#arkenstone server

I missed it. Not so much doing of it, but being able to check back on things like when I last cooked particular meals for supper, or just how many days (or how few) the latest loaf of bread managed to survive, or when I'd last did different non-daily chores.

So, yeah, first day of December, first day of resuming my Thing of the Day posts. I'll also need to restart my count for managing to keep it up for at least a year straight.

December 1 - Picked up some ebooks on sale, including both of Robert Silverberg's Majipoor trilogies, which have been on my wishlist for years but were waaaay more expensive per volume than I wanted to spend on just replacing books I already own in dead tree form. But with four of the six dropped to the ~$2 range? You damn betcha I got the full set of both. I've mentally tagged that for a re-read some time later this month - it's been over a decade.

Ran about half of my monthly backups today, still need to dig out the drives from my emergency go bag to update them as well.

Also, finally dusted off LotRO and tried out the new Mariner class, in addition to popping for the new River Hobbit race, because they can be mariners and I didn't feel like rolling another man, high elf, or stout-axe dwarf when there was a shiny new racial option (well, new as of August just past).

She turned out very pretty. Named her Windolen (after the usual dozen or so attempts to find a name that wasn't already in use by someone else):

The new hobbits have a ton of facial adjustment sliders that prior races didn't have, plus a lot of new hair styles, including a whole pile of braided/cornrow/wavy ones, which is always nice to see. I'm kind of hoping they have the ability (and decide to) retrofit the existing player character models with the new adjustment sliders. And some new hairstyles. Which yeah would be a lot of work to put in on a game that was released 15+ years back (and was in development starting a fair few years prior to that) but it would be nice to have the option.

Dawn at Skald’s Drop

Also known as “almost 10 minutes of taking a screenshot every 10 seconds”.

Killed some time this evening taking some screenshots of some of my favourite characters that I've actually played at some point in the last few months, in some of their outfits I like most, with the pet(s) they most commonly use.

These are ordered by level of character, and are, respectively:

Somany the elf warden, with her turtle pet and turtle-shell spear, javelin, and shield, lurking on a hill top near Minas Ithil, and a metalsmith.

Iztariani the human hunter, looking very non-hunterish in heavy armour before the gates or Erebor, also a metalsmith (yes I’m amused that both my main metalsmiths are leather classes).

Magpye the hobbit burglar, dressed like a magpie, and just as inclined to collecting shinies, in the lowest circle of Minas Tirith, and my primary tailor. She was may original main, pre-Moria and the introduction of wardens.

Miffy the human captain, my original scholar, hanging out in Ringlo Vale.

Orri the dwarf champion; he’s very much a troll, and renames his stag at intervals with different anagrams of “Thranduil”, and is currently questing in Morlad, after making a mad dash to Dol Amroth for his embued LIs. He’s also my weaponsmith.

Leafwyn the human lore-master, and my first cook; she still does most of the food supply for my ever-growing horde of characters, and has been strolling her way in fits and starts through Rohan for several years now

Knarlie the stout-axe hunter, dressed in what I think of as his biker dude outfit, and almost done with Enedwaith. He’s taken up tailoring (of which I have many).

Gnormen the hobbit warden; he wanted to be a guardian, but I don’t enjoy the class enough to play another very much, so instead he’s a warden who uses swords and cosmetically equipped heavy shields, mostly, and has been working on the Wildwood quests and missions. He’s another of my scholars, specializing in dye-making

A couple of my favourite parts to replay in Moria in Lord of the Rings Online - instance play as Ori in ‘We Cannot Get Out’, where you survive glimpsing an oncoming Balrog, only to later be slain in the Chamber of Mazarbul near Lord Balin’s tomb (after introducing one’s axe to numerous orc and troll jacksies, one would assume).

So about 7-ish years ago I did a post showing all the characters I had on Arkenstone server at that time (all 15 of them). Some server merges, new classes, and new races later, I’m currently up 33 of them on Arkenstone. Lengthy descriptions under the cut.

Somany finally finished off all the questing (apart from dailies) in the Strongholds of the North. I’m... actually rather disappointed, at how quickly she ground through all of it. Now she’s moving on east (and eventually north) into the Iron Hills and Grey Mountains areas of the game. Not as lush surroundings as in Eryn Lasgalen and the Dale-Lands, but still much, much nicer to run around in than Mordor. Actually I’m kind of enjoying the open sky of the scrublands.