Here’s another sort of Viking-inspired outfit, this time with a distinctly Rohirric twist. The helm and gloves are both from Rohirrim cosmetic sets. It also gave me a chance to try out the Snowbeast warsteed set, which I’d gotten for myself last Christmas but haven’t really used. The outfit is very much supposed to feel like a scrapped together set.
Try me, outlaw! My baby bear will mess you up!
Ironically (or perhaps unironically if the outfit is supposed to be scrapped together??) it’s actually my high elf modeling this outfit. I think my thought process was supposed to be somewhat along the lines of, “what if my elf huntress went to Rohan and decided to immerse herself in the culture?” I’m not sure the finished product reflects that so much…by the time I finished it I actually had this narrative of a daughter of one of the horse lords who wanted to take up her father’s sword after he died, but had to scrap together her own armor and weapons to do so.
Something slew this orc…we should investigate! Oh wait. It was me. I killed it. Oops.
I actually really had fun with this outfit. I don’t know why…It’s just fun. And less “put together” than what I normally strive for.
I like that you can just see my bear cup poking out between my legs. Like it’s ready to attack, but not ready enough to go out in front lol
Outfit:
Head: Helm of the Hornburg Defender
Shoulders: Embroidered Mantle of Bard’s Will (black)
Back: Cloak of the Skin-Changers (black)
Chest: Jacket of the Sunset hills (default)
Legs: none -- for some reason if you wear pants with this tunic, it will change the color of the tunic t the color of the pants. I'm not lying. I don't know why.
Hands: Gloves of the Isengard Dispeller
Feet: Lithe Boots of Thranduil’s Power (black)
Bow: Arinora’s Bow
Dagger: Bronze Dagger
Sword: Potent Dextrous sword of Finesse
Warsteed:
Complete Snow Beast set (dyed black)
I think going forward I want to make more of these “pieced together” looks. They’re really fun 🙂 It’s like organized chaos. My favorite kind of chaos (and organization, if I’m being honest).
This is the last outfit for a while using this headpiece! I promise! Anyways, I actually had a really hard time building an outfit around this chest-piece, the tunic of the leaf-turner. It’s a gorgeous piece, but it does have a bit of an awkward shape, which in my opinion made it hard to turn into either a practical looking outfit or a more ceremonial looking one. I went for the more “elf-ranger” look.
I ended up really pleased with how this outfit turned out. I like the muted rust color paired with the more vibrant gold – it evokes a sense of wealth and luxury that I associate with elves, while also having a sort of…serious vibe? If that makes any sense.
Lothlorien is also a relatively hard place to take pictures in. There’s just…so much shade.
This outfit had some challenges, one of which surprisingly was finding the best model, which I ended up deciding was a female elf. NOT a female high elf – that outfit just looked a little too bulky for what I was after (likely due to the fact that high elves have a more open stance, a sort of “stronger” looking stance).
So yeah. This outfit…was a piece of work. But I like it 🙂
Outfit:
Head: Time-Worn Headpiece (orange – rust would work as well)
Shoulders: Tactical Shoulder Pads fo the Golden Wood (rust)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Sage (rust)
Chest: Tunic of the Leaf-Turner (default)
Hands: Gauntlets of the Lady’s Power (rust)
Feet: Boots of the Lady’s Power (rust)
Warsteed:
Head: Mask of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance (default)
Body: Caparison of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance
Saddle: Saddle of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance
I simultaneously love and hate this outfit. Love it, because it looks so cool. And hate it, because they don’t have enough shades of green dye to get an exact match.
Seriously, does anyone know the last time they added more dyes to the game? Can we please have more????
Basically, I wanted to do this outfit in ashenslades green. And it looked great. Except the shoulders I used aren’t dyable – they come with a default color, and that’s it. And the way the head dyed, even though it matched the dress pretty closely, the slight difference in green between the head and shoulders and the chest just looked…weird.
In the end, I settled for using olive dye for the head. Again, it didn’t quite match the dress, but honestly it was as good of a fit as the ashenslades green, and it didn’t make the slightly different green of the shoulders stand out. And yes, I did play around with dying the dress dark mossy green instead, to closer match the shoulders, but I couldn’t get rid of the ashenslades. It just works so perfectly.
Also I know I’m using this mask again. I’m actually gonna use it for a couple more outfits coming up. I didn’t necessarily mean to make a bunch of outfits centered around that mask, but I was making a bunch of fall inspired outfits cause I’m tired of winter and want to go back to when it was warmer, and…it just kind of happened.
I tried taking some photos in the day too, but turns out I have a bad habit of making my outfits camouflage way too well. Which is AWESOME for playing, but kind of frustrating for taking pictures. Still, here’s a couple of my faves (sorry for the Mirkwood murkyness):
But yeah, taking pictures during the day was really hard. Basically, unless I was casting a spell, I couldn’t see myself at all (and the above photos have actually been brightened a bit).
Night was much friendlier 😉
Outfit:
Head: Time-worn Headpiece (olive – ashenslades green works too, but the shades don’t QUITE match up with either olive or ashenslades)
Shoulders: Mantle of the Spring Woods (default)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Sage (belegaer blue)
Body: Vestments of the Autumn Sage (ashenslades green)
Staff: Hardened Ash Staff of Fate
Cosmetic pet: Friendly Deer
Warsteed:
Head: Mask of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance (olive)
Body: Caparison of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance (olive)
Saddle: Saddle of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance
Feet: Tattered Feathers of the Harbinger
Tail: Tail of the Gloaming Autumn
Ahh…it’s been a while since I last posted. But with Yule Festival underway, I got to revisit a bunch of old outfits I’d been working on. So I figured I’d post some of the winter-themed ones (Also I tend to reserve outfit slots for unfinished/unposted outfits, and I was beginning to run out of new slots for new outfits…).
So this is just another sort of rugged look for my hunter. I wanted one that was more brown and neutral, with a “fur and leather” look to it.
Also I finally got the spotted warsteed skin to drop from warbands in East Rohan! I think this time it dropped off of the Warg Pack south of Harding – but in the past there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to which war band drops it most frequently. So sorry to anyone who was looking for advice
Also, I don’t know if this is happening to anyone else, but I’ve been noticing some shadow issues with the warsteed armor. There are rectangular patches where the in-game lighting isn’t reflected/absorbed properly, so they appear either super light, or – in the case of the warsteed of the hunter – just show up as black patches. You can see this on the front legs in the picture below:
Anyways. I did send a bug report in, but it’s probably not high on the priority list of things that need to be addressed lol.
Outfit:
Shoulders: Embroidered Mantle of Bard’s Will (black)
Back: Quiver of the Waking Wood
Hands: Gauntlets of the Hidden Blade (black)
Chest: Lesser Claw of the West Breastplate (umber)
Legs: Huneric Hundred-Slayer’s Garb (umber)
Feet: Lithe Boots of Thrandruil’s Power (walnut brown)
I finally made an outfit based around the cloak of the Ibis! I knew from the start I wanted to pair it with the robe of hopeful melody because of the similar bird like patterns on the chest piece, and from there the rest of the outfit sort of just fell together!
The rest of the outfit ended up being composed of other pieces from the Dol Guldur raid – the shoulders are from the hunter set, and the hands and feet are from the guardian set. The armors from that set seem to either be based around bird imagery or leaf imagery, so I picked the ones that were focused more on birds. The color scheme ended up being based on the shoulders, which have an undyable patch of dark brown, so I ended up dying everything else to match it.
I also got to pull out a warsteed set I’d never actually used before – the Elven Wing Set. I got it back when it was only periodically available, but never found an outfit it matched. UNTIL NOW.
It took some fiddling with the dyes to get the brown colors to match, but eventually I got it using burgundy dye for the warsteed.
Outfit:
Head: Hat of the Hopeful Melody (dark clay)
Shoulders: Far-Arrow’s Shoulders (lorien gold)
Back: Cloak of the Ibis (Dark clay)
Chest: Robe of the Hopeful Melody (dark clay)
Hands: Shield-Master’s Gauntlets (lorien gold)
Legs: Trousers of the Hopeful Melody (dark clay)
Feet: Shield-Master’s Boots (lorien gold)
Bow: Hunter’s Bow of the First Age (level 100)
Warsteed:
Head: Elven Wing Halter (burgundy)
Body: Elven Wing Caparison (burgundy)
Saddle: Saddle of the Forest Spring
Gear: Hunter’s Gear
This is a very simple outfit – one that I almost didn’t post because it’s so mundane, but it’s basically my huntress’s default travel outfit, particularly around human settlements.
I like it because it combines more ordinary, dull, medieval stylistic elements with an elvish pair of leggings and intricate designs. It’s not made to stand out, but to blend in while still hinting at the elvish background of the wearer.
The pieces are all pretty easy to come by as well, although admittedly my dye choice is a little harder to obtain.
Outfit:
Chest: Rune-stitched Denlenduing Robe (walnut Brown)
Legs: Trousers of the Hopeful Melody (walnut brown)
Feet: Lesser Memory of the West Shoes (Sienna)
Hands: Leather Gauntlets of the Leaping Stag (walnut brown)
Short post this time 🙂 Hope everyone is staying safe!
This was actually the first vales outfit I made, but in retrospect I’m glad I held off on taking screenshots until my huntress got her warsteed.
This is one of those outfits that came together almost immediately. I really don’t have much to say…I’m in the middle of exams and my brain is fried. All I have left is calculus…that doesn’t require much brain power…right?
I’m also still trying to figure out the graphics on my computer…I swear I always turn the graphics all the way up, and it’ll look great in game, and then I’ll take screenshots and it’ll be grainy. I’m actually getting a new computer soon – the one I currently have still runs windows 2007 and is over 10 years old. The screen is being held together with paper clips and the battery is dying and it doesn’t recognize a lot of newer wifi systems…but it’s fine. It runs LOTRO, after all, right?
Outfit:
Shoulders: Fated Westfold Assault Shoulder Pads (olive)
Chest: Doublet of the Trickster
Legs: Trousers of the Woodsmen
Hands: Leather Gauntlets of the Leaping Stag (grey)
Feet: Reworked Boots (grey)
Back: Cloak of the Skin-Changers (umber)
Warsteed
Head: Hunter's Halter (default)
Caparison: Hunter's Caparison (default)
Saddle: Hunter's Saddle
Mane/tail: white
Body: brindled white
This is an outfit I made a while ago based around the vales gear. I don’t have much to say about it and I don’t feel like writing a lot, but basically it’s centered around chainmail, a worn aesthetic, and somehow a viking feel?
I also took these screenshots before I used my aria on my high elf hunter, so these pictures are set in ered luin (a lower level region).
OUTFIT: Head: Ceremonial Nenuial's Helm (burgundy) Shoulders: Ceremonial Shoulders of the Stone Servant (burgundy) Chest: Lesser Cry of the West Breastplate (dark clay) Hands: The Bowmaster's Gloves (crimson) Legs: Swift Leggings of the Vale (default/dark clay) Feet: Wildermore Boots of Combat (default/burgundy) Back: Cloak of the Skin-Changers (grey)
So I feel like the game masters in lotro and the devs and everybody etc. get a really bad rap from the players – or at least that’s what world chat is constantly telling me.
Anyways, I wanted to take this as my opportunity to personally express my gratitude to everyone who works on LOTRO and makes this awesome game possible. A lot of people complain about tickets and GMs, but in my experience they’re just really busy people who also really want to help you, something that isn’t always as easily accomplished as it is said.
For instance, a while ago I was running moria instances on my champ for deeds and LPs, and I ended up completing the mega moria deed or whatever that gives you the black nimble goat (or something…it’s a goat – that much I know). Anyways, I hadn’t realized I’d completed the deed until I got a message in chat saying “removing black nimble goat from your pending loot list.”
I’m not gonna say it was a strictly easy process – I submitted a ticket that kept getting closed everytime I logged off because “your character has to be online to process this ticket,” but eventually after a few back and forths I got a response from a GM saying they had verified my completion of the deed and had sent me the goat in the mail.
And this brings me to the topic of this post: when the ered mithrin expansion was first launched, I bartered for the cloak of the wise wanderer using figments of splendor. And then, of course, as we all know, the Curator (the NPC who sold cosmetic stuff for figments of splendor) was announced to be a temporary fixture in the game and was removed. That then brings me to this fall, where I took a couple months away from LOTRO to focus on the transition to school, and when I logged in, alas, the cloak was missing! Now, after diligently searching for it, I figured I must have just messed up somewhere – accidentally deleted it, or, more likely, I mailed it to one of my alts and the mail expired while I was away. I was upset, but figured nothing could be done.
And then I was actually going to submit a ticket for something else, when I chanced upon the drop-down panel regarding missing/lost items, and I figured why not give it a shot? So I sent in a ticket. Turns out, of course, I had to submit the ticket with the character who had actually acquired the item – which I didn’t do. Then of course there were the other roadblocks of “your character needs to be online so we closed the ticket.” Eventually though, I got a response saying “we’re happy to inform you we were able to restore the item to your account,” and I got the cloak back! Now keep in mind that this item was almost DEFINITELY lost because of something I did. But they gave me another one! And honestly I was at the point where I thought I was just pestering them and was about to give up, because with the new update now live they’ve probably got tickets up to wazoo.
So all I’m saying is, let’s cut the GMs some slack. They’re getting tickets all the time, and still they’ll take the time to help you with your own trivial matters. I don’t think it’s actually as straightforward for them to help us as we might think, but they still give it their best shot. It think like all interactions, you’ve got to be willing to be persistent but also respectful of the fact that other people are dealing with other things.
I know the devs aren’t perfect, I know the GMs sometimes make mistakes. But come on guys, they’re working hard to give us this game we love, and I’m pretty sure they do really want to help us. So maybe we can all just try to have a bit more patience and be a bit more thankful for what they do for us? I’m sure we must annoy the heck out of them at times, like when I sent in approximately 5 tickets over one cloak 🙂
OUTFIT: Head: Winged Circlet (default) Shoulders: Heavy Nadhin Shoulders (default) Chest: Far-Arrow's Jacket (white) Hands: Heavy Nadhin Gauntlets (Default) Legs: Far-Arrow's Leggings (white) Feet: Threadbare Boots of the Dunland Healer (white/default) Back: Cloak of the Wise Wanderer Bow: Bow of the Khazad-Dum Vaults
Warsteed: Head: Head-Piece of the Great Alliance (white) Body: Caparison of the Great Alliance (white) Saddle: Saddle of Rivendell Mane/tail: white Coat: white brindle
So I don’t think I’ve ever really featured a post that’s just about my main hunter, so here goes:
He’s from Rohan and got the characteristic light blonde hair. I like to think of him as not just a hunter, but also as one of those archers included in the battle line-up. Historically speaking men who fought with bows and clubs and spears and stuff (who couldn’t afford swords and heavier armor) tended to be those of lower rank, so that has inspired this guy’s look. He’s a seasoned warrior, well-skilled despite never having received formal training, and definitely not of the wealth status necessary to be a full on knight. Of course here I am mixing together LOTR with plain old medieval history, but it’s my character so who really cares?
He wears nice enough clothes, but they’re definitely more worn and rugged. You’d be hard pressed to find him in full-on plate metal or bright colors – he simply can’t afford that. I like to think he hunts as a way to make money and trade for some of the more expensive leather pieces he wears as pauldrons and arm-guards.
Basically, I don’t have a full-on backstory for him, though I do have plenty of ideas about his motivations and circumstances.
Accompanying him is his trusty steed Nino, who I devotedly named after a palamino paint foal I met when I was younger. He’s swift, agile, and loyal, plus his coat matches the hair of his rider.
Together they roam the plains of West Rohan, still trying to find the last piece of the war steed armor set that drops from war bands there…one day…one day…
OUTFIT: Shoulders: Ceremonial Pauldrons of the Mark (umber) Chest: Jacket of the Watchtower (walnut brown) Hands: Leather Gauntlets of the Leaping Stag (grey) Feet: Reworked Boots (grey) Back: Fancy Quiver (sienna)
WARSTEED: Head: Head-Piece of the Northern Herald (rust) Body: Harness of the Harbinger (rust) Gear: Hunter’s Gear Saddle: Hunter’s Saddle Maine and tail: Blond Coat: Tan Tobiano
LOTRO Adventurer 