Linett sat down today to go over some maps very carefully and plan her next adventure, but she neglected to provide a map to her own location! Where, dear readers, did our lovely Lore-master find those maps?

Alas, school continues apace…and by apace, I mean the nonstop pace of grading freshman English papers has not much abated. Much grading, scarcely any LOTRO time, no blogging, alas. Finally found some time this weekend to play after a month or so away, but it was fairly uneventful.

Now, however, I feel a sudden need to go play in search of good screenshots, for this forum thread:

Poets and Pictures

Looks promising - post a screenshot together with a poem that suits it. Your own, or another poet’s. I think it could become a delightful thread, especially if all you creative people reading this go post some poems’n'pics too.

It feels like forever since I spent any time in LOTRO, though actually it’s just been three weeks or so. Summer is officially over for me, as students returned to school today and the two days before that were for teacher preparation (aka meetings heaped upon meetings with the rare moment to actually plan a first-day-back lesson or two…). I’ve spent, on average, ten to eleven hours straight at school each of the past three days…so no energy to spare for gaming by the time I get home! Ah well. That’s what weekends are for, right?

The last two weeks of summer vacation were busy, with a student trip to Junior Classical League convention one week followed by a family trip to Florida (oh the humidity! wait, I live in Indiana. Florida’s not really much more humid than Indiana in deep summer…). Lots of fun but it is nice to be back to the school routine. Getting back from Florida just two days before the teacher prep days, however, was not the best way to ease back into the academic schedule - sleep-deprivation looms at my door. Once we get past all the first-day problems and things settle down, I’ll see about airing out some of those alts again!

tomw_83 correctly identified Brockenborings (or the Greenfields surrounding it) in the last picture, so let’s continue with round 2!

Can you name the spot where Horazia paused to throw a copper in a wishing well, under the gaze of that imposing ruined hilltop fortress?

One of the nice things about leveling alts is rediscovering places Linett hasn’t been for a long time - and little things she never even noticed when she was there. So, here’s Horazia for the next round of “Where in Middle-earth is this?”

Under this lovely spreading tree the Hobbit-lass paused from hunting down some wolves to ponder her next poem. She sought inspiration in some musty old volumes left lying there by readers unknown, but it was pretty dull stuff, histories that went on and on. Fine if you’re writing an epic, but Horazia is not the kind of poet to write epics. If she ever makes it down to Fangorn, the Ents will be sure to call her “hasty.” She is the kind of poet who writes limericks, and epigrams, and if she’s feeling up to something lengthier, satires. She was pondering a satire about her annoying elder brother Horazio (who is the kind of poet who writes epics, in fact, and the occasional idyll about the Shire-fields, you know the sort of stuff I mean), but only managed to sit still long enough to pose for this picture, showing off not just this lovely spot beneath the spreading tree, but also her fancy bee-keeper’s hood.

So, dear readers, where is Horazia’s pondering bench?

This may be the oddest reason I’ve found yet for starting [yet another] alt; but I blame it on my professor.

I just finished a 2-week graduate seminar course on Catullus, one of many in my pursuit of the degree of “Master of Latin”, yay! (Seriously, can I call myself a Lore-Master in real life once I finish this degree?) The professor, who shall herein remain anonymous, is an expert on Horace - and the first seminar I had with him was on Roman Satire, Horace & Juvenal mostly. So amidst the discussions of Catullus were many, many references to Horace - not undeservedly; Catullus predates Horace a bit and was influential to the later poets.

So I was quite used to hearing about Horace every day, but when the professor referred to an anecdote in Suetonius’ Lives of the Poets reading as follows:

In person, Horace was short and fat, as he is described by himself in his Satires,3 and by Augustus in the following letter: “Dionysius has brought me your small volume, which, little as it is, not to blame you for that, I shall judge favourably. You seem to me, however, to be afraid lest your volumes should be bigger than yourself. But if you are short in stature, you are corpulent enough. You may, therefore, if you will, write in a quart, when the size of your volume is as large round as your paunch.”

My first thought was that Horace was a Hobbit. Short and fat. My second thought was that I ought to roll a Hobbit alt, as fat as can be, and name him Horace! Yes, class was especially inspiring this year!

So when I got home from class I went to play with character creation screens, instead of translating Catullus as I probably should’ve been doing. Horatius Flaccus was a Roman poet, so of course my hobbit ought to be a minstrel, right? Being somewhat more comfortable playing characters of my own gender, though, I made Horace a girl. Horatia, which would be the usual feminine form of the poet’s Latin name, was taken so my version is Horazia, a Hobbit minstrel:

But Hobbit females just don’t have quite the “short and fat” options that males do, so I went and rolled a Horazio too, making this one a warden, which is totally unrelated to the Latin poet, although Horatius Flaccus did fight on the side of Brutus against Octavius….which probably did Octavius more good than Brutus, for Horace wasn’t much of a soldier.

Now that’s Horace.

I figure Horazio and Horazia are brother and sister. Be warned if you see them, you may be subjected to poetry recitations! But not long epic ones, as if I had rolled an elf called Vergilio: Like their namesake, in the Alexandrian tradition, they will endeavor to keep their works short (concise) and fat (stuffed full of meaning).

Since it doesn’t take long for posts to get lost in the Recent Posts listing, here’s one you should see if you haven’t already come across it. Mike, a.k.a. Leblanc13 has had a fun idea for putting together a kinship made up of those who regularly post or read on My.LOTRO. Sounds like a good idea to me, since most of my favorite blogs to read here are not players on my server (poor deserted Nimrodel!) so I can enjoy their posts and comment on them here but never see them in game. I’m definitely in favor of a bloggers’ kinship; if you’re interested too, check out the original post. The plan is to start things up within about a week, so go leave a comment if you want to be part of it!

Linett says…

I returned home to Combe earlier this week to join my father in the Bree-land Summer Days Festival. Bree is beautiful this time of year, alive with colors and smells and sounds.  And the people! The town seems busier than I remember it after months away. Even in the face of darkness looming from North and South, the people engage in a most hearty celebration of these bright days while they last. I joined in dancing and merry making with the townsfolk - and took a day trip out to Hobbiton to celebrate the season with the merry little folk there as well. I’ve acquired a new hat which I rather like:

A new cloak as well; though it’s rather gaudy for everyday wear, its brightness seems only fitting while I am here celebrating the summer.

This evening, some folk gathered at the festival grounds outside of Bree for a night of fireworks and games. I love a good fireworks show! After a few preliminary displays of lights, we took off for a game of hide-and-go-seek within the town. The wily dwarf Godiff hid himself up on one of the roofs for the first round! Nevertheless he was soon found by one Gloinon. For the second round, both Godiff and another celebrant, Blakgrim, hid within the town. I nearly found Blakgrim, but he was spotted first by an Elf called Elalfer, who kindly insisted on sharing the prize with me since I had come in right on his heels. We found Blakgrim hiding in the Cat Lady’s house - or so the people of Bree call it! The lady who keeps so many cats was not at home, but I do not think she would mind her home’s use in our revelries.

My prize was a supply of fireworks prepared for this year’s festival, so I joined our hosts, Godiff and Medallion, in displaying them for the final show. I enjoyed myself greatly in the festivities tonight, both the hide-seek and the fireworks. I always think that setting off a single firework looks so lonely and forelorn; only when it is one of a series of them, or a crowd of little lights all sent skyward together, does it really come into its own. Tonight’s show was just such a delightful display!

Becki says:

Thanks, Medallion and Godiff, for hosting the hide and seek and generously providing the prizes as well! Both it and the fireworks were a lot of fun. I often see notices of special events like this coming up on the forums for the other servers, but it seems like Nimrodel doesn’t do a whole lot of that, so it was extra special to find myself in game just in time to get in on this one! Hope to see more of it in the future…Hm, maybe I should host something myself?

Two of my girls have a new title!

So nice to enjoy the brief Sunshine, and to carry its legacy back with them into battles in the dark places of the world…(Hey, it’d be nice if having the Sunshine title entitled you to brighter lighting in Moria too, wouldn’t it?)

Alduine has been having a wonderful time at the Summer Festival this year. First she helped stock the Bywater pond with fish from the far corners of the map (the first fishing she’s done!). Along the way she assisted some scatterbrained individuals with finding various items they had misplaced, and restrained herself from suggesting that in future they keep said items attached to their person with one of those parent-to-child leashes…since they do seem to lose them again every year…

She bet on numerous races of overstuffed Hobbits and drunken Dwarves, most of which ended, like the following videos, with the contestant she supported coming in well behind the winner…

Mudric loses the Taste of Hobbiton race | Lar loses the Dwarf Race

In all the races she watched, every time her favorite lost (and Linett has only won one of them so far)…but they were fun every time, all the same! Those Dwarves and Hobbits in the races are hilarious, so much attitude!

In between races Alduine did a lot - A. LOT. - of fishing, because with her record for not winning the race bets, that was the best way to earn a lot - A. LOT. - of summerfest tokens, namely 56 of them, the amount necessary to upgrade her blonde sorrel horse to a beautiful new festival horse!

Which shall be named Freckle.

In celebration, Alduine let off some fireworks:

She watched others set off fireworks, too, quite frequently, especially while waiting around for races to start!

Then there were dance classes. Alduine made it around to all four festival grounds to learn the dances of every kindred. Actually she already knew how to dance Elf-style; she learned that at the last festival…so this summer just called for a few more advanced classes. She’s thinking of trying out for a chorus line or something, so here she shows off her newfound dancing abilities:

Dwarf Dance 1 | Dwarf Dance 2 | Hobbit Dance 1 | Hobbit Dance 2 | Man Dance 1 | Man Dance 2

She also discovered why you should not dance while holding a fishing rod. It becomes airborne!

Linett’s main goal at the festival, since she is content with her wintry steed, is apparel. Something about her being a Tailor… So she has a flashy new cloak, and will continue fishing to earn a pretty new sunhat that she can tuck her hair up into for these sultry summer days.

Linett has spent some time on more “serious” pursuits than festival fun and wardrobe upgrades, however. First thing she did was to reorganize packs, vaults, and housing chests with the new bigger stacks of food and crafting items, as well as exchange some old materials for the new, much more logical ones, and thus free up some pack space, hallelujah! (Such a pack rat. It’s just dreadful.)

Then she went to Lothlorien, where this gorgeous view of the Celebrant just south of Echad Andestel distracted her for a moment before she could go on to find Haldir. That led to revisiting ol’ Mazog…

But it didn’t lead much farther into Book 8 quests than that, because once Mazog was safe in custody again, soon after that Linett got a note in the mail about the summer festival and dropped everything else to go play. She watched some races, caught some fish, and also wondered how this fellow managed not to fall over backwards:

(He ran up on his horse and dismounted into that strange angle, so I think it had something to do with the horse climbing the steps…but weird!)

Now, Linett’s heading back to the docks to fish up some more tokens and fetch that sunhat…and maybe a banner or flowerbox for the house as well! Vanita might see about getting a sunhat as well, and Arethryth is eyeing Alduine’s new horse….Then Trumpkin and the other younguns must have a look at the newly restructured Breeland quests! I guess it’s safe to say I’m enjoying Book 8 so far…

I found this site recently via a link in a forums post. Can’t remember what post it was in, anymore - but what a valuable link!

Darzil’s LoTRO Crafting Guide

What’s nifty is that you can see both stats of crafted items and pictures previewing how they look. Plus - lots of other handy info. Very spiffy!