Beastmaster of the Nightwood

No deep lore dive this time! Just another outfit I’ve had sitting around for ages. I’ve held off on posting for a long time since I haven’t been quite sure about how I felt, but it’s been taking up an outfit slot for over a couple years now and I want the space back, so I finally decided it’s time!

It’s been a while since I originally made it, but I’m pretty sure it came about because I was trying to make an outfit surrounding the Lacquered Plate of the Ambusher, a reward for completing the epic quest Book 7, Chapter 7 in North Ithilien. I think a lot of the armor coming from this region is really cool-looking, but also kind of hard to match with other items in game. Apparently this was one such attempt on my part.

Making a matching warsteed outfit was hard, too. Eventually I decided on the Nightwood set to build around, but I’m going to be honest it’s not one of my favorites, either. This whole outfit and matching set felt more like a, “Enh. Well it’s something I guess,” rather than something I really liked.

That being said, the more I look at pictures of the outfit the more I like it. The armor is from the storyline having to do with Gondorian rangers, but personally I felt it looked more elvish, so I decided to give it to my loremaster. It also photographs well at night.

Outfit:
Head: Noriel's Leather Helm (black)
Shoulders: Boulstered Pauldrons of the Pathfinder's Artifice (black)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Traveller (black)
Chest: Lacquered Plate of the Ambusher (black)
Gloves: Strong Gauntlets of Thorin's Strength (black)
Feet: Wildermore Boots of Combat (black)

Steed:
Head: Head-piece of Lebannin
Body: Nightwood Caparison (black)
Legs: Dagorlad Leggings (umber or grey -- both work)
Saddle: Fateful Thunder Saddle

And that’s it! I’m currently working on getting a bunch more Gondor cosmetic items, but maybe after that I’ll head back to North Ithilien and see what else I can scrounge up. There are lots of quest cosmetic alternatives I never looked into, just picking a favorite on my first toon and never looking back. I’ll have to figure out which quests give armor.

Scouting out the Lonelands

So I’m currently running around Middle Earth with my 130 Elf Huntress as I complete the Ballad of Bingo Boffin. As a result, I’m revisiting a bunch of low level areas, and have decided to make outfits to go with it. My last outfit was worn as I quested through the Barrow Downs just outside of Bree, and today I’m sporting a more stealthy outfit as I travel through the Lonelands.

I’m actually having quite a bit of fun with this. Bingo Boffin is a pretty demanding hobbit. He’s lazy, and I’m half-convinced he can’t do anything for himself. But running around as a skilled warrior helping out a curious hobbit does make me feel more immersed in the world of Middle Earth than I have in a long time, and I’m having a lot of fun getting into the experience. Feeling annoyance at Bingo, dressing up in area-appropriate clothing, feeling superior and awesome next to this bumbling hobbit…It’s pretty awesome.

I see you orcs. Prepare to meet your maker.

I really had too much fun with this. But LOTRO is supposed to be fun, so that’s all that really matters. And as much as Bingo annoys me, questing for him really does make me feel like I’m back in Middle Earth.

So you want to dance, do you? Have at me, scum!

Moving on to a different orc camp to wreak more havoc…

Also, it’s really funny remembering that lower level mobs won’t attack you. You can literally run through the middle of an orc camp and they won’t even come near you. It’s like you don’t exist.

I’m supposed to kill you…but…you’re not attacking me…

Look, if I don’t kill you, you promise not to hurt me, right?

Alas, it was time to move on from my new friend. So I remounted my horse, and set off for Weathertop.

Also, I just want to say, it’s moments like this — where I can just stand at a distance and look at the majesty of Weathertop that I’m reminded of how much I love this game. This view is just so cool.

Lol I love how the feathers just float down after you kill a bird.

Outfit:
Head: Lesser Secret of the West Helmet (burgundy)
Shoulders: Pauldrons of the Mark (red)
Lesser Secret of the West Breastplate (crimson)
Gloves: The Bowmaster’s Gloves (crimson)
Legs: Spellweaver’s Leggings (red)
Feet: Lesser Memory of the West Shoes (black)
Bow: Exquisite Black Ash Bow
Sword: Defender of Gwingris
Dagger: Hero’s Dagger

Warsteed
Head: Head-Piece of the Northern Herald (Ccrimson)
Body: Harness of the Harbinger (crimson)
Saddle: Citadel saddle
Legs: Citadel Leggings (red)

Another Leaf Outfit Because Fall

One more leaf outfit! I was playing Harvest Festival, and came across this in my loremaster’s outfits. It was originally inspired by Cosmetic Lotro’s Woodland Elf outfit (shout out to you if you’re reading this!!!), only I wanted to make a more “autumn” version. Here’s the link to the original outfit — please check it out! (Although I have no idea why you would be following my blog and not theirs tbh):

https://cosmeticlotro.com/2018/11/28/woodland-elf/

And here’s a picture of my loremaster posing next to a deer in tribute to the original outfit as well:

I really don’t have much to say…I just really like leaf inspired outfits, and harvest festival had me itching to try out more outfits with the imladris fallen leaf dye and autumn leaf dye.

Yes that is the head of my marble wolf dog in the corner…she’s just…lurking…

Also I did not realize until looking back through my screenshots that one of the LM skills is literally throwing a pinecone.

Customary warsteed included:

I wanted to take more pictures in Lorien, but the outfit blended in a little too well….

Outfit:
Head: Ice Flower Crown (rust)
Shoulders: Malledhrim Pauldrons of the Awakened (rust)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Sage (rust)
Chest: Padded Waistcoat of Mordor’s bane (Imladris fallen leaf)
Hands: Shield Master’s Gauntlets (sienna)
Feet: Lesser Memory of the West Shoes (sienna)
Sword: Sharpened Sellsword’s Sword
Staff: Sealed Loremaster’s Staff of the Second Age

Warsteed:
Head: Mask of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance (gold)
Saddle of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance
Body: Caparison of the Autmn Sage’s Bearance (gold)

Gold of Lorien

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

Autumn Harbinger

Continuing the trend of doing the same outfit but in a different color…Sorry. I really couldn’t resist. This one just reminds me of Halloween. It’s basically the same as the previous one, except with different shoulders (the ones in the other outfit aren’t dyable). This outfit had a similar outfit with dying, where the same dye would render different pieces different colors, but it was slightly easier to compensate for with red.

Outfit:
Head: Time-worn Headpiece (crimson)
Shoulders: Expeditionary Mantle (crimson)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Sage (crimson)
Body: Vestments of the Autumn Sage (burgundy)
Staff: Hardened Ash Staff of Fate
Cosmetic pet: black wolf-dog

Warsteed:
Head: Mask of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance (burgundy)
Body: Caparison of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance (burgundy)
Saddle: Saddle of the Autumn Sage’s Bearance
Feet: Tattered Feathers of the Harbinger
Tail: Tail of the Gloaming Autumn

Wraith of Autumn

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

Forest Traveller

So…after some debate, I just said screw it. I’m posting this outfit in green too. After all, the purpose of this blog is really for me to catalogue my favorite outfits for my own reference. And considering this has been my huntress’ main outfit for over a year now, I decided I would post it too. Even if it is essentially the same as the last outfit.

This outfit actually came first, as I mentioned in my last post. It has different shoulders than the previous outfit – these shoulders were my initial pick to go with this outfit, but when I dyed it all orange, the shoulders didn’t work as well. So that’s that.

I wanted to pick an elk to go with the outfit, but it proved a bit harder than last outfit. In the end I decided to highlight the Elk of Felegoth’s Glory, but I also couldn’t resist adding a warsteed as well. Oops.

Also I had a really hard time picking a spot to take pictures in. It was hard to balance finding a place that was lush and green enough while also not being too dark, as is often the problem with forests. I tried Northern Mirkwood first, but that was too dark. Then I tried Fangorn Forest, and that was pretty good, except for an overall murkiness and fog. I did end up using several photos from that though. I did then go to the Old Forest at the edge of Bree just for some last photos, and that was probably the best location I found.

It was still hard though to get pictures where the outfit stood out enough against all the green.

Outfit:
Head: Time-Worn Headpiece (forest green)
Shoulders: Wymmar’s End (dark green)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Traveller (dark green)
Chest: Ceremonial Thunderstruck Shirt (forest green)
Hands: The Bowmaster’s Gloves (forest green)
Legs: Trousers of the Autumn Traveller (dark green)
Feet: Lesser Memory of the West Shoes (sienna)
Bow: Exquisite Black Ash Bow

Warsteed:

Head: Withywindle Halter (forest green)
Caparison: Withywindle Caparison (forest green)
Legs: Withywindle Leggings (forest green)
Saddle: Withywindle Saddle
Gear: Hunter’s Gear

Elk: Elk of Felegoth’s Glory

Autumn Traveller

This outfit has been around for a very long time. Like, over a couple years I think. It’s undergone lots of tweaking, some as recent as a couple days ago. But I’ve decided it’s time.

This outfit was actually developed at the same time as my “Forest Warrior” post – essentially, this was an alternate version, and I had to choose between the two (It was originally in green as well). After making my decision and posting the outfit, I then couldn’t bring myself to move on from it. Instead I started adapting it to a more “autumn” palette, and gave it to my fire RK. She’s had it as her main outfit ever since.

Just to give some background, sunset orange is one of my favorite dyes in game. I’m not quite sure why, as I’m not normally a huge fan of the color orange, but I love it. So. Much. It’s also the main color I’ve decided to use for my fire RK’s outfit. And, as it turns out, it matches perfectly with the default color of the Autumn Traveller outfit.

I purposely chose items that had elements of yellow and gold in it as well. This outfit is basically just supposed to evoke the image of “autumn leaves,” so I wanted as many shades of orange and gold as possible. I’m a little biased, but I love it.

I don’t often use steeds that aren’t my warsteeds (except in cities and stuff because as much as I love my war steeds, they’re still not the best at maneuvering. Like at all. Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll take my warsteed to Minas Tirith and see how far I can get before being rubberbanded back to the previous circle. It’s fun. Sort of).

Anyways, I do love my occasional elk steed, especially for an outfit like this, which really evokes “elf ranger” themes.

Outfit:
Head: Time-Worn Headpiece (sunset orange)
Shoulders: Golden Host Shoulder Pads of the Gloaming (sunset orange)
Back: Cloak of the Autumn Traveller (default)
Chest: Ceremonial Thunderstruck Shirt (sunset orange)
Hands: The Bowmaster’s Gloves (sunset orange)
Legs: Trousers of the Autumn Traveller (default)
Feet: Lesser Memory of the West Shoes (sienna)
Mount: Steed of the Autumn Traveller

Raven Master

So, I had no intention of making this outfit. Basically, I saw the Raven Mask while randomly browsing the Auction House out of boredom, and uh…approximately 30 seconds after seeing it, I knew exactly what I wanted to do for an outfit.

Honestly, I’m a little surprised I never made this outfit before. It would not be shocking either to find out if someone else has done this exact combination cause it just makes so much sense. Also, I apologize if the pictures are a little weird – my in game personal lantern has completely stopped working, and I wanted to take these pictures at night, so I’ve had to do some brightness correction after the fact

Also, turns out Raven LM pets are not super great to take pictures with. Considering they like to stand INSIDE OF YOU.

Exhibit A. What are you doing sweetie? WHAT are you doing??

That being said, I remember when I first started playing my LM and I got my first Raven pet, I was ecstatic. I didn’t have any cosmetic pets yet, so LM pets were all I knew about, and I LOVE birds. My Frost Raven went with me EVERYWHERE.

Also funny anecdote – I spent about 30 minutes going through all my toons trying to figure out who had the Cloak of the Raven – because I know I’ve had multiple copies of it over the years. Couldn’t find it anywhere, so apparently I’ve deleted them all or sold them, but after all that time looking, turns out I DID have it saved in my wardrobe. So…that was a lot of wasted time.

I also did not realize that summoning your Raven LM pet causes blue/purple mist and feathers to materialize everywhere. It might be because I haven’t used my Raven for a while, like since before I got a computer that could run the game at high res.

Outfit:
Head: Raven Festival Mask (white)
Shoulders: Light Nadhin Shoulders (black)
Back: Cloak of the Raven (grey)
Chest: Light Nadhin Robe (black)
Gloves: Light Nadhin Gauntlets (black)
Feet: Medium Nadhin Boots (default) – don’t really matter as you can’t really see them
Staff: Lainis

Ice Queen

Okay, I think this is my last winter outfit for a while. Especially since today is the last day of Yule Festival! And since I’ve done a Yule Princess and Snowflake post, I figured this time I’d go straight for Ice.

I actually have a couple color variations for this outfit, but this one is probably my favorite. I say probably because I’m really not sure. I just like all of them.

So anyways, this outfit started because I really wanted to use the snowflake gown, but didn’t think it actually went well enough with the cloak of flurries. Mainly because the cloak is extremely iridescent, whereas the dress is only slightly so. Then I remembered the bridal veil from midsummer festival, and thought to myself, “huh…”

Now, to preface some of the night photos, I’ve been having trouble with my in-game personal lantern. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. It worked fine for my ice-flower light blue outfit, but for some reason it didn’t work for this one, even though I took photos at the same place in game at the same time in game.

Luckily the Northern Lights were out in Forochel, so that helped.

Okay, so that’s the first variation. The second one is an all white outfit:

I like this one a lot too. Also, this one pairs really well with a warsteed, so that’s a bonus:

Just ignore how the dress clips through the horse’s belly. Lord knows that’s what I do.

Like it’s just so elegant and beautiful.

No I don’t see any clipping issues. I have no idea what you’re talking about.

I also experimented a bit with different halters/saddles, and found that it was really flexible.

And, whereas the blue version of this outfit looked really good at night with the Northern Lights, I found the golden tint to the white version makes it go really well with sunsets:

Then the last color variation is a black one, mostly because I really wanted to see how the bridal veil would look dyed black. It looks really cool by the way, though this is probably my least favorite outfit of the three:

Actually, I don’t know. This outfit is pretty cool too…

Anywhoooo…..

Outfit:
Head: Ice Flower Crown (moria silver, white, black)
Shoulders: Grimbeorn’s Shouldes (default, white, black)
Back: Bridal Veil (grey, moria silver, black)
Chest: Gala-worthy Gown (steel blue, white, black)

Warsteed:
Head: Head-Piece of the Ice Flower (white, white, black) – head-piece of the Northern Herald is also a good substitute (I used it in some pictures)
Saddle: Yule Gala Saddle, Saddle of the Northern Herald, Yule Gala Saddle
Caparison: Yule Gala Caparison (default, white, black)