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

So, you may have noticed I haven’t updated the blog for a while. I haven’t gone to another game (Guild Wars 2 is not out yet ) but I have been studying for final exams that had fortunately earned me the bachelor’s degree (yay!).

Anyway, back to blogging and what I’ve been doing. First of all I’ve upgraded WordPress and deleted about 400 pieces of spam (in the very unlikely case that I’ve deleted a proper comment I apologize). And then I decided to write a post.

Winter Festival

Though I’ve been gone for two months I’ve logged in near the end of the Yulefest to try out some of the “amusement rides”. This was by far the best festival yet. The theatre was amazing – and I’ve been picked as a Protagonist the first time I stepped in and despite having little clue as to what I was supposed to do I succeeded. Though there really wasn’t many people around overall there have always been people in the G.L.O.B.E. and only once was the performance cancelled. Although it took some waiting (during which I completed all the stuff-throwing deeds) I have received all three titles and now I’m only waiting to receive the Thespian title, providing they fix it.

The Snowball fight was also nice but the problem was that not many people were around, 4 was the most participants I’ve seen, usually it was only me and one other, not really fun. I spent one day just throwing snowballs on some AFKers who stood near the event announcer, just within the range from the border of the field (which I couldn’t leave as it would fail the “hard mode”).

Since the announcement of the festival and the related house decorations I had one goal – a snowman army. The downside is that it doesn’t look like much since the hooks are spread too wide but here you go:

The Present and the Future

(Spoilers ahead of course!) Well, it’s only been two days I’ve been back but I was keeping an eye on LotRo in the meantime. Some mysterious relics have been scattered across Eriador so I set out to pick them up. I knew where they were so finding them wasn’t a problem, don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t know. Well one was revealed by Turbine and the location of another could’ve been guessed based on the fact that some new structure arose in Annundir. The one in Enedwaith I would probably stumble upon. The rest I probably wouldn’t have found. Anyway I’m really looking forward to what the devs have prepared for Q1, this form of “delivery” is much appreciated. The next update or book will be called Echoes of the Dead and it’s more than clear that we will be dealing with the Gaunt-lords once again. New instances are expected to pop out in the vicinity of those relics, the ones in North Downs and Oatbarton already have new structures near them. The one in Forochel has a chunk of unused landmass behind the gate at the end of Ironspan, some new ruins are floating in the air high above some ruins in Trollshaws and in Enedwaith there is this inaccessible ruin.

Enedwaith investigation

I’ve heard rumours that a small new part of Enedwaith is accessible south along the Old Way. They have proven to be true but you can acess maybe a third of that area since there are invisible walls all around. Now for the ruin, as you may have noticed there is a Gondorian ruin in the southern part of Enedwaith, currently inaccessible though there are at least two mobs inside. I’ve been looking all around and only found a back-door in the form of a “rabbit hole” leading to the side of the structure no entrance there either.

Towers of the Ruin

A look through the gate

Class updates

Another thing we know is coming in Q1 are the class updates, Minstrel dev diary was released yesterday, Burglar popped up just as I was writing this. I don’t play either of these classes but it looks good and I like how they are addressing things. Maybe the last update will concern Wardens? (or Guardians which would make me really sad since that is the third and last class I don’t play)

The rest of Q1 goodness

LIs revamped, Radiance gone, new instance cluster and a new raid. Looking really good although it will take at least a month till it arrives. Well, I still got some rep to grind and deeds to do. Volume II epic line gets revamped to accommodate solo play, another good thing though it will take some time for my alts to reach Moria.

Well, I planned for the post to be longer but I’ll cut it here, new posts will hopefully be coming soon.

I’ve recently stumbled upon an awesome site. It contains screenshots taken in 2003 from a game which was called Middle-earth Online (then in development). Here’s a little info about Middle-earth Online from Wikipedia (the LotRo article):

Sierra On-Line first announced the development of a licensed Middle-earth MMORPG in 1998. Sierra had financial troubles in 1999 and replaced the staff working on the game. Sierra continued to confirm development of the MMORPG but did not release any development details.

Vivendi Universal Games, the parent company of Sierra, secured eight-year rights to produce computer and video games based on The Lord of the Rings books in 2001. Vivendi announced an agreement with Turbine in 2003 to produce Middle-earth Online (at that time expected to be released in 2004). In March 2005, Turbine announced that it bought the rights to make an MMORPG based on Tolkien’s literature and that Turbine would publish The Lord of the Rings Online instead of Vivendi.

I find it interesting to see how much or how little have things changed before the game was released (of course it was near release back then). There are 185 screenshots in total, though some of them are not being linked to (and the later ones are nearly contemporary), I’m going to point out some of the interesting ones:

• Goldberry (warning: hi-res) part of that ruin – and I guess it is from this very picture – is an official avatar on US forums, I had no idea where it came from until now
• some other ruins that apparently got remodeled, might be those columns near Waymeet
• cloak with the hood cast back! and a most likely permanent torch (not to mention the cool looking armour)
• several shots of what was probably Carn Dûm (each word is a link)
• a shot of Bree-town – I believe we’re overlooking the area where the outside forges are now, near the West gate which is visible in the middle of the picture
• and another one featuring probably the Oldstone Ruins
• and not sure where this is but it might be the very first shot of The Stone (in the middle at the bottom)