Place any news you learn of the new Lothlorien zone here please. Kenzu

Its a pretty basic 4×4 with not a whole lot of interest except one new level 12-15ish mob.

08/04/2007 - Three new Lorien Zones opened. Please post findings here. Kenzu

08/06/2007 - I've been mapping in the new zones some, seems pretty straight forward mapping the above ground zones at least (there is one muddle type maze in the north center of the zone). As far as secrets, I've found one carving in the south wall in one of the rooms behind waterfall in the underground lake. Seems to have a “depression” with a slot for a “leaf” missing. I tried a few plants and none works, Lorien map anyone? There seems to be an exit down from the room with warrior patrol mobs that is a bit to the south but search reveals nothing. To open the tarp, simply go to the other side (outside) of the room, untie rope, open tarp and that's it. Also, to the max east or so there is a hidden door fallenstones that lets you into a underground area I haven't had much time to look at yet but heard it has living statues and tarantula inside it. Also, in the same spot, there is a underwater swim exit (copperdoor) that is delayed open but seems to lead nowhere special. Heard one group talking about a “beaten piece of metal” or so, to do something with… but no clue there.

Couple more underwater swims that seem to lead nowhere special, and also aren't that dangerous.

Questions remaining: What is up with the named elven ranger mobs? What is the quest involving the carving? What is below the patrol load room? What is up with the metal. Anything special with the orc mobs? They load anything, I heard of a “flute” or so…?

*Yousha*

There is a post on trolls board about some kind of “sack of endless water” from new Lorien zones… Any info on that? Ostu

Here's a quick and dirty map of the new zones. I'll clean it up later but at least we can all see what we are talking about.

Offa's quest is now explained on the quest page.

There's a tentacled beast (reasonably easy to kill) in an underground area a little south of the random area that guards a skeleton which has an elven letter.

  __   _________________________________________  _________________________
 /  \_/                                         \/                         \
 |                                                                          \_ 
 |  Greetings to you my dear Friend,                                          \
 |                                                                            |
 | I fear I do not have much time and I will keep this letter short. I would  |
 | love to write in detail about the things I saw and the trees I walked      |
 | under, yet there are some important matters to take care of. I have        |
 | recovered the key, but alas, it seems time and fate played an evil trick  _|
 | on us; we will not be able to use the item in its current state.         | 
 |                                                                           \
 | Do not worry too much, now, for I think it could be repaired. Still with   |
 | all those evil creatures sneaking and lurking around the place, I do not   |
 | think it would be easy to gain entrance or wise to hide around there!      |
 | You do know what those tunnels look like, I could not even make a fire!    |
  \                                                                           |
   |e will meet at the beginning of the next winter in our beloved city. I do |
  /not dare to carry the key all the way with me, I fear I am not strong      |
 | enough to cross the Anduin, I could never fight all the creatures I could  |
 | encounter.                                                                 |
 |                                                                            |
 | If I drown in the currents of the river, if something foul or a hungry     |
 | beast attacks me at night, carrying it with me, having it in my pocket,    |
 | you could never find it and, alas, the treasure would be lost for all      |
 | times to come.                                                             |
 |                                                                            |
 | Do you remeber the cave we found about hundred years ago while following   |
 | that grey stag? It was dry, secluded by dense bushes, and uninhabited but  |
 | by rabbits and mice. I will hide the key in there, so that no foul hand    |
 | will touch it and you may find it; just in case I do not make it to the    |
 | safe homes of our kind.                                                    |
 |                                                                            |
 |  We will meet again, dear Friend.                                          |
 |                                                                            |
 |                                             With the kindest regards,      |
 |                                                           Ereniel          |
 |                                                                           /
 |__________________________________________________________________________/ 
 

If you walk to Ecthelion with this letter in your inventory he reacts to it and asks to see the key so he can tell you more.

What you need is a dented, dull leaf of metal which loads guarded by a rattlesnake in rockpile s2w2ne from where the entrance to the tentacle beast is. Kill the mobs, loot the metal and head to ecthelion with both the leaf and the letter. Give him the letter then the leaf then the letter again and he will repair the leaf to be a shimmering leaf of metal. Head back to east Lorien where the underwater caves are and go to the depression. Use the leaf to unlock it and 1s is a chest containing a small elven bag. In the bag is a cup that gets filled with water everytime you remove it from the bag. Infinite water and it only weighs 1 pound. Bag appears to decay with time, not amount of use.

The flute loads on a commanding orc some north east of Rikorr in the room with the typo name “Brushes” not “Bushes”. Open rock and kill the orcs to loot the flute. It seems to have no use other than a musical instrument but it's worth 2k xp at Erestor.

Under the stoneblock near where Offa lives there is a locked symbol with a hunting horn on it. I didn't have one on me so someone needs to try this later.

I tried blowing a hunting horn in that tomb, but nothing happened. I also tried blowing a rough wooden horn there, but again nothing (no surprise on that one). There is no keyhole to the symbol, it's nopick; is there any way to open this other than bashing or breaking it? Also, what loads in the chest in the main room of the tomb? Is the bear statue good for anything other than exp? Are the reliefs on the walls of the tomb useful for anything, or just decoration?
-Culthwen

I took the small elven bag to Tarim the Hermit, located in the Intertwined Woods maze. I gave it to him, he shows that you can get lembas from it (just “get lembas bag”), and he gives it back to you. The lembas wafers decay almost immediately. What else can this bag be used for? It's not just water!
-Culthwen

You can take the flute of bone to Tarim the Hermit as well. He breaks it, but says he has nothing to give you. It seems there is no reward for doing this?
-Culthwen

I found this but I can't tell what it is trying to point us to.
-Stuart

To Offa

A am sending my scoot to deliver this message. A know this is risky, and your
work here is no concern of mine, but do read on; you wall be interested.

One of my men was searching the settlements when he overheard a conversation.
First it seemed like another legend told by old men, but the youngsters
gathered there seemed to be preparing fur a journey. They were going to visit
the grave of some great leader who was slain in battle by a beast of Dol
Guldor.

At was the elves who found has body and built his tomb. Beware - it is said
that they laid a curse to protect it. There most be something valuable!

My man could understand only little of their destination, but luckily they left
some scrawlings in the sand as well. This is all A can tell you now:

Know the spot where the Anduin pisses by a dark forest nearby? You can camp
there and fill your skin at a sprang. Then go westwards for many males, through
the forest and over the plains until you find an old place of worship. Maybe a
road led there but at as surely overgrown by now. From there, head some miles
due west until you see some stone building atop a hill. It wall mark the
entrance.

It as not much, but I am sure you are able to find at. Good lock, hopefully we
can all return home soon.

This is pointing to the tomb with the bear statue, the one where we thought a hunting horn might do something. I'm still curious if there's more to this tomb than has been discovered so far - I find it weird that we have both this note and an unpickable exit (symbol, in the tomb). Has anyone seen anything load in either chest in the tomb? I know the one in the room with the bear statue has loaded me a gem-inlaid knife, some minor things, and a skeleton; the skeleton was empty. Maybe something of note can load in it?
-Culthwen

I tried blowing a hunting horn in the room with the bear statue, but nothing happened. The note said something about a curse - has anyone with remove curse tried anything in there yet? Also, it's interesting to note that the bear statue does not seem to be aggressive (at least to Elves), yet you don't seem to lose alignment from killing it.

This note seems to refer to part of Offa's quest, although I'm not sure how the tomb fits in. The party is likely those Offa mentions that were slain in their tent by the Anduin. Has anyone found out if Coubhel the elven wanderer serves any other role than to be killed for a reward from Offa? Maybe try giving Offa's note to him? Or his cloakpin? Maybe Coubhel knows something about the tomb/bear statue?

Tried paper and cloakpin - he retuned them the first time then when I kept trying he just dropped them. - Stuart

As a sidenote, the bear statue does guard the chest in his room. If something more impressive than a gem-inlaid knife loaded there, that would be an understandable “conclusion,” apart from the unopenable “symbol” (well, unopenable without bash or break, which is unusual). -Belamir

Has anyone visited this area as a Beorning in bear form? Does the statue respond to “call” from bearforms? Tried it as Beorning man, nothing happened and statue is still aggro to them if they try and loot chest. The person I had helping me couldn't meta that far from Carrock so bear form still needs to be tried. -Stuart

Anyone know if the messages that you can see while wearing the golden quartzite ring have any purpose other than “decoration” ? I saw one in a room with a pile of rocks just northeast of that ruined village in the northeast corner of the zones, that showed a woman hiding something in the rocks and then running away (this is meant to be a sort of “flashback,” as the other messages are). But, of course, the rocks were empty. Is this just ambience?

Just thinking out loud here but the tomb seems to partially fit the idea that it's Boromir's grave. First he was a great leader slain by an Orc on the banks of the Anduin just like the letter says, secondly the grave has the horn symbol on it - Boromir was famous for carrying the horn of Gondor. Against this idea, the race is wrong - Beorning items yet he was a Gondorian Númenorean. Secondly the timing is wrong, MUME s set before the ring is found hence Boromir hasn't died yet. I can't think what this tomb is doing here, it serves no purpose and doesn't even fit the area. -Stuart

Could not do anything smart there in bearform :( -Griand

Coubhel apparently “sings”, possibly randomly. Someday when I have some time I'm going to idle a bit and follow him, to see what all he says, since he's connected to Offa who is connected to this tomb. -Belamir

Coubhel the elven wanderer sighs loudly.

Coubhel the elven wanderer says 'I used to sail the Great River in my boat for days and days, but the times are much darker now.'

Coubhel the elven wanderer says 'Should you ever need one, look for mine south of here. I hid it at the pebbled beach, where the'

Coubhel the elven wanderer says 'small trail from Lórien meets the Anduin.'

I haven't been able to find this room! -Belamir

I have :) I've updated my map on this page to show it. It's in a room called Small Trail along the Riverbanks. -Stuart

New Lorien Zones 28 Oct 11

Quick and dirty map of new zones (updated 30 Oct 11):

For those of you who use mmapper2 (make sure you have 2.1.0 or better) here's my mapfile http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14157107/fullmap2.mm2

Be careful when entering the area below boulder to travel under the Anduin, it's an epic troll trap spot with powerful troll mobs and delayed doors at both ends.

So far I've seen a few new mobs. I designed the NW zone. There seems to be some item 'ice shard' that does something to mana/move regen (I was told someone identified it) but no one knows how to use it. There's a nice roots trap spot, cloudy mist mob, frothing bear, and new staff load place. I'll add more as I discover more. - Imago

The instant-deathtrap in the ice shard area doesn't seem to be a deathtrap in the “traditional instant-dt” way (a room flagged as deathtrap, where the room description describes how you die). Instead, it's mudlled, and you can recover your corpse:

The mud has a deadly drag downwards and it even feels as if some invisible hands were grabbing your feet, pulling you downwards. The extremely foul air makes you choke and shortly after your mouth fills with the stinking mud, your lungs follow, and you suffocate.

You are dead! Sorry…

Something vanishes in the mud.

Your corpse shows up in the room west of the deathtrap. - Belamir

You gain access to the ice caves by killing every single mob in the swim roots/tentacled beast area. When you do this extra grey and dark mists appear. Kill those too (don't forget the new set of roots that appear 1e of where the beast was) and the wall opens automatically.

1 west of the door is the black, icy shard, if you flee from it you appear “Lost in the freezing dark”. Anything you drop in this area vanishes, the biggest issue with this is that you cannot cast 'create food' as the mushrooms vanish! To get out of this area, exa n, e, w, s and move whichever direction you see a light. The mob hits semi hard and has lots of Hps and it difficult to hit with only 3 engaged on it. It took 2 staffed casters to nuke it dead because it seems to drain mana, a buffer and a couple of hitters will also kill it but this may take some time. When it dies you get transported to a new room where the shard floats in the air. The way out is 1e of this room. I ID'd the ice, it seems useless as an item so I wonder if it's part of a quest (it's rentable so I don't think it's a key). - Elatan.

You identify a shard of black ice.

It is an evil, enchanted, and unsellable object.
It decreases mana regeneration by twelve and hit point regeneration by eight.
It weighs seven ounces and it is worth about ten lauren.
Its keywords are shard, ice, black, and razor-sharp.
Its magical key is iraqluah.

This is a seemingly polished shard of black ice. It measures roughly twelve
inches in length and maybe half of that in width. The edges of this splinter
are razor-sharp and hard as steel. The non-melting splinter is very cold and
is constantly covered with frozen, shimmering moisture. Deep within the black,
slightly transparent material seems to be something else - something even
darker, something that moves.

You identify a black heart.

It weighs three pounds.
Its keywords are heart, black, and slimy.
Its magical key is nthakqinos.

This heart is pitch black, dark red blood still drops from the severed aorta
and venous. A pattern of over the black background barely visible deep green
veins strechtes like a net over the heart. A bit undefined slime keeps
dripping from the heart, just as if it was not entirely dead.
Can be worn: on belt, or neck

Well there's a poppable tower as well. - Imago

Where is this please? - Elatan

I'm not too sure, while I was exploring that's what I was told. I assumed it was the area with the well. I just got wind that it's basically only able to be popped by darkies, or wilderness. So I'm guessing it's the furious dog area. - Imago

North east corner of zone is exit (hole) leading east to a 3 room area where the botanist lives. He offered a quest to first collect a letter from Lorien librarian and return it to him, after that he wanted elderberries from fangorn (see herb page for loadspots). After giving him those he gave 8 gold and his bag crumbled. Presumably the bag is also part of the reward but since it didn't load for me I don't know what it does.

The crumbling bag is a bug, for some reason the game thinks it's an illegal load and destroys it. I saw that happen to you and notified the coder of the quest about that. I suggest you re-attempt the quest at a later stage - Timodeus. - obviously it is a semi artefact and too many of them were in game so it insta decayed, much like wristband does at Offa

Quest seems to be fixed, reward is “a green leather bag”. Some form of herbal kit. Rumour is that you use it with the ice shard and “a black heart” from the butchered corpse of the fell beast. I've tried lots of combinations of commands and get no result so I assume I'm missing something. - Elatan

Frayed Fell Beast came for me the other day. It starts as a message about a dot in the sky then there's a series of messages about the beast getting lower and lower until he eventually lands and attacks you. At this point I blinded him to nuke/flee it and it flew away. I'm told you can just hit it dead but it seems to be a giant wimp and despawns if you disengage. - Elatan

Random thought… Has anyone tried a hunting horn at the slab? It worked at symbol! - Elatan

What about Wall of Twilight in Lorien? Does ice work there, perhaps they have finally finished this quest - Elatan

Ice shard is not a key to the Wall of Twilight, nor does it seem to do anything obvious there. My own opinion about the Wall of Twilight is that the “how” is already obvious (key from corpse near Isengard opens door wu from archer guildmaster, and corberyl inserted into depression opens wall), but as the key breaks and doesn't open the door, and the mudlle for the “insert” command at the wall doesn't seem to exist yet, these relate to something that is unfinished (maybe Isengard related?). I am curious, though, if anyone has thoughts about WHAT might be behind either the locked door or the wall of twilight. In trying to figure out “how” to open those doors, I haven't heard a single comment relating to reasons the game might give us to want to get past those two doors. - Belamir

The huge, frothing bear in the southwest corner of the zone butchered me a ring. Does it butcher anything else that's .. odd .. for an animal? - Belamir

There's a curious “hole” at “Giant Kettle in a Wide Gorge” near the randoms area. Too small to fit through, but if you drop anything in that room, it disappears down the hole. Says something about water at the bottom. Does this lead anywhere? - Belamir

The wall in the mist/shard area seems to be timed in a really unpleasant way. I killed all mobs, then second round of mobs, and got the message that indicated the wall opened - and then I waited a few minutes to regen before entering. When I was ready, I found the wall closed and locked. No new mobs had repopped. So I suggest that if you're doing this mob, you enter ASAP, then if you need to regen, do it after fleeing from the shard. - Belamir

Quick summary of outstanding questions:

• What use is the ice shard?
• What use is the black heart?
• How do you open/move the rock in the Ruined Sanctum where the stone statues are? (Altar has pictures of bear, moon and river on it.)
• What controls the logs over the Anduin? I assume this is seasonal but confirmation please.
• Is the green bag just a fancy herbal kit or does it do something useful?
  • at least load is restricted, as it crumbled after doing it the days after it loaded.
  • Is it a pseudo-artifact item, with limited number in the game? Does it decay?
    • How would you deal with an artefact container decaying? Decay after usage maybe? Could you imagine people being happy if their scaly kit vanished… In any event my bag has been with me for about 11 days so I'll say it doesn't decay. Nor does black heart nor ice for that matter.

I take it all back, I was dead wrong about the bag.

A green leather bag crumbles to dust in your hands.

It crumbled after about 2 weeks.

• Why is there a nocast, isolated room under roots in the NE zone, this makes no sense at all?
• When do Elderberries load? It seems they do not load in Autumn. They do load in winter.
• Is there anything worth visiting the western area for? I can only find hatch and smoothrock. There must be more or this area is a total waste. Certainly not worth the risk of passing the trolls or swimming across.
  • If nothing else, there load unsized fine leather gloves at the shaman's place, hence the place will be visited by trolls quite often IMO. /Elestir
• Supposition: The ice, heart and orc shaman (under hatch) are part of a quest for the followers of Sauron. This is a complete guess but if it's not true the the builder of the western zone built a complete lemon.

In case this quest hasn't been solved yet: Maybe someone who has star charm on their bn can test what happens when you try to call beast in new zone. Very long shot but I thought maybe something might happen since there is this mob 'fell beast' in new zone. Benedictus

Timodeus has confirmed on public forum that the ice shard and fell beast heart are part of something that is unfinished, so do not bother for now. - Elestir