Update 11 Summarized Notes

Summarizing Update 11 to what I cared to read…

For the full 11-page Notes, visit CSTM: update-11-release-notes/.

(1) New Region: Wildermore, north of East Rohan – quests, epic story, warbands, and rewards.

(2) Mounted Combat: Yellow trait tree integrated into the base Warsteed. In its place, each class will get their own specific yellow tree. 

/will need to revisit (rohan-warsteed-traiting-part-1).

Multiple bug fixes and tweaks for Mounted combat.

Lowered the chance for Disengaging Strikes to 25% to better align with other capstone traits.

Making several changes to base mount stats to help differentiate Light, Medium, Heavy (no nerfs). … /no nerfs, so they say… :)

(3) Warbands: Warband Reward boxes provide a chance to obtain new warsteed cosmetics and Warband Barter Tokens, which will be used to purchase the legendary pocket upgrades. Whereas the cosmetics will be a very rare drop from each reward box, the barter tokens will drop at a rate relative to the difficulty of the warband.

(4) Lalia’s Market: New shoppe in Bree to highlight and visually see store items. /nice. will discuss soon, go check it out.

(5) Hobbit Gifts: Once a day, all players can receive a Silver Hobbit Present. Once a week, VIP players can receive a special Gold Hobbit Present. Gold Hobbit Presents offer a greater chance of getting the top level gifts. After free rolls are used, all players can use Mithril Coins to roll for either more Silver Hobbit Presents or Gold Hobbit Presents.

(6) Housing changes: Housing Upkeep allows for paying further in advance and adds the option to pay with Mithril Coins. Houses without upkeep paid for the past six months will go into Foreclosure and all items inside will be put into Escrow.

(7) Rune-keeper armor: Greater Erebor Cleanser (fire) armour set bonus applies the Writ of Fire DOT of the same size as the player would.

(8) The Ettenmoors: Quests and Deeds that require the defeat of Players or Monster Players will now advance for all contributors, not just the player who dealt the final blow.

Rune-keepers should now properly receive Battlefield promotions in the Ettenmoors.

/interesting. The Moors Slayer-Deeds were effectively impossible. After six years, no one anywhere has beaten all of these deeds; they are actually harder than achieving Rank 15. There are 5 tiers of slayer deeds. At Rank 9, I have completely about half of tier 1 on each creep type.

(9) Rohan Healing Rings: Created two new healing-focused ring upgrades at Eswe.

Mooncandle Mender's Ring of Rohan's healing proc effect now properly triggers from the Runekeeper's "Rune-sign of X" skills.

Eswe now offers the ability to exchange some Rohan rings at the final and third step for others.

(10) Spring Festival: (starts ~May 22nd?)

New Stuff bartered with Spring leaves – Cloak (hooded and hoodless), Dress, Robe, 2013 Spring horse, War-steed Cosmetic Leggings, War-steed Cosmetic Caparison.

New Stuff bartered with Flowers (from Gathering Flowers) - War-steed Cosmetic Halter, War-steed Cosmetic Saddle, Steed of the Jester (which is last year's random drop horse)

New gift-box rare drop – Full Spring War-steed Cosmetic Set. You can purchase the full set with leaves and flowers or get lucky with a gift-box.

/yay for being able to barter for horses. Random luck is not a good mechanism as the only option for obtaining things.

Other Stuff:

• Cowbell + Mounted combat = bad. You were warned.
• New Launcher for patching and updating.
• New one-spot Alert for seeing accomplishments, reputation, mail, etc. Hobbit Gifts, dynamic layer status, pending loot and connection status icons.
• New additional Mithril coin Services = Reputation acceleration, Deed acceleration, Armour and Weapon repair services, task resets, and task limit increases.
• In Update10, some LIs got a DPS increase but it wasn’t retroactive to existing LIs; this has been fixed.  
• Enhanced Experience: Rest XP is getting an overhaul.
• New Bug reporting tool.
• Additional “Opt out” emotes.
• Fate will now contribute to OCPR in place of Will
• Various bug fixes.
• Warden further transitioning to Agility based.
• Universal Toolkits and Scrolls of Universal Lore obtained from Bound Lootboxes should now be bound to account, rather than to character.
• Riddermark-bound lootboxes now contain Tarnished Symbols of Celebrimbor and the Elder King.

/I just want the red skeleton horse from a lootbox, but that is certainly interesting that 1st Age symbols will now drop from the Riddermark lootboxes.

I'll be back later in the week to dissect some of the changes. Enjoy the ride!

Update 10: Runekeeper Armor Sets

In continuing to look at changes for Update 10, I will dissect what the new RK armor sets are and how existing armor sets changed. For this article, I will consider the Runemakers’ set, the three level 85 Moors armor sets, the three Hytbold sets, the three Erebor sets, and the three Greater Erebor sets.

Some general observations:

(1) The armor sets have been standardized to not offer stat increases for set bonuses. The armor sets have also been standardized to offer bonuses on 2-piece and 4-piece only.

(2) With the removal of stats as armor bonuses, some non-Erebor armor pieces changed. I originally examined many of the Update 9 armor sets and level 75 armors in the post, rohan-85-rk-hytbold-and-moors-armor. For example, Hytbold Peace-caller set decreased 214 morale and 1148 mastery, and gained some crit (due to the change in Critical calculation) since the previous version. I have re-reviewed all armors’ stats to reflect the changes for U10 (as of March 20).

(3) There are non-set armor pieces that are even better than any of these pieces. As they are rare and random versus being bartered and earned, I will not review those, but acknowledge that they exist and are awesome (and “gold” quality).

(4) The Erebor armors can only be bartered once you have completed all seven of the Rohan instances on T1. The Greater Erebor armors can only be bartered with wins in Rohan instances T2.

(5) There isn’t a big gap at all between the level 75 armor sets from TOO or Moors level 75, so don’t feel badly if you already have those. The U10 changes made the previous post at  rohan-85-rk-hytbold-and-moors-armor incorrect, but it gives indication that many of the level 75 armors are (or at least were) reasonable options.

(6) In the Moors, the Moors armors are a must due to their “Audacity” bonuses (I’ll explain Audacity another post, but for perspective, here is how Audacity looked prior to U10, ettenmoors-75-rk-armor-audacity.

Set Bonuses:

So, let’s look at armor set comparisons. I will start by looking at the “set bonuses” for each armor set at 2-piece and 4-piece. As you see in Table 1, there are a lot of repeat bonuses. Most are situational and tied to certain skills. Since now for U10 there are no more stats included as bonuses, you will have to decide whether you really use these skills and utilize the bonuses.

Table 1: Set bonuses for RK Armor sets (click on image to enlarge)

I have a lot of data… so I decided to present the full sets and then present snapshots by piece. I am going to benchmark everything to the Rune-makers’ armor since those pieces can be found at the skirmish vendor and otherwise require no effort at all, except the cost of marks and medallions.

For simplicity, I am going to continue presenting only my “4 pillars of the Runekeeper”: Morale, Tactical Mastery, Critical, and Tactical Mitigation.

Full Sets:

You just turned level 85 and have the option of going to the skirmish vendor to get a set of armor, going to the Moors and hunting Creeps for Commendations, going to rebuild Hytbold and earning tokens, or going through Rohan and Erebor raids.

Ok, Table 2 is a wall of data related to full RK sets. I will translate some observations. Do keep in mind, aside from the numerical data, there is Table 1 to consider, so be mindful of the potential set bonuses, if they are important.

Observation 1: The Moors sets have much less Mastery than the basic Runemakers. However, Moors Audacity of the pieces is essential for the Moors. With 5-7% less Mastery than basic Runemakers, the Moors armor is not worthy anywhere else except the Moors.

Observation 2: The Hytbold armor sets are slightly better than the Runemakers. The set bonuses in Table 1 are better also. Did you do enough quests in Rohan to earn reputation and barter for Hytbold armor? Which makes more sense to earn, 9k marks and 3k medallions, or Rohan rep and Hytbold tokens?

Observation 3: Erebor armors cost a more Marks, Medallions, and Seals but there is almost no benefit versus the basic Runemakers armor. Even if the price was the same, is it worth it?

Observation 4: Greater Erebor armors are the most expensive and hardest to obtain. One would think they are the best, right?

Example: Runemaker vs Greater Erebor Healer (Peace-caller): GE Peace has less morale (-263), better Mastery (+2%), better Critical (+2%), and better tact mit (+2%). GE Peace has slightly better set bonuses (not a fan, but they are better). GE Peace cost “a lot” more. Is it worth it?

Table 2: Cost and stat data for level 85 RK Armor sets, (stats vs Runemakers)

When looking at a single category, it becomes clear that many of the pieces are built similarly. If all things cost the same, which would you choose? Is there an obvious difference between these pieces? I will show a snapshot of the stat differences between the set pieces for each category.

Head:

Shoulders:

Chest Armor:

Gloves:

Leggings:

Boots:

What Would Dana Do?

Because I have as a goal to do all quests and deeds, I have some options available to me as by-product of Completionism, i.e. Hytbold, marks, unlocks.

I’m also told that the number of Marks and Medallions for Runemakers set is a lot. I lose perspective sometimes on what “a lot” means. Is 9k marks and 3k medallions a lot for a 6-piece set of armor? If so, then Hytbold is probably where you want to go, and Runemakers and Erebor are not for you.

I got the Hytbold Thunder-caller set just by doing the quests and following the path. I love to use “Epic Conclusion to reset Shocking Words” and habitually hit Shocking Words, Epic Conclusion, Shocking Words in quick succession with enjoyable effect… I’ve seen the set of three skills critically hit an opponent for over 22k damage during that explosive second.

Hytbold armor is very easy to obtain. For example, to get this Thunder-caller armor you would need Kindred rep with the 4 factions of Rohan (actually, only Ally with Norcroft), and some Hytbold tokens. By the time you got the Reputation, because it would have involved doing Hytbold daily quests, you would have enough tokens to build the correct pieces of town and barter for the armor. Reference here (to-be-a-thane).

Hytbold is one of the cheapest and best options, and as is evident from this article, all the non-Moors armors are fairly close to one another statistically.

If you are going to the Moors, get some Moors armors. I got 2 of each set of Moors armors because there wasn’t apparent value to me to go after the 4-piece bonuses. It isn't as useful for everyday use since it has noticeably less Mastery but is a must in the moors.

Though I have access to it, I won’t barter for the Erebor armor as it has little benefit. 

For comparison from Table 1, for Hytbold Thunder vs Erebor Thunder: Hytbold has +614 morale and +3% Mastery and my preferred set bonuses VS Erebor has +1.5% Critical. The Greater Erebor Thunder is slightly better than the Erebor though not enough that I would choose it even if the price was equal to the Hytbold (and certainly not at the increased cost).

Notes on Update 10 Release Notes

  

I took the Update 10 Release Notes, ripped out all the parts that didn’t seem interesting, and reorganized it into a more coherent set of information. I interspersed a few comments of my own as I went (in blue). I will dig deeper into some of the stat number changes in a follow-up article. BTW... sorry that the text looks wonky, Blogger is refusing to accept the fonts the way I am setting them and I am having to recode it.

My reorganized categories include:

(1) Barter Wallet Info, (2) Stat Changes, (3) Armor Sets, (4) Runekeeper Changes, (5) New places, (6) The Ettenmoors, (7) Mounted Combat, (8) Crafting, (9) Other details. If you want to read the entire 16 page release notes (where you can get specific details on non-RKs for instance), Merric gives the official link and a very handy PDF at CSTM: update-10-release-notes.

(1) Barter Wallet Info:

• For every Skirmish Seal in your inventory, there will be a one time conversion, 20 Medallions = 1 Seal.

•  Medallions of the North-men no longer exist. Any existing ones will be automatically converted, 10 Medallions = 1 North-men.

• Unhatched Spider Eggs and Orthanc Sigil Fragments may now exchange for Medallions, in place of Seals.

• Existing items which cost seals will either have the Seal cost converted to Medallions, or have an additional option added to exchange for Medallions

• Mithril Coins now available, in barter wallet.

~ Previous Festival tickets and Revival Tomes were converted to mithril coins; 15 coins per revival tome and 5 coins per festival ticket. Those are the only ones I had but the traveler’s writs and a few other widgets were consolidated here as well. Overall, it went from lots of little barters to one consolidated one, which improves your buying power, and that is a good thing.

• Level 85 1st Age Symbols are available on the Skirmish Barter vendors for Seals. They require completion of the new Erebor raids, with different costs based on the Tier of difficulty completed.

• New gems have been added which may drop from the Erebor raids. These are fully tradeable, and used to upgrade the Rohan rings, new raid sets, and used in special crafting recipes.

Bofur and that other dwarf (Dori mebbe? All dwarves look the same to me…) give some final advice or parting words before we near the engine known as The Fires of Smaug.

(2) Stat Changes:

• Fate/Power Revamp: Fate has more noticeable effects on ICPR and OCPR. Will no longer contributes to players' power pools or OCPR.

Players will receive an increased amount of Power at each level, and all skill costs will now be based on a percentage of this power. Each class has also undergone adjustments to their overall power consumption/restoration rates in an attempt to normalize combat longevity.

• Power Pools have been adjusted.

Non-Will users will gain 50 points of power per level,

Will users will receive 65 power per level.

All skills have had their power costs adjusted to account for changes to Fate/ICPR. Several power restore skills/traits have also had their magnitudes adjusted for the time being as we continue to normalize Fate’s new contributions.

~ I tried to push dps output with reckless abandon just to see if I could consume power by forcing out enough skills. I never saw power pool drop below about 80%, and I definitely have not stacked Fate at all.

• Agility/Fate Critical: Agility will now provide 1 point of crit rating whereas Fate will provide 2.5

~ Previously, Critical was 1.75 points for both Agility and Fate. This new change gives a stronger incentive to push Fate. Critical cap is 25% = 13401; and there is mentioned that there is incentive (though diminished) to push past the cap.

• Critical Rating now increases both chance to critically hit and the magnitudes of both your critical and devastating critical hits.

• Will/Tactical Mitigation: Will now provides 2 points of Tactical Mitigation to compensate for the loss of power contribution.

~ Previously Tactical mitigation = Vit * 4 + Armor/5 + direct modifiers. Now, Will-based characters have a lot of tactical mitigation. The Mitigation cap is 40% = 10602. As a relatively high-end RK, the change zipped me right past that mark and I will need to rethink my virtue set to bring Tact mitigation down toward the cap.

• Critical Defense: Players will see a reduction in their current Critical Defence values as we intend for itemization to play a stronger role in this system.

~ The actual number for Critical Defense did not change; however its protectiveness went down (for example, reduction was 36%, now 22%)

• Legendary Item DPS: The damage per second of level 85 weapons has increased, especially for 2nd Age LIs.

~ No, no it didn’t. My LI was 158.0 DPS before, and 158.0 after. If there is a change, it is not observable by the digits shown.

Daweirdo, Blinkinn, Kronuz, Meriband, Ulderen, and Supergirl say hello to the first boss in Bells of Dale.

(3) Armor Sets:

Armor sets which give players skill modifying set bonuses have been altered. They will no longer give players stat boosts in addition to skill modifying bonuses. In addition, skill modifying bonuses have been standardized to be on the 2-set and 4-set bonuses. This allows for greater freedom in variety for what the player can wear, and allows for equipment to be upgraded without worrying about losing additional stats from set bonuses, which were becoming increasingly more powerful with each set.

~ Yep, the stats dropped off the armor sets. I am going to investigate exactly where the numbers changed, but what I see is that this change dropped my Will by 107, and subsequently dropped my Tactical Mastery by 1070 (3% less mastery).

The Hytbold and level 85 Ettenmoors sets have seen their stats change to reflect the Fate alterations.

~ No, no it didn’t. Neither the Hytbold set nor the Ettenmoors set changed before versus after U10. To verify, I also looked at the barter NPCs and they have what I have.

New level 85 armor sets have been added to the Skirmish Vendors

~ Yes, there are new armor sets. They require completion of the new Raids in T1, and the advanced armors require completion on T2. Additionally, they cost marks, medallions, seals, and new special Erebor gems. I will go into the armors in another post.

The Bells of Dale looks lovely when all is empty and things aren’t attacking.

(4) Rune-keeper:

Sustaining Bolt will now reduce power costs by 5% rather than 10%

Reduced the power heal on Rune of Restoration

~ These are two power changes to RK. It is mostly irrelevant since power was little concern before U10 and is of no concern after U10.

Improved Rune-sign of Flame: Miss Chance buff has been replaced with a buff that allows skills to Bypass 5% of their target's Resistances.

~ The Improved Rune-sign of xxxx is a healing skill that is modified by whichever Element you are in. Each Element has a different buff. The Flame’s Buff changed slightly… whoopy.

Scribe A New Ending: This skill now dispels 1 Poison, Disease, Wound, or Fear every two seconds, for six seconds from a target.

~ Scribe a New Ending was the RK skill to remove dread. Since there is no more death dread, this skill changed. It is single target but has some potential to be useful. As it attunes toward Healing, it will take some getting used to but is a now potent skill when you are bombarded with effects.

Group visits the Battle of Erebor.

(5) New Places:

New instances:

The Bells of Dale (6 Player)

Flight to the Lonely Mountain (12 player)

The Fires of Smaug (12 Player)

The Battle for Erebor (12 Player)

In Their absence:

All of the instances in the “In their Absence” instance cluster can now be scaled from level 65 to 85.

Two trolls are well separated, divide and conquer, during Battle for Erebor.

(6) The Ettenmoors:

Freep Battlefield Promotions: Freeps now gain a Battlefield Promotion effect for each PvMP Rank they earn. Battlefield Promotions grant bonus Health, Power and Damage for each Glory Rank the player has. Battlefield Promotions are only active while in the Ettenmoors.

Creeps have also undergone significant changes … clip…  are able to actively participate in combat for longer periods of time. Although many restoration effects and buffs have been reduced, innate power expenditure should be at a much more manageable point.

Creep armor base critical defense reduced, but critical protection corruptions increased.

Lainedhal's Insignia and Ak’lhun's Brand (ranks 1 through 14) are now usable in combat, provide a break out of negative combat states and no longer grant any immunity. Their cooldowns have also been reduced.

~ I rarely went to the Moors after Rohan released. Many believe that the changes made to Creeps to match scaleup to Freep 85 made high end creeps nearly invincible; however, some people saw the system as balanced before this change, so as usual, people were mixed. From my perspective, the week before U10, I went out in full Raid where I was possibly the weakest link (most of the other Freeps were R10 and above, and I am only R8) and the Creep Raid wiped us out at will repeatedly with rarely a defeat on the other side. These changes, I believe, are any attempt to rebalance classes. With all the new Free people goodies, will the tide turn back and unbalance the other direction?

Group prepares for the incoming attack in Flight to the Lonely Mountain.

(7) Mounted Combat:

Increased Base Power Levels for War-Steeds (formerly 2175 for all 3 steeds, now 2500 for Light, 2350 for Medium, and 2250 for Heavy)

Altered the Medium Steed Traits ""Patience"" and ""Understanding"" to affect Mount Power Cost as well as Rider Power Cost

Altered the Heavy Trait ""Conservative Combatant"" to affect Mount Power Cost as well as Rider Power Cost

Lowered the Mount Power Cost for Mounted Runekeeper Skills ""Fixation of Flame"" and the ""Oration"" skills

Mounted Combat: The War-steed's Power Trait will now reduce the cost of using Spur On. If Power is fully ranked up, there will be no additional power cost of using your skills. The Power trait will also decrease the power usage per second cost of using Spur On.

~ These changes reflect the power changes for classes.

The following Mounted Combat traits/legacies/relics have had their critical rating contribution reduced:

Wrath trait (Light Steed): 25% to 15%

Light Bridle 'Wrath Crit Chance' Legacy: 10% to 5%

Here is a shot of two news weapons Danadalyn built over the weekend.

(8) Crafting:

• The Tarnished Crests of Rohan can now be found on the Crafting Skirmish Barter Vendors.

• Crafting XP values are being adjusted down.

• Cooks will now be able to use ovens, as well as campfires, to make trail foods.

• Recipes for First Age weapons and class items can now be found on the Legendary Craft Guild NPCs.

~ It says, “Crafting XP values are being adjusted down”… No, no it didn’t change at all thankfully. Yay to the use of ovens for trail food. 1st Age recipes cost 900s each; Danadalyn, Weaponsmith to the Stars, was in sticker shock. Team lildanas will still be crafting their way to Mordor.

UPDATE: After further review of all data I have, I stand by my statement. Character XP for crafting did not change post-U10 versus pre-U10. If anything changed, it wasn't that. So "Crafting your way to Mordor" wasn't affected. (crafting-toward-mordor).

Ok, this week, I went to exploring in many different places with friends. Here is nice shot of Lanwyn tanking the 3 mini-boss sisters in Ost Elendil.

(9) Other Details:

• Several buffs (Run speed, slayer boosts, etc) now have stackable durations

• Dread on Defeat effects removed.

• Any quest can now be advanced in a raid.

• War-steed: The simple tail should now accept dyes correctly.

• XP from mobs that are more than 8 levels above has been zeroed out

• Conjunctions have had their power restore magnitudes increased slightly.

• The ""Find Items"" feature now darkens the non-matching items and bag icons instead of using the ""New Item"" swirlies.

• There are two new chat text filters: Loot ( Self ) and Loot ( Fellow ). Loot notification messages for you and your fellows will go to these filters and you can change their font/size in the Options/Chat panel.

• “Forced” Emotes: "Enable Involuntary Emotes" has been added to your social options panel. Henceforth, you may uncheck "Enable Involuntary Emotes" to opt out of involuntary emotes (emotes which another player is attempting to force you to execute).

• Standardized the names of Tier 1 through Tier 9 relics.

• Slightly lowered the amount of xp on the heritage runes received when refining relics. The amount of xp will increase as the level/tier of the relic being refined increases.

 Jasparhawk, Norinrad, Elmlorn, Lanwyn, Dandur, and Supergirl make sure Annuminas is still in control after U10.

To be a Thane

I held off writing about Hytbold for a while because I didn’t want to give away too much. The end of the Hytbold quest line is one of my favorites in lotro. Over this article I will touch on some of it but promise not to give too much away. :)

Gather round kiddos and I will show you some pictures of how I became a Thane. My thane-ness happened a few months ago on December 23rd. I didn’t get there without help however. What every Thane-wannabe needs to know is the link to a very useful guide by Fredelas. The Hytbold rebuild is a complicated puzzle web of quests for whom to talk to to get certain portions built. So, go ahead and bookmark the guide at

 http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?482751-Hytbold-A-Guide-to-Rebuilding-and-Armour

On reaching level 84, Fastred, Reeve of the Sutcroft, will send a letter asking for help.

Having been burned to the ground, Hytbold needs a lot of help. I focused on things that gave me “working pieces”. I wanted to get the town functional before making it look pretty. Some of my first pieces were Meadhall Outdoor 1 and 2 for milestone and mailbox, The Smithy for forge and ore instance, The Lumbermill for workbench and wood instance, The Armoury for forge-master and relic-master, The Library for scholar instance, and The Stable for the stable-master.

As I looked at the Hytbold plot plan, I probably would have designed it differently. I tend to think very orderly and probably would have laid it out with straighter and wider lanes for riding horses through town and used street signs so it was easier to navigate. I also had hoped to get better ceiling vents put in the Forge area so the building didn’t fill with smoke. 

On discussing my city build plan with my friend Menelchol, he strategically pointed out that making it more difficult to navigate gives us the advantage when defending it. Of course, he is right. He empathized with my smoky Forge, but that is why it is important to get precise details upfront with your build contractor. Lesson Learned.

Here is a lovely picture of the Armory. I assigned a couple of guards to stand around and look busy.

To build all these pieces, you need plenty of Tokens of Hytbold. It is a bit of a marketing campaign, trying to get people to come to Hytbold by going to the other towns of Rohan and earning reputation and working in the currency of Tokens of Hytbold. I enjoyed going out and doing all the quests! Here are a couple of pictures that didn’t already show up in Scenes of Rohan.

Over in Harwick, the people like to play games. I played dress-up with the model.

And, I rode a hobby-horse to gain credibility with the kids. I didn’t get to keep the hobby-horse unfortunately. Danaish won one during Yule festival (yule-festivals-end-2012) and I’m rather jealous.

I also went to various places, which was always interesting. Here is one called Dwergfant. I went out on detail to keep the Limlight River safe.

I went to the Entwalk to help small woodland creatures. (Lilikate would be impressed.) The creatures are nice and cuddly but beware that Ents do not distinguish between orcs and other humanoids. They will smash first and ask no questions. Here I am hangin' wit da foxes I saved.

Parphad is the scholar instance. It seems to attract orcs or other baddies about once a day that need to be removed.

When building the town, any strong town needs horses, right? (All-the-Steeds)

Here are the Steed of the Minstrel and the Steed of the Eastemnet hanging out in Hytbold.

And, here is a Steed of Khundolar as I visit with him while riding a Steed of Khundolar.

I got a small chuckle out of the fact that we had to hire Rohirrim to barter the RK armor as it was a deal made with the Rohirrim Workers’ Union. The deep words are not for the Race of Men, what do they know about Rune-keeper armors? :) Dalmann, Hrofgyr, and Rungat keep a good selection of armor and the barter price is fairly cheap.

During the “Scenes” article, I indicated that when I became a Thane I would have a hall like Fastred’s. Here is one of the pictures of a large tapestry that came in and I had just gotten it hung from the ceiling. Stay tuned… next article I will show you how I fly around the hall!