Strayed Captain

So I got in, I actually visited Enedwaith in the F2P beta, made it as far as Echad Dagoras and restrained myself from going further.

People say Enedwaith is a theme park, while there are big differences between, say, Mournshaws and Fordirith in terms of terrain, weather and mob population I can’t say I fell like going through a theme park, I barely cross two zones in a day.

I really like it, hills, trees, great outlooks from any highly situated camp, I guess Mirkwood would be the same if it wasn’t for the forest.

Since there’s a lot to talk about I’ll do several post, this one is about the environment – fauna and flora mostly.

Fordirith

The Northwatch is the northernmost area of the whole region and is not much different from Eregion, if you actually keep to the middle of the map everything seems kind of same. Fordirith is inhabited by Dunlendings of the Draig-lûth (Dragon clan – from Welsh ‘draig’ and ‘llwyth’) and black wolves.

Interesting things happen in Enedwaith when the night comes. The black wolves turn into creatures of shadow, looking as if a black smoke was coming from them and their eyes begin to glow. Other than that they are still wolves with their usual crippling attacks though they are able to perform some shadow based skills as well. They also got a corruption the removal of which causes them to take 20% more damage for about 20 seconds.

Now a little complaint – the actual border between Eregion (without dynamic layers) and Enedwaith (layered) lies somewhere in Fordirith, while I was questing in there I was crossing it every few steps – the result is loading screens and disappearing mobs and resource nodes. Certainly annoying but I’m already out of there.

Windfells

I usually run with sounds turned off but I fortunately turned them up in Enedwaith. The sound of wind blowing across the plains really helps the immersion in this area. Here you find the remnants of what used to be North-south road which you may remember as the Green-way. The actual road starts in Fornost and goes all the way down through North Downs, Bree-land, Minhiriath (a region between Bree-land and Enedwaith), Enedwaith, Rohan (where it turns east), along the White Mountains into Gondor ending in Minas Tirith.

Anyway, the population of Windbluffs consists of Dunlendings (they really are almost everywhere) and again – wolves though they are white this time. They are also some occasional crebain, oxen – these are kinda new animals though they are not that interesting – and there is a herd of domesticated goats. As with Fordirith, interesting things happen at night. Druggavar and Cuthraul two kinds of fell spirits appear in the dark. Druggavar (‘drwg’ + ‘gafr’ literally ‘evil goat’) are black goats with glowing eyes and their bleating kinda sounds like someone ran it through a synthesizer, which is not bad, just weird. They behave like normal goats though they can make you unable to evade (permanent fear debuff as long as you are in combat). The Cuthraul (cythraul – demon) are pale Fell spirits with their eyes glowing more than usual and they are some of the few ghosts that actually say something:  ”Your spirit shall wither before the Eye!”, “Fall into shadows!”. They come in two variants – one (Dark Cuthraul) sports a corruption that will make him do more damage but also take more, and it tiers up every few seconds. The second – Cuthraul Fear-caster – will spawn a pair of crawling hands that will actually slow you down (-50% run speed aura). Finally someone realized they can clutch onto our legs A mithril-flake-dropping Warg can sometimes be seen here but Wargs don’t live here.

There is also an ancient Arnorian ruin – Amon Mín – currently held by the Dunlendings and there is not much happening in there, you are not even sent there to kill an evil leader of a local Dunlending band.

Nan Laeglin

Nan Laeglin in the middle of Enedwaith (which I’ve been only able to translate as Valley of Green Pools though they aren’t any) is the place where you find Lhanuch (ox-village) the “capital” of Algraig, a friendly Dunlending clan – I said friendly though they are about as friendly as the Lossoth but at least you don’t start as an outsider. They belong to the Uch-lûth (Ox clan). Lhanuch stands on a hill near the great road, you can’t really miss it.

Unfriendly Dunlendings don’t appear here but you start to feel Saruman’s presence. Half-orcs and Wargs walk through this area as if it was already theirs – “What are you doing out of your hole?”. Sometimes you can also stumble upon an angry Plains Ox Bull.

Thrór’s Coomb

East of Nan Laeglin, one of two areas with a proper forest. Named after Thrór who ruled under the Mountain when Smaug came. He escaped with his people and traveled south from Erebor through the Gap of Rohan and then turning north into Dunland (which is part of the proper Enedwaith) where he and his people spent some time.

Thrór’s Coomb as well as Nan Laeglin is being overlooked by a great watchtower called Harndirion (Southern Watch/tower). Though you cannot reach the top of the tower even its base is situated high enough to give you a great view over the area. There are also some Dwarven ruins and most importantly a great library in Nár’s Peak where you’ll be taken if you follow the epic line.

The coomb is kind of split into two parts, the western is full of Dunlendings and the eastern part – a large coniferous forest being close to Misty Mountains and thus covered in snow – is inhabited by some Giants and Gwibers. I haven’t explored it much as it is meant for at least small fellowship. Ginats don’t need an introduction and the Gwiber (Welsh for adder) are fire drakes, though they look a bit different. For some reason Gwibberlings have the same amount of morale as a full-grown Gwiber. One beast worthy of mentioning is Cloben, Rare Nemesis Gwiber, who often falls prey to passer-by Wardens who like to solo him, I have yet to attempt that.

Lich Bluffs

South of Nan Laeglin along the great road. As the name suggests there are some Dead strolling (or floating, in the case of Oathbreakers) around as well as Cun Annun (hell-hounds). To me they look like a cross-breed between a barghest and a shar-pei. They don’t differ much from barghests though they start to chew on you really hard if they are low on morale (morale transfer + root).

Overall the area is similar to Barrow Downs or Imlad Balchorth though there are no darkwater or crawling hands. The barrows do look a bit different though not by much.

Mournshaws

A thick forest west of Lich Bluffs and Nan Laeglin. There are some stonehenge-like structures within and if you are lucky you will meet The Hunstman, an Elder spirit who used to (though perhaps still does) serve Oromë. The forest is inhabited by Wood-trolls, Cun Annun and Elhudan who are the Enedwaith version of Limrafn. They have an interesting skill, when you fight them they may spawn a little Elhudan and if you don’t kill those they will heal the Elhudan for a big amount of morale (at least from half to full) fortunately one strike is often enough to get them. Not much really happens in here, it seems that the more south you the less there is to do.

Gloomglens

Remember Scuttledels? This similar but more grass and the rocks have the Grand Canyon hue (thanks to which they are being criticised as un-Middle-earth-ish). Inhabited by common white wolves and boars and two other interesting mobs. First are the white stags, they behave like normal deers (stuns, useless calls for help, etc.) but depending on the first attack you use on them they will debuff you accordingly (-25% melee damage, +100% power cost for tactical skills or something equally annoying for ranged attack which I haven’t been able to get since my captain does not have ranged attacks). It is an interesting defence mechanism and I salute Mother Nature for that though it will probably take quite some time for the stags to realize they are being pulled with other skills then the ones that are actually important for the class – at least in some cases, Captains pull with a cry (tactical), champions and guardians pull with bows (ranged).

The other mobs are Bugan (Welsh for bogey) and I have to admit they are kinda creepy, they are basically goblins but they are dressed like hobbits and their features are more hobbit-ish.

Why would they be dressed like hobbits you may ask. Well that’s because there are hobbits in Gloomglens (but it’s not like you didn’t know before, is it? . They live in a small village called Maur Tulhau (Great Holes, or Smials perhaps ), and they very much resemble the hobbits we know – chatting about anything and everything – though their apparel might be not as fancy.

And that would be it, I hate saving this as a draft over and over and if I’d keep doing that I’d never publish anything, next time: Quests, Deeds and stuff.

Tags: region overview

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 27th, 2010 at 19:04 and is filed under Enedwaith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.