forward to it.