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)

Hunting in the Barrows

This one’s just a fun, casual outfit I made once I realized that the Lesser Claw of the West set, the Isengard Dispeller set, and the Great Alliance set all share a similar default color. That’s literally all it took. I got excited that I wouldn’t have to dye much, and I made this outfit.

I also realized I’d never used these leggings for anything. So…yeah. That’s about it.

I think this outfit is going to become one of my faves for my elf huntress.

Outfit:
Shoulders: Shoulders of the Isengard Dispeller
Back: Quiver of the Waking Wood
Chest: Lesser Claw of the West Breastplate (default)
Hands: Gauntlets of the Hidden Blade (evendim blue)
Legs: Greaves of the Great Alliance (default)
Feet: Threadbare Boots of the Dunland Healer (walnut brown)
Bow: Sealed Hunter’s Bow of the First Age
Sword: Sealed Reshaped Champion’s Sword of the First Age
Dagger: Invader’s Stiletto

Warsteed:
Head: Head-Piece of the Northern Herald (navy)
Body: Caparison of the Great Alliance (default)
Feet: Starlight Leg-Guards
Saddle: Saddle of Blackroot
Gear: Snow-Beast Accessory

Rohirric Ruffian

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!

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).

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)

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

Music in the Mountains

So I did this outfit in two colors – one in steel blue to match the original color of the cloak, and the other in dark red. Funny enough, the red outfit formed first, and adding the cloak was a last minute decision. Once I decided to add it though, I decided I also had to do another color scheme that matched the cloak’s original version. I honestly don’t know which I prefer. I love them both.

I really like the way the white/silver of the shoulders matches the white designs on the arms of the tunic. It goes well with the snowflake design on the cloak.

Additionally, I decided to pick the medium Nadhin gauntlets and boots, since they have a sort of quilt-like texture that matches the tunic. It’s kind of amazing that they’re from different sets, actually (Although I guess both armor sets that they come from are from Gondor?)

So yeah, that’s it! I just really like this outfit 🙂

Red Outfit:
Shoulders: Shoulders of the Precise Bowmaster (default)
Chest: Lesser-Coat of the Fury Wielder (crimson)
Hands: Medium Nadhin Gauntlets (burgundy)
Back: Wintertide Cloak (crimson)
Feet: Medium Nadhin Boots (burgundy)

Blue Outfit:
Shoulders: Shoulders of the Precise Bowmaster (steel blue)
Chest: Lesser-Coat of the Fury Wielder (steel blue)
Hands: Medium Nadhin Gauntlets (steel blue)
Back: Wintertide Cloak (default)
Feet: Medium Nadhin Boots (steel blue)

Happy Holidays!