Wednesday 26 January 2011

Duillond from Dusk till Dawn

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Isilmewen, Lhas and Duissane playing trio songs.

Last week the regular Hall of Fire RP event was held in Duillond, near the starter areas for elf characters. I've been very quiet on the RP front (and, well, the whole game front tbh) because all the events start around the time when I'm already ready half asleep, so when I've had enough energy to join an event I've mostly just stood to the side, played a song or two and then logged out before my forehead makes acquaintance with the keyboard. The HoF-in-Duillond event was a refreshing change though, and I managed to produce a bit of RP of my own as well, instead of my usual Lhas-is-a-brainless-teenager routine (which is immensely fun at times, but not very satisfying in the long run).

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Lhas is totally not flirting with Lord Anglachelm.

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As elvish events go, it was the standard 'music, dance, gossip' fare, and at some points there was just too much stuff going on in the chats that I completely lost the thread of the conversations I was having. Note for the future: scatter around a bit when it gets hard to follow even a single conversation. No point in trying to endure it if you don't have to!

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Naruvir sings a song written by professor Tolkien himself.

The event was concluded by an amazing sunrise, which the gathered players greeted in proper elvish fashion with song and warm words. Screenies don't quite do it justice, but the moment was very beautiful and I certainly felt 'in-character' there. I wish I knew any songs or poems so I could someday contribute the way the best role-players on Laurelin do.



And of course, afterwards there was AGAIN a massive shitstorm in the HoF thread on the Laurelin forums, because baaaaaaaaaawwwwww some kin has more members than others and it's overcrowding the elven events and baaaaaawwwwwwwhatisthisIdon'teven--

Tuesday 18 January 2011

New Year's Ball

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I went to have a quick look at the Bree-themed New Year's Ball, lots of people crammed into one kinhouse! Alas I had to log off early because of work, but the bands I managed to hear were very nice - makes me want to perform .abc music again!

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"I'm sorry, I hope my boobs weren't in your way, sir!"

Saturday 15 January 2011

DEM TATERZ

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And the funny thing is, this isn't the first time I've seen that same convo on GlobalLFF.

Fashion Mag: Yule Extra

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As usual, I made my submission to the Yule Festival Fashion Contest at the last minute. Here are some of the screens I managed to grab on my short photoshoot in Forochel; one of them is the one I submitted to the contest. Lhas looks like the Swedish flag in that outfit.

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Because of work and stuff the whole Yuletide pretty much flashed by for me, and I didn't even get to enjoy the whole Yule Festival at all (to be honest, I'm not really into seasonal festivals anyway, not irl nor ingame).

Also, here's a screenie from this week's Wilderness Appreciation event, which took place in Forochel and ended in one big plothook. I'm really looking forward to what Nimlith will come up with for the next installment of the event.

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Tuesday 11 January 2011

Mysterious Relics

Today a mysterious new deed was opened — and if one doesn't want to be spoiled about the theme of future content they should stop reading now.

Basically there was a mysterious "official message" both on the US and EU servers from a bewildered hobbit, and several people doing their dailies in Enedwaith spotted a new black rock that starts a new deed. The deed is called Mysterious Relics and it requires you to find five relics scattered around Eriador.

I'm certain the newly appeared mysterious relics are representing the five gaunt-lords, "embodying death, pestilence, famine, war, and purest evil". There was a thread on the US forums some time ago, speculating their involvement in future content, but right now I can't find it - however certain quests in Enedwaith revealed the last, previously unnamed Gaunt-lord, so it's all becoming quite clear now. If anyone has a link to that thread I'd surely appreciate it, since I'd like to add the Gaunt-lords' names to this post but can't find them at the moment.

So here are my conclusions:


Thror's Coomb is most likely "purest evil", and it's probably linked both to the last Gaunt-lord (which appeared briefly in a quest instance nearby) and also the closed-off castle in the same region.

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Oatbarton is "famine", and fits with the whole hobbit&food theme (and the blighted pipeweed farm here could be a nod to Saruman buying pipeweed from the Shire). Also check out this official message: A Strongly-Worded Letter from Bungo Grubb.

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North Downs (William Peake's farm) is "war"; the farm where this relic appeared has been burned down. Probably also linked to the new town just around the corner.

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Forochel is "death", the dialogue speaks of "mounting sense of fear".

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Trollshaws (Laenan Caves) is "disease" and linked to the mysterious door, which apparently leads to an underground passage to an ancient temple where men of Rhudaur worshipped evil spirits.

Here's the tl;dr:


After completing the deed you get a nice title: Calm Before the Storm. Sadly, this deed gives no TP. But the excitement was surely worth it!



UPDATE: Many thanks to Anuhart for finding the right link; this thread from July reveals both the 'domains' of the Gaunt-lords as well as some very interesting bits from the original Volume 1 storyline. These are, as far as we know now, the five Gaunt-lords and their respective domains:

Drugoth the Death-monger, DEATH (Minion of Shadow)
Ferndur the Virulent, PESTILENCE (Minion of Plague)
Thadur the Ravager, FAMINE (Minion of Misery)
Ivar the Bloodhand, WAR (Minion of Battle)
Gortheron the Doom-caller, PUREST EVIL (his title is Minion of Plague as well, either it's a bug or he's a minion of Ferndur and we've yet to see the BBEG!)

This is what Gortheron tells the player during a quest instance in Enedwaith:
Gortheron the Doom-caller says, "How dare you disturb my work here! My brother was felled by the Free Peoples of this world, and I sought to return him to his proper place."
Gortheron the Doom-caller says, "Now he lies waiting and in rest. You seem to have undone some of my work here, but my forces shall lay waste to this place."
Gortheron the Doom-caller says, "Now I shall depart, but I will have vengeance for my fallen brethren. You shall rue to the day that you crossed paths with Gortheron the Doom-caller!"

So I guess it's fairly certain that the upcoming instance/raid cluster will be about the return of the Gaunt-lords, and I'd guess that the instances will be spread around Eriador near the places where these relics now appeared (the new town in ND, the temple in TS, the Ironspan in Forochel are all pretty good candidates for instance entrances). The locations also coincide very well with the regions we visited in Volume 3 Book 1, when we were gathering the Rangers for the Grey Company. Now that they're gone it seems all sorts of nasty things are returning.

Interesting times ahead!

Thursday 6 January 2011

My Little Steed Grind

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Finally completed the massive metadeed, "World Renowned", which requires reaching Kindred level with all* the reputation factions in the game. Unf. But it wasn't that much of a grind, since I was around Ally (next highest tier) with most factions when news came around of the new metadeed, so it only took a couple days of casual grinding and some AH shopping to get all the old rep factions to Kindred. The two new ones, Grey Company and Algraig, took a bit longer though, but with the good rewards (ixp, especially) it didn't feel like I was doing dailies for nothing.

* apart from Eldgang, craft guilds and the festival factions, of course

While working on my Enedwaith rep I stumbled upon what will hopefully be some sort of raid or instance cluster in the future:

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It's a huge Gondorian-style castle complex in the south-west corner of Lich Bluffs in Enedwaith. I'm itching to get in there! There's a large inner courtyard with mobs walking back and forth, but it's currently closed by a strong iron gate.

Also, if you're in the area, don't forget to check out this tourist trap:
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OH SHI--

Sunday 2 January 2011

Happy New Year 2011!
♥ Thank you for reading, following and supporting roll100 ♥