Successful Kin Armor Run and Other News

 

Big news today.

First off we bid adieu for 6 weeks to Gentoogod.  Gent’s focusing on schoolwork, which is always a good idea.

Gentoogods giving a speech

… But Gent had to leave with a bang so in a riveting speech he extolled the virtues of Burwise and promoted her in his place.

In other news, Vorand was promoted to member. Vor’s been an excellent kinmate and one of the first to level to meet the Level 38 armor run requirement.

Additionally, Mandy distributed the kin hat to Reeality, Averydor, and Segolas, all of whom have done an excellent job in the kin.

But on to the kin event – the legendary kin armor run. Maloth, Burwise, Averydor, Reeality, Vorand, and Mandy headed over to Echad Candelleth to get some of the best <level 50 armor in the game. The monsters we fought were orange and red for everyone but Mandy, but for the most part we survived, barring the occasional cliff dive or frog swarm (here’s looking at you Mal!).

Everyones pointing fingers after Maloth got killed by frogs

In the end, we were successful as a kin and now we’re all set for our next goal: progress in epic, conquer Misty Mountains, and run through Forochel as a kin.

 

Landscape Screenshot Contest

Kin Landscape screenshot contest on now till 10/13.  Big prizes to the top 3 winners.

Click here for more info.

Congrats to Torchholder, Dedlock, and Celerieniel for winning our last screenshot contest!

Torchholders winning entry

Refugees of Isengard Monster Play Tribe Open for Business

Big news – we started up our own Monster Play Tribe and you’re all invited to join.  A Tribe is more or less a Kinship but for monsters.  Since your friends from your regular account doesn’t carry over to Monster Play, we can all join the Tribe to quickly find each other.

To join, let Mandymoore know you want to join and we’ll both switch over and I’ll add you to the Tribe.  Also I’m upgrading all tribe members to tribe officers, so some other people in the Kin (i.e. Burwise, Zapphira, Elodreth, and Reeality) might also be able to add you.

Have fun you little monsters!

Guess who

Vorand turns 35

Vorand, he of the lucky-rolling-at-our-kin-party fame, turned level 35 tonight. To celebrate, Maloth, Navarr, and I threw him a little party in honor of his accomplishments and bestowed the honor of wearing our kin hat.

Before wearing the hat

After wearing the hat (much better)

Enjoying the musical stylings of Navarr

Kin Party Recap

In short, it was awesome.

The Kin Party was attended by 15 people, and we had 19 people on simultaneously. That’s practically the entire server population of Gladden.

Theres even more people on than this pic shows!

We started off with a speech by me (one of many for the night), welcoming everyone to the party. Then we played for money. To start, Vorand won 100s in our rolling competition.

Then came the big announcement – this party was not actually one to celebrate my promotion to Leader, but really to celebrate promoting Dedlock and Beothborn to Officer. These two have really earned their promotions: Dedlock recruited some top-notch people like Burwise and Maloth, and Beothborn has been a loyal friend and a true team player.

As the first test of their leadership abilities, Knott and I devised a little sadistic game called Middle Earth Scavenger Hunt.  We put Beothborn and Dedlock in charge of two 7-man teams and had them scouring all of middle earth trying to solve our riddles.

The two teams square off

A subdivision of Dedlocks team huddles

 A quick 90 minutes later, the two teams met for turn in.

Beothborns team turned in theirs first

While the scores were tallied, everyone enjoyed the musical stylings of Burwise and Averydor showed off his award-winning dancing skills.  These two both earned 25s for their skills.

The final tally? Beothborn’s team won by a score of 23 to 21.  Both teams found 19 items, but Beothborn’s team had 4 members post on the forum to Dedlock’s 2. Goes to show – you should never skip doing extra credit.

Beothborn’s team took home the grand prize of 3.5G and Segolas earned a bonus of 200s for being the last pick on Beothborn’s team. Dedlock’s team earned a hefty consolation prize of 1G and Thevampire earned a bonus of 50s for being Dedlock’s last pick.

And lastly but by no means a small announcement, the Officers promoted Elodreth, Maloth, and Averydor to Member. These guys have done much to add to the kin in a short amount of time.

The real trick to earning promotions? Follow Dedlocks example...

And so that wraps up another fantastic kin party. Hope to see you all at the next one.

Ok ok, I guess I forgot about how the light source should always be behind the camera, not in front

Middle Earth Scavenger Hunt Item Clues

Key:

Quantity required – Item clue

Crafted goods:

• 1 – This floor covering of oriental make, winged dragon’s cue doth take.
• 1 - To stop the fishies from swimming through, just use this tool made of yew!
• 10 - Steel swords do break in two, bring ten pieces the hands can use.
• 5 - We’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth, bring us five pies and tarts or die trying.
• 1 – To hear music’s sweet notes, craft an instrument that rhymes with lute
• 1 – Usually tokens are good for 10 minutes at an arcade. This one faintly raises your hope for about 10 minutes.
• 5 – Slippery, slimy, and hot to boot, five of these oils will turn your enemies to soot. 

Drops:

• 1 - The heart of a tree known for its dour bark.
• 5 - Buggy buggy skin, from flies outside the kin.
• 5 - Bones of the dead are interesting but we need a hand.
• 4 – The British are famous for having a mouth full of these.
• 3 – The paws of animals that dwell in the snow have at least 3 of these.
• 6 – All that remains of a fellowship with the Priory were these 6 broken or rusted weapons.
• 4 – Babe was a delicate pig and had 4 of these. 
• 1 – If Eminem was a cat, this would be his paw.

Quest rewards:

• 1 – In Lost, Sawyer shot one of these. Now all that remains is an empty carcass to snuggle with in front of a warm fire.
• 1- This tree is of the genus Betula.
• 1 – Catch someone a fish, feed them for a day. Teach someone how to use this, and feed them till they upgrade to a yew pole.

Other assorted things:

• 1 – Great for storing jewelry or playing music.
• 1 – Although this trophy implies something giant, it’s one of the smallest trophies in lotro.
• 1 – A shard whose color is still tainted by the blood of its previous holder.
• 1 – Reheated frozen corn, peas, and carrots
• 1 – But a single page of a book all captains should swear by.
• 6 – When full fellowship gets high, they’d toke this (need 6)
• 6 – If every fellowship member got caught toking the above, they’d get this in their stockings (need 6)
• 20 – Dude, lets get drunk
• 1 – A perfect outfit for a wedding. Comes in white, purple, or green.
• 1 – Fishermen have to dress the part.

Middle Earth Scavenger Hunt Rules

Goal:

• Two teams will score as many points as possible in 90 minutes. When 90 minutes passes all players will be notified and all team members must meet at the kin house to turn in the prizes. The team with the most points will receive the grand prize.

Picking:

• The two team captains will roll for first pick. The picks will then alternate till everyone but Knott and Mandymoore are taken
• The person picked last on the winning team will earn a bonus of 200s if they stay on the team the whole time and contribute. The person picked last on the losing team will earn 50s if they stay on the team the whole time and contribute.
• Anyone who refuses to be picked or participate on a particular team will become ineligible to play the game and cannot win prizes

Scoring:

• 1 point will be awarded for every successful item stack brought.  For example, if a riddle requires 5 pies, the 5 pies count as 1 point.
• For every member who posts in the Party thread in the announcements forum with their LOTRO name and team captains name, the team will earn 1 point per. So if 5 of 6 team members post in the thread, 5 points will be earned by the team. There is a maximum of 1 point per person.
• This formula calculates the total score:

Correct item stacks found + Party thread post points = Total Score

• If a team gets all items and thread posts they can turn it in early.
• In the event of a tie, the first team to turn in wins. If both turn in simultaneously, a new tie-breaker game will be announced.

Turn in:

• All team members must meet at the kin house to start turn in.
• To turn in, all items must be given to the team captain who will then open a trade window and drag all items to Mandymoore. Any items that are not exact matches will be reviewed by Mandymoore and Knott to see if they fit the riddle.
• If all team members are not at the kin house for turn in at the scheduled time, every minute that passes will result in 1 point being taken away from the team. 

Prizes:

• The winning team’s captain will be given the grand prize which will be distributed to the team by the captain.
• The losing team’s captain may or may not receive a minor concilation prize.
• The person picked last on the winning team will earn a bonus of 200s if they stay on the team the whole time and contribute. The person picked last on the losing team will earn 50s if they stay on the team the whole time and contribute.  Mandymoore will consult with the team captains to see if these two have contributed

The Kin welcomes back an old friend…

A little ancient history …

About 5 months ago, I was new to lotro and didn’t know my way around at all. I was trying to rescue this chick trapped in a cage outside of Bree and had no luck trying to pull it off solo.  But as chance would have it, I saw two other adventurers in the same area, Salija and Segolas. I asked them for help and together, we rescued the chick.  We ended up questing for a solid 4-5 hours that night and cleared all the Bree quests (except GB of course).

After that night, I quested with Segolas once more but didn’t see him online after that. And as far as Salija, well I think you know how that story went – we formed the Refugees and fast forward a few months, you have the incredibly impressive kin as we know it today.

But whatever happened to Segolas? Well, today I logged in as Britneys and started mopping up the Forsaken Inn quests. I stopped at the Inn and looked at the various patrons and low and behold there was Segolas, only a few levels higher than when we last quested. Turns out he went on a lotro break for a few months.

Today, Segolas accepted our invite to the Kin. Let’s all welcome Segolas, an old friend who played an incidental but formative role in our kin’s history.

Mandy questing with Segolas, Burwise, and Dedlock

Kin Party Sunday 9/14 at 3PM PST / 6PM EST

Big Kin party to commemorate Mandymoore’s promotion to Leader of the Refugees and to welcome our new recruits and recently promoted members.  There will be food, drinking, music, and of course over 2G in prizes.

… not to mention a mystery game that will rival all other games.

Come to the party to find out more!

All Hail New Leader, Mandymoore

Salija’s taking a 6 week sabbatical due to some RL issues and so I’ll be taking on temporary leadership over the kin.

The holy trinity, taking a god-awful family picture

To commerorate this event, we’ll be holding a Kin party sometime over the next week with 2G in prizes.  Stay tuned for more details!