So you’ve wreaked (wroken?) havoc at Wulf’s Cleft and witnessed the defeat of the Avanc-lûth but now is time to move on.

Outside and above Wulf’s Cleft you meet with Gwîn – probably the sole survivor of the battle save for you. You part your ways and he lends you a horse to travel to Barnavon, the village of the Ox-clan in Carreglyn. As far as naming goes Carreglyn means Stone Valley (and there are rocks everywhere), Barnavon on the other hand I’m not sure about – barn means judgement or doom and avon would be river, except there isn’t one, only a small lake and a puddle.

Anyway, as I said Carreglyn is really rocky and that’s about its only quality. There are hostile Dunlendings, oxen and a Warg-rider scout every now and then – good thing about those is that they are really varied, white wargs, black wargs, striped wargs, it’s a technology Turbine seems to be really taking advantage of as of late. And there are also bugan. When you first arrive at Barnavon you’ll learn that the village is divided into Lower and Upper Barnavon. Upper Barnavon is inhabited by the Uch-lûth and as opposed to the Algraig in Enedwaith these are hostile. They are also sort of oppressing the Lower Barnavon where the remnants of the Boar-clan live. Outside the gate you’ll meet Gwilum a member of the Ox-clan who isn’t happy about what’s going on and is willing to help you if you help him first (he has already heard of your quest-completing provess). Lower Barnavon used to be patroled by hostile guards that would attack you in the most inconvenient moment like talking to an NPC but unfortunately they were removed in a later patch. In Lower Barnavon you will also find Nona who sends you to recover some bribing gold from the inhabitants of Upper Barnavon (Saruman pays well). After the deed is done you’ll be given a necklace and for a while you’ll leave Nona to her business since after helping as much as you can you are to meet with Amlan of the Grey Company.

But back to Gwilum: you’ll be given one quest that introduces a sort of circular design of zone-completion (hence the name of the post). You’re sent to travel around Carreglyn to find some clues as to why there are so many Warg-riders around lately. You’ll “circumnavigate” around the sort of central hill with a watch-tower on top and at each spot that you’ll scout more quests will pop. First you go to a puddle-sized lake called Avanc Lhun (the Avanc lake). You won’t find anything warg-rider-related but a shiny chain will catch your eye. You pull the chain and a big Avanc will come out of the lake. You’ll quickly dispatch it and continue along the road. Then you will come to the Barnavon Mine which is the only “hub” beside Barnavon where men of the Boar-clan have been sent to work. As you arrive you’ll notice the men are scared – the mine has been invested by the bugan, the hobbit-looking goblins from Enedwaith, you can tell they are not hobbits as some of them seem to be genuinely doing some work. You are sent into the mine for various tasks including gathering broken tools, mining ore, finding lost miners and of course killing the bugan. Unfortunately the miner seeking isn’t as fun as it may sound. The missing miners are deep within the mine and to rescue them you have to escort them to the exit one by one while the bugan keep respawning (and if someone else grabs a lost miner you’ll have to wait a while before you can rescue him). “Fortunately” some of those miners are dead and you don’t have to rescue them. Still, avoiding the bugan isn’t really an option and the mine will really make you hate them, on the plus side you’ll end up with many task items. Once you’re finally outside you need to gather some herbs to cure the wounded miners. The herbs grow around Hen Turrau, Ancient Towers, an old Gondorian watchtower that you can’t look down from either. This is also the third point to scout, once again no warg-riders but you’ll notice a heap of crates at the base of the tower. You will also notice a dead ox lying nearby, it is supposed to give you the idea that maybe the inhabitants of Barnavon would like some meat. You slay some cows, gather some herbs and return to the mine. You are thanked by the lead miner for you work and asked to talk with the wives of the miners back in Barnavon.

Continuing from the mine you’ll make a turn around the hill and at the northern point of the road you’ll turn north and come to a lake with a large shrine of the Ox-spirit. This is the final point to scout. You’ll notice a plaque describing some kind of ritual concerning the Ox-spirit but it requires a special sigil. Look around until you find a warg-rider, kill him and recover the sigil, he may also drop a piece of carved treebark, the sign that the Warg-riders are in league with the Dunlendings. Back at the shrine you will perform the ritual and Munfaeril, one of the servants of the Huntsman from Enedwaith, will appear. She is displeased with what’s going on in Barnavon and asks you to remind the leader, Madin Brenin, how to behave. The leader doesn’t believe you the least and you have no choice but to kill him and almost kill his son before he banishes you from Barnavon (or at least the upper part thereof). Back in the lower part you’ll meet with Gwilum and return a good amount quests, you’ll then talk with the relatives of the miners and call some more miners to the mine so that the clan doesn’t suffer the wrath of their overseer.

For the final part of your adventures in Barnavon you’ll return to Upper Barnavon to kill some of the high-ranked officials, free some hostages (no escorting this time), gather some food and burn some supplies, the usual stuff. Upon returning and distributing the food you are ready to leave. Gwilum gives you some final tasks concerning the Warg-riders – kill goblins, kill Wargs, gather orders, kill the leader of the Warg-riders. You will find the goblin camp in the northern part of Carreglyn. These quests will auto-complete and after you finish them all you will have to find Amlan who is nearby at the borders of the Gravenwood forest.

Carreglyn is probably the dullest of the areas. There are enough quests but basically you complete them in one big run around the area and it feels short. The fact that there is nothing to look at apart from rocks and hills doesn’t help either. But some area always has to be the worst I guess. Next time – Gravenwood, the last area in Dunland.

Well, you’ve probably noticed I’m not making any updates. Two reasons for that – one, I got exams from mid-January to mid-February. Two – my old laptop died and went to silicon heaven. I did not lose any data or anything but I wasn’t able to access those either. The data being primarily LotRo screesnhots. Well, now everything is fine – I got a new laptop, and I shall try to continue from where I left off. The next post will be about Barnavon and it should be out during the weekend.

Me and my new outfit

Don’t you love swamps? Well I can’t I say I’d particularly like them but they seem to be the least used biome which I think makes me glad to see them once in a while. Last one we had was Drownholt in Mirkwood and that was after a rather long drought, there isn’t one in Enedwaith and obviously neither in Lothlórien or Moria (though the Black Pool in front of the Western Gate might count).

Dunbog is one such swamp, located in the southwestern corner of Dunland and somewhat isolated from the rest. The scenery isn’t that interesting (it is a bog after all) but the area is home to very diverse animals some of which we haven’t seen for a while. There are frogs – those small ones that come in groups not those elefant-sized LSD-infused Moria creatures, there are blinding swarms of flies – well, blinding clouds of swamp gas that can move – and there are gredbyg. And that’s just the “small” animals, after those there are turtles, slugs (I think we haven’t seen those since Carn Dûm) and our new favourite – avanc (and these do Acid damage instead of Shadow). Interestingly there are no evil Dunlendings though given the environment one has to wonder how the good ones prevent being eaten. And also there are no Neekerbreekers.

We arrive here searching for the lost boy Mabon but the story-line completely vanishes once we start speaking to people. (Don’t worry though the story of Mabon and even his father Andras will get resolved). We also came here looking for Nona but she doesn’t find swamps all that interesting and leaves us behind while she travels further east into Carreglyn. The isolated area of Dunbog is home to even more isolated Avanc-lûth, clan of the Avanc and as I said before they are the good guys despite worshiping a good-for-nothing reptile with massive jaws. They live in a village called Lhan Rhos (Moor Village) built upon piers in the middle of the bog. The first quests deal with killing all the various animals and fetching various herbs and body parts from the aforementioned animals. From the interesting quests I’d pick one that introduces a somewhat new mechanic you might see further down the road.

On your way through the area you might encounter one particular Dunlending named Gwin. You’ll find him sitting resting in the middle of a pile of about a dozen dead avanc which he keeps casually slaying (by turning his ordinary fighting skill into extraordinary fighting skills, it’s that simple!). Unfortunately he broke his sword and we need to get him a new one. The blacksmith in the village is however aware of his avanc-slaying habit and doesn’t really want to make him a new sword since he broke quite a few already. Gwin being left with his two bare hands accepts the challenge. Later on were tasked to slay Bloodmaw the mother of all avanc in the area (who resides in some old ruins nearby). Since Gwin is in kind of your debt you may summon him to aid you in this quest. Now to the new-ish mechanic, Gwin emanates an aura that increases your in-combat regeneration (and that’s it but the aura is stackable and you will see many similar auras especially on enemies near Isengard).

There is also another set of quests where you are helping the Turch-lûth, the Boar clan. Technically the Boar clan has been eradicated some time ago but those of the Dunlendings who openly resist Saruman have decided to take their colors as a sign of their revolt and renew the clan. Anyway, there is one enemy in the Dunbog I haven’t mentioned yet – rats. Okay, two enemies. There are Abominations. These are Orcs and Trolls (and Dunlendings) that have been experimented upon by Saruman – presumably as he was trying to find the Uruk-hai “gene” or something. The Abominations live in Lhan Colvarn (Village of the Condemned) in the north of Dunbog where there even some trees. Lhan Colvarn used to be Lhan Rhos but then Saruman came returning the Abominations to the village he took people from and the Avanc-lûth were forced to relocate. After killing and investigating inside the village you will find yourself in an instance with three of the Turch-lûth (each giving a different aura) with the intent of Ending the Nightmare. At the end of the instance you can actually choose the ending – you can either slay the leader (a troll named Knotfist) or leave the Abominations alone since they are/were people too. And you will either get a nice cloak depicting you and an abomination or the same but bloody and torn (I went for the clean one but my Warden sure won’t show any mercy to those creatures).

After that you are to gather people outside of Lhan Rhos to an assembly. You need to find scouts and hunters whom you’ve probably already met and also protectors of the Glade. You see there is place called the Pristine Glade which is similar to Imlad Gelair or Gwindethrond (the Blue lady’s cave in Evendim), a nice shiny hidden place. In the middle of it there is a huge tree and around are smaller tress, waterfalls and maybe even rainbows (my graphics don’t run that high for me to know), things don’t go that well though since Saruman’s half-orcs have found a way in and are attacking scouts at the borders (I think the scouts are at least Defenders and they take down any enemy in a few blows, which makes me think the Glade isn’t in much danger). During the Assembly it is mentioned what you did or didn’t do with the Abominations but the final result is that the Avanc-lûth will go to war.

There is one last thing to do and that is a trip to Durgors, a fishing village of the Boar clan near a river – the same river that flows from Thrór’s Coomb in Enedwaith along the northern border of Nan Laeglin and then turns south through Gloomglens into Dunland and the same river that flows near the Wulf’s Cleft encampment. Seeing the village one might think the newfound members of the Boar-clan movement are taking things a little too far, one lady in particular is seen giving bath to a boar but who am I to judge. You’ll need to gather some driftwood to make oars but then you’re ready to undertake the famous raid at Wulf’s Cleft – The Tusks of the Boar (unfortunately the boat-travel is still done through a loading screen).

The instance is quite fun though for the most part quite easy. At the start you will select four soldiers to accompany you (again, auras) and then you’ll go through a burning camp burning stuff that isn’t on fire yet while other parties battle their own way through. The enemies you encounter are I think even Swarm so they go down rather quickly. I was quite impressed by the feel of combat being all around though. At the end however the raid and the Avanc-lûth are destined to fall and you will bravely retreat on a horse. The horse will actually take you almost through the entire camp while they are fights still going on. Once outside you will meet with Gwin who will thank you for seeing them through it and thus ends your questing in Dunbog (I was level 69 and a half at the end).

Well, almost ends. Once you’re level 75 (or a few levels below) you can partake in a repeatable instance that takes part in Dunbog (currently it just gives reputation but with Update 5 it will reward you with some nice looking legendary scrolls). This is a fishing instance and introduces even more animals into the area. You are accompanied by Franis who is an excellent guide but no warrior so he won’t help you kill a thing. The quests consist of simply killing everything around a particular pool then fishing in it (which is supposed to make you find some old relic) and then fighting a bigger version of the animals you just killed (which will drop the relic, apparently they are delicious). There are avanc, slugs, turtles and then elhudan and bog-guardians. It wasn’t bad although of course you must know how to fish, which even if you forgot to do on your way here isn’t such a problem since there is a hobby master in pretty much every village in Dunland. I have to say I really liked Dunbog, the area is swampy, the quests are simple and all but the story flows nice and the last quest makes a really good ending. The Dunlending are even trying to raise environmental awareness: “To hunt turtles we must protect turtles. Fetch me some turtle eggs!”

Next stop: Carreglyn

So, there was this con and also I had to prepare for an exam, so much for the delay. In unrelated news I dinged 75 the day before yesterday just as I entered the Ring of Isengard (for the last time probably).

Anyway I promised a post so here goes, the first area is short in terms of content so I’ve decided to put it together with the next one.

Tâl Methedras

This area is situated below Misty Mountains far to the east of Galtrev (you’ll be crossing some higher level territory on your way there), it’s also the only area the name of which is Sindarin and save for the Rangers one of the very few things that have a Sindarin name in the entire region (the next one is Dol Baran in the Gap and I can’t remember anything else), the name means Foot of the Last peak since it stands on the slopes of the same mountain that is towering above Isengard – Methedras, the last peak of the Misty Mountains. The area is quite small, instanced (in the sense of the Mirkwood landing area) and devoted entirely to the progression of the Epic book. It consists mostly of the village of Tûr Morva -partially built on some old Gondorian ruins, a small lake and a farther shore thereof.

Tûr Morva (Marsh tower) is home to the Hebog-lûth, the Falcon clan and the Rangers are hoping this clan will make good allies. We and the Grey Company do however need to prove ourselves before the Dunlendings. At every corner of the village you’ll see a Ranger helping or at least talking to the Dunlendings – Halbarad is carrying buckets of water, Braigiar is cutting down wood, Golodir is tending to an orchard and Radanir is working with the oxen (and their manure), he is not pleased. You’ll also see Elrond’s sons but they are just standing around. There are tasks for us as well – gather some wood, fight some Dunlendings (to test their prowess and to teach them how we roll in the North), treat some skins, etc. There is one nice quest that is different for every race – if you’re a Hobbit, a Dwarf or an Elf you will speak with some Dunlendings who more or less want to learn about you. If you’re a Man you will bring news of Anirin to his mother and wife who were worried about him (Anirin is the Dunlending you’ve rescued from Lhaid Ogo in the previous book, he came from this very village). As a reward you’ll get a book which is a clickable item that gives a buff: mine is called “For Honour, Duty and Love” and gives +20 Will and +2% incoming healing (it basically offsets racial passive traits and enhances other stuff). The buff lasts fro an hour and the item has twelve-hour cooldown.

Some of the quests send you across the lake and this is where all the animals are hiding, you’ll see oxen and toads (both passive) and also a new type of mob – avanc, a big lizard based on some Welsh legends and looking nothing like the reptiles we’ve seen so far. They can stun, bruise (+50% incoming damage for a few seconds) and “embed a tooth” into you (DoT). They also have some impressive jaws and this is why you’re catching them, apparently the jaws make for good traps. The toads I mentioned earlier produce some strong venom and you are asked to gather some of it. When you return to the NPC he immediately licks it to test it: “That’s what we needed … oh boy, I’m feeling weak … go … find a healer”. If it were a Hobbit I would understand but he’s a Dunlending and he should know better not lick things, well, at least we know the venom will work. Once you make traps from the avanc-jaws you are sent back to set them up – something has been creeping around the shore. I was expecting that I’ll stick around to catch whatever was there but not this time, you set the traps and return to the NPC without any follow up quest to be given (though there will be a follow-up later). You’ll also get a stack of five avanc-jaw traps that are usable by any class (I still got mine).

After helping the village here and there you’ll check on a prisoner – an emissary from Isengard – you don’t get much from him except that you should not trust the clan. Then you’re sent back into Dunland to check on other clans and come back later with the news. Onward to Starkmoor.

Starkmoor

This area lies a little southwest from Dunland and as far as animals go there is nothing new in here (oxen, wolves and wargs), it is a land of herders and traders. If you’re returning from Tûr Morva you’ll make a stop in Galtrev and you’ll be asked to find Wadu’s ghost near Galtrev – it’s Nona of course, she’ll tell you to meet her in Starkmoor later. On your way to Starkmoor you’ll discover a wrecked cart and its owner, Andras. Your first quests are to recover what has been dragged away by the Draig-lûth. Their camp is right below the tall Gondorian tower that you can see from almost everywhere (and that you cannot climb). After that you are to check on Andras’ little son, Mabon, near his homestead. At the homestead you will also find Nona, who has you checking on the homestead itself before traveling further south and leaving you behind to once again “help as much you can”. Andras wanted to sell some goods in an auction to pay his debts but what you recovered is not enough so he sent you to fetch other stuff, you’ll go to get some carrots, hides and so on. This a similar chain to the one in Annúminas – you are given a ledger with the things that needed to be gathered, you read it and are given a quest, once you complete the objectives the quest finishes and you need to read the ledger again to get the next quest, no need to run to any NPC. After the goods are gathered (and the homestead defended from Dunlendings – thanks to the intervention of some members of the Boar clan) you will travel south to the trading post of Avardin where Andras should be waiting.

Avardin (I wasn’t able to find a suitable translation) is a rather large village with an open-air auction hall in the middle. Andras wants to attend the auction and sell his goods but he needs other people to attend too but no one seems to be willing. Turns out the people in Avardin have lost many of their goods as well (and/or have “sold” those to the war effort) and you need to go and get what you can. One merchant misses tags from his cattle that’s been dragged away by wargs (apparently in Dunland you can only own as many sheep as you have tags for), another wants to “avenge” his cattle (by slaying those wargs), another wants to make a necklace from the warg leader’s tooth and the last wants some stones to build walls around grazing grounds or something. After you help them you can attend the auction, and this is where it got interesting – Saruman showed up – and I have to say the Wizard has an interesting approach to auctions: “I bid four!”, “The White Hand bids five!”, “I bid six”, “The White Hand bids five!”, “I bid eight” … “Sold to the fine Wizard for five”. Andras of course objects to this treatment and later to the entirety of Saruman’s business in Dunland. He is invited to go to Isengard to see for himself how Saruman makes Dunland prosper and he is not seen since. Now that he’s gone and the auction didn’t go as planned Mabon inherited his father’s debt. But even the corrupt auctioneer is not happy, he sends you to go after the caravan that is carrying Saruman’s goods and retrieve some of it. After you do that he’ll send you to cause some damage in the south so that the warriors would need to buy new weapons and armour from the auctioneer. This is the first time you’ll get a glimpse on Wulf’s Cleft, a huge Dunlending encampment where warriors from Dunland have been gathered as they prepare for the war with Rohan. However you won’t go inside (snd what you’ll see is just an animation). After you return to Avardin you’ll find the auctioneer lying dead on his spot with a banner of the White hand above him (thanks, phasing to phasing technology), I guess Saruman found out. Also Mabon is missing and you’re sent to the area of Dunbog to find him (because apparently there is a monster living in the swamp that catches little children). In the middle of it all there is also an interesting quest where you need to gather some horses that have scattered after a recent storm. You’ll actually find horses standing around the area and you’ll need to mount them and ride them to Avardin (now I wonder if you can actually ride them away).

The last interesting thing is a large circular structure west of Avardin called the Culling Pit. In here a full fellowship is tasked to battle to the death with four different and increasingly difficult opponents – first is a bunch of Dunlendings, then three drakes (Ice, Fire, Acid), then a Giant (with a complimentary polar bear) and finally three Shak-hai, Saruman’s elite force (he’ll show up again for this occassion). I did those quests a little later when I was at level 71, our tank was level 75 and it kinda felt boring, we had one or two deaths (LM being one-shotted) but otherwise the tank had no problem and it was just about killing the enemies, I did get a nice piece of jewelry though.

Overall the area isn’t bad but quest-wise it’s kinda short because you aren’t running all over the place like you do in Pren Gwyth but the story of Dunland is getting more interesting. Next stop: Dunbog.

Pren Gwyth (Wild Wood in Dunlendish) is where the two player groups who were separated by Bonevales and Trum Dreng meet again. This is the northern part of a great plain that forms most of Dunland and a political centre of sorts, the city of Galtrev lies here.

If you come from the Bonevales (and maybe even Trum Dreng) the first thing you’ll see is a tall Gondorian tower pretty much in the centre of Dunland, it’s visible from almost anywhere. Technically it’s in the Starkmoor but there’s not much to be told about it anyway. As I mentioned in the previous post there is a watchtower in Bonevales so I was almost certain this is a watchtower as well – technically it is, but as far as I can tell you cannot climb it up though there are Dunlendings encamped under it so I didn’t spend much time looking for a ladder. I do wish there was one.

Pren Gwyth looks more like the regular Enedwaith landscape and mobs around are more varied than in the Bonevales. We got wolves, wargs and goblins (there’s even a training camp for wargs with stables and all), crebain and of course evil Dunlendings. And what would be a zone without everyone’s favourite animals – boars.

In the middle of Pren Gwyth, slightly off the road, is the city of Galtrev (which more or less translates to Home). It is the biggest town since Caras Galadhon and it has everything you need and more – there are farming fields, skirmish camp, crafting hall, another crafting hall with craft guild representatives, a task-board, a barber (no new hairdos though), supposedly a sparring arena (with many Dunlendings around to cheer you up) and a playground for children. Yes, children, after four years Turbine finally invented children NPCs (the little Hobbits in Shire don’t count) and you can find plenty of them in every (friendly) settlement in Dunland. Being the main hub and thus having many players running around Galtrev has been soon renamed to Lagtrev and yes it feels like the Twenty-first Hall in a rainy day. The story in here is quite interesting and takes advantage of the phasing tech. When you first arrive in Galtrev you’ll meet a half-orc standing in the gate – the city has been taken over by the White Hand they were supposed to make an alliance with the people but it didn’t went well. Able men have been called south and those who remain are making weapons, supplies and other things to help with the war efforts. However the half-orcs are quite welcoming to visitors (as much as a half-orc can be) and will gladly let you in providing you lend them a hand. Lending a hand means figuring out why the work goes so slowly and consequently making it go faster, being compassionate we work sort of undercover and help the people with their tasks so they don’t get flogged (funnily enough the half-orcs will later assume that’s what we did to speed up the work and asks us for our special technique). You help craft spears, find lost hinges, deliver wood that has not been delivered since the wagon got ambushed and about 20 quests later you will retake Galtrev and the half-orcs will disappear (or phase out). Working “with” the bad guys was an interesting experience although there could have been some improvements. Even though the city has been suffering under half-orcs’ whips all the vendors were behaving like nothing was going on. It would add much to realism if there were no vendors until you liberate the city though it would require shortening the quests a bit (it took me two or three hours to do all the quests). Apart from certain parts of the city being seemingly unaffected by the political situation there is one thing that really bugs me: there is a Rohirrim reputation vendor standing inside the city (and neither he nor his Dunlending colleague offer any rep horses but that’s not the main issue). I understand that it’s convenient to have rep vendors in your main hub but the as much as the Dunlendings are our friends they hate the strawheads with a passion. Not to mention that even the half-orcs wouldn’t let him remain there. And you won’t need to speak with him for another four or five levels since you first arrive to Galtrev and by the time you will probably will be questing in the Gap of Rohan already. He would be much safer there.

Anyway, after you free the city there are still quests to do but let me sum up the Epics first. Coming into Pren Gwyth you’re required to find Halbarad, if you keep to the road and reach Galtrev from the south you won’t miss him but if you do it like me, take the short route and try to get to Galtrev from the north you may spend some time looking him up. The Epic line doesn’t get much more interesting just yet, Halbarad sends you to find someone in Galtrev willing to speak to you. After some searching you find and old woman named Caitrin, of the Falcon-clan. She tells you that if you want to learn about what’s going on you should visit the upper part of the village – there are people there that will teach you. Sure they will, teach you what’s the best place to put a sword through a person. After you return to that old hag she is surprised to see you alive but decides that you could be an asset, so she has you performing some minor sabotages and then you’re once again left with “Help the people of Pren Gwyth as much as you can and then travel to Tâl Methedras, home of the Falcon-clan”. And that’s just chapter 6 of the book.

So the city is freed and as I said there’s still stuff to do, mainly ensuring that the people are safe and well-fed. There are two quest arcs that I particularly liked (well, one, the other I liked simply for it’s existence). Let me start with a boar’s tale: Long time ago near the village of Archet in Bree-land there lived a boar called the Old Bloodtusk who claimed the lives of many a new adventurer, he was present in the intro instance every new player has to go through and his task was to test the skills of players – level 5 signature, if you could defeat him you were ready for the big world (there was also an Aurochs in Ered Luin for the same purpose). More than a year ago Turbine changed the intro instances and Old Bloodtusk went missing. Songs were sung in his memory and forums were mourning him. Now why am I talking about him – in Pren Gwyth there is a place called Bloodtusk’s den, it does indeed belong to long lost Old Bloodtusk who is said to have come here all the way from Archet (as the exploration deed will tell you). Now you won’t find Old Bloodtusk himself but pretty much every pig around Pren Gwyth is probably of his lineage. The quest arc itself (“Mean, Old Pigs in Pren Gwyth”, “Meaner, Older Pigs”, “Mean, Old Big Bloodtusk”) is just a boar-slaying chore – like we could live without those – but I’m glad Turbine remembered our favourite boar. The Big Bloodtusk at the end is the current patriarch of the family and the biggest boar you’ve ever seen, and as far as mammals are concerned there aren’t many larger than him.

The second quest arc is one of the funniest I’ve ever done – it starts in Galtrev with a boy who lost his shiny ball. As you’re looking around the town you discover that the ball has been taken by a craban (now why might that be?). After tracking down the craban, or rather following the general direction in which it has flown, you came upon a hut surrounded by many tamed crebain. Their tamer is called Rook, he’s from Bree-land and in his own words an apprentice of Saruman, and here’s what I remember from the dialog, more or less:
“Of course I have the palantír, but I won’t give to you, it’s a dangerous tool”. Rook wants to become a Wizard and there are several things he needs – he already has the palantír but he also needs a Ring of Power. So you gather some metal and make him a ring:
“A Ring of Power, wonderful, you were wise to give it to me.” Now he also needs a many-coloured cloak, he already has a cloak he just needs something to make it many-coloured. Seeing as there are plenty crebain around you go and kill them gathering their black feathers which have some fancy optical properties:
“Marvelous! Look at how it changes colors, looks almost like the feathers of my crows. But listen my friend, my flock of crebain seems to have shrunk I wonder what caused it. Go and gather some eggs from the wild crebain around”. And so you do:
“Now I am a true Wizard, Rook the Many Hued, soon I will take over Dunland and then the whole Middle-earth! And we will start with you!”. Unfortunately that’s where it stopped being funny and I had to kill the loony wizard. I recovered the “palantír” and returned it to the boy. When I finished the quest deed I still got one quest left to do, I wonder if they added one here and subtracted one from Trum Dreng. I should also mention that I gained another level.

Next stop: Tûr Morva and Starkmoor

Except it isn’t. It borders on the Lich Bluffs and it’s full of the Dead, they even have a place called the Bone Quarry (though I don’t think they actually go there to gather bones). Bonevales is one of two areas you can choose to go through into Dunland and this one follows the Old Road (which begs the question why did someone put a cemetery around or put a road through a cemetery but hey, the Dúnedain built a fortress in the Barrow Downs). If you don’t like the Dead then I think you’re safe to take the road through Trum Dreng and so far there haven’t been any other Dead on the road to Isengard.

If you’re following the Epics your “guide” through this area will be Prestadír which was a bit surprising to me. If you don’t remember we first meet Prestadír in the Haunted Inn in Mirkwood. Later on after the Grey Company is summoned Prestadír (along with his Mirkwood mates Idhrenfair and Himeinior) is encamped in Gloomglens in Enedwaith, which is north of Trum Dreng and has no dead around. There is however a Ranger in the Lich Bluffs who is kind of an expert on the Dead and has us running all around the tombs – Mincham. One would think that if we’re heading into yet another dead-infested area Mincham (or someone he works with) will take us through, not so. During the questing I’ve met another Ranger – Naeglanc and as far as I can tell he is an entirely new character. Again it’s kinda weird since Turbine has to thin the numbers of the Grey Company down to thirty before they meet with Aragorn and adding a new character seems counter-productive but I haven’t done the whole book yet, maybe they start dying fast (not that I’m looking forward to that, I felt sorry for Candaith).

If you’ve been to Mirkwood Bonevales kinda remind me of Scuttledells, except here we have the Dead and some Dunlendings instead of spiders. It feels maze-ish which is no problem for me but I guess the fact that PoIs don’t show up on maps (for some reason) only adds to the trouble of other people.

The story in here is quite interesting, unlike the Lich Bluffs where the dead have been allegedly walking for a while in the Bonevales there are a recent occurrence. This is the deal: the Bonevales are an ancient burial ground and a home to a clan of Dunlendings called Dievlig, the Accursed, who have been banished here long ago for some evil deeds. Now the leader (or brenin if you will) of the Dievlig allied himself with an evil spirit (who I think is one of Oathbreakers) and began raising the dead from their graves, he even tried to sacrifice his own daughter to help with the process. Since I was around I did of course put an end to it all, granted I did not kill the evil spirit – the Wild Huntsman showed up at the end and dealt with him. As I mentioned in the previous post I like the way the questing flows. You start at A who sends you do kill some dead but you don’t return to A to tell him that deed is done, instead you go meet up with B who is scouting ahead and continue from there (and thanks to the phasing tech you may not meet B until you need to). It helps create the sense of something actually going on and NPCs moving around instead of having a hub full of lazy NPCs who can’t be bothered with doing anything. As far as the Epic story is concerned not much is going on in Bonevales, I think there are only two chapters and both tell you “Help the people around as much as you can and then travel further south to meet with me again” on the other hand I happened to rescue yet another Ranger, the aforementioned Naeglanc.

One thing you’ll notice in each area is a pair of deeds, one for exploration and one for completing all (or almost all) quests. Each of those has a meta-deed associated with it (that is for completing all the exploration and quest deeds across Dunland). Bonevales was so far the only area where the number of quests needed was the exact number of all the quests in the area – in the other areas I have finished the deed while still having stuff to do, except for Starkmoor were I’m missing several Fellowship quests and Trum Dreng doesn’t have enough quests for the deed (that is a known bug). I did all of the Bonevales in one go and and earned a level just I was handing in the last quest. Felt great.

Overall the area looks nice (unless you really don’t like the Dead) and a hidden Ranger camp is really well hidden unless you approach it from the right direction. What surprised me was a watchtower I found somewhere in the middle of it. It looks like an overgrown silo and has a ladder on the side; it’s not tied to any quest (that I know of). You can climb it up and have a look around. I haven’t seen anything like it in the other areas I have visited so far. Unfortunately it was dark and I haven’t made any screenshots from the top. Since there are plenty ancient structures around there are also plenty of Scholar nodes – and I mean many, the banded coffers must be the most common resource in Dunland or at least in the Bonevales. Or maybe people weren’t bothered with gathering, I saw plenty people around yet I don’t remember anyone actually picking up stuff. Even the skarn nodes that I fully expected people to race to were being passed by. Well, at least there were more left for me.

Next stop: Pren Gwydh

So, Isengard is here and I got to play it for a while. When I say a while I mean about 3 days since I’ve been in the Lands of no Internet. Nevertheless my captain is already 68. He is the only class I’ve taken to Dunland so far (and only character I’ve played since RoI) so let’s have a look on what he saw. Although I could probably cover every change RoI brought in one post I decided not to. I will make shorter posts about every area I’ve visited.

Still, this would be a really short post so I add my general impressions about RoI.

Launch

Despite the launch being a day early and people having already been patching by the time I got home I was among the unfortunate ones and spent 6 hours trying to connect to the server. When I finally did the patching process went smoothly and I got in fairly easily. Then my computer froze I didn’t have the will to log in again.

Gameplay

Stats were changed an all that but I didn’t really feel much different, not yet anyway. Yes I’m close to having 1000 points of Might (something I could’ve never hope to achieve pre-RoI) but I don’t really do significantly more damage and I’m not traited for it. Class traits changed as well so I had to do some swapping, the biggest difference for me (in Leader of Man) is that Routing Cry is no longer tied to on-defeat response and now causes Forced attack. There is another trait that gives Routing Cry a stun so I’m kinda wondering how would those two things play together.

Gameplay in general isn’t bad and even though the areas were somewhat overcrowded the mobs kept respawning fast and I didn’t have to wait to kill the number required for the quests. I am running into another issue though – my bags are full. I usually have a bag or so empty and the other four are full of stuff I don’t wish to part with. Now my issue isn’t that I would need to keep all the drops, there are only two kinds of ore and one gem (my captain is a Jeweller) the issue is that all the quests reward these superb looking armour pieces that I’d really like to keep but I can’t, my Wardrobe (90 slots) is full as well. Fortunately my Warden seems to have a lot free space so by the time I’ll be taking her through Dunland I would be able to keep all the stuff. Right now I’m only picking pieces for a new outfit and discarding the rest (with much sadness).

The quests flow rather smoothly and in such a manner that you aren’t bound to one central hub that you keep visiting over and over again. Usually an NPC in a hub sends you to some tasks and then talk to another NPC somewhere near the area where your quests take place and the NPC will take it from there. Epic quests have also an interesting approach, usually you help a Ranger with some tasks and he then continued further south. You’re left to help the Dunlendings in the area as much as you can (or see fit) before meeting with that Ranger (or another one) further down the road. The quests also reward a hefty chunk of XP (about a 10k per quest) so I made a whole level on the first day which was around 30 quests. I heard rumours there aren’t enough quests to actually reach 75 by questing but we shall see.

Crafting

I haven’t crafted much yet as the quest rewards are quite good but I was surprised with how many recipes a Jeweller actually starts. In the previous tiers I would usually get a full basic set (earring, bracelet, necklace, ring) then I could get some advanced sets from drops. In the new Westfold tier I’m starting out with a recipe for Polished Green Garnet and a necklace, just a necklace. The other stuff should come from drops but – as Murphy’s law would have it – I’m only getting drops for other professions.

Apart from the inventory issue I haven’t encountered any bad thing and I’m looking forward to the rest of Dunland as well as Nan Curunír and of course the Gap of Rohan. I don’t think I will be disappointed.

Let me just start with saying that I did not get into the Isengard Beta. Not yet. And from what I’ve heard we Europeans don’t have access to character copy (I assume that is a part of the whole myLotro-not-working thing). Anyway let’s have a look on what’s coming. Spoilers may follow though none of them will be story-related, I myself am avoiding anything related to the epic books.

The Visuals

As rare as it is to happen the blue moon does occur and so do LotRo’s video diaries. And we also got to see some screenshots – have a look at those in this post on CStM. If you notice the Globsnaga near the end of the video don’t worry, the actual Abominations (apparently Saruman’s guinea pigs) are supposed to look a bit different. Apart from the official video there is also one that is fan-made and you can see it here. It all looks very good, I’m especially looking forward to see the heath-covered hills. I can’t guess the size of the regions but I’ve been told there are substantially huge.

Another thing I’m usually looking forward to in an update/expansion is something nice to wear and with Isengard it looks like I am in for a treat. There are some new armor skins available as quest rewards and we’re also getting some nice looking armor sets from the new dragon raid. Although I may not get my hands on the latter (I have not even been to Ost Dunhoth yet) the quest rewards will certainly make it to my Wardrobe. Speaking of the Wardrobe I’ve heard that they’re looking into allowing a light armor class to put a heavy armor piece in the wardrobe, that will save me some item transfers.

To have look on the new armor and many screens of other things visit this thread.

The Content

There will be some quests including an Epic book and we will see Saruman. One thing is making a “return” and that is tasks though they might only be available in the new area (no Moria or Mirkwood). That’s about all I know though there is one thing I can talk about – the new raid. It is the only instance that is coming with Isengard which leaves many people in despair although there are plans for an instance cluster to be released later this year. I don’t particularly mind since I only start looking for instances once I’m nearing the level cap and for that I’m taking my time. We’ve known about the raid for some time and there have even been some screenshots released (and I still don’t like the tusks on that dragon). Now with the NDA lifted there are some videos of the raid (the videos are relatively safe to watch since the folks didn’t make it all the way through). The raid, which I assume will become known as The Smaug Experience, is a simple lair inhabited by huge dragon end even bigger pile of gold. Looks similar to Watcher who also had several stages during the fight and on the plus side there will be no tentacles. Expect fire though, much fire. You might also want to check a little overview of the raid at CStM.

Factions and Reputation

Two new factions are coming – Men of Dunland and Riders of Théodred. Yes we are getting a glimpse of what will the Riders of Rohan look like once we (hopefully) get into Rohan. The reputation gathering will presumably be the same as we’ve seen in Enedwaith. The bad news – at least at the moment – is that there do not seem to be any horses, house decorations or similar stuff available for barter with either of those factions, let’s hope they add some.

But players won’t be gathering reputation only for those two factions – with new area comes new crafting tier and also a new tier of reputation for your chosen guild. From Kindred we are getting to Master and we need 45k worth of reputation points to reach that.

The Crafting

As I’ve mentioned a new crafting tier is coming, this one will be called Westfold which I think is a neat solution for avoiding the path of increasingly cooler sounding titles – where’d you go from Supreme anyway? Uber? Again I don’t know details but I know this: for prospectors there will be a new ore – skarn (thank you LotRo for teaching me yet another word). This ore comes in two variants, low- and high-grade skarn but they both come from a single type of node. You’ll no longer drown in Tin when you’re only looking for Copper. The ore is also supposed to make alloys with low tier ores like Khazâd-Iron and Ancient Iron.

Many new recipes are coming that will require you to be Master of the Guild and Kindred with the Men of Dunland or Riders of Théodred. Among those recipes are (finally) craftable pocket items available for scholars. There might also be some recipes that will require components from the new raid.

The Monsterplay

This is one area that the beta makes me angry about. Let’s skim through the positives though: the log-in screen for Monsterplay is changed to resemble that of Free Peoples and apparently you’ll get bonuses that will scale with rank. Free players will also be allowed to enter Ettenmoors though only as creeps and only the Reaver class will be available.

The big issue is the store – they’ve decided to sell skills in there. Now I do not think that gating skills behind ranks is the right way to go – it makes a new creep pretty much useless for the first five or six ranks, but selling them in the store isn’t much of a good thing either. The bigger issue with the store is that there are certain types of consumables that make it really easy to not die (unless you’re facing a zerg). There are certain potions that remove various combat states and debuffs that are far more potent than what is currently available from NPCs. I’m afraid this will make any kind of crowd-control and debuffing pretty useless. I don’t play much in the Ettenmoors as of late because when I do there don’t seem to be Freeps around but if they don’t change the current situation in Beta I may very well stop going there at all. PvMP is the one place where the store items can offer a real advantage and that should not happen. I still need to see the whole picture though, there might have been some changes to vendors and the store-bought consumables might not be as good as they seem to be now.

 The Rest

There is more stuff coming but most of it is related to combat (stat and class changes) and while it looks good on paper I don’t want to talk about it before I experience it first-hand.

All in all, the area looks good, the quests are supposedly good too, there will be tasks in Dunland, the Captain and Warden look like they’ll be even better but PvMP looks to have a potential for a very huge uprising. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I have pre-ordered Rise of Isengard in the week they’ve announced it so now I can only wait. It should only be a month.

After weeks of gathering the most useless drops my champion, Erechir, finally finished a hundred tasks. Huzzah! On to another hundred (and another and another …)

To task or not to task?

Seeing as there is a deed associated with tasks the choice is simple – do the tasks. Granted, 500 tasks sounds horrible, more so if you realize you can only complete 5 tasks a day (at least at the beginning and barring the use of Store-bought items), on the other hand it’s less of a struggle compared to some slayer deeds. The tasks are more similar to the enmity deeds since the regions don’t matter. Not that a deed on its own would convince me but there are cloaks to be had as well as fancy titles. The title for 100 tasks completed is Up-and-Comer, no cloak though as those are available for the last three stages (300, 400 and 500 tasks completed). There is also another reward that makes the next deeds easier to complete:

As I’ve told – the daily limit for tasks is 5. However after you complete the first hundred it’s raised to 6, then to 7 and so on up to 10.

The maths

I once calculated the amount of days needed to complete the 500-task deed to be 78 days if I recall. That’s assuming you will always do the maximum amount of tasks but won’t buy task resets or limit increases from the Store though you will use those you find in the reward. That was shortly after beta and I didn’t know you’d be rewarded a task reset as well. So let’s do the math again:

• 19 days of tasking, 5 tasks per day, 95 tasks done
• 1 special day (107 tasks done)
• complete the daily 5 (100 tasks done) and receive Task Rewards
• use the limit increase first and complete 1 additional task
• use the task reset and complete additional 6 tasks (that’s 12 tasks in a day)
• 15 days of tasking, 6 tasks/day, 197 tasks done
• 1 day (208 done)
• complete 3 (200 done), get Task Rewards
• use limit increase, 1 task
• reset, complete 7 tasks
• 13 days (299 done)
• 1 day (309 done)
• 1 task (300 done)
• increase, 1 task
• reset, 8 tasks
• 11 days (397 done)
• 1 day (410 done)
• 3 tasks (400 done)
• increase, 1 task
• 9 tasks
• 10 days (500 done)

And there you have it, it will take you a minimum of 20 days to do 100 task but then, thanks to increases and resets, the next milestone will come sooner. The second hundred will be completed on 36th day, the third on 50th, the fourth on 62nd and finally the five hundred tasks will be completed on 72th day from the start. And you’ll even have 11 additional tasks to complete on the last day. 72 days is not bad, on the other hand I don’t play every day and I don’t always play my champion.

The dark side of tasking

There are several things that can make tasking a rather unpleasant experience. I’ve talked about the task limits but I don’t think there are bad per se, maybe I’m just used to the daily caps on class deeds.

One of the problems is that tasks are only available close around you level – that is 2 levels above and below. If you’re level 50 you cannot complete tasks in Lone Lands and the tasks items from Lone Lands aren’t usable in Angmar (or other level 50 area). This is bad if you overlevel an area but still want to complete the quests there, you cannot get the tasks done. Now if accept a task beforehand you can outlevel it but even the quest log has limits.

The other thing is that a) there are no tasks above level 50 (so far, it might change with Isengard) and b) experienced people (as opposed to those new to the game) generally level quite fast so completing all the 500 tasks might be a bit of a problem (it certainly is possible to reach 65 within 72 days). I think my champion started doing tasks around level 30 and he’s now 45, I plan to complete all quests in Forochel with him so I might reach onto 200 but I won’t be able to finish the 500. My Rune-keeper didn’t even finish the first 100 and by now he is in Moria. My hope lies on my level 14 Lore-mistress who might have enough time to finish this.

I guess the last problem is meeting the quota if you want to be efficient. Sometimes it is hard as the items simply don’t drop, or you need specific items which are kinda far from the hub and you’re lazy to travel there and sometimes you have plenty of items but the tasks for those are only available in a distant outpost. An example of the latter is the Great Ear, albeit rare the thing drops off almost any beast in Angmar, Forochel, Misty Mountains and possibly Eregion. However the only place where it can be handed in is Hrimbarg, deep within Misty Mountains. Now that I am able to do 6 tasks I day I’m not sure I’ll be always able to (or want to) keep up.

The brighter side

Fortunately there is a way out of this – Epic instances. A single instance (like the False Trail or Fire and Ice) will usually get you an amount of task items that will suffice for two or three days. Tasks may also provide reputation and while it is only 300 points per task it can help in the long run.

All things considered tasks don’t really provide much on the other hand they aren’t meant to. One could even say that tasks are a second hobby after fishing. As far as I am concerned I’ll try to do the 500 tasks with one of my characters (to get the cloaks at least) but I’ll probably leave them after that.

I seem to be making some large pauses aren’t I? Certainly feels like WordPress is issuing updates faster, oh well…

Anyway, my Elven Rune-keeper got into Eregion which is one of my favourite zones so I though I could do a little overview of what I like and dislike about the area.

Landscape

Well, there isn’t an area that I wouldn’t like for its landscape. In Eregion we got trees, we got walking trees, we got occasional Elven ruins which remind me of another nice area which is Ered Luin, we got dry riverbeds which is a nice new thing and we got the Redhorn Avalanche, so apart from a swamp and a desert I don’t think we are lacking anything.  And even with about three or four high peaks the area is mostly flat so you can see pretty far even from the ground.

The Foot of Redhorn

Flowers and Animals

Eregion – in case you don’t know – stands for the Land of Holly so it should be no surprise there are holly trees to be found all around. Not to mention holly huorns, holly bog-lurkers and holly wood-trolls some of which are called Holly Warriors (I see what you did there Turbine). To be honest I haven’t seen a holly tree in real life, I know how the leaves look so that was my only clue. The animals are pretty varied given the size of this zone, compared to Bree-land there are definitely more species in here. Boars (well, duh), worms, fire-flies, crebain, lynxes, sabre-tooth cats, wolves, Wargs, crawlers, lizards, snow-beasts and ice-grims. And then there are half-orcs, Uruks, Dunlendings and Angmarim. And that’s not counting instances, those would add regular drakes (wings, fire-breathing), orcs, pale-folk, gredbyg (Moria bugs), salamanders and a bear – unless I’m not remembering correctly there really is only one bear inside an instance.

Let me make a stop at the ice-grims, I hate those creatures. They do Frost damage and it hits hard, they can punt you away, they can freeze you in place and they often give you a nasty wound that does Frost damage over time. And because they are so much fun the devs decided to create an Elite Master ice-grim, I met him once long ago and I was obliterated in seconds. On the other hand there is only one quest that requires you to kill some of those and on a Rune-keeper they aren’t that much of a trouble, although they seem to be resistant to my tactical skills I can resist their frost and wounds.

Quests, Deeds and Story

Joining multiple things together but before I do that let my start with a bit of history: Once upon a time before the release of Mines of Moria there was this huge server-wide event of Ring-lore gathering, humanoid mobs of all levels were dropping pages of lost Ring-lore from Eregion and Elves stationed in towns and outposts were gathering them and sending them to Master Elrond. If I remember correctly one character could only hand in five or ten pages a day for which he received a random reward and a title if he gathered enough of those. 70 000 pages of Ring-lore were needed to be gathered for Eregion to open up, our server (Laurelin) was among the first. However not all of Eregion was revealed, only a small area near Mirobel with a swift-travel available from Rivendell, it was there where one of the final chapters of Volume I Book 14 took place. The whole Eregion was released later along with Moria.

Now to the story part – Eregion was the place where Elves made the Rings of Power, some five thousands years ago. Shortly after that achievement Sauron, who in disguise was helping those Elves, made the One Ring, marched north and razed Eregion.  Refugees found shelter in Imladris and the area was left abandoned, up until now. The Fellowship has passed through Eregion and shortly after some Elves set out to reclaim what’s left (and shortly after that we came around).

Questing in Eregion is pretty streamlined: visit one hub, do all the quests, go to next hub. There are deeds tied to quests that apart from rewarding virtues open up swift travel options between each of the hubs and Rivendell. If you don’t skip quests then by the time you reach the next hub you can already use the swift travel from there.

Most of the quests deal with various threats to the Elves usually due to the influence of Saruman and partly Angmar. There are half-orcs breeding drakes, Dunlendings gathering wood and so on. There’s also a nifty feature present in most of the enemy camps: a summoning horn to call the commander of the camp and kill him. It makes me wonder however why it was developed. You see at each camp there is usually a “second-in-command” boss patrolling around who always spawns and to call the commander you need to have a quest.

Even though I really like questing in Eregion there are some things that I don’t like in terms of design. The usual quest arc constitutes of visiting one camp of enemies about three times and doing a different thing each time. Let me give you some examples – there are drakes being bred in the ruin of Pembar – so you go there and destroy the eggs, at the same time you also search the rubble for any priceless trinkets or something. You return those quests and you’re sent there again – to kill some of the half-orcs and get valuables from them (it’s not like you haven’t been killing them the first time you were there), you also need to kill the worm-sire and also the half-orc drake-breeder with his drake pet. Those are three separate quests, not one. After this is done you return yet again and summon an Uruk Lieutenant who I’d think was supervising the breeding. You kill him and you’re done. On to a similar series of quest. There is another arc that even has some of that switched around – first you kill half-orcs in a camp, then you return to kill the Uruk Lieutenant, then you return to burn some tents – here it stops making sense, I’ve massacred some of the half-orcs already, killed their leader and if there were any half-orcs left they must have had fled already, how does burning empty tents help? That said I guess don’t mind it because the enemy bases aren’t that far away from the hubs.

There is also another thing that kind of bothers me. Right at the beginning there is a Dunlending lumbercamp, similar quest pattern to what I’ve described. However to start this little arc you need to kill a random Dunlending who will drop an item that starts a quest that has you informing an Elf in a nearby quest hub that something’s going on and after that you continue. My problem is that I don’t have a reason to kill any mob unless I’m on a quest to kill said mob or the mob attacks me and I’m lazy to run away. The Dunlendings are off the road and if I didn’t know I’d probably skipped that altogether.

Now on the brighter side again. There is sort of a quest-arc that deals with the passing of the Fellowship through the area, you basically track down their path and learn that they aren’t really that careful as their campsites are easy to find, as you progress further you learn that some of Saruman’s spies have learned about them and you have to make sure they won’t inform anyone. It’s pretty well done as you learn what’s been happening to the Fellowship since they left Rivendell and you also take part in their story, although indirectly. You’ll also find an iconic location called the Burnt Tor where the Fellowship was surrounded by a pack of Wargs and Gandalf drove them off with some fire.

Now to the deeds, I’ve talked about the quest-counters but there are some other and more interesting ones. First there is one that deals with the Ring-lore, you need to find six lost pieces of the lore with half of those dropping off humanoids and half being found in various ruins which I think is a pretty nice idea. My favourite deed in Eregion are the Uruk Lieutenants, there are nine Uruk Lieutenants, servants of White Hand, scattered across Eregion. You usually find them while doing quests (some directly send you to kill them). Some of the Uruks are camp commanders, one of them is responsible for the crebain, one of them was tracking down the Fellowship and so on. You have to find them and kill them. Before each of them dies he will shout “The General will avenge me!”, it got me rather curious as to who is this General supposed to be when I was doing the deed for the first time. About ten levels later I’ve found out – it’s General Talûg, final boss of the Fil Gashan instance in Moria, it was quite a surprise because I’ve almost forgot about it by then.

One deed also deals with discovering all the campsites that the Fellowship left behind and sort of ties together with another deed that tracks the Fellowship’s passage throughout Moria. Given the varied fauna there are also quite some slayer deeds (and an exploration deed to find Dens of Beasts) although some of them are way too tedious as the creatures are scarce. The last deed is a hidden one and I won’t spoil that (look at the top *hint, hint* *nudge, nudge*).

Rune-keepers and Eregion

As far as rune-keeping goes players are sent to Eregion on about level 45 as part of their class deed. It is possible to quest there but I’d wait till about level 48. I know players are often going to Eregion at level 45 to get their first legendaries but I’m in no rush, I got my first legendary on level 52 and I’m still in Eregion finishing up quests. As far as I am concerned I got some interesting jewelry and also a rune-stone I think. Being slightly over-level I don’t have trouble with any quests. Huorns and Wood-trolls as well as wolves and Wargs are quite vulnerable to fire which I can only appreciate.