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The Road to Mordor: A haunted tour of Middle-earth
Despite what the brochures may tell you, Lord of the Rings Online's Middle-earth isn't all puppy dogs, sparkly rainbows and ice cream wagons. In fact, when you take a moment to stop screenshotting the living daylights out of the Shire, you'll quickly realize just how dark, cold and brutal this world is. Middle-earth is a realm where good is under siege by evil, and in many places, the evil is winning. You can see this in many places that formerly held beauty, but now are covered with the decor of death: bones, blood, cages, pikes and filth. Evil isn't just Freddy Krueger-style splatter, either -- there are plenty of spots that are haunted by the spectral spirits of the beyond, and if you dare venture into their domain, you should probably have your will made up in advance. So in honor of one of my favorite holidays -- Halloween -- I want to take you on a haunted tour of Middle-earth, covering some of the most notorious spooky, scary and outright creepy places I've found. Grab your torch and let us push back the darkness together!
A Lord of the Rings Online Hero's Guide to the Old Forest
Have you considered traveling into the Old Forest, only to turn back at the first sound of a tree creaking maliciously or a wolf growing threateningly? Fear not, for you are not alone. In fact, many heroes and adventurers find themselves lost and slightly afraid of what's within those dark, ancient woods. And even though Tom Bombadil isn't far away, sometimes he can be a bit tough to find. Which is why Turbine has kindly composed a hero's guide to this potentially nasty locale.The guide itself is composed of lists of monsters, crafting tips and quest lines for the entirety of the Old Forest. Plus, at the end of the guide it even points players to their next destination. So if you've been stuck in this region of Middle-earth for a while (as many are always likely to do) and want to level beyond your teens, this guide is most certainly for you.
Lorebook tells tales of Ents gone bad
According to Turbine's most recently highlighted The Lord of the Rings Online Lorebook entry, even Ents can turn to the proverbial dark side. One might think that even if they did, it would take them such a long time to work out how to kill you that they wouldn't be much of a threat. Unfortunately, you'll hear a different story from anyone who's faced the dour-root -- or Huorn, as some call it -- in Agamaur.To be more specific, the monster is an Elite Master boss encounter in the Lone-lands' Garth Agarwen instance. It's probably not the first killer tree encountered by most LotRO players. That honor most likely goes to the Warped Oaks in the Old Forest.
The mysterious River-maiden Goldberry gets a Lorebook page
Ahh, the Old Forest. Lord of the Rings Online players have mixed emotions about this area: fear, respect, probably a very healthy portion of loathing as they stumble around in circles for far too long trying to get through it. It is here that you may stumble upon Goldberry, who has just been given her own page in the Lorebook.Goldberry is a River-maiden, but no one really knows what a River-maiden is. Appearance-wise, they resemble the races of Man and Elf, but much about them remains a mystery. Goldberry is married to Tom Bombadil, but only after failing to capture him once and having him come back to her later on -- if at first you don't succeed, hey? Bombadil is all kinds of crazy, so a visit to these two in the Old Forest is sure to yield some fun quests. You can view Goldberry's new lorebook page to find out a bit about the tasks she has for you, and also see the map of her location, if it's any help at all in the unforgiving forest.
Tom Bombadil skips his way into the Lorebook
Tom Bombadil is one of the most mysterious and bizarre characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth canon. Nobody, not even Tolkien himself, knows exactly what he is or what he represents, but he's depicted in such an impacting way that some readers theorized he might even be a manifestation of Middle-earth's God himself. Most Tolkien aficionados reject this theory, but nevertheless it speaks to the power of the character.Bombadil lives in the game world of The Lord of the Rings Online as an important quest NPC in the Old Forest, and he's the subject of the latest official Lorebook entry from Turbine. The entry matches the excellence of previous ones and is worth a read if you want to know a little bit about this pivotal figure in LotRO's lore.
