An Elf in Eregion
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.
Tags: laurelin, region overview, rune-keeper