In the last week all I’ve been doing is questing and grinding Enedwaith Reputation on my Warden, she’ll be Kindred with Algraig tomorrow but as far as Grey Company is concerned it looks like two weeks if I can be bothered which I probably can’t (I can only hope there are ways to get some reputation in the upcoming book).

Anyway, the last stop on her journey are the Gloomglens and especially Maur Tulhau, the hobbit village. As with pretty much everything you encounter in Enedwaith the names are neither Westron (English) nor Sindarin (Elvish), instead they are in the language which has not been named (Dunlendish perhaps?) but which bears a striking similarity to Welsh. Now I’m not going to teach you Welsh, mainly because I don’t know any (unless you count the hundred words of which meanings I am aware )

What I’m going to show you is how the Hobbits in Maur Tulhau are connected to the Hobbit families further north in the Shire. Let’s start from the top shall we?

Iolo Brochtû (Brockhouse family)

broch – badger (also called brock) and tŷ – house

the Maer – Mayor, see? Welsh is easy – of Maur Tulhau related to the Brockhouse family; Brockhouses can be found all over the Shire and Bree-land, probably the most notable member of the family is Viola Brockhouse the leader of the Woodworker’s Guild, currently residing in Esteldín.

Caradog Henbuch (Oldbuck family)

hen – old and buch – buck (see it almost translates itself)

the name Oldbuck is not found in today’s Shire but descendants of the family are, Oldbucks used to live in Marish, which is the area south of and including Stock, and the first Thain was of that family; Oldbucks later crossed Brandywine and established Buckland and they’ve also changed their name to Brandybucks. The majority of the Brandybucks family can be found there.

Coid and Violed Isbrun (Underhill family)

is – under and bryn – hill

A Forge-master and what I’m guessing is an accomplished gardener. The Underhills can be found mostly in Bree-land and some are in the Shire. You may be familiar with Constable Underhill from Combe, whom you helped early in the epic story.

Iago Glennudh (Banks family)

glennydd – banks, plural of glan – bank, shore

an agricultural visionary (yes he’s the one for whom you collect boar droppings), this was the first Hobbit whose name I tried to translate – Banks? Interesting … then I found that Iago means James. James Banks? Who is he? Does he work for Turbine? Is it some kind of Easter Egg? Then I found there is a family of Hobbits called Banks and it sprouted from there. There are only two Bankses in the game though – Alric, Inn League Taxidermist from the Bird and Baby Inn, and Opal, skirmish weapons barterer from the camp at Glâd Ereg in Eregion.

Rhosun Turio (Burrows family)

turio – to delve, to burrow and Rhosun I’m fairly certain is a variant of Rosie

The Banks family is a fairly numerous one, the most adventurous of them is probably Ham Burrows who is freezing up north in Forochel with at least one other Hobbit (he’s a again a skirmish Barterer). The cooks among you may remember Esmeralda Burrows who charged you to prepare some delicious food during your first crafting quest (but I’m not sure she will be in the game much longer).

Adsiltia and Aled Madcorf (Goodbody family)

mad – good and corff – body (my guess is the word corpse is related to that)

a Relic-master and a … someone (not going to tell you). Goodbodys can be found in the Shire and are actually of the few who do not live outside of it (if Lorebook is up-to-date that is), you may be familiar with Opal Goodbody who is in charge of catering (I guess) around the Party Tree and who also sends you a letter any time there is a new festival.

Cadel and Kened Balchtrod (Proudfoot family)

balch – proud and troed – foot

Cadel is provisioner on the main “square” of Maur Tulhau, Kened whose surname is Baltrod which I guess is just a “typo” is again … someone. The Proudfoots (Proudfeet!) are another fairly numerous family closely related to Bagginses. If you like horses and racing you sure do know Carl Proudfoot the Race Master and there is also Postmaster Proudfoot who is basically the chief officer of the Shire Quick Post.

Lili Gardhur (Gardener family)

garddwr – gardener

Lili is the healer vendor of Maur Tulhau. Gardeners are about as rare as Bankses – only three of them in the game. There is also one Ted Gardener the Vault-keeper of Bree but last time I checked he wasn’t a Hobbit.

Avan Brocktull (unknown)

Avan is the Stable-Master of Maur Tulhau and I haven’t been able to identify him unfortunately. The word twll stands for hole (or smial in this case) and this is where Tulhau comes from (meaning smials). He may be somehow related to the Brockhouse or the Longholes family but who knows?

Rhus Cornchúthur (Hornblower family)

corn – horn and chwythwr – blower

Rhus (Rees) is the first Hobbit you’ll probably encounter in Enedwaith (safe for occasional hobbit corpses), he’s sitting on a slope in front of Maur Tulhau and he would be probably blowing his pipe if the darn Hobbits were actually into something else than marigolds. Can’t smoke those, no sir!

Hornblowers are a small family the most notable member of which is probably Holly Hornblower the pie-baking enthusiast from Hobbition.

Gwin Curhonod (Maggots)

Gwin is a Hobbit captured by the Bugan of Khoblún Utot. The only connection I can make is farmer Maggot – the word cynrhonyn means maggot – but the famous farmer is the only one of that name.

And that would be all, allow me now to share my sources:

• Welsh-English Lexicon
• LOTRO Lorebook and the list of Hobbit families

Here goes my attempt on a newbie guide – and with pictures!

Haudh Iarchith^[1]

The Mound of Bloodfog (at least that’s what I think it means). When I started playing this used to be a 40-ish level public dungeon the sole purpose of which was to farm reputation with Men of Bree – the latter hasn’t changed. It was a huge dungeon with both solo and fellowhip areas full of any barrow monster imaginable (wights, spiders) and even unimaginable (the Kergrim). The problem with HI – and this is only my opinion, I don’t know what stood behind the changes – was the overall hugeness of the thing (look at the map in Lorebook, it hasn’t been updated yet) and the fact that good standing with Bree at level 40 probably wasn’t on your top-priority to-do-list. So our good old Haudh Iarchith was de-leveled to 20 and split into several wings each featuring different monsters. I’ll be covering the three wings in Northern Barrow downs that do not require group (all mobs inside are swarm, normal or single signatures).

Quests

Quests for this part of HI are obtainable at Broderic Willowmeade who is standing in front of the Hunting Lodge in Bree-town. Enter Bree through the South Gate, turn left at the Auction house and continue through the alley north^[2], you can’t miss it. He will hand you three quests – Gathering of Shards, Gathering Ancient Texts and Stalker of Haudh Iarchith – it is unfortunate that the NPC still refers to HI as a single dungeon and sends you the wrong way. You may slap him later. In order to complete the quests (or at least the gathering of the ancient texts) you will need to go through all the wings. The shards are dropped by any creature and the monsters you have to kill (you have to kill just one of them) are one in each of the wings.

All the creatures drop (very generously) Cardolan Trinkets and Barrow-treasures and also Mathoms and Well-kept Mathoms (for Bree and Shire reputation respectively). There are quests connected to these items but you don’t have to have those active to get a drop. Inside the barrows are also urns and vases that Scholars can “harvest” for crafting materials.

Wings

There are three wings of HI in the Northern Barrow Downs, easily recognisable on the new map as open mounds. And marked with letters for your convenience.

Barrow of Taradan (T)^[3]

• 2/6 of the ancient texts
• Gwigon (for the Stalker quests)

When you enter this barrow you might be immediately greeted by a headless handless Barrow-wight and his company of crawling arms. Another wight patrols the next circular room. The rest of the barrow is filled with Spiders, a couple of strayed Crawling hands and non-aggressive Barrow-lights (think wisps).

• Spiders (normal) – as big as a grown hobbit (and trust me, that’s a small size for a spider) but less cunning. Spiders use several poison abilities – a DoT (damage over time), a Poison resistance debuff and an Agility/Vitality debuff. They can also throw webs which root you in place hindering your escape or slow down your attack speed. They are not very dangerous but given the architecture of this particular barrow you may pull three or four at a time (because they were just around the corner) and it can get nasty.
• Wights (normal) – nothing special about them, other than that they may be linked to crawling arms (meaning the arms start attacking with the wight); I’ve only seen two of them in this barrow
• Crawling arms (swarm) – if you are suddenly in combat for no apparent reason know that a crawling arm spotted … smelled … sensed you (somehow). They are swarm and thus easy to kill, but they move very slowly. They do however count as humanoid mobs and their drop repertoire is wider, the can drop fancy rings and gems among other things. There are three right at the entrance and one in each of the dead-end circular rooms.
• Barrow-light (swarm) – non-aggressive, meaning it won’t attack you unless you attack it, however it will attach itself to you and its bright light will affect your performance (+20% miss chance), it will of course lose interest in you after some time (yeah, you’re really nothing special)
• Gwigon^[4] (rare signature) – a bigger spider, emphasis on rare, the respawn time of this mob is huge (and as of now it may not even work properly), if it’s not there don’t bother waiting; if by chance you met her^[5] she will drop a sapphire shard (an essential crafting component for extra nice recipes) and she can also drop some fancy equipment.

Barrow of Ringdor (R)^[6]

• 3/6 of the Ancient Texts
• Umnen

This is the largest wing, inhabited by Darkwater, Decaying Wights and one or two Kergrim. It is very humid and yet the wooden staircases are still holding. In one part of this dungeon there is something called the Watcher’s Workshop (see the picture) clicking on it brings up your crafting panel but you cannot execute any recipes on it and what in the name of Gandalf is it doing there, I don’t know.

• Decaying Wights (normal) – this is another kind of wights,
  

  

  the most preserved, they retain all their extremities and sport a comb-over. If their end is near (because of you bashing them) they administrate some bowel movements and push a crawler out of their body (guess which orifice?). The crawlers are swarm and can pose some trouble but if you kill the wight quickly the crawler won’t appear. These wights also have an aura of fear around them (every wight has), that gives you permanent shadow damage over time (but nothing huge), auras from multiple wights don’t stack.

• Darkwater (normal) – green spirits with glowy weapons, they have the ability to submerge and avoid damage for a short time. The skill can be interrupted (resp. the preparation for that skill, you can’t hit them afterwards) and they don’t use it very often; usually when in danger of imminent “death”. The darkwater (and every other spirit) have an aura of dread. 1 point of dread doesn’t do much, but as you progress further in the game, you will find yourself in areas filled with more dread, causing you to take more damage, do less damage and overall put you several levels below your actual state. The aura doesn’t stack.
• Kergrim (normal) – strange semi-intelligent creatures that are probably mammals. They can give you a disease which if not cured in time gives you several unpleasant debuffs. There are one or two in this barrow, you may not even come across them if you are just gathering the texts. They have one interesting ability and that is eating the dead which heals them over time, the ability can be interrupted and they don’t seem to like the wights, I only saw them eat their own kind.
• Umnen^[7] (rare signature) – darkwater, the same deal as Gwingon: rare, sapphire shard and fancy loot; this one patrols the area (as far as I know) so no accurate coordinations are given

Haudh Methernil (M)^[8]

• 1/6 of Ancient Texts
• Marrow

The Mound of the Prince’s End (or something) it can be the Prince Lalia is so fond of but who knows? This is a single room inhabited by 4 Kergrim, one Decaying Wight that patrols the room and if you are lucky then also Marrow – the head of the Kergrim in this area. And there really isn’t much to say, the two Kergrim on top and under the stairs are far apart enough to pull one at the time.

And that’s it! Once you return to the Hunting Lodge, return the quests, speak with Tad Leafcutter to accept a quest for the Barrow-treasure, return that quest and barter all your Barrow-treasures for Bree reputation (or other things of your choosing). Then go inside, turn right immediately and speak with Anglinn, the ranger in the corner, accept, return and barter. Congratulations, your first run of reputation farming is complete, make sure to stop by tomorrow so you can repeat those quests.

I plan to do the second part someday, but that requires me to gather some fellows and after that I’ll copy this over to the Lorebook.

1. ^[1] HOW-th YAHR-khith, it isn’t accurate because the proper ‘ch’ sound – here represented by ‘kh’ – doesn’t exist in English ↩
2. ^[2] it’s called the Haunted Alley and for a good reason ↩
3. ^[3] TAH-rah-dahn ↩
4. ^[4] GWEE-gohn, the name has something to do with web (gwî), not sure about the second part, could be (gaun) which is valour or ruler ↩
5. ^[5] named spiders are female by default, I don’t think spider males have a chance to grow that much to become a named mob ↩
6. ^[6] RING-dohr ↩
7. ^[7] OOHM-nehn, the name means ‘Evil Water’ ↩
8. ^[8] HOW-th meh-THEHR-nihl ↩