Learning LOTRO: Lesson Nineteen - Lore-master Class Quests

In this series, I talk about various aspects of The Lord of the Rings Online. This series is meant for newcomers, but may also help veteran players find more to love about the game.

It's time for us to check back in with our third character, the rugged lore-master Brigarthlas. Our wise man of the mountains has grown up a bit and has had to face the Lore-master Class Quests. These quests rely on the unique talents of the Lore-master Class and put every Lore-master to the test!

Since writing about Brigarthlas seven weeks ago, he's been leveled up to 50 so that I can cover a variety of other basics in this series. In this entry, we're going to talk about the first two Lore-master Class Quests that are auto-bestowed at level 15 and at level 30. There are others, but they're a bit more advanced and complicated -- and thus will end up in a future entry.

Class Trainer

The first thing I'll ask you to remember is that I specifically said that the Trainers are NOT obsolete even though we no longer have to visit them to learn our class skills. When you reach level 15, you're going to get some mail called "Pressing Matters." This mail is going to send you to one of the many Lore-master trainers scattered throughout Middle-earth, because they want to send you to help someone and learn a lesson.

And as I mentioned in the Lore-master Class entry, Lore-master Trainers have a variety of goods to purchase or barter for. Specifically, you can barter with Mithril Coins to purchase various cosmetic appearances for your animal companions. There is also a list of recipes available for Cooks and Scholars: Cooks can prepare food and drink items to give pets boosts, and Scholars can craft Books that lore-masters can put in their class item slot which provide boosts as well. Also previously mentioned, you may not have to spend Mithril Coins to get the cosmetic appearance you want for your pets -- Jewellers can craft talismans for most of the appearances. Optionally, there's also the Store where you can spend Points, and you can complete deeds to earn Points if you absolutely don't want to spend real money. 

Level 15: A Well-Ordered Mind

Your first class-specific quest is going to send you just southeast of Bree to talk to a fellow by the Yellow Tree which is in the middle of the road as you head towards the Lone-lands. If you are of the race of Man and have quested in the Chetwood and Midgewater Marshes areas, you maybe have picked up a couple items from dispatching brigands and goblins. They talk about a library and book shelves, and if you don't want spoilers you should probably stop reading here... because I'm going to spoil it to help the new players who might struggle.

Dorset Oakes

You'd think they'd give this poor guy a staff or a companion to help call him out as a lore-master, but that perhaps wasn't too high on the to-do list when the game came out. In any case, he will give you a third item with more information to go with the two you perhaps picked up before now. If you didn't pick up the other two items, no worries. I'm going to give you some information to fast track your task without outright telling you the "answer."

Is that confusing? Well, if you read the small novel of dialogue Dorset hits you with, you discover that his deceased father left a library of wisdom behind. Your job is to find one book in the whole library before it gets flooded with goblins.

Putting Your Bear to Work

Just as that header implies, the secret to completing this quest is by using your bear pet. You will have to summon your bear after you pass through the library entrance as most of the time it will not follow you in. Once there, I have just three bits of advice for your success: 

1. Put your bear on Aggressive mode so that it will attack when something comes within range.
2. When you walk in, start with the shelves on your right.
3. Stand in the middle of a 4-shelf facing and you can click four in a row without having to move/interrupt the search animation -- this saves you a lot of time.

To succeed, you have to find the book before the Goblin Champions enter the room. You will have two waves of Scouts, and then waves of Warriors, and then the Champions come. Using your bear and/or repetitions of Blinding Flash (a 30-second daze which will be off cooldown by the time they rouse, or will already be engaged by your aggro-bear) will give you the time you need to search the bookshelves. 

You can potentially not have your bear on aggro and simply repeat the daze to prevent more than one or two waves of goblins and buy yourself more time, but I've found with my own experience that having the bear on aggro means less management of the mobs for me and more time clicking shelves. Spoiler: If you reach the back wall, you've gone too far.

Level 30: A Lore-master's Will

The next class-specific quest is much different from the first. You won't need your skill bar, pets, or weapons. That's right: Lore-masters get a series of riddles to solve for their level 30 quest. I remember the first time I did this quest -- I hated it SO MUCH. I hated it primarily because I didn't yet understand the logic behind the riddles, and I also hated having to ride long distances between locations. You might want to grab a hunter friend to help you get around for this quest chain.

Isferon

This is Isferon. If you can't tell from that gorgeous backdrop, he's standing on a terrace in Duillond, in the Falathlorn area of Ered Luin. (I couldn't bring myself to crop the image. It's too pretty.) Isferon has been left with 3 boxes by a friend who sailed to the undying lands, each with a riddle to finding the keys to open them. He's bad with riddles, so he wants another lore-master's help. (That's you!)

I'm very much against spoilers, because the stories in LOTRO are what make it so awesome, so you're going to get photo clues to go with the riddle text and I'll let you take it from there. Once you've brought all three keys back to Isferon, he'll take you to where the boxes are and you can experience the conclusion of the story.

The picture here shows you how to open the note with the riddle written on it:

The Riddles & Keybox Locations

Apparently Candac really doesn't like the food there. Talk about a burn!

I rather enjoy the dialogue in the final instance. I feel like this quest received more love and thought from the developers than the level 15 one did, by a long shot. For your troubles, you get to choose between a staff and a cloak as a reward. I tend to have XP-enhancing back items, so I have gone with the awesome-looking staff every time -- but if you're hurting for some good stats, the cloak is a good boost to have.

Other Class Quests

As I mentioned before, there is a class-specific set of quests that will send you back to your Trainer at level 39, and all of the classes have the same format, so I'll be talking about that set all at the same time in a future entry.

There is also a bigger set of quests at level 50 (available at level 45) that all of the classes get, but they are wildly different and more complicated. You can expect those quests to be in a much further entry in the future after we cover more of the basics. And there are a LOT of basics left to cover!

Special just for the lore-master class, there's also a quest chain available at level 29 if you have finished Epic Volume 1, Book 2. If you plan to do it at level 29, bring a bunch of friends to help you. The quest chain is A Friend of the Wild and starts with Radagast in the Lone-lands. Completing it will allow you to have the non-combat lore-master specific pets. You can earn the Tome of the Hare by completing the 3 quests, and the rest of the non-combat lore-master pets are available either through barter with reputation factions or as random drops.

This used to be a unique feature for the lore-master class, but everyone began to have cosmetic pets when they came out with the huorn pets for the Derndingle update where you quest endlessly for the Ents. (I haven't once completed reputation with them.) But if you want to show off those non-combat pets that ONLY the lore-master can have, then go talk to Radagast!

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