Throne of Oblivion (patch 4.0) was added to Shadowbane on December 7th, 2004. This patch was part of the Throne of Oblivion expansion pack.
“
A new age is at hand. Scattered hermits carry the favor of the Gods themselves, and can offer the divine mandate to any who would rule in their name. For the first time since the Turning, new Kings take up their crowns, claiming dominion over the war-torn realms of Aerynth. The rise of the New Kings has brought both hope and bloodshed. The chaos of the Age of Strife may at last be ended... If an ancient doom does not destroy all first!
A century ago, the Turning halted the flow of souls from the lands of the living into the lands of the dead. For a hundred years the Void outside has hungered, and waited... But no longer! The ancient Vampires have awakened, the Cult of the Shroud has revived the ancient art of Necromancy, and Ithirana, Lich Queen of Oblivion, leads an unholy legion through the Doomgate! Can the new realms of Aerynth withstand the dark power of the Throne of Oblivion?
”
- Throne of Oblivion promotional narrative
General Changes
Added a new Character Selection Interface (the list is back, baby!)
Added a 7th Character Slot
Optimized server reboot times
Updated the SBConfig tool with additional settings
Pets will now only move if it's master steps outside a small radius from the pet
Items dropped in a building now decay after 5 minutes
The Great Apes now respawn faster
Fixed a typo in Northman Chain Gloves
Fixed various client crashes
Fixed various issues with the Mac Client
New casting sounds for male and female Mages have been implemented
The Petition Window has been lengthened
You can no longer be brazen cowards and hide under Runegates
The World Map no longer resets to the default zoom level when opened and closed
The Mac and PC Clients have had terrain loading improvements
Fixed various structures where players might fall underneath them
Flying characters can no longer descend into a forge smoke stack
Added versioning to Interface Skins so obsolete skins that may cause a client to continually crash will not load
Unarmed powers now have power strings attached to them
The Dodge Skill on NPCs has been greatly reduced
World Changes
Introducing the new Realm and Rulership system to include updates to the World Map
Introducing the Isle of Oblivion; the Runegates will take you there if you have access to the expansion
A message will be displayed when you enter a new zone telling you where you are
A message will be displayed when you enter a 'peace' zone or one you are labeled Kill On Sight
Incorporated new resource sets
The Open Law Gate spell will take you to a Safehold
Placed a Runeseller Building on each map; note Runeseller will only appear for Events
Any Skrell Swamp upon the mainland of the Aerynth mapset has been replaced by the Tainted Swamp that contains high level encounters and a Resource Mine
Tainted Swamps have been added to the Dalgoth and Vorringia mapsets.
The Ice Goblin Camp has been revamped
Updated the vendors in Bastion and Perdition
Epic Mobs will now drop the Realm Charters and are available as a rare drop on Maelstrom and Oblivion
Added the Sea Dog's Rest to all mapsets which allows characters of any level above 10 to bind
Ruthviel, Confessor Missionary at the Cleansing Flame Outpost no longer thinks she is a Huntress
Buildings in Erkenghold and Starkholm have been visited by their local furniture store
Updated the Window of Opportunity times for the Damnation Server to be from 4pm GMT to 0am GMT
Many existing Goldmines have been replaced with Ore, Timber, or Magic mines; the four mine types now produce over a dozen Resource types
There is a new hamlet on the Vorringia mapset offering better access to adventuring zones
City & Siege
Strongboxes will no longer credit gold by having a negative balance.However, existing *strongboxes that went negative will still be negative (placing gold inside is the only way to fix this).
A Nation can only have no more than 3 Banes placed at once
New Bane Circle Ranks have been implemented; Note you have to place a Bane Circle that is equal to or greater in rank than the Tree of Life you are sieging
Added new Ranked Bane Circles to Sages
Only Buildings of War can be placed off of a City Grid
Siege Tents now have 3 Vendor Slots and can place Siege Engineers, Innkeepers, and Bursars
You will receive an error message if you improperly attempt to place a Bane Circle
A new Artillery Tower has been created that allows you to place a Tower Artillery Captain that allows you to place Siege Engines
Spires status now persists through server downtimes
Siege Engines now have impart particle effects when they hit
The Mangonel Siege Engine is now used for Anti-Personnel
The Ballista Siege Engine is now used for Anti-Siege
Water Buckets now have 3 charges
Siege Engineers can now be placed in an Inn
Bane Circles no longer derank when they reach 0 hit points but rather are destroyed
Sentry and Patrol Points now limited to just beyond the city grid
Added the Tax Collector position (same area as assigning Inner Council)
Realm & Rulership
The new Realm System has been implemented, read the Intro Guide fro more info
Nations have a limit of no more than 8 sub-guilds (this does not affect how many members can belong to Sworn Guild or a Province)
The Capital City of each Territory will now have a Palace for their Tree of Life
Added a 24-hour timer where a realm will be unclaimable after it's Capital has been destroyed
Only structures that should be giving realm bonuses now are those located on the city grid of a city, bearing the nation crest of that city (is affiliated with the city), or whose city has paid its taxes to the territory's capital
/realm will display local realm information
Non-Rulable or Non-Buildable rules will be displayed on the realm Welcome Message
Each Realm now displays the number of towns allowed in its mouse over
Formula Crafting
Added the new Item Creation System
When using "Select All" on the Hireling Inventory Interface, it will select ALL items, not just those currently visible
When crafting items, gold and resources are charged at the beginning of the production instead of at the end
When crafting items using the "Magic" method, the cost will be the base gold cost plus 10%
When crafting multiple items of the same type via the production slider, total cost will be checked when production is began but the gold and resource costs will be removed as each individual one is started
When junking or smelting items, only the base gold cost of the item will be refunded; resources nor value changes caused by magical effects will be refunded
New 110% Weapons can be crafted on Vendors using Resources
Added new unarmed weapons and can be crafted on a Daggersmith
