A Burg’s Tale: Chapter 24

If you’ve never tried to ride up on a suspicious folk living in the ruins of an actual ancient, still defensible fort, I would suggest doing so with caution. Our approach to Ost Guruth – apparently, the word “ost” means “fort” in Sindarin – had guards on the front-facing stairwell hailing us with very real threats as soon as we arrived. It took mentioning Gadaric Munce’s name and a flash of a token that he had given us at some point in our duties for him for the armed men to allow us passage further inside. That was where we met Frideric the Elder, who only believed our tale when we showed him our Eglain relics. Even so, his trust only went so far, and both Dandelion and I found ourselves once more working to aid these people when we woke in the morning. “I’m going to start stabbing,” I had grumbled to her.

“Don’t you dare, young man,” she had replied firmly, adding something about jerking a knot in my tail if I tried.

The biggest threats to the Eglain in Ost Guruth, we found, were spiders, wargs, and orcs, though half-orcs also infested some of the ruins of the area, and some of the other Eglain sent us into the swamps where dead things roamed. Dandelion had patted my forearm when she heard me cursing under my breath once we found out about the latter. It had been a testament to her understanding of my utter loathing of the undead that she hadn’t chastised me on my language instead.

Only after we had killed enough of these creatures that the Forsaken were safe did Frideric finally allow us to do more than ask about Radagast the Brown. “Morchandir,” he intoned gravely, “you have proven over and again the sincerity of your claims. It is only fair then that we honor our request and provide you the information that you require.

I stirred to reply with “How good of you to grace us with the critical information that we need to save the world after all this backbreaking labor we’ve offered,” but Dandelion elbowed me in the side so that all I got out was, “How g-” before I grunted. Frideric offered us a skeptically lofted brow, but I grumbled, “Thank you” instead.

He continued. “Radagast is ever a friend to our people. He comes to us now as a favor to our leader who called him when the wildlife in Agamaur turned foul.”

I blinked. Leader? I wondered. I thought Frideric was the leader? Are we going to need to do more chores for someone before we’re allowed to do anything helpful like actually speak with this wizard?

Frideric turned and motioned toward the hindmost parts of the run-down fortress. “He is in private study in the last tower in the back of the ruins of Ost Guruth.” He added “the place where we make our home” afterward, much to my confusion.

As if we hadn’t received that information repeatedly over the last little while? I thought. I suddenly wondered if “the Elder” wasn’t a title but a warning of his spotty memory. “Err, yes,” I offered awkwardly.

He seemed not to notice. “Seek him out. Perhaps there is a way that both of you can aid the other.”

“Thank you,” Dandelion offered. I nodded in agreement as politely as I could, stepped away, and walked off to the back of Ost Guruth. Once I was safely out of earshot of the man, I growled at the hobbit beside me, “If we get to this tower and find out Radagast moved on a day ago while we were stabbing half-orcs and entirely too-large spiders, I swear to Eru…”

“Easy, grandson,” she replied softly. “The Eglain would have told us if he had left.”

I snorted. “You have a great deal more faith in humanity’s desire for free labor than I do, Gammer.”

“Perhaps I still believe that most people will do the right thing when given the chance,” she argued.

I looked at her in disbelief. “You really HAVE been knocked in the head once too often.”

She glared up at me. “Morchandir…” she growled in warning.

I found myself saved by our arrival at the tower. We had been here once or twice already to help one of the Eglain, a girl named Hana, whose words had stymied us further. A woman draped in vines and reeds had been found beyond a wall to the north in a place named Agamaur, but she had been hostile. From what Hana had told us, the woman sounded like a wizard. Perhaps it was why Radagast was here, now? One of his own had turned from her course? I waved to her as we passed and Dandelion growled up at me. “We’re here,” I told the hobbit to stay her wrath.

The door wasn’t terribly heavy despite its appearance when I heaved it. In fact, it was light enough that I almost slammed it into my masked face before I could catch it. Gammer snickered, and I let her do so as payment for my comment about hitting her head. Not that it’s not true, I amended privately as we stepped inside the tower.

We had to mount the stone steps circling upward since nobody stood in the bottom level. When we reached the top, we found an older man dressed in brown, a desk, plenty of lighting, open windows to the world outside, and bookshelves full of books and scrolls. Radagast didn’t look imposing. Then again, neither had Gandalf, though at least he had been tall and thin. Radagast was shorter and stockier, and his earthen brown robes made him seem darker despite having the beard and hair of an old Man. He looked up from where he sat at the desk writing and appeared unsurprised to see us.

“The Eglain let you in, did they?” he greeted us almost irritably.

“They did,” Dandelion answered, which was a good thing considering my initial response was to tell him that I’d sneaked in because I was the greatest thief in the world. “Candaith sent us here because of a glyph we found on Weathertop when we investigated a disturbance there.”

“Three lines,” I added. “One vertical and two angled up and to the right from it, with four dots at the cardinal points.”

Radagast’s gaze sharpened as we spoke. He motioned for us to come forward silently. “I am Radagast the Brown, master of shapes and hues, but then you must know that if you have truly met Gandalf.” I frowned, having remained silent regarding our true mission here, and he continued. “How did I know about Gandalf? You mentioned the rubbing from the top of Amon Sûl. I do believe it is a G-rune, a mark oft used by Gandalf, another of my order. I guessed from the description of those three lines that he was at Amon Sûl on October the third, naught but a few days past.” He sketched out the G-rune on a small sheaf of blank parchment nearby. “This one?”

I nodded. “Gandalf told me to come find you, too,” I added as I rocked back on my heels. “Something to do with a gathering of evil forces, Black Riders, powerful undead things…”

He waved me to silence. “It’s as much as I feared. If Candaith saw such lights above Weathertop as he claims, then I fear Gandalf had found trouble there. I have not seen him since we parted at Sarn Ford, so I can tell you no more of him or his travels.” He frowned as he looked out a nearby window. “Of this place, I can tell you much, but make reason of very little.”

“Then maybe some of my information can aid you, given I was sent for that purpose,” I told him. I wanted to do something more than chores for people before they let me help them. It was ludicrous to me how dire a situation might be for them, yet they wanted me to waste time on tasks unrelated to it before offering me the information I required.

“The land itself is turning against us, and I know not the reason why,” Radagast explained. “Even the shepherds are twisted shadows of their former selves.” At our blank looks to his frustrated tone, he offered, “I speak of the bog-prowlers, those that tend to the trees.”

I glanced down at Dandelion and found her doing the same for me. “Bog-prowlers tend to trees?” she asked with a frown. “H… how, though?”

“They protect the trees, huorn or otherwise, from fell creatures who might harm them,” Radagast stated brusquely. “With the land as it is, here, the shepherds have become violent even to harmless creatures.”

I grimaced. “That’s not good.”

He shook his head in agreement. “It is not.” He pressed his lips together. “If I can discern what is twisting the shepherds, I may be able to determine what is fouling the land. Bring me the moss that they use to line their nests. They roam the swamp to the east of here.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “How will that help you?” I wondered aloud.

“The land has corrupted the matter. Trees. Grasses. Mosses. Animals, too. The very water itself. By bringing it here to me, I can sense that corruption as surely as another of my order might sense the poison in someone’s body and trace it back to its source. What we take in from our surroundings becomes part of us.”

“Makes me wonder what Holly Hornblower did to ruin her pies with spoiled ingredients,” Dandelion muttered mostly to herself, her eyes squinting suspiciously.

I focused on Radagast. “Bog-prowlers. They aren’t the undead we’ve encountered in the swamp—” I began.

“Haragmar,” he corrected idly. “Also known as the Red Swamp.”

I offered a dubious expression in return. “Right. They aren’t the undead, though. What do they look like?”

Dandelion spoke up before the wizard could do so. “Tall legs like yours,” she said, gesturing at me. “But very spindly. And there are four of them. Their bodies are a little onion shaped, that I’ve seen.” Her hands moved as she spoke. “They grow quite a bit of moss over their backs, cattails and even trees or shrubs, and vines around their legs. They have very strange looking heads, though. They remind me of turtle heads.”

I opened my mouth to say something even as I twitched at the mention of turtles, realized what it was that she had described, and closed it again. “Moss-backs and marsh-tenders,” I said. “They were in the Gladden Fields when I traveled with the caravans to guard them.”

Radagast looked surprised. “You’ve been in the Gladden?” he asked. “I suppose you do sound Dalish, when I think on it.” He flipped his quill at me. “Height is a Gondoran’s, but who knows what your face looks like with that ridiculous mask.” I shot a look at him that he didn’t see. Ridiculous mask my rosy bottom. “Go now and fetch the moss for me.” He looked up and his voice became stern. “Remember, I do not wish to harm the shepherds, no matter how confused they appear. They are innocent victims of the corruption and know not the harm they do.”

“So, if they attack us, we can’t kill them no matter what?” I countered. “Forget my mask, THAT is ridiculous!”

“All the same, it’s what I require,” he replied. “If you’re truly here to aid me, you’ll follow those directions.” He nodded at the stairwell. “Off with you.” He dismissed us at that point by going silent and focusing back on his writing.

The sound of Dandelion’s armor took me out of my thoughts of what my chances were leaping for the wizard to throttle him at how curt and rude he had been. Not particularly good, I’d wager, I told myself as I followed her down the corkscrewed steps. “Just consider it a test of how good of a thief you are,” Gammer offered once we had left the tower.

“I thought I wasn’t supposed to be a thief?” I retorted perhaps too sharply. I still felt irritated by the wizard’s attitude. He acted as if he cared more about the animals and plants than the humans involved!

She didn’t reply for a moment or two. “We aren’t supposed to be many things,” she finally told me. “But that doesn’t mean we have to use those things for ill purposes.” She nodded forward. “Let’s fetch the horses and ride out to the Red Swamp. The Eglain should know more precisely where the most lurkers are nesting at this time if Radagast has only arrived very recently.”

* * * * *

“The Circle of Blood.” I sighed. “Why not the Circle of Pretty Fish? Or the Bakers’ Circle?”

Dandelion took on a wistful look. “The Circle of Pies.”

I snorted softly. “Just not that Holly hobbit’s, from what you said earlier.”

She grimaced and looked peeved for some reason. “I cannot believe a hobbit like that would allow spoiled pies out into the Shire! It goes against nature!”

I stared at her and then waved a hand around us where we stood. “Gammer. Have you really taken a look around us? The water is crimson. The smell has blood in it, and I have no idea why. There is a fortress just up there that practically oozes menace so that I’m not keen on getting any closer, and even these bog-lurkers are corrupted enough to kill things because they want their blood. Spoiled pies are unfortunate. THIS place goes against nature.”

She blinked at me as if I’d spoken Elvish. “You have been too long out of the Shire, grandson. I wish your parents had never left.” She turned from me and pointed. “I see an untended nest just over there. I’ll keep lookout for you while you get to it and take the moss.”

“We’ll have to pull some from more than one nest to make sure,” I said with a roll of my shoulders. “If it’s widespread, then we won’t have to come back for more to prove it that way.” She nodded in agreement and moved to take up position near one of the scraggly trees in the area. I waited for her to get there before stepping through the liquid morass of the Circle of Blood toward my first target.

I spotted more than one bog-lurker wading around on their stilted legs in the near distance. Avoiding them, I crept up to the empty nest, bared a short knife, and sliced away some of the moss. I could see another nest not far away and made for it to do the same. I paused for a moment away from the first nest to bind the moss from it into a tiny little bundle. Keeping them separate would be for the best.

I found a third nest, a fourth, but had problems with finding others. The nests had no real rhyme or reason to where they were placed other than atop small bits of dry land in the midst of the muck and mire. The trouble with the Circle was that it wasn’t actually a circle; the islets that dotted it moved in and out of the larger area so that I would find myself wandering too far away and need to backtrack. After a good hour and a half, I had nine small bundles of moss tucked away in my clothing and found myself back at Dandelion’s lookout point. “I think that’s all of them,” I told her.

She shook her head. “Not quite. There’s one more in that direction.” She pointed. “I saw the lurker stand up from where it was sitting on it and walk away a bit ago.”

I followed where she had pointed and growled. “I missed that one, then, yes. There are two around it.”

She shook her head. “If we take back all but one nest’s worth, I doubt that it will make much difference. Especially if they’re all tainted.”

I sighed. “But if this one isn’t?” I asked. “Why would it not be when the others are? You know he’ll ask that.”

“Morchandir,” Dandelion began in exasperation. I stopped her by pulling my nine little moss bundles out and offering them to her. “Just hold these,” I told her. “I’ll be back with this last one and then we’ll take them to Radagast. If we’ve missed any others, he can come out and get them himself.”

“I shouldn’t have mentioned it,” she groused as she accepted the moss and found homes for them in one or two of her pouches. They would be far safer there than in my pockets at this point. “Go but keep an eye out for that bog prowler. It may come back at any moment if there are… eggs?” We looked at one another in consternation, both obviously wondering where, exactly, baby bog-creatures might come from.

“Seedlings?” I offered quietly.

“Cuttings,” she countered.

“Shoots.” I nodded and turned away. “I’ll be right back.”

“Sprouts!” she hissed after me triumphantly as I crept away once more.

I found no sign of the lurker as I made it to the nest. I got my clipping, tied it up, and pocketed it without incident. I was easing my way from the nest when my luck ran out. I heard a strange growling, purring sound from neither wight nor warg just before I felt myself grabbed by the leg and jerked backward.

I went face-first into the muck and mire of the Circle of Blood wondering, yet again, how I would possibly get the stench of the stagnant water out of my clothing and yet relieved it wasn’t turtles I was after this time. That was, until I realized I’d been yanked into water deep enough to cover my head as I lay there and had a pressure lying against my back holding me beneath the surface.

No, no, I refuse to drown in six inches of stinking bog water just because I needed to get moss from a marsh-tender nest for a bloody mad wizard, I railed. The trouble was that, as I set my hands into the ground beneath the water to push myself up against the spindly-legged creature’s weight, they sank into the soft mush to make it more difficult. I had some choice words in my head for the situation. Plan two, I told myself as I drew one of my knives.

I couldn’t count on Dandelion this time. Her tiny stature and heavier armor would weight her down as she slogged through the water. What was only to my knees at most would be almost to her waist. If I killed one, I’m sure that Radagast would somehow know. I would need to wound it non-lethally if I meant to survive. Finding its other front leg and slashing it might do the trick. I would need to work fast, however, since I had to do it blind and only had a finite amount of air to use while thrashing about.

I received a blow to the back of my head. Stares flared and died in my eyes as my ears rang and I lay there just under the water. I couldn’t move. The blasted thing had cuffed me, hard, and I lost precious moments trying to collect myself once again. My lungs had begun to burn by the time I righted my head enough to stop from breathing in. Rancid water in my clothing? Tolerable. That same water in my internal organs? Unacceptable.

The weight lifted unexpectedly. Splashing noises erupted from nearby on both sides. I tried to get my legs beneath me to push myself forward and up – and felt rough hands grabbing my clothing near the back of my neck and along my spine. Whoever it was, they were strong, hauling me up and tossing me forward so that I landed heavily on my stomach. The air was forced out of my lungs, but I registered dry land beneath me in enough time to breath in deeply. I still had my knife clutched in one hand even if loose earth now frosted me like cocoa powder. I coughed and breathed, getting back my bearings, before squeezing shut my eyes to try clearing them of the fetid liquid burning them.

More splashing sounded, moving away, before slower noises and voices approached me. “Durin’s beard,” one of them proclaimed. “What’s he got on his bleedin’ head?”

Before I could do more than identify the voice as dwarven for the oath used, another voice, smoother and more cultured, said, “I believe it is a mask. Though why a human might wear one out here is fascinating.”

Dandelion joined in as she hurried to my side. “Grandson, are you well?” she asked as she helped me sit up. “I saw you take a blow to the back of your head.”

I reached up to pull off my sodden beaked mask and let it splat messily into my equally sodden lap. I blinked as the swamp water stung my eyes. “I’ve been better,” I told her flatly. She went fussing around the back of my head. I glanced toward the newcomers with a wince and grunted a welcome. “Here we are, way out in the Circle of Blood in Hargammer—”

“Haragmar,” corrected Dandelion idly. “Be still, Morchandir, I’m trying to see if you’ve broken your skull open.”

I rolled my eyes. “I did that years ago if I’m undertaking this bloody quest for a bunch of wizards and madmen,” I assured her. Returning to the new duo, I continued. “Haragmar,” I enunciated properly. “And we happen to come across…” I lifted a hand to point at them. “A dwarf and an elf. Don’t tell me you happened to be passing by a death-infested land of blood and evil and decided to stop for a picnic. I still have my knife in hand and a need to stab something.” I lifted it and waved it side to side to illustrate.

The dwarf boomed out a hearty laugh. “Oh, no, young Man. As much as I wish otherwise, I am a Hunter leading this…” He glanced toward the tall elf beside him. “This ELF out of danger in Harloeg to the south.”

The blonde Elf looked back at the Hunter and sniffed slightly. “I was in no danger,” he replied evenly. “I felled the trolls quickly enough without you.”

The dwarf harrumphed as if he were about to spit to the side. “So says the elf who shoots a bow worse than I do!” he retorted.

I lifted my hands. “I really don’t care,” I interjected. “I’m just thanking you both for the timely rescue and sending you on your way.” I motioned with a thumb at the hobbit behind me. “I have enough trouble with Gammer, here. I don’t need your flavor of lunacy, too.”

“Well, Morchandir, was it?” the elf asked, peering at me with uncomfortably close scrutiny. “How did you receive a Sindarin name, I wonder? And such a dark one, at that. Shadow-man.”

Dandelion’s fingers pressed a little too hard on my bruising head as she heard that. “Is that what it means?” At my gasp of pain, she lightened her hands with a muttered, “Terribly sorry, love.”

“Burglar, Gammer, remember?” I replied as I waved at her hands with my own gloved ones. “I come from the Dale-lands.”

“Shire,” Dandelion offered as she moved away.

“Dale-lands,” I repeated firmly. The elf watched the interplay with interest. “Sindarin words and phrases can get picked up easily if you know where to listen.”

“Then why does this hobbit call you her grandson?” the elf asked in confusion. “You’re very obviously a Man and she’s very obviously a hobbit.”

Dandelion set her mailed fists on her hips to glower at the dwarf. “Oh, he didn’t tell you?” she said angrily.

The dwarf shifted on his feet uneasily. “We should return to Ost Guruth,” he said quickly. “Up, young Morchandir.”

“I don’t even know your names,” I pointed out. I glanced over at the Guardian and then back at the dwarf with a blank expression. “Do you both know each other?”

“Yes!” she snapped at the same time he said, “No!”

The elf brightened instantly. “Oh, this is very intriguing,” he offered.

I rubbed at my face. “And you are?” I asked him.

He blinked as if he’d only remembered he hadn’t introduced himself and then smiled cheerily. “My name is Tinendail of Imladris. I’m a Champion.” He waved toward the other male. “This is a dwarf.”

I looked his way. “I would’ve never guessed.”

Said dwarf, red beard and all, looked over at me after a last wary look at Dandelion. “Name’s Trennil Sharp-axe.” He patted the black-hafted weapon at his side carved of ebony. “And this is Maedhrais. She is my pride and joy.”

“Scoundrel,” growled a furious Dandelion. “So was I, not so long ago.”

I looked between the dwarf and the hobbit in consternation. “Uhh. Gammer, no offense, but he’s old enough to be your son.” I took another look at the dwarf. “I think? I have no idea how old he is, but he doesn’t look—”

Trennil pushed at the air to stop me with a desperate air, but he was too late. Dandelion yelled out, “He’s your grandfather, Morchandir!”

The Hunter dropped his hands with a heavy sigh. Tinendail’s dark brows rose as his pointed ears perked just like a puppy’s upon hearing something. I sat in silence for a long moment before I turned and grunted as I slowly started crawling back to the bog water. “Drowning is better. Just leave me here. Farewell.”

Tinendail laughed and hurriedly moved to me. He placed his hands under my arms and hefted me upward without too much trouble. Blasted elves and their unnatural strength, I groused as I put my feet beneath him. “Oh, don’t say that, friend burglar!” he trilled brightly. “Besides, if you drown yourself, however will I study you?” I rose to my full height and looked down at him, which seemed to surprise him, delight him, even more. “Such a tall Man, and we are not small as Elves! Delightful! Tell me where you’re from?”

“You mad bat,” Trennil told Dandelion from nearby as he wildly waved his arms. “I told you when I left that I wasn’t married to you! I’m not even a hobbit!”

She gasped and set a hand at her chest. “How dare you! What will the children say when they hear?!” She pointed at me. “You’re going to tell your grandson that you were never married to his Gammer?”

I stared at the elf. I looked toward the arguing pair of much-shorter individuals. I rubbed my face with both gritty, muddied hands and made a sound that I noted, in a distant and clinical way, sounded a lot like a whimper for mercy. What did I do to deserve this? I silently begged the powers-that-be. Was it the thefts? Was it the stabbings? Was it when I punched Arne and broke his nose back when I was eight? Dropping my hands, I bent to retrieve my mask and started walking back toward Ost Guruth. Maybe I would get lucky and something dead would eat everyone but me.

LOTRO Poems #20

Hail Friends! Hope you are all doing well. Happy 11th Anniversary to The Lord of The Rings Online. It is a joy to see such a wonderful game based on Tolkiens lore still going strong. While raiding is fun but the mere fact that we can just log into a game and go visit Prancing Pony in Bree or go see the Tower of Isengard or witness the destruction of the Black Gate of Mordor or walk around in the streets of Minas Tirith, the places we have read about since our childhood come to life, it is truly amazing experience. Not to mention the bond of friendship and kinship we have developed through this game and the wonderful community of players, casual and hardcore. Here’s to many more years of LOTRO! Cheers!

Casual Raiders are going strong as ever before. We recently completed Tier 2 Challenge in Abyss of Mordath Boss 1 and 2. Last night we went for a nostalgia run in Tower of Orthanc T2C. That raid is always fun and brings back so many memories. One particular memory from that raid is when I invited Layanor of MMO Reporter to our raid and he streamed our raid and many failures and eventual triumph on Twitch.

This poem is a continuation of “Estel” series of poems. Last time we met Aragorn, the fellowship had a little reunion and the good guys won the Battle of Helms Deep. If you haven’t read the previous 10 parts, first of all what is wrong with you? OK just kidding! Secondly I highly encourage reading them before this poem, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9 and Part 10. Here is “Estel” part 11. Enjoy!

Estel (part 11)

We found a Palantir of old, Pippin’s curiosity overcame,
He held it in his hands and witnessed the White Tree aflame,

Then he got caught by Sauron and he beheld the Dark Lord,
Who tortured him for information, hurt him with his sword,

But the Hobbit was pure of heart and bold,
By chance he saw the enemies plan unfold,

A fire burnt in my heart, I must go to Minas Tirith to defend the White City, I said,
But Gandalf had another plan, I must tread the pathless paths of the dead,

With my companions on my side, I called the Oathbreakers,
Showed them the sword that was broken, the forsakers,

Promised them their freedom, the release from their bond,
We went to Pelargir, to fight the corsairs in quays of Harlond,

We took their ships, to head to the burning city,
We slew the Orcs and Easterlings without pity,

So came Aragorn son of Arathorn, heir of of Isuldur and of Elendil the tall,
With blood of Numenor in his veins and the glory of the men before the fall,

South rode Eomer with the Rohirim, east rode Imrahil and the knights of Dol Amroth,
There came Legolas and Gimli and Elladan and Elrohir and the Dunedain of the North,

We fought hard and all the enemies were slain,
It was time for me to heal our hurts and pain.

Hope you guys and girls and its enjoyed this weeks LOTRO Poem. Feel free to let me know in comments. If you want to feature your poem on LOTRO Poems my email is legendraiderx@gmail.com.

My Twitter: @dgenxali.

My blog: dgenxali.wordpress.com.

My Kinship on Brandywine: Casual Raiders.

Be good and have a wonderful day, Namarie!

Update 21.3. Almost.

Missed me?

As you possibly know, I usually cover the Bullroarer, but this time I wanted to try a different approach and see how that works out instead of writing critique after critique to some issues that might get changed and it seems like this was a good decision this time. For example, a nice feature was introduced to raid loot at first, but it wasn’t really sustainable. There were tradeable items that had a one-hour cooldown before they became tied to a character (or account, I don’t remember). But after the cooldown expired sadly we could not click those to add them to our wallet. I did not waste much time in later builds, so I’m not sure how everything was changed other than following the forum. It seems that the separate items have been replaced with boxes to be opened and select items. So, let’s go directly to the Update notes for the 21.3.

Content

Since the High Elf was introduced earlier in November, the main reason for this update is the new raid. Which, according to the new information, we are actually not getting yet. The issue has arisen with the Original challenger title, which isn’t available in the game right now for this raid. At first, the option was to introduce the raid but without the title. So, players could eventually beat the raid, but not get the title and would need to play for it again at a later date. So, after some thoughts from the players and probably a meeting at SSG, it has been decided that the raid won’t be introduced until the title issue has been fixed. Which is a very good decision by SSG.

Cordovan

As we took a look at the Abyss of Mordath over the weekend on Bullroarer and read your feedback, we uncovered a couple of issues that we do not want present when the raid opens to the public. We have decided to temporarily make the Abyss of Mordath raid inaccessible when Update 21.3 goes live on Monday, to give us time to correct these issues. This also allows players to compete for the Original Challenge title when the raid is first opened to the public. We will have more information about the raid’s opening soon. Additionally, the new raid Barter Vendors will not provide their services until the new raid opens to the public.

It remains to be seen how long this wait is going to take, but as per Cordovan, it should be measured in days and not longer.

Cordovan

I don’t want to commit until people get into the office on Monday and do the work on it, but the likely scenario is in the realm of days rather than anything longer.

A good thing is that they have actually changed some of the armour sets for some classes, but sadly a majority of them seem to not be addressed and remain to be not as useful as some previous ones.

There is a variety of other updates available, but I won’t be covering them all. Instead, I’ll just go into several more important ones for those who like to play the cap content. These issues are with the so-called instance cluster and the Ash of Gorgoroth system.

The issue with the instances is that SSG has supposedly fixed the drop rate on these instances so much that they had to introduce daily locks to them, similar to the featured instances. The locks are not transferable and are tied to boxes. So, a player could have a lock on the box for boss one, but not for boss two and three. Also, there are different locks for tier one and two. Similarly, this has been explained by Tybur.

Tybur

Chest locks are NOT inherited and are specific to a given chest. So for example, opening the Naerband boss 1 chest on tier 1 will give your character personal locks for that single chest. That daily cooldown will not transfer to any other character and will not affect the Naerband boss 1 chest on tier 2, or any other chest. Note that chest locks can be applied either when a boss is defeated and the chest spawns, or when the chest is opened, depending on the logic behind the specific chest. The ‘/raid locks’ command will give cooldown information for every currently locked chest on your character.

The chances of receiving an incomparable piece of gear instead of a rare piece of gear in tier 2 Naerband and tier 2 Seregost was increased.
Independently, the chance of receiving a piece of gear at all from any and all Naerband and Seregost chests (tier 1 and tier 2) was greatly increased.

It remains to be seen what ‘greatly’ really means, but it is certain that it will be an issue for people who used Court of Seregost to get scrolls of empowerment for their legendary items. These locks are further accentuating the issue that only now, with the raid coming out, has the instance Dungeons of Naerband been fixed. With the raid coming out and the issues the instance has had in the past, Dungeons of Naerband will probably remain unplayed or at least barely played. Court of Seregost also had some minor details added to remove confusion around resetting the fight with Lhaereth.

Further issues this update introduces is regarding the Ash system. The killing of Ash has started even sooner and it continues in this update as well. First the chance of getting items has been lowered, then removed from some mobs, now it remains only in resource instances. Now, months later, Cordovan has stated that the company has never intended for Ash to be the primary way to gear.

Cordovan

We have tried to be clear that Ash of Gorgoroth is meant to be a non-primary way to get gear, with the primary method being running the content. We are working to better align with that principle in Update 21.3 through guaranteed or near-guaranteed drops depending on difficulty in the Update 21 instances.

Sadly, this statement does not hold when you consider how bad the quest gear is and that they have removed landscape drops of better gear. The only thing that remains to get gear is instances and rare boxes, some of which are behind 115 camps that pull too many mobs for leveling players and some areas are very hard to do with too much Shadow.

This is only made worse by putting the cap amount to Ashes of Gorgoroth to 10.000 Ash, similar to Commendations in the PvMP area. This way ensuring that players can not get the newest gear as soon as it hits the live servers. But most of all, ensuring that players need to spend time or preferably money to get the Gorgoroth lootboxes and keys so they can get Ash and best-in-slot items. Players who already have over 10.000 Ash will not be able to disenchant new items, so they will need extra slots in bags, vault and shared storage, this way spending more with SSG. Some countries have already started addressing this lottery system with their laws and it remains to be seen how SSG and entities behind it will react to this.

Review of 2017

At the start of 2017, we have been very happy to see SSG part ways from Turbine and WB, thinking that things may turn for the better now. The new old team had a big task in front of them. Or even several. Celebrate the 10-year anniversary, release a long-awaited expansion, walk into Mordor, destroy the ring and create another raid.

I also started writing for LOTRO Players this year and I have been very positive in one of my first articles when I wrote… But Lord of the Rings Online has fought against the odds and either won or drew a tie in its battles. What is keeping LOTRO alive? Is it the quality of content, design or lore? I would assume that the deep story Tolkien has provided and the developing team has even filled in at times is actually this games biggest treasure. We play and come back sometimes after years of breaks from the game just to relive some moments from the books and movies, to explore the new content, be a part of the world we so much love and possibly beat some of the newest challenges. And since we do enjoy these challenges too, we can not ignore the work that goes into content creation.

Sadly, the hopes of the players and the reality don’t always get along. Depending on the players and the type of content they are enjoying, you could get different opinions on the state of the game and around everything else too. My opinion on some of those things is sadly almost famous, but like some of the other players, it has never been my goal to talk down on the game or the people working on it, but there has been some disappointment how some things were dealt with because I was amazed by some of the bad business decisions. So much so that I have actually bookmarked the first words of apology in years I have seen on the forum.

Cordovan

Scourges of Gorgoroth will now appear in different locations every day. Their previous behavior of being in one location was a bug, and was fixed last week when we updated our events schedule. There was a miscommunication that led us to not properly notify you after the change was made, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

Personally, I would forgive a lot if only I had more communication during the Wastes in U20, which was repeated during the announcement of Mordor expansion release date and price. Cordovan is likely doing the best CM job so far, but the company not addressing some important issues even to say something like the quoted text above was just too much for me. I am grouping this under the business model. Communication, marketing, customer support and value etc. Speaking of which, Mordor didn’t really get enough Marketing before the release and when finally the trailer was released players actually asked for it to be removed from YouTube.

The visuals of the game have gotten much better and there have been some screenshots of the same place with 10 years difference and the improvement is really great. If you can afford to play on ultra high graphics, you will certainly enjoy the view. This is also the year when a 64-bit client was announced, so it is to be hoped that the lag and other issues will be alleviated soon and we will have fewer complaints in that area. The world building is great. Apart from some falling through the actual world, it will always be great to personally revisit some places from the books and movies and be a part of the world developers created for us using and interpreting Tolkien’s words.

There have been some plans for the future of LOTRO past 2017 and Severlin mentions them in the producer’s letter.

Well, the worlds are now open and I’m off to test the drop rate if possible.

Mordor 21.2: FINALLY!

FINALLY!!!

You may be guessing why the excitement. Finally we are getting not a ‘Destroy all’ button we have been asking for a long time, but a filter to use on items, sounds and quests. FINALLY!!! You access the panel by pressing Alt+R. Now, this will be great to filter out those Eorlingas recipes dropping in Mordor, third age legendary items and anything else you do not like.

If you are anything like me, you will also be able to filter the unwanted quests. For me these would be the constant Rowing Threats or constant Festivals. I do not like them, I do not play them, don’t need them popping up every time I alt, level up, log in or exit a session play.

Sound filter will also be nice, but they will need to work on it a little bit. I have no intention on counting the number of files the panel is showing, but it has a maximum number. For the filter to work they will need to either remove the limit or at least increase it. As you will be able to see in the video the last item was shuffling several audio files. And the search option in the sound filter only affects the filtered sounds, not the ones showing up on the left too.

In the picture above you can see in the bottom left corner the two icons for filtering the quests out. The single funnel icon will filter it only for the character you’re on and the double funnel icon will do it for all the characters. This also shows that you need to get that quest first, you can not filter them in advance, they need to pop up at least once. And in the bottom right screen is the new lost lore page.

There hasn’t been an explanation to what the gathering of resources deed was, but when I logged in my Warden he has received and finished the deeds right away. There is an Intermediate and Advanced version of the deed and they request you do resource quests 40 and 90 times, respectively, just like the landscape daily quests.

Another ‘FINALLY’ moment is that “The Aria of the Valar now includes a Class Deed Tome that will automatically complete trait point granting class deeds. If you have already used an Aria of the Valar, visit your class trainer and get your Class Deed Tome”. It has been time that a Valar item actually gives you something to skip the content you paid to skip. You would get to 50/95/105 and still need to do certain skills 3000 times. But this is only a step in the right direction. I believe that another one is skipping the skirmish intro, skipping the Moria/Mirkwood intro, unlocking the stables, if not all, then to major hubs, etc.

Another great news is that we can now adjust the in-game voice volume of every player. If you don’t see the slide bar, you will get there by clicking on the green voice icon on someones portrait and then under the buffs a slider will appear. Very convenient.

New items

It hasn’t been a long wait untill we got some of the new gear, but it’s not really what I’ve expected. The gear is only slightly better in case of the jewelry and the armour isn’t better at all. It is, actually, even worse. Because the new helm they are offering right now is the equivalent of a level 326 crafted (non crit) helm and the critted version (level 328) is still superior to it. Let’s just hope that SSG doesn’t fix this by nerfing the 328 item. Hopefully, if they want to fix it, they will buff the barter version to level 330, like the jewelry items.

Superior helm version will cost you 120 relics of the last alliance. The same price you will need to pay for the cloak, which actually is much better, since it has slightly higher stats, 4 more Light of Earendil, more armour and one additional slot. 90 relics for the superior jewelry (the rings). So, in total, if you’re getting it for all builds it would be 840 of the barter items. If you’re upgrading anything, cloak would be my advice.

The issue I’m having with this is that these are the items we use to get our Allegiance up to rank and these only stack to five. FIVE. After getting everything prior to this update I was left with 250 Tokens of Service and the Weekly quest now gives 15 of those. So this may be the currency they wanted to use actually. Tokens of Service are also added to daily expedition quests and they will give you three per quest. If you only do the quests required for the daily expedition you would be getting 99 points weekly (I got 99 points, but the ____ ain’t one – fill in the blank), which would mean that if you actually finished all the allegiances like I did you would still need six weeks to get all the items. We could get the raid sooner than we got our gear, so I guess these prices or the rewards would need to change.

Speaking of daily quests, there is now a new set of daily quests – daily requests. These are not taken from a notice board, these are picked up from the Expedition Organisers. Each Expedition Organiser has a different quest. I have only finished one and didn’t get a new deed or anything. Also, these don’t have the Token of Service, just the alliance relic for 2000 AP.

Speaking of items, I am not certain what is happening and hopefully it will be addressed, but the lootbox items have been disappearing from people’s bags and equipment. Lootbox shoulders, rings and other jewelry has just vanished. It didn’t get unslotted to the bags, it doesn’t exist anymore. If this happens on live, there will be some angry people who have been paying for the keys quite an amount of money.

Instances

Two new instances have been introduced… One small fellowship and one fellowship sized instance. Hardly a cluster. It has been confirmed that the raid will be coming out in the later dot-update. There is no sense in expecting that more smaller instances will be released alongside the raid, so this is most likely what we are getting – two instances to distract us long enough to get the raid out. For a very long time we have had more of the 3 and 6 man instances and a raid, now one each… It’s a little bit disappointing.

The small fellowship instance is The court of Seregost. You get a quest for this one to go and find two Rangers from the Agarnaith camp. They are on one of the terraces where there used to be two orcs guarding a rare chest, sometimes a lost lore page too. The coordinates to this location are 49.0 S 33.0E. The tier one wasn’t easy to solo, but it wasn’t hard either. You can basically go with a red captain and just be more careful on pulls and you would be fine.

Here you will meet some familiar faces. After you have faced 3 mini bosses – 2 merevail and 1 other boss – you will be climbing to disrupt Lhaereth’s plans. While climbing there are three waves of bats flying past you and dropping some plague/poison Lara has concocted. I imagine this should have been more potent, but on t1 you could just run through it, but I couldn’t lose the feeling of playing some Donkey Kong type of game.

At the end of the tier one instance you need to destroy four cauldrons of some sort. And even a tier one instance has a limit on how many bats can escape, so you need to be fast. There are no audio files here for now, like there is in NorthCotton Farms for example, but you will see the message in your chat log if you’re paying attention. I failed this the first time and couldn’t open any doors. The second time around there were no bats and I finished the instance, but couldn’t talk to any of the rangers to finish the quest. I left the instance and tried to speak to them at the point of discovery – nothing. I use the mithril coins to travel to the NPC and it ports me at the edge of Talath Urui and Agarnaith and not in the Agarnaith camp where the NPC is actually located.

This instance also had a new lost lore type of quest, but the audio is still not there. 10 pages in The court of Seregost.

The fellowship sized instance is a whole another story… This one is called The Dungeons of Naerband, but you do not need to go all the way up to the Dungeons to discover this one. This one is located close to the road at roughly 61.0 S 20.0 E, you will see a culvert. Now, I don’t know about the groups gear, but I imagine that gear on Bullroarer can’t be bad when it’s available to anyone. We were laughing resistance off, but it seems like it will be of some use here. The floors do all kinds of fire damage, so be ready to overcap your tactical mitigations if you’re planing on running this on tier two. Some areas do 100-300 damage and others do 3000+ damage. For the short time I have tested this there seems to be some sort of attack that can one-shot people in the group. Is the key to avoiding it stacking or not being in melee range, that I still need to figure out. But one thing is certain, I have also healed this and it wasn’t the easiest thing to do, so fixing the LI scaling for tactical classes would be important to avoiding this. Can’t even tell you at this point what is at the end of the instance. This is how my gear looked like after trying to heal it… Even things not equipped were yellow or broken.

Other news

When running the Pelennor Instances: Blood of the Black Serpent, The Quays of the Harlond, and The Silent Street, at level 115, you can now receive equipment that scales up to Item Level 315. Let’s just hope that there is no level 315 hilt or something, that would make the people go mad trying to get the hilt again.

Shackles have been excavated from the rubble and can now be reached for the quest “Breaking the Chains”. This is also a great addition, since it was one of the more annoying quests with shackles hiding behind structures, etc.

The hiding spot should now be more obvious in the quest instance “Borangos the Horror”. Another good addition. I failed this the first time, I don’t even know for what reason, probably wanted to observe the conversation closer. The second time I didn’t do anything wrong. I ran past the first column and wanted to go further behind the stairs and I failed it again. Only one I had no issues with this quest. (Been through Mordor three times by now).

Crafting – Doomfold Healing, Milkthistle, Conhuith, and Lhinestad Draughts now remove negative effects up to a maximum strength of level 120.
Crafting – Captain Crest and Warden Carving recipes may be executed with Universal Ingredient Packs.
Crafting – Food produced from Doomfold Cooking now has a stack size up to 100.
Crafting – Woodworkers are now able to craft Strong Boards of Doomfold Wood, Weaponsmiths are now able to craft Quality Doomfold Ingots, and Tailors are now able to craft Well-treated Doomfold Leather.

I would have prefered to not see any updates to crafting instead of seeing only this. No scholar/cook essence recipes, no crafted shields, no buffed/corrected crafted class items, etc.

Finally we are getting the new Etenmoors gear. Players have been asking for a long time to just change the level on the existing armour, so they don’t need to use the long obsolete level 100 essences. Now they got the level 115 armour, but… This one has no set bonuses. This armour is listed as essence armour 115 – T1. I don’t know about Etenmoors T2, but it may suggest there could be more at a later date.

Lua – We recently changed the way LOTRO ListBoxes work to fix a category of UI bugs. This may have side-effects for Lua scripts dependent on the broken behavior. If you encounter issues with your existing Lua plugins, you may want to change the ListBox orientation from Horizontal to Vertical and remove the SetMaxItemsPerLine limitation setter.
The Lua interface is being updated to provide four new functions for the ListBox control. They should be used in the place of SetMaxItemsPerLine( value ) and GetMaxItemsPerLine() which are being deprecated:
number GetMaxColumns();
void SetMaxColumns( number );
number GetMaxRows();
void SetMaxRows( number );

If someone could explain to me what this is and how to change it, I would very much appreciate it. For running group content I use BuffBars and some other plugins and all the options got condensed into one single line. I have no idea what I’m expected to do here.

Mordor 21.1: Best available gear

Gearing up in Mordor is a little bit difficult when you’re doing it for the first time, because the gear comes from several different sources and you can’t even access them all right away to eventually plan it. So in the hopes that this clears some things up for you, I’ll just introduce (if we can call it an introduction at this point in the game) a few pieces of gear and their sources.

Questing

Questing will usually give you some gear to get by while questing and leveling, but the rewards aren’t really worth much, other than the Light of Earendil that prevents the shadow debuff.

Where questing does give you the best items is near the end of the regions Talath Urui and Agarnaith. These will give you 2 pieces each – chest and legs. For some reason, and this is likely not a bug, light armour classes get the same armour twice, while medium and heavy have dps and tanking versions.

Ash

While questing you may come across some rewards you do not like or need – you can turn those to Ash. You will be getting drops from enemies and these may not be for your class even – you can turn those to Ash. This is a decent system which allows you to clean your bags on the go by using the Flame of Ancalmir, but it has some downsides. These would be that the Ash is not that easy to get unless you’re in the Ash farms and buying a lot of keys to open lootboxes. The green, purple and teal items will give you 5, 10 or 20 ash respectively, but the same items from lootboxes will give double the ash, so 10, 20 or 40 Ash.

From Ash you can get earrings, bracelets and boots.

You will need 2525 for a “regular” build without the Ash gold rings, which makes it 5050 for two builds. With the two gold rings the number goes up to 8025 or 16050 if you want to go for four of those rings, but you can also make them work in both builds by slotting some essence that will be universal to both or, as I suggested, keep the Allegiance build for tanking and healing.

Allegiance

Best items from the Allegiance system will depend on the fact what class you have and how you play it. But let’s say that you are not getting ready for dps, then the Allegiance will provide you with best rings on chapter 4 (rank 15 Allegiance) and best cloak on chapter 7 (rank 30 Allegiance).

Which would mean that if you are gearing for one role, let’s say tanking or healing, then you would need to get one Allegiance to rank 30 and another to rank 15. If you are making 2 builds for your character, then you will be bringing two Allegiances to ranks 30 and another two (3 and 4) to rank 15, so you would have two cloaks and four rings. And I do suggest to go with Allegiance rings and hope the gold ones drop from a box one day, rather than spending almost 3000 Ash for something that is clearly inferior from the lootbox rings. There is no content right now that says that you NEED those now anyway.

The best gloves are also from Allegiance. Unlike the rings and cloak, these are not a quest reward, these are a barter item from an NPC for the tokens you claim while leveling up an Allegiance. This would be your Allegiance Quartermaster. The gloves will cost you 75 Tokens of Service or 150 for both versions.

Crafting

Crafting is now back and for now is a source of several best in slot items. You will be able to craft the best helmet, pocket, necklace and essences. Sadly, by design, bug or just forgetting about it, we have no new crafted relics and the current ones in comparison look so miniscule that you could even unequip them and not feel any difference. Hopefully we’ll get some of those soon too.

The recipes for these are bartered by the tokens that you get from questing, but the recipes are not bound to character and you can send them to any of your crafters.

Some of the items, like captain standards and Lore-Master brooches, are level 323 on regular crafting and as a critical success also, so I’m guessing this is a bug and should be fixed some time in the future, so the Doomfold captain standard should then be the go to item at least for tanking. But this is pale in comparison with scholar and cook not being able to make any essences.

The necklace will cost you 90 silver signets of the Thandrim. Pocket will cost you 30. Helmet will cost you another 90 signets. So, this brings us to 210 signets for gear. The essences are one shot recipes with no chance for better ones and depending on your build you will need different number of essences. Without the gold rings it’s 14 essences. One essence recipe will cost you 15 signets, which is another 210 and we get to 420. You still need to get the new relics. For some classes the relics that reduce speed will still be the best most likely, but let’s say you’re changing all – one relic costs 50 signets – 150 signets per LI makes it 300 in total for a single build. Total signets needed for one build 720. This number is very easily obtainable just by finishing all the quests and continuing doing the dailies, etc. And I’d say it’s a great start to barter for the return to Udun foothold at the start and with that skill we get to 730 signets. 1450 in total with a full second build.

Landscape

Landscape has a chance to drop off-hand weapons and shoulders. It can drop some other things, but those are covered. Usually, the level of the shoulders and off-hands is 309, it can drop a level 310, which is a little bit more rare and a very rare 315. Some of these off-hands are good, but for some you may want to run some of the scaled instances and get what you need. You can get some other shoulder pieces in Mordor, but these are purple versions with one slot less for the essence.

Also take good note what drops stay in your pending loot. Landscape has a rare chance of dropping the best essence – Shadowed essence.

Gorgoroth Steel-Bound Lootbox

I didn’t mention the gold rings before with Ash, because this is where they are best in slot. The same actually goes for shoulders. The lootbox has a chance to drop items which are much higher in level than the ones we have available. The gold rings obtainable with Ash are level 326. For some time I have tought that the highest level from the lootbox was 329, then I have been told that there was also a 330 and recently on the forum someone posted an item level 331. Given how SSG handles informing the players about the content they put out, we can only assume that it can go even higher. But the lootbox also has a chance to drop other items of a higher level than what is available to you.

The SSG executive producer has also said on the forum that lootboxes aren’t intended to have the items with best stats exclusively.

There will never be a design that has loot from lootboxes that is statistically better than what you can gain someplace or somehow in game. Finding that loot in game might be hard, but it will be possible. Our overall design philosophy is that loot boxes are not required to reach the best gearing. If players do find some piece of gear that is best in slot and can only be gained through loot boxes then 1.) it is a bug or 2.) it is an oversight and will be fixed or 3.) there was some release timing issue and the loot will be available someplace in game soon.

In this case the intent is that those rings can be purchased from the Ash vendor for an appropriately large amount of Ash.

Sev~

The discrepancy in item levels has been noticed right away and reported and there have been hotfixes, patches and updates, but this still happens.

This makes this system, especially after buying the Mordor expansion for no small amount of money, the biggest pay to win in this game. Gorgoroth boxes are dropping like crazy, yet the keys are very limited. And we only recently find out from Cordovan that the “bugged” dailies that didn’t have the key are working as intended and that we should only have 3 keys per week, with no chance for a landscape drop.

This is working as intended. Not every daily offers a Black Steel Key. They are also limited to three Keys per week.

So, if we want to prepare for instances and min-max the gear, we are not only pushed to buy the keys, but also inventory (which is on sale right now) and the vault space and maybe shared storage to keep the huge amount of boxes that are dropping.

Untill recently I was using the PvMP plug-in only to not miss a lootbox in the pending loot, now I just don’t care if it gets deleted and timed out.

Personally, I do not think that we wanted to pay for the expansion so we would have the privilege to be milked for keys with a massive RNG – some get it on the first box or don’t get it on 100th. Do we have to do it? Of course not, but the fact that it is “optional” does not diminish the recent business decisions, lack of information about the game or misinformation. 3 keys intended per week with this amount of boxes? Who are we kidding? Is one key per day going to make or break someones bank?

Tactical classes

We still do not have any information if the tactical classes are working as intended. The dps has dropped significantly and the heals have too. The only buff we have had is from leveled legacies. We have spent star-lits only to then notice that nothing has moved at all in terms of dps or healing rating. Which brings me to the conclusion that it can’t be intended. How does someone spend something to upgrade only to stay in place? I don’t mind a slight nerf to RK dps or mini heals, but with the damage mobs are putting out or group taking and not being able to cap certain needed stats, this should have been done better than just letting us use star-lits, but not advancing. There could have been some cap to reach and not pass, but not moving at all is too much and broken. This is not only bad for grouping, but has also made questing in Mordor considerably harder than on physical classes.

Conclusion to the gearing

Obviously, you do not need to build your characters for t2 right away, but I did. I do not like to have too many swaps or change the gear all the time for t1, for landscape, for this or that. So, all I’m running with at all times is t2 gear. Below are my builds for warden and minstrel. Soon I’ll be able to add captain too. Please disregard the yellow letters and percentage, as the plug-in is outdated and doesn’t show the correct caps. But as a reference I’m providing you with my numbers on the builds. These can and will be further tweaked, but for now this would be it.