OK, WHO STOLE THE TURTLE'S HEAD?

Quest trophies - the decorative items which drop when a particularly tough boss has been killed - are, quite rightly, Bind on Acquire (BoA) - they are meant to be proof of prowess or cunning, and shouldn't be available on demand to anybody with money or generous friends. The same applies, perhaps with rather less urgency, to decorative items only available to those who have achieved high rank with various factions.

There is, however, one very common occasion when this strict BoA rule needs be relaxed or modified. Many trophies end up gracing Kinship Houses, either because they are considered honours pertaining to the entire fellowship or raid responsible for the kill, or else because individual members choose to donate them. The problem is that because they remain bound to their original acquirer, they cannot be moved by anybody else; if anyone but the owner tries to do so, the only option given is "Return to owner", which means they immediately end up in the owner's escrow account. If the owner in question then fails to retrieve them in time, they are gone forever. Note also that there is no indication of just who the owner is, so there's no possibility of contacting them and having them move the item.

All of which means that making changes to a trophy-heavy Kinship House is virtually impossible, even for the leader. What's more, trophies and other BoA items will vanish in the wake of a departing member, even if he or she had no such intention. The obvious answer is to allow for decorative items of all kinds, including trophies, to be BoA with the sole exception of transfer to a Kinship, perhaps into a Kin Treasure Vault accessible only to the leader and nominated members by means of a new permission. Items taken out the vault and in the temporary posession of a player would immediately become BoA again unless placed in a Kinship House decorative slot. In other words: trophies would be transferable from the original owner to the Kinship, after which they could only be used in Kinship House decorative slots.

THE MISSING TROPHIES

Few things are as frustrating as being told something is in the game when it isn't - particularly when those responsible refuse to clarify the situation by stating whether it has or hasn't been implemented. A classic case in point was the the Winter-tusk (mammoth) trophy which was supposed to drop from the time Forochel was opened up, but the drop was only implemented with Mines of Moria; the annoying thing here was the bland refusal of European GMs to state whether or not the damn thing existed.

For the last three months, many players have known of the existence of two new trophy (decorative) items which were added to the menu of the Bree taxidermist: a Whitehand shield supposedly dropped by the final boss in the School of Tham Mirdain, and an Uruk helmet (with stuffed Craban) supposedly dropped by the final Library boss (see details from the Lorebook, above). Unfortunately, nobody has ever seen these drop, and according to a depressing post from a Turbine developer on the US forums dated 13 February (!), "I'll look into this but I'm extremely dubious about them being (or getting) fixed for Book 7. I think this post is the first time we've heard of this bug. I'll bug it internally here and get the ball rolling." On the one hand, a shame it took them three months to notice, but on the other, kudos for actually responding to a valid complaint - something we on the European side almost never see...

As for the Egg of the Mistress, on the menu of the 21st Hall taxidermist but nowhere to be found as yet, the chances are this will drop from the new 12-man raid in Book 7.

GENERAL TALUG'S ARMOUR

Many players have no doubt by now acquired that remarkable trophy, General Talug's Armour Display, which comes in a nifty red cabinet. Rather fewer of its proud owners may be aware of the fact that this is LOTRO's first functional trophy. Which is to say that if you click on the display, you will suddenly find yourself wearing the late general's armour. That's right, a full set of finest orc armour for you to strut about in - just like the armour set you looted in Fil Gashan, which was so rudely yanked away again when you exited the instance.

The down side is that, like the Fil Gashan set, it vanishes after five minutes. Still, that's long enough to get to Bree and spread raw panic among the citizenry...

HOUSING CONTROL FREAKERY

Everyone bitches about LOTRO's inane housing system, which only allows you to place certain items in certain well-defined spots around your house, known as hooks. Since these are very limited in number, all LOTRO housing tends to look as though it has recently been visited by bailiff trolls who walked off with 90% of the household items. The limited number of hooks is bad enough, but what makes it worse is the daft design decision to classify all housing and decorative items as large/small/thin furniture, large/small wall items and the like, which can of course only be placed into the equivalent pre-designated slots. Note that while, logically enough, perhaps, large items of furniture cannot be placed into 'small furniture' slots, you're not allowed to do the opposite, either - that space may be large enough to take a billiard table, but you can't place a stool there!

Most irritating of all is the fact that the large/small designations are not dependent on the overall dimensions of an object, but appear to be entirely arbitrary. The image above is of the raised dais in a Breeland kinhouse, representing about half the total floor area of the main hall. Looks empty, doesn't it? That's because apart from items on the walls, you are only allowed to place two items of furniture on an area the size of a small ballroom. Furthermore, these two slots are earmarked for (wait for it!), 'special furniture'. What, you ask, is special furniture? So far, the game includes just three such items: a breakfast table, a map table and a reflecting pool. But the point is that if you try and place a normal large table of the same dimensions as the map table into one of these slots, it won't go in. LOTRO's designers have taken it upon themselves to dictate that your very expensive (to buy and run) kinhouse can sport a frog pond in its great hall - but not a dinner table. How far can control freakery go?

(Oh, and by the way, experiments have shown that just one of every LOTRO trophy available to date represents more items than a kinhouse can accommodate - never mind your average hovel. Nice going.)

MORIA TROPHIES

To be honest, the first couple of Moria trophies to come my way have been a bit of a disappointment - certainly not a patch on the Shadows of Angmar trophies. The Fire Orc Banner drops from the Fire Orc boss in the Grand Stairs instance, and Morhun's Gemstone from the final boss in the Treasury instance. Neither are exactly earth-shaking: the banner looks a bit like a traffic bollard, while Morhun's Gemstone reminds me of nothing so much as a fancy bell-push (it also underlines the inanity of hooks in housing: once in place, it stands in solitary splendour on that stretch of wall, to which nothing else can be added).

Hopefully, things will improve, but at the moment, it looks as though so much imagination went into designing Moria, there was none left over for the trophies...

A FORMAL PORTRAIT

A formal portrait by Cornelius van Nackerling of Staddle, in the finest "Bree interior" style, of a collector surrounded by his trophies. Cornelius van Nackerling was highly regarded above all for his skill in rendering the effects of candle and fire-light on difficult materials such as velvet, silk, the steel of weapons and the fur of animal trophies. This particularly fine example of his late period goes on sale at the Bree Auction Houses in a week's time, starting price 200 gold.

EYE OF NEWT & CO.

It was a great relief to read in the patch notes for Book 13 that monster trophies are finally going to be rationalised. The current situation verged on the ridiculous, with a huge proliferation of nearly identical items, some of which were valuable in themselves, others were of use to craftsmen, while the majority were simply junk. We are blessed, for example, with no fewer than ten varieties of spider eye, all with identical icons: Small Spider Eye, Scarred Spider Eye, Huge Spider Eye, Blackened Spider Eye, Flawed Spider Eye, Dusky Spider Eye, Great Spider Eye, Monstrous Spider Eye, Grey Spider Eye, Dirty Spider Eye... Can you remember which of the ten is critical for the production of Fire Oil?

According to the notes, the change will definitely be for the better as far as crafting is concerned: "All of the recipes that utilize optional ingredients have been updated to use a new generic trophy item. If your recipe calls for the new “Tough Leg” trophy item you will be able to find that from 7 species located in all parts of Middle-earth". So that's all right then, particularly since the different kinds of Tough Legs will be stackable, irrespective of provenance, thus saving valuable pack space.

As ever, the Bard got it right the first time with his recipe:
"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,--
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
You will note that nothing is said about the eye of newt having to be Dusky, Black or Scarred...

A SOP FOR THE PACK-RATS

So far, LOTRO has been deeply frustrating for the multitudinous race of RPG pack-rats - those players who love to collect one of everything, particularly anything rare or significant, and display it to the best possible advantage, if possible in their very own digital home. Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series, above all the remarkable Morrowind, pandered brilliantly to such players, who could spend days, weeks and months collecting complete sets of every kind of armour, displayed on dummies in the vast halls of their player-designed module homes. The coming of LOTRO housing sparked off hopes that something similar might prove possible here as well, but the oddly limited system of pre-positioned and rigidly sized furniture 'hooks' which the designers opted for seemed to exclude that possibility.

Now Book 12 brings the possibility of acquiring at least some trophies of major encounters, including Sambrog's Helm (Great Barrows), Naruhel's Dress (The Red Maid - Garth Agarwen), Udunion' Swords (Barad Gularan), Ferndur's Skull (Imlad Balchorth), Remmenaeg's Armour (Fornost), Ivar's Banner (Garth Agarwen), Lagmas' Arm (Urugarth), Mordrith's Mirror (Carn Dum), Bogboreth's Head (NE Angmar), Helchgam's Tentacle (Carn Dum), Thorog's Skull (Helegrod) and Thaurlach's Sword (the Rift). Unfortunately they are classified as furniture items small, medium or large, so their placement will necessarily be limited to existing hooks, but it's a start in the right direction. If, as seems likely, LOTRO runs and runs, perhaps a year or so from now we will get fully differentiated and positionable loot items...

Meanwhile, I couldn't resist including an image of the author of these chronicles, or at least his alter ego, sitting comfortably beneath a recently acquired Sambrog's Helm (soloed, of course).