Rohan: Scenes from Rohan, part 1

I enjoy lotro and everything in it, but I have really enjoyed Rohan! While quite a few of my posts since October were Rohan related, I hesitated to reveal too many scenes directly as to not give away the great stories. I will still refrain from saying too much but wanted to share some pictures. (For those who only come to look at the pictures, this post is definitely one for you… though you might not have even read the previous line to know that.)

I started toward Rohan back on rohan-begins. Actually, concurrent to my cursory look around the East Wall from the south of Rohan, I went home to Lorien. I had a nice chat with two of my favorite Runekeepers, Galadriel and Celeborn.

They will stay here in Lorien and protect the borders from obvious Orcs. We have now opened the borders up and outsiders will now not be shot on site. I did not approve, but I am not specifically in charge of the Golden Wood. One of my Lorien friends, Anglamel, promised to look after my flet while I was away.

Galadriel gives me one last blessing in the garden and then I am back underway to Rohan.

This time I decided to take the scenic route by boat.

Another elf named Corudan escorted Horn and Nona and I and we decided to scope out the north of Rohan first at The Wold. Horn and Nona are like oil and water. We sat around telling fireside stories before I ventured toward Langhold. They hardly believed my tale involving Amarthiel, some guys named Mord, and a little old lady. It was such an amazing story!

We scouted camps in the East Wall.

Nona went on ahead, I take one last look, then double back toward the Wold. I will see them again... right?

While things are progressing here in the Wold, I introduce myself to some higher ups that I meet. There are lots of Thanes and Reeves around. I visit Langhold first. It looks like a fine place, and it will probably be around for a long time.

Time to defend the town. Thane Utred sends his wife Cillan and the kids toward the south. Heburga, his daughter, is ready to help us take down some enemies. Utred is not moved enough to let her help. 

Cillan carries a sword, just in case, en route to leave town. I am Supergirl; I refuse a pointy weapon… that’s why I have these! (holds up punchy fists) …and this (rotates palm to reveal an etched RK stone.)

The fight turns badly. Those who are able, leave. Dala threatens to fight me if I stay in Langhold alone. We run. I never noticed before how high I bounce when I am running; I think I will stick to flying. I hope this turns out ok for all involved.

Tune in next time for Part 2…

Steed of the Jester, and others

Thanks to all the commenters; I am still learning how to use computery things... Celeborn considered it verboten in Lorien. I recently learned how to make "commenting" easier on users visiting here, so let me know if it works! 

It’s time for a lil break from the dailies to have some horse-face time.

I like to see the google searches that lead people to Danania.net!

Because of my Update 7 comments, I’ve gotten several “Steed of the Jester” looks. Let’s start there.

Here is the “Steed of the Jester”. He is obtained via the flower quest “A Fist full of flowers”. The repeatable quest is found in Bree. The task is to collect many of 3 different types of flowers within an hour and exchange them for gift boxes which *might* contain a steed but probably obtains something silly like clothing dye. Of course, visit Casualstrolltomordor.com to learn details about the quest.


Things I've received from the boxes include dyes, lots of "Note of Affection"s, recipes for Tarts and flowers, the Jester, & a couple of Giant Flowers (like the one DanaArodel is holding in Lil Danas).

How many gift boxes did it take to get to the tootsie-roll center of the tootsie pop? For me, it was my 51st box. I had done 50 boxes the first 3 days, and the first box on the 4th day was the Jester. The two other winners I have asked: one only took 6 tries, and the other not many more. Your mileage may vary. Given some persistence, this steed seems very winnable.

The Steed of the Jester has a speed of +68% & morale of 250, similar to any other high end steed.

And certainly, the new Simbelmyne steed is the star of the Spring Festival from Hengstacer Farms. She is a fine grey with lovely turquoise dressing and barters for 2 race tokens, 40 spring leaves, and 200s.

Because it comes up a couple of times a week in google searches coming to danania.net, here is a picture of the Green Painted Skeleton steed. This one was from Fall Festival, only found in the lotro store. (He made an appearance ridden by Batgirl during the Fall Festival post @ Fun Fall Festival).

Old Halls of Crafting, New Galtrev horses, New IF

Old Halls of Crafting quest item from Lorien 


Three weeks from now will mark my second anniversary adventuring in Middle Earth. It has been a great ride, and even in that relatively short time, there have been numerous changes. When I arrived in Ered Luin and began my training, Mirkwood was calling for assistance. I was not in on that call. It would be a long time before I saw my Lorien home and on into Mirkwood.

One thing for certain, I am very thorough. I don’t leave an area until I finish all of the quests and deeds. Well, correct that, I have left some group quests in my log and held onto them until finding a group (often pug) to join and go finish some fellowships and raids. Needless to say, my “journey to end-game” took longer than some. By the time I got there though, there was never a question of my knowing my class or if my virtues were high enough.

Taking a while on the journey meant that some of those group quests just linger around. I have been holding a quest item, Rune-stone of Lorien, in my bag for nearly a year. It is an item to be used within the Halls of Crafting, a level 60 fellowship instance, which is still a place no RK should go alone.

A callout on a leisurely Saturday afternoon got one taker who would join me in the Halls of Crafting. Fortunately, it was a Guardian, Dodussrond. After 30 minutes or so, it was clear that a Guardian can go where no RK should go alone and soon enough the Halls of Crafting was saved by two level 75s. He was the heroic immovable force; I was the token dps.

Haldir was pleased and mentioned Galadriel by name as having spoken well of me. Glee! I was also certainly pleased as I finally got the item out of my bag and got the quest done.

Now Haldir wanted me to go see Celeborn. Of course, I will go see him; I expect Galadriel will be with him. Along with Luthien, Galadriel is one of my RK idols. It was once written that after Celeborn’s forces took Dol Guldur, Galadriel threw down its walls and laid bare its pits, and the forest was cleansed. I gather from the legendary stories that Galadriel soloed much of that. She is a very inspiring Runekeeper. Of course, Luthien is very exciting in the descriptions of how “she fought with her voice and her words, and yet caused real wounds in her enemies and healed her allies.” Their legends are things to which I aspire. Someday mebbe.

Oh Celeborn… another item for my bag??? As a “good job” for doing the previous work, he wants me to bring “the phial of light” into Dar Narbugud. I don’t think Dodussrond is going to take me dueting to Dar Narbugud. Looks like I will probably have to assemble a team. For now, I took the phial and convenient “lost” it. Celeborn had a whole basket of them behind him, so I kept notes that Celeborn will probably give me another one if I ask nicely some day in the future when said team is assembled.

I will just visit my friend the Moose of Lorien. He looks happy to see me.

New Horses in Galtrev

With that excursion over, it is time to go see what is new in Galtrev. Oh look, a call to go to the Great River. And to send me on my way, the Dunlending and Theodred’s Riders offer me some horses. Here is a picture of both of them respectively. These horses can now be obtained from the barter vendor in Galtrev, just south of the milestone, when you reach kindred. The Dunlending is a dusty grey, and the Theodred is a white-cream with ginger hair. I am happy to have them both.

New IF


In followup to Tuesday's look at the Instance Finder (fastest-skirmishes-marks-per-minute), the Update 6 IF is even easier to use. The "Simple" tab is exactly the same as the previous version of IF. The "Advanced" tab allows you to choose which of the instances you will allow it to randomly select for you. The "Specific" tab replaces what used to be the "Instance Join" button. It allows you to  choose exactly where you want to go in any instance of any size and level you access. 


The "Advanced" tab has many possibilities and will be great if you are flexible about where to go. Allowing it more options for destination will allow you the bonuses of "+50% all currency earnings" and "+5% morale and power". In the picture below, you can see that by selecting 13 of 17 skirmishes allowed, I have access to those max bonuses. For any less than 13/17, some lesser bonuses were applied (+40%, +30%, etc ... the bonus is based on percentage of skirmishes allowed).


You will also notice in the picture that I deselected my least favorite 4 defensive skirmishes that take the longest with poorest marks/minute. Your choices may vary. Watch the bottom part of the finder about what the bonus is for the set  you have chosen and go enjoy!