The Return of the Other King

It has been nearly four years since I last posted in this blog. A lot happened, including a very long break from LOTRO. I had become frustrated with many things about the game that I don't need to go into here.

Most definitely some spoilers are below regarding Gondor, Minas Tirith, and Volume IV of the Epic line.

About a month or so ago, I was missing Middle Earth so decided to explore a bit. The last time I played, I was about ready to move into Wildermore. There were now many, many more chapters of the Epic questline to explore, Helm's Deep to visit (I really do hate those Big Battles, sorry), Isengard getting its just desserts, the Paths of the Dead to pass through, Gondor and Dol Amroth to visit, a new house in a new neighborhood to buy (like I needed a hole in the head), and Minas Tirith to reach. I admit I have been enjoying being back in Middle Earth.

I've now hit level cap, and am still questing and following the Epic line in Volume IV. I can't express the happy surprise when I began one of the chapters in Osgiliath. I was getting a bit tired of the area and looking forward to moving on to Minas Tirith, so was in a hurry and ready to rush through the final instance chapter of that particular book, when I saw someone who looked a bit familiar appear and then disappear in front of me. Later on it happened again, when I saw the figure of a woman from behind whose dress and hair looked very, very familiar. Is that?... Hang on. A minute later, there she was again. Amar...Narmeleth! What the? And what is she pointing at?

Then in he came, the star of one of my favorite lore-based storylines from early LOTRO - now calling himself Gothmog, otherwise known as Mordirith, otherwise known as Eärnur, the last King of Gondor. He was back!

I'm not going to spoil the various other encounters with him through the Epic line. Nor do I have any image to post as I'm really no longer in the business of maintaining this blog, so don't take screen shots as I go anymore.

But I was so happy to see him, because I had been hoping very much that once we reached Gondor, we would learn more about the Last King. It just seemed like too good an opportunity for them to not revisit his story; I mean, a former king and descendant of Elendil who was twisted and turned by Sauron and the Witch King into such an evil entity, how could you not explore that further? I was expecting something very much like what we get at one point in the Epic line, learning more about Eärnur perhaps in some old disused library in Minas Tirith. I expressed that hope in an earlier blog on Cirion and Eorl the Young a few years ago. I also explored his story in a blog on the lore behind the Captain class. So you can imagine how pleased I was to not only get to read a little more about his LOTRO story but to actually encounter him again, and see him in a far greater role than I had ever expected.

I won't go into more detail about his story - by all means, if you have not yet completed the Epic line, do so. I'm a bit sad that I won't get to encounter him in the 12-man raid, as my raiding days are long past. And I have no plans to revive this blog - too much time has passed and other things have taken my attention.

Yet this one thing was enough to make me want to log in and express how surprised and glad I was to see this, and how fantastic I think it was that someone had the foresight to include and expand this story - if it was MadeofLions or someone else, well done!

Lore in the Classes: Hunter and Captain

When I started playing LOTRO in March 2009, my very first toon was a Hunter, McFarlane.  She was my main for a long time, and I remember how very cool it was to go to my hunter trainer and find skills that had lore-based names.  My Minstrel, Gammy, was the second toon I leveled and I found even more skill names taken directly from lore, although a bit more obscure than the Hunter skills.  It led me to do a lot of reading to figure out what some of these less obvious names were referring to.

This post isn't meant to be comprehensive by any means, in fact I'm going to limit myself to the four classes that I have leveled to end-game (or what was end-game before Rohan): Hunter, Minstrel, Lore Master and Captain.  It is meant to focus only on class skills and traits.  It is also fun to come across items, such as armour pieces or weapons, that have lore-related names, but I won't cover those here.  The first installment will look at the Hunter and Captain classes.

Hunter

The Hunter class was inspired by - no surprise here - Legolas Greenleaf of Mirkwood. Curiously, however, we don't see many overt references to Legolas in the names of Hunter skills and traits.  There are, of course, Find the Path ("Your skill as a tracker allows you to increase the speed with which your Fellowship can move across terrain.") and Press Onward ("When the need is high, you can move on with little rest, restoring a great deal of Power and Morale in only a few seconds.") - moves that come in handy when running across Rohan tracking a horde of Uruks.

We do see a lot about Bard the Bowman.  If anyone remains who doesn't know who Bard is, you'll find out in presumably the second Hobbit movie next year.  Bard, descendant of Girion, the last Lord of Dale at the time Smaug devastated it and sent all survivors fleeing to Laketown.  It was pretty dang neat earning the ability to trait for the Bard's Arrow skill ("You fire with the skill of Bard himself, driving fear into evil enemies.").  We also have the trait Heart of the Bard ("A successful use of Bard's Arrow will reduce the current cooldown of Heart Seeker by 20 seconds.") which ties the Bard's Arrow skill closely to another skill, Heart Seeker, by reducing its cooldown.  Just like Bard took careful aim at the one sweet spot on Smaug's body, Heart Seeker ("Taking great care and practiced aim, you prepare a shot to strike at your target's most vital weak spot.") lets Hunters do the same.  I had a kin member who could crit that thing over 13K, back in the day before Heart Seeker was nerfed!

Another Hunter skill does not tie to another well-known hunter of Middle Earth.  Instead it relates to the close relationship Hunters have to the land, a quality they share with...the Ents.  The skill Earthborn increases the effectiveness of another skill, Strength of the Earth ("You can find strength from the land. Devoting all of your attention to the task, you can recover power swiftly in the midst of conflict.").  We see the term Earthborn used in the poem Treebeard recites that categorizes the various living species of Middle Earth:  "Ent the Earthborn, old as mountains...."

Captain

The Captain class, as the LOTRO Lorebook tells us, was inspired "by Eärnur, last King of Gondor, who was revered both as a captain skilled in arms and as a lore-master."  Very interesting indeed.

My main for the last two years has been a Captain, Leeowyn, and I absolutely love playing her.  I love the way Captains contribute to groups.  I love how versatile a class we are:  I can dps, I can main tank many things, I can main heal even more things if traited properly.  But always, always I have associated the class with one character:  Aragorn!  He too does it all - tanking, damage, healing, inspiring his fellows.  But...Eärnur?  Erm, let's take a closer look here.

Eärnur was the last King of Gondor.  As I briefly mentioned in my post regarding Cirion and Eorl the Young, Eärnur disappeared after riding out to meet a challenge from the Witch King of Angmar.  No one knew what happened to him, and thus began the rule of the Stewards of Gondor, giving Boromir and Faramir's ancestors years of employment.  As we know, Turbine found Eärnur and brought him back as Mordirith, the Steward of Angmar.  Not exactly someone I want to model myself on as a Captain!

This may explain why Captains can dress like this.

What else do we know about Eärnur?  I mention more about him in my post on Arvedui, the Ghost in the Bay of Forochel.  How he took a fleet of ships north to help the kingdom of Arthedain take a last stand against Angmar.  In Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings, this story is told and Tolkien does twice refer to him as "Eärnur, Captain of Gondor."  Yet he does then go on to describe him as follows:  "Eärnur was a man like his father in valour, but not in wisdom. He was a man of strong body and hot mood; but he would take no wife, for his only pleasure was in fighting, or in the exercise of arms.  His prowess was such that none in Gondor could stand against him in those weapon-sports in which he delighted, seeming rather a champion than a captain or king, and retaining his vigour and skill to a later age than was then usual."  So why not give him to the Champs?!?  I know, I know, I'm not being fair at all.  How brave do you have to be to ride out to take on the Witch King of Angmar?  It just maybe wasn't so...prudent.  And the poor guy obviously had to have suffered horrible torture once he was captured; the Witch King carried some major resentment toward him, after all.  But I will always have a tough time accepting him as the inspiration for my favorite class.  Sorry Eärnur!

Many of the names of a Captain's skills point to a connection to Elendil and Númenor:  Blade of Elendil, Adherent of Elendil, Blood of Númenor, Shield of the Dúnedain.  These could of course apply to both Aragorn or Eärnur as both are heirs of Elendil, convoluted or not.

Two things that I feel relate exclusively to Aragorn are the trait line "Hands of Healing" and the legendary trait "Oathbreaker's Shame."  I have never seen any connection between Oathbreakers and Eärnur; it was Aragorn who went to claim what they owed the heir of Isildur.  And the Hands of Healing is a direct reference to a quote by the old woman Ioreth of Minas Tirith, in the chapter "The Houses of Healing" in The Return of the King:  "The hands of the king are the hands of a healer.  And so the rightful king could ever be known."  I'm pretty sure I have never seen any hint that Eärnur was a healer.  Certainly not after he became Mordirith in LOTRO!

We also have some names that are iconic phrases in the Lord of the Rings lore, though perhaps not attributed as some may expect!  The Now for Wrath ("Your Rallying Cry will also heal a small amount of power, in addition to its normal effects.") trait comes from a speech given by Éomer (and not Théoden, and not at dawn, as those accustomed to trusting the movies might assume!):

"Out of doubt, out of dark to the day's rising
I came singing in the sun, sword unsheathing.
To hope's end I rode and to heart's breaking:
Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!" 

Captains also have a trait called Turn of the Tide ("Your Routing Cry now stuns your foes and inflicts more damage.").  In The Two Towers, we meet Gandalf again in the forest of Fangorn (non-book readers note this too is presented a bit differently in the  movie):  "He stepped down from the rock, and picking up his grey cloak wrapped it about him: it seemed as if the sun had been shining, but now was hid in cloud again. 'Yes, you may still call me Gandalf,' he said, and the voice was the voice of their old friend and guide. 'Get up, my good Gimli! No blame to you, and no harm done to me.  Indeed my friends, none of you have any weapon that could hurt me.  Be merry!  We meet again.  At the turn of the tide. The great storm is coming, but the tide has turned.'"

I dunno.  I do feel kind of naughty sometimes when I wear my Amarthiel/Mordirith outfit.  And here I always thought I was just a good Captain girl from Rohan....

Next time:  the Minstrel and Lore Master classes.