Steed of the Autumn Sun

Supergirl rides the Steed of the Autumn Sun

Hello again; I hope you are enjoying the Fall Festival!

Fall Festival started a couple of days ago and will last until November 2.
The events are the same as last year and there are a few new rewards, including a horse, a warsteed caparison, some festive outfits, and barter for essence reclamation scrolls, plus most every item offered at previous festivals. For all the details, visit CSTM at CSTM: lotro-fall-festival-2014/

Fall Festival is one of my favorites. The tasks are easy enough and go quickly. It feels the way a festival should, ... almost like quick booths at a fair. 

Here I will look at the new horse and some versions of the warsteed caparison!

Steed of the Autumn Sun:
The steed is aptly named! It is a bright red, orange, yellow themed steed and outfit with a festive fall design. It will be easy to remember this one for years to come.

The horse barter cost is 60 Fall Festival tokens, which is very simple to get by hanging out at the Haunted House area at the Party Tree.

Steed of the Autumn Sun

Steed of the Autumn Sun at the Party Tree

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Default:
The Caparison is the only piece barterable for the Autumn Sun. It also costs 60 tokens.

The default grey version of the Warsteed of the Autumn Sun is kind of drab. The outfit is a shade of yellow, which is nice.

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - default colors

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - matched similar to the horse:
I tried to match the Warsteed color palette to the horse's colors. Interestingly, the horse has a nice saddle; you will need to find your own saddle to match the caparison. Many of the saddles look just fine. Here is where I ended up trying to match the basic horse.

Chestnut hide
Flaxen Chestnut hair
Light Saddle of the Entwash

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - matched colors to basic horse

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Dark green and light grey:
The various browns, yellows, oranges, reds all look really good with this horse.
However, I wanted to try to few things different first.

Here is a green and light grey. You can clearly see the dyeable part of the Caparison.
This horse is shown with a basic Light Saddle of the Entwash.

Warsteed of Autumn Sun - dark green and light grey

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Ered Luin and Black:
Bringing out the dark side... on this one, I went with Black hide, dark grey hair, and Ered Luin outfit, same basic Light Saddle of the Entwash.

Warsteed of Autumn Sun - ered luin and black

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Yellow Mix:
The strength of the Autumn Sun set probably has to be how nice it looks in yellows, red, and various shades of brown. This one is one of my favorite mixes.

Autumn Sun caparison - default color,
Yellow hide,
Flaxen Chestnut hair,
Nightwood Saddle,
Leggins of Rivendell,
Victory Accessory.

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Yellow mix

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Yellow mix2

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - Mixed set:
The Caparison does work with many of the other pieces out there. This mix shows a few common pieces tossed together. :)

Autumn Sun caparison - default color,
Brown hide,
Minstrel's Halter,
Leggings of Thorin's Hall,
Burglar's Saddle,
Hunter's Gear.

Warsteed of the Autumn Sun - mixed set

Have a Super great Festival! 
I'll see you soon.  ~D

Steed of Bounty

Supergirl rides the Steed of Bounty

Hello again! It is time for Farmer's Faire 2014 and a new steed!

Do I like Farmer's Faire? On the one hand, it is a fun festival, one of my favorites, and fairly well laid out with good activities. On the other hand, the "golden egg" (for hidden deed) acquire rate seemed to have not improved since the first Farmer's Faire and the "Fishy, very Fishy" quest is still impossible to complete. I wrote about those quests in my Top 11 things I would change when I rule Middle Earth. Unfortunately, Sauron still has his revenge at the Faire by keeping the Fishy quest unbeatable. I still like the egg hunt also; I just have to move past the extreme odds of never winning a golden egg after hundreds of tries. The mushroom quest run is one of my favorite activities of all festivals.

If you want a great guide to Farmer's Faire, visit CSTM: Farmer's Faire Guide 2014.
Goldenstar notes two key points: (1) new stuff = horse, warsteed caparison, 2 cloaks , 1 robe. and (2) festival lasts from September 1 - 16. 

If you want to see previous Farmer's Faire steeds, look around the All the Steeds stable here at this site.

And for fun, here are my posts from previous Farmer's Faires:
2012 - Faire-hobbits-dont-get-drunk,
2012 - Steed-of-lore-master-farmers-faire-end,
2013 - Farmers-faire-2013-steed-of-plenty.

Steed of Bounty - Default horse:
The basic horse costs 120 Farmer's Faire tokens. If you play the mushroom hunt well, you will have that amount in no time even without doing other quests. On a good run, I get about 62 tokens... for about 36 mushrooms. I see that the first week of the first festival in 2012 I was getting about 38 tokens per run, so I've gotten better over the years. 

The Steed of Bounty is a lovely dapple grey horse with a bright gold/yellow and green patterned caparison.

Steed of Bounty - default

WarSteed of Bounty - Default colors:
The warsteed caparison costs 120 Farmer's Faire tokens. Mentioned above, 120 tokens is really easy to obtain (and I enjoy the mushroom hunt while filling my pockets with tokens).

The warsteed cosmetic is a one piece outfit, just the Caparison. The cosmetic is the same coloring as gold outfit dye.

Warsteed of Bounty - default colors

WarSteed of Bounty - White hide, Red outfit:
Hmm, what to do with an outfit that has strong portions that are undyeable green... I went with Christmas! The white and red would make a lovely Christmas pattern. :)

Warsteed of Bounty - White and Red

WarSteed of Bounty - Black Chestnut hide, Ered Luin outfit, Sooty hair:
Ok, next. In this one, I went with darker colors. The Ered Luin Blue on the outfit is strikingly bold. 

Warsteed of Bounty - Ered Luin and Black Chestnut

WarSteed of Bounty - Dun hide, Forest green outfit, Bay hair:
Here I played to the green's strengths and went with the subtle green outfit and shades of light brown for the horse. That is a pretty good look.

Warsteed of Bounty - Forest green, Dun, Bay

WarSteed of Bounty - Flaxen Chestsnut Spotted hide, Crimson outfit:
Alright. I wanted to mix it up a bit. Here is Flaxen chestnut - Spotted hide and hair, with the Crimson outfit. It is certainly bold and wild looking with all those spotted freckles!

Warsteed of Bounty - Crimson and Flaxen Chestnut Spotted

Warsteed of Bounty - Giddy up!

WarSteed of Bounty - Crimson Mix Set:
For fun, here is a Mixed set based on the previous Flaxen Chestnut outfit.
This picture has 
Caparison of Bounty - Crimson
Light Halter of the Wold (Rohan quest) - Crimson
Captain's Leggings (store) - Crimson
Champion's Saddle - (store) - Crimson

Warsteed of Bounty Mixed Set in Crimson

Steed of the Wedmath Celebration

Supergirl rides the Steed of Wedmath Celebration

Happy Summer Festival! 

Yes indeed; Summer Festival 2014 is underway this week and will last until August 8. You can get the lowdown on all things festival at CSTM; guide is at this link (CSTM: lotro-summer-festival-guide-2014).

Here are some articles from previous Summer festivals.

2013 Horse = steed-of-midsummer
2012 Horse = summerdays-horse-and-defeat-of-Chieftain-Taun
2012 goodies = fetch-it-fish-it-race-it
and how to screw up at fishing = Danadelion-and-the-GM (I still laugh about this one... :) )

And, as always, you can find all the Steeds at All the Steeds here at Danania.net. Ok, the corral database is a couple of horses behind, look in recent posts if you don't see them transferred to the corral yet.

So, for 2014 Summer Festival, there are no new quests or deeds. The new stuff to obtain include: the festival horse for 40 summer tokens, the warsteed cosmetic for 40 tokens, a robe for 20, and two different cloans for 20 each. 

This year's Summer Festival Horse is called the Steed of the Wedmath Celebration. Let's see the horse! 

Steed of the Wedmath Celebration:
Here is the basic horse. He is a grey dapple horse with a simple yellow and green pattern Caparison. It is a one-piece outfit. Simple enough; let's see what we can do with the Warsteed.

Steed of the Wedmath Celebration

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Default:
The default Warsteed with Wedmath caparison looks like the basic horse. The defaut outfit is the same color as if it were colored gold.

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Default

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Default outfit color, Light Grey Spotted:
I don't have the same dapple hide, but I do have Spotted hide for warsteed. Here is the same shot as before with the spotted hide in light grey. It is close to the original; looks like the basic horse has a slightly darker hair.

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Default with Light Grey spotted hide

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Ered Luin and Black Chestnut
The green doesn't dye, but the gold portion does. Here is what it looks like in Ered Luin. The vibrant colors accentuate the flower pattern of the outfit. This shot has Black Chestnut hide and Black hair. I found that the two-tone look of the outfit looked better with two shades of hide/hair.

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Ered Luin and Black Chestnut

Here is a closeup look at the flower pattern. I think that might be orange mums, green leaves, and yellow butterflies?

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - flower pattern

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Ered Luin and Brown Mix set
I wanted to try something different and looked for ways to "tone down" and de-accentuate the flower pattern. This next shot mixes things up a bit by utilizing some non-Wedmath pieces. Pieces used here are:
Wedmath Caparision - Ered Luin
Light Halter of the Entwash - Ered Luin
Saddle of West Rohan
Dagorlad Accessory
Brown Hide

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Ered Luin and Brown Mix Set

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Forest Green and Blond Mix set
Lets try another Mix set. The Forest Green color blends with the undyeable portion very well.
Pieces used here are:
Wedmath Caparision - Forest Green
Hunter's Saddle
King's Banner Accessory
Blond Hide, Black Chestnut Hair

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Forest Green and Blond Mix Set

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Crimson and Spotted Flaxen Mix Set
One final mixed set. Ok, ok... the Wedmath is not the most appealing Caparison ever. It did give me some fun laying mix and match though. :)
Pieces in this last shot are:
Wedmath Caparision - Crimson
Withywindle Halter and Legs - Crimson
Spotted Hide - Flaxen Chestnut

Warsteed of the Wedmath Celebration - Crimson and Spotted Flaxen Chestnut Mix Set

Have a great Summer Festival and I'll see you soon!

Yule Festival 2013: Wintertide Steed and more

Supergirl rides the Wintertide Steed

Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores,
Welcome Christmas come this way!
Fahoo fores, Dahoo dores,
Welcome Christmas, Christmas day!
Welcome, welcome fahoo ramus, 
Welcome, welcome dahoo damus,
Christmas day is in our grasp,
So long as we have hands to clasp.

Yay! It is the most wonderful time of the year again.
That's right, it's Yule Festival time in Lotro.
and with it comes Yule Horses! 

Last Yule festival, 
showed off a fancy steed (wintry-yule-warsteed),
but could only be bartered by logging in and doing all of the quests on at least 9 of 20 days during Christmas... not a popular design choice (youll-yule-celebrate-2012),
And Yule festival before that saw earlier Frostbluff fun (youll-yule-festival-2011).

Guide: Your itinerary for this Yule festival 2013 as always is brought to you by Goldenstar; fabulous Guide-Maker of Middle Earth. (CSTM/lotro-yule-festival-guide-2013/). I won't repeat all of the details here; I just mostly show the pretty ponies. :)

There are not many "new" things this Yule, and that is totally ok. Sometimes, the familiar is a good place to be, especially since there are so many things for a newcomer to see. New things for 2013 include: horse, warsteed cosmetic, 3 cosmetic outfit pieces, and a title "The Bard". The horse costs 80 tokens, the warsteed costs 100 tokens, the cosmetics cost 135 tokens for all three total, and the title is acquired by doing things in the Frostbluff Theater (my title auto-granted as I logged in from having done everything in years past). 

All the Yule Horses! True or not, I am going to claim that the developers and decision-makers of lotro actively take advice from my blog as several of my top design changes have already come to pass... (Top-11-things-I-would-change-When-I-rule-Middle-Earth). #10 on that list was to make past festival horses available, where I wrote... "I recommend putting all applicable festival horses in the store each festival (those older than the previous year)".

A perfect solution was devised where you can now barter for all previous Yule horses near the entrance gate to Frostbluff! Thank you, thank you. I like this picture of all the previous Yule horses standing together. :)

All the previous Yule horses visit Frostbluff 2013

As the reality hit that one of my long lost horses was finally coming to the stable, it took me about 0.2 seconds to spend the 70 mithril coins to get him. :) Here is a picture of the 2008 Yule Festival horse that I have pined about in multiple articles through the years. As always, you can find all of the other horses in the "All-the-Steeds" section.

Supergirl gets her long lost Yule Festival Steed from 2008

Wintertide Steed:
The Wintertide Steed is the 2013 Yule festival horse. It is easy to acquire as it barters for 80 Festival tokens. As it turned out, I had enough left over tokens from last year to get the horse as I walked in the Frostbluff gate. If you are just starting out, familiarize yourself with Frostbluff, do all the quests, and you will amass a good pile of tokens each day.

The horse is a lovely dapple grey with snowflake pattern on his outfit.

Wintertide Steed

Wintertide Warsteed - Default:
The Wintertide "Warsteed" consists of the one warsteed cosmetic, the Wintertide Caparison. It is the same lovely snowflake pattern as the Wintertide Steed horse. I will show a few more color variations next. The pattern really pops and comes alive with a little color... of course, I do tend to be a bit Vibrant. :)

Wintertide Steed - Default

Wintertide Warsteed - Light Grey and Sea Blue:

Wintertide Warsteed - light grey and sea blue

Wintertide Warsteed - Charcoal and Black:

Wintertide Warsteed - Charcoal and Black

Wintertide Warsteed - Chestnut and Crimson:
I actually went with Black Chestnut hair and Dark Chestnut hide here to give it a little constrast. The crimson really pops, as do many of the colors.

Wintertide Warsteed - Chestnut and Crimson

Wintertide Warsteed - White and Evendim Blue:

Wintertide Warsteed - White and Evendim Blue

Thank you! Thank you for coming to http://www.danania.net/ throughout the year, even just to check up on me. It has been an interesting last few months... and I am excited to possibly have a smidge more time to write about the various things I want to write about in lotro! One thing to get out there quickly... you may or may not have seen that there IS a December steed of the month, the Steed of Withywindle. I do intend to show some pictures, hopefully very soon as December is more than half over. I also wanted to show off the West Rohan horses, and talk about virtues, the new trait system, RKs in the new regime (how to trait, new skills, etc), math updates, Big Battles, Helm's Deep... so many fun things. :)

Take care Free People of Middle Earth and i will see you soon. :)

A Casual Stroll to Mordor ends (in Rohan)

"This can't be happening" ~ Nurzum expresses shock at the end of CSTM

Where to begin? What to say?

I have mentioned before that CSTM was a fundamental part of how I learned to play lotro (beautiful-blogger-award). It was one of the few sites I knew that was related to lotro when I started playing and through the site, I found more blogs and informational sites over time. CSTM is still my go-to site for news and links (I may have to learn how to use the "forum" now *shudders*).

Goldenstar writes, "It is with a heavy heart that we have to announce the end of A Casual Stroll to Mordor." Read the rest of the farewell here... CSTM: cstm-to-end-with-episode-200.

The amount of news and articles that Goldenstar and Merric covered every week was very amazing, and they did it in their spare time, for the love of lotro and the lotro community. /bow to all their spectacular work. "Thank you" just doesn't seem to express it well enough sometimes when someone makes an impact like that.

I hold out optimism that someday, they might be back to blog/news reporting, mebbe just doing much less. However, "There is an end to everything, to good things as well." ~Chaucer 1374

Frithwyn weeps at the end of an era

Silent Podcaster, 1st Age LI changes, and NBI

It has been a fun week with the release of Update 11 and Wildemore! As usual, there are more changes than those given by the Release Notes (update-11-summarized-notes) and I will point them out as I gather them.

I had the pleasure of being a Silent Podcaster on both CasualStrolltoMordor and LotroReporter last week! Ok, ok… I am no podcaster, but this week both podcasts picked up and discussed my article on (top-11-things-i-would-change-when-i-rule-middle-earth).

Go check out these awesome podcasts at 

Lotro Reporter lotro-reporter: 182-ice-giants-are-cool/ (@ 52 mins – 69 mins), and 

CSTM CSTM: episode195/ (@ 32 mins – 34 mins).

I have been honored in the past by podcaster love… here are a few more: 

Lotro Academy Lotro Academy episode 56 (begin – 6 mins and beyond), 

Lotro Reporter lotro-reporter: 169-no-more-good-loots/ (43 mins – 47 mins),

CSTM CSTM: episode-194-tealified/ (33 mins – 35 mins), and 

CSTM, CSTM: episode190/ (34 mins – 36 mins). 

Thank you so much to CariMac and Layanor of LotroReporter and Goldenstar and Merric of CSTM! I will wear the title of Supergirl, the Silent Pocaster proudly!

1st Age LIs: Speaking of speaking about CSTM: episode 190, which I did at 1st-age-lis-rohan-healing-rings-fans, one unmentioned thing that was not in the Update 11 release notes that changed is that 1st Age level 85 LIs got much cheaper to barter!

New 1st Age LI barter prices: here are 3 different Barter prices at the skirmish vendor for a 1st Age symbol:

• Win on all three T1 Erebor Raids (Defense of Erebor T1 deed), then barter for 366 Seals (was 488).
• Win on all three T2 Erebor Raids (Defense of Erebor T2 deed), then barter for 305 Seals (was 427).
• With on all three T2 Challenges (Defense of Erebor Challenge), then barter for 244 Seals (was 366).

For interest, at this time, I have still only ever completed T2 Smaug, T1 BFE, T1 Lonely Mountain. I don’t think I even know anyone who has successfully completed T2 level 85 on all three Raids (though I am sure someone has). I started the page (Danania @ 85) to assist those RKs that like to follow the gear choices I am making; I have my 4 LIs on the page and will add more gear when I get time.

NBI: Wow! It has been a year since I was part of the NBI: Newbie Blogger Initiative, As-seen-on-nbi-Best-Newish-Blogger. Friend and fellow 2012 NBI alumnus Ravanel (Ravalation: nbi-one-year-and-week-later) shares a beautiful badge and gives a list of bloggers who wrote about NBI’s anniversary.

Other great bloggers like Ocho (Casualaggro: the-newbie-blogger-initiative-1-year-later/) and Rowan (Ihavetouchedthesky: nbi-retrospective) discuss it also, pointing out that 25% of the 111 NBI Blogs are still active after a year. Not bad, not bad at all. :) Kudos to my NBI Class of 2012. 

1st Age LIs, Rohan healing rings, fans!

1st Age Legendary Items for level 85: Update 10 brought symbols for crafting 1st Age LIs for level 85. The symbols drop in Erebor Raids at level 85. When U10 released (03/06), the symbols would drop in T1 Erebor Raids. Turbine, deciding that was no good, pulled the plug on 1st agers in T1 for update U10.02 (03/20) and now they only drop in T2 Raids. While I gave it a shot, I was 0 for 44 T1 raid wins on receiving 1st Age symbols during the 2-week period. Sigh, rotten luck.

There are 3 ways to get 1st Age LIs:

• Random rare drop in T2 Erebor raids (and T2 challenge),
• Barter for it with Seals at the Skirmish vendor named “Legendary Items”,
• Buy it from the AH since it is not bound. Right now, they are occasionally listed on Arkenstone at ≈ 1000g, yowsa.

So, your options are T2 Raid persistence & luck, earning the seals to barter via many of the 3-person, 6-person, or raid instances and skirmishes, or having a fat barter wallet and fluid AH market. Instances earn 2 – 10 seals per run. As mentioned in the previous article, having a few people around to group with, you can pick your favorite instances and make a fun time of it earning lots of various loot and seals in a short time.

Occasionally, I am able to have time to Raid and my kinship gathers for a Raid once or twice a week, so Random rare drop is not out of the question… I’m just not holding my breath hoping for a lucky roll in a T2 raid win. I’m actually very thankful that we are allowed to barter such an item. In olden days, random luck was often the only option to get nice things. I consider the barter option a huge step forward for the game.

There are 3 different Barter prices at the skirmish vendor for a 1st Age symbol:

• Win on all three T1 Erebor Raids (Defense of Erebor T1 deed), then barter for 488 Seals.
• Win on all three T2 Erebor Raids (Defense of Erebor T2 deed), then barter for 427 Seals.
• With on all three T2 Challenges (Defense of Erebor Challenge), then barter for 366 Seals.

At this time, I do not know anyone who has won all three T2 Raids at level 85 or the Challenges though I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone show up with a post on youtube one day in the not too distant future. There are a couple of videos out there showing The Fires of Smaug T2 Challenge now. The T2 Lonely Mountain feels impossible, lol.

Here is what my “The Road to Erebor” deed looks like right now. It is worth a horse to complete the Meta-deed… so, it is on my list. Granted, it is on my “long-term” list, kinda like Tower of Orthanc and Dol Guldur level 85 T2 Challenge, both of which have horses that I need to acquire. Someday… someday…

Eswe’s new healing rings.

In the previous post for Update 10.1, I mentioned that Eswe had a couple of new Healer Rings (u10-rohan-rings-complete-hytbold-in-15)  so I wanted to show what they look like for comparison. Clearly, one is for Minstrels and RKs and the other one is for Captains. The RK ring takes the same Sage upgrade path explained in the post on Rohan Rings. 

Supergirl SuperFans!

I really am excited when people tell me that they are fans of the site! I hope I come across politely. Sometimes I am carrying on up to a dozen conversations at once so hopefully I say thank you and am cordial if we meet. :D

Here are two people I met this week:

Parnassica is leader of her kin and had kind words to say about the site. Thank you! Forgive me that I am not the best at taking pictures of hobbits… I often just get the tops of hobbit heads.

Arkandon was playing the part of “bird in a tree” when I flew out to Ost Guruth. I am amazed that people figure out how to climb up trees and on buildings. I am sure he will do great at “Ridge Racer” in Eregion when he gets there. ;)

Goldenstar and Merric talked about danania.net on a recent podcast (CSTM: episode190) and Tomrica transcribed it for me. It is quite the great situation when the lead in is that I am fans of my fans. Really though, I am of all my fans, just not all of them run a Mecca-site like CSTM, lol! Tsk, tsk… I’m going to have to remind Goldenstar what my name is… mebbe I will put it in my blog title and website name… oh wait… :D

Here is the transcription from that section of the podcast:

(in reference to the new store horse, steed-of-dagorlad and CSTM: steed-of-dagorlad-available-through-april)

G = Goldenstar & M = Merric

G: If she didn't tell me it was the sea blue color, I would have been like, oh ok... where's the color?  Oh and I should say that the color screenshots I got from Danica.  She is a blogger who sent me it.. and you can find it at... oh wait, it's not Danica...

M: It's Dan-an-eee-ah... it's the Super-Girl of Lorien.

G: It's the Super-Girl!  I always just call her Super-Girl!  D-a-n-a-n-i-a.net is her blog.  So she was nice enough to send me screenshots of what it looks like dyed.

M: Yea... she's a biiiiiiig horse fan.  She's awesome.

G: Yea... yup.

M: She's a great blogger, if you are not following her, you need to follow her.

G: She's super nice, she was like, "Do you need a picture? Here you go..."

M: Yea.. if you are not following her, you need to - it's at D-a-n-a-n-i-a.net

My Note: I don’t know how to write in phonetics, but it is… Daaah-naaah-nEE-aaaah :)