Pren Gwyth – the Old boar’s new home
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.
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- From Bonevales into Pren Gwyth
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- The city of Galtrev on a hill
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- The gate to Galtrev
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- Yes that’s a child
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- New horse, said to come in the Mithril Edition
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- Lower parts of Galtrev
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
Tags: dunland, region overview