Steed of Winter Winds, Yule Festival 2014

Supergirl rides the Steed of Winter Winds

Wow. How about that; 2014 is nearly over. Did you get everything accomplished you intended to do? Was your journey through Middle Earth as satisfying as you hoped?

I have been having a great time! Timewise, I get drawn away by work and family and responsibilities and don't get to play as much, but when I do, it is always satisfying. I made all the festivals. I got all the new horses. I got most of the pets. I did all of the quests. I think I did all the new Deeds. Good times!

I need to update my To-Do list and get the All the Steeds Gallery caught up with all the horses that are written about on this blog. Soon, very soon. Thanks for continuing to come to the site!


Yule Festival 2014
Yule Festival is probably my favorite festival (Yes, I know I say that about most of the festivals!). My favorite things about Yule Festival are...

(1) Sack of Presents. I love running a simple quest and getting the presents. The presents include Marks, Medallions, Seals, Festival tokens, some cosmetic items, and the very rare Hobby Horse. I am still hoping and wishing for my Hobby Horse. Danaish got one a couple of years ago and I'm still envious (check out the Hobby Horse at the link below or in the Steed Gallery.)

(2) Easy and open. The quests are very easy. Like good festival quests, after you have run them several dozen times, you can do them with your eyes closed. I also like the wide open Frostbluff area with the open pretty wintry sky.

(3) Nice rewards. My favorite rewards from Yule Festival 2014 are the (a) Horse of course @ 80 tokens, (b) the Warsteed cosmetic @ 100 tokens, (c) the Pet Grims @ 75 tokens each, and (d) the Yule Sparklers @ 30 tokens each.

There are three Grim available: just "Grim" (it is the Snow Grim), Fire Grim, and Shadow Grim. Here is a shot of the Snow Grim.

Supergirl in a pointing contest with a pet Snow Grim

(4) Long duration. This Yule festival was set with about 4 weeks time to visit, which is great! As I type, there is still about 2 weeks left. Yule Festival ends Jan 13.

(5) History: I still remember Yule Festival before Frostbluff. It is great to go back and visit festival every year. :) Here are a few posts from previous years. There was a building storyline in previous years about my leading the Snowman Army slowly to a takeover of Frostbluff.

2013: snow-beast-steed
2013: steed-of-withywindle-and-hobby-horse
2013: yule-festival-wintertide-steed

2012: yule-festivals-end
2012: youll-yule-celebrate
2012: the-hobby-horse-lotros-100th-steed
2012: wintry-yule-warsteed

2011: youll-yule-festival
2011: fun-of-yule-past

(-) The downside: The only thing I don't care for about Yule Festival is that the Frostbluff storyline is depressing. The people don't want to work it, the mayor is thieving money, etc. We have come to an understanding though that it is another act, like the Frostbluff Theater. They pretend to be gruff and cheerless, and I pretend not to notice and just collect the rewards. It works, I suppose.


Enough about Yule Festival, let's see the Horse!

Steed of Winter Winds:

Here is the Steed of Winter Winds.
He has a grey spotted hide, white hair, and a lovely multi-blue caparison.

Steed of Winter Winds

The pattern has a nice starry look to it. Here is an overhead view, from slightly behind.

Steed of Winter Winds - from above and behind

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Default:

The Default Warsteed look is exactly as one would expect; it is the warsteed default grey. :)
Interestingly, the basic Horse has a nice matching saddle and the Warsteed cosmetic does not come with the saddle. The Caparison is a greyer blue than the shade of Indigo; there is no exact blue match on the color palette.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - default

Warsteed of Winter Winds - attempted Match to Horse:

Ha Ha! Here is my attempt at matching the Warsteed colors and patterns to the basic Horse. For this next picture I chose Spotted Hide - Grey, White Hair, and the Victory Saddle. Ok, the saddle is not an exact match to the basic Steed of Winter Winds, but it worked well. :)

Warsteed of Winter Winds - attempt to match the basic horse

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Evendim Blue and Black:

The Evendim Blue and Black is gorgeous. It is hard to go wrong with the blue shades on this horse. I took the picture from above to show off the fancy starry Caparison. It dyes well.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Evendim Blue and Black

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Rivendell Green, Dark Chestnut, Blood Bay:

Here is the warsteed in Rivendell Green and browns: Dark Chestnut hide with Blood Bay hair. This is an elegant hunter look.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Rivendell Green and Browns

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Crimson, White, Light Grey:

Here is the warsteed in Crimson with White hide and light Grey hair. Oooh, I like this one too. :)

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Crimson and White

Here is another shot of the stars on the Caparison. This one is wearing the Victory Saddle again.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Crimson from above

For more horse views by a great blogger, tune in to The Elven Tailor @ The Elven Tailor/ the-winds-of-winter.

I hope you had a great 2014; I look to see you again next year. Thanks for visiting the Supergirl of Lorien site!  :)

Snow Beast Steed

Supergirl rides the Snow-Beast Steed

Woohoo! We start the year off with a bang in lotro by being offered one of the more unique horses I have seen. The steed of the month for January-2014 is the Snow-Beast Steed! It comes with the 5 Warsteed cosmetic outfit pieces to match the horse: Leggings, Saddle, Halter, Caparison, and Accessory. The other horses of lotro are found at All the Steeds.

This horse is one of a kind... his halter is decked out with fur and horns! He will surely put a fear in the bravest of enemies. Sorry for some of these first shots, the wintry weather was determined to stay rainy and overcast all the time in Falathlorn lately. I was inspired to do something a bit different with this horse post and flew the Snow-Beast Steed out over Forochel. 

Snow-Beast Steed:
The basic horse sports a nice mohawk and furry white outfit and balrog horns. Its hide is a red closest to red roan. with a lighter shade for the tail.

Snow-Beast Steed

Snow-Beast Warsteed - Default:
The warsteed does not disappoint and looks as awesome as you think it might.

Snow-Beast Warsteed - Default

Snow-Beast Warsteed - Gold and Bay:

Snow-Beast Warsteed - Gold and Bay

Here is a great shot of just how intense the horse's look is from the front, horns at the ready!

Snow-Beast Warsteed - headshot

Snow-Beast Warsteed - Sea Blue and Chestnut:

Snow-Beast Warsteed - Sea Blue and Chestnut

Snow-Beast as Draigoch:
Colors here are Sienna and Dark Chestnut

Snow-Beast Steed as Draigoch!

Snow-Beast Steed visits Forochel:
The images here show the Snow-Beast Warsteed in either Evendim Blue and Black hide, or Red with White Hide.

Snow-Beast Warsteed glows under the moonlight of Forchel

Snow-Beast Warsteed gallops across ice and snow

Northern lights rise to match the radiance of the Snow-Beast Steed

Snow-Beast Steed not backing down versus a Mammoth

I hope you have a great new year and I'll see you soon!

Steed of Withywindle and a Hobby Horse

Supergirl rides the Steed of Withywindle

Hello hello! I am late getting this posted, but here are shots of the Steed of Withywindle, the December steed of the month! If this is the steed you desire, don't delay as it is scheduled to gallop from the lotro stable on December 31st. Visit all the other steeds at All-the-Steeds.

Also, don't miss the Yule festival which has a new horse with warsteed appearance and still has barterable last year's yule horse and warsteed appearance. And, for the collectors, Yule festival also has every previous Yule horse available for purchase at 70 mithril coins each. (Yule-festival-2013-wintertide-steed)

Oh yes, and one thing I didn't mention yet, a "Sack of Presents" is the reward once per day for doing at least one Yule festival quest. Personally, every day the lildanas and I try to go to Yule festival and do the "Empty Keg" quest since it takes less than one minute to complete. We get our Sacks of Presents (thank you very much) and move along (it takes about 20 minutes to cycle through all ten Angels, do one quest and get a daily present). The daily presents include things such as 150 marks, 500 marks, 30 medallions, 2 seals, 2-10 festival tokens, a couple of cosmetics, stat tomes, and Danaish got our favorite present, the very rare Hobby Horse! (All-the-Steeds/special-steeds-62).

Danaish rides the Hobby Horse - from Sack of Presents

So, there are lots of potential Yule presents this holiday season. May you find what you seek!
Here now is the December Steed, the Steed of Withywindle. :)

Steed of Withywindle: 
This Steed has an interesting colored hide, nearly pink. The outfit is greenish/yellow elven-style. Oppa! Next we will see what it looks like in a few different colors.

Steed of Withywindle

Warsteed of Withywindle - Default:
Here is the default colors. The outfit is indeed identical, and of course, the courser horse is default grey.

Warsteed of Withywindle - Default

Warsteed of Withywindle - Bay and Ered Luin:

Warsteed of Withywindle - Bay and Ered Luin

Warsteed of Withywindle - Red Roan and Crimson:

Warsteed of Withywindle - Red Roan and Crimson

Warsteed of Withywindle - Liver Chestnut and Forest Green:
This is the first time I have ever used hide color Liver Chestnut, lol! To me, it looks like a subtle blend between golden brown and green so I thought it complemented the natural greens of Withywindle. :)

Warsteed of Withywindle - Liver Chestnut and Forest Green

I hope you have a fabulous rest of the year. Y'all come back now. :)

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. :)

Yule festival’s end, 2012

It feels like I wrote more about Yule festival than most festivals this year! the previous post listed a few more Yule links.

The clincher was that there were a lot of horses and warsteeds to talk about, which got the Steed Gallery fired up (all-steeds).

The lildanas always show up for festival, though the hobbit quadruplets usually stay home. This Yule festival however saw two very important reasons for them to come out.

#1 - Sack of Presents: Everyone who showed up to Yule Festival and did one quest got a sack of presents. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the sack of presents was worth camping out in Frostsbluff to get daily. Gifts we got from the sacks included Festival tokens, a special hat and cloak, stat tomes, Danaish got a hobby horse, and level 25 Danadalyn even won a Tarnished Symbol that she gave me to build my level 85 2nd age LI.

#2 – Festival Quest leveling: The quests were all considered as “on-level” quests. That didn’t do so much for me since I was at level 85, although the LIs all advanced with iXP for each quest. The lildanas were all level 25 or level 6, and never really leave the craft-halls except to come to festival. So, going to festival, it was like they were getting free xp for doing what they planned to do anyway. What a win! That reminds me, craft-leveling, I’ll talk soon about the joy of how crafters get xp just for crafting. J

A few friends: As always, festival is a good time to see people who you might not see often. Here are a few friends who I saw at Yule.

Bluepop has a sparkling good time at Yule.

Mysterixox and I wait in line for the Frostbluff Theater. Myst is the talent behind the Lotro Academy podcast Lotro Academy and thinks I am Awesome. J http://lotroacademy.com/?p=962

Aeronwy and I sport matching Fleet-footed Goats to stroll around the town of Frostbluff.

Betzi and Danaszar brave the winter’s cold to run through the snow toward a snowball fight.

Lildanas: The lil-danas As mentioned, because of the Sack of Presents (and general good time of festivalling), the lildanas showed up for the party. Here are a few parting shots to close Yule 2012.

DanaClaus disappears just before Christmas, muttering something about checking lists and and working off cookie weight. Yule festival is one of his favorites.

Danaish rides her new Hobby Horse around Frostbluff like a hobbit on too much sugar and pipeweed.

DanaOnar, one of the hobbit quadruplets, grips a Spring fest giant flower in one hand and a new Yule mug in the other. She enjoyed the warmth of a Spiral Horned Cloak from one of the Sack of Presents.

Danadelion poses stoically with one of the snowmen who leans his head on her shoulder.

Yule Festival was a great time and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

You'll Yule Celebrate, 2012

Ah, Yule festival. Another festival came and went, and like the ones that came before, we celebrated the heck out of it! As always, I will put my stamp on it by writing a festival wrapup. :)

Yule festival 2012 got a lot of notoriety for being called a “grind fest”. The crux of the issue was that the best stuff was gated behind a requirement of having done 120 total quests during the 2012 yule festival. Since we had been at Yule fest last year, there were only repeatable quests, 14 of them per day. That meant that one would have to visit festival at least 8.6 days to be allowed to barter for the Warsteed cosmetic, a couple of the clothing cosmetics, and get the special character portrait ring (wintry-yule-warsteed). The festival was extended by a few days (to make up for a couple of server side issues as it was explained).

So, final tally, visit 9 out of 20 days for the goods.  The only improvement I would have had is that the festival was too short. As a rough rule, I think that visiting one out of three days to get the goods would have been a good target and that festival should last about 28 days. So, the 120 quest number felt ok, but the festival felt too short.

For me, it didn’t “feel” grindy at all since I didn’t travel during the holidays. I would have been remorseful had I been gone for weeks and missed it. It is a possibility since it was a “holiday season” and I am sure that some people got pinched by the shortness of the festival. I can totally empathize with their dilemma. 

During festival time, if I visit Middle Earth, festival is what I do, and sometimes I never leave festival to do anything else. It is like a “vacation” from wherever else in Middle Earth I happened to be.

The previous 2011 Yule festival was far more “grindy” feeling. The reason was that in 2011 I was given unlimited repeats on the quests so there was no push to leave after say, 14 quests. And, Yule fest 2011 was the first yule to offer the “consumable” deeds, in which one gained an emote by using the consumable 300 times. The consumables were costly enough that it took a while to earn enough tokens, there were a bunch of the emotes, and the real kicker was that many of them were on a shared CD timer… of 5 minutes. Bleh.

I wrote about my shock and dismay over the consumables at last festival, youll-yule-festival. I am happy to say that I have enough consumables now to actually finish the deeds. Granted, it might be Spring by the time I can get through all those 5 minute timers, but at least it will be before next Yule fest. :)

I enjoyed going back and reading about the previous Yule festivals at youll-yule-festival from 2011 and fun-of-yule-past which was a look at 2010.

Two of my favorite recurring parts were the Bumble Monster and the Snowman Army Invasion.

2012: The Bumble Monster:

Here is an excerpt I wrote in 2010. Back then, the abominable snowbeast had not come to town. I went to the Misty Mountains and invited the Bumble Monster and his friends to come join us for Yule festival.

"2010: The Bumble Monster...

Oh Bumble Monster of the North!

It is tough to be the antagonist, isn't it?
You just got a bad rap! A little bad publicity set you back generations.

Those deer shouldn't have been wandering nearby. I know! Deer's good eatin'!
You probably wouldn't want the red-nosed one anyway. I hear he's a misfit."

Sure enough, he came in 2011 and again this year! He pretends to be grumbly but I'm glad to wish him /cheer each day.

2012: Danania's Army:

My snowman army is growing! In 2010, the snowball fields had been established. I went "William Wallace" and inspired an army of devout snowmen to march toward the town.

"2010: Danania's Army

Arise my frozen minions!

The north wind blows bolstering our numbers!
We shall usher in the winter fest and fight back the sun!

"I *am* Danania Darzil! And I see a whole army of my countrymen, here in defiance of tyranny. You've come to fight as free snowmen... and free snowmen you are! What will you do with that freedom? Will you fight?" ~Danania Wallace"

By 2011, my undercover-general Virgil Greenfield had enlisted visitors to Frostbluff to create new snow-life, even closer to town! By 2012, you see that the snowman army has breached the gate and prepares for the in-town siege! By 2013, we hope to overthrow the corrupt Frostbluff mayor and establish a new rule and order. 

I will be back next time to wrap up with my yule festival scrapbook!