Valhalla Lost is a UO shard built on the sheer artistry of its creators. Want to play a drunken monk (at long last?). Log on and create one, earn some experience points, and badda-badda-bing, you can use Buddha Palm before you know it. How about a necromantic vampire? Yes, the shard has those too. And the list goes on. Seeshorturl.at/aisC6for all the glorious details. But the strength of the shard is not solely based on skills earned by fighting or crafting.

Consider the map. You have a complete dwarven city that takes up two levels: surface and underground. It’s in the dwarven city—where I crept carefully, being non-dwarven—that I found an underground labyrinth filled with ettins and ogres. I enjoyed slaying them in their halls, even as I listened to Paralyzed Age’s “Empire of the Vampire.” The gold that filled my backpack was a true reflection of the…