Special Event: Treasure Hunt, December 2015

I love the treasure hunting event in LOTRO. It's fun running around with lots of other people all looking for the mother lode - the huge dig site, hoping to find something good before the round ends or your meager supply of pickaxes runs out.

You see a range of strategies too - people who always dig at the same spot; people who dig at random sites - maybe they like the way the gold sparkles against the snow, or a rabbit ran past the dig site so it must be lucky (who knows?); people who deliberately look for the most out-of-way dig sites; people who do a circuit of the entire area, stopping at a few spots along the way; or people who use their trained cave-claw to find the best dig site in an area then dig at every dig site nearby except that one (???). It's a great place for people watching. Some really nice cosmetic outfits and mounts to admire too.

Last year my hobbit hunter found the treasure-laden pony and has been using it ever since as her favourite mount in-game. This year I took three of my new characters through, alternating them when I ran out of pickaxes instead of waiting for the quests to become available again. I found a couple of gem-inspection emotes, a treasure-hunter's backpack, a treasure chest housing decoration, and, just when I was about to give up and go back to questing, my new lore-master found a huge dig site and the treasure-laden goat. Hooray!

Treasure Laden Goat

So now I can retire happily from the treasure hunting field until next year and hope for another special mount for some lucky character. Maybe the horse next time? Fingers crossed.

Treasure of Evendim

After finding all the treasure caches in the Misty Mountains, I headed to Evendim because it also has roving threats and because I saw someone mention in world chat about finding a treasure cache in Annúminas.

So off I went exploring hills and valleys and ruins, admiring the pretty scenery, and here's what I found ...

Amon Môth

Tyl Annûn (Annúminas)

Funny story ... while Myndariel was searching through Annúminas, she fell off a high ledge and hurt her leg landing on rubble below. She turned around and looked up in time to see her saber-tooth cat hesitate at the edge and then jump off, legs outstretched and mouth open as if screaming silently. I imagine he was thinking as he fell, "Aaaaahhhhhh .... this is gonna hurt!" Poor, brave pet!

Barandalf (near Whitshards)	Men Erain
Nan Orngon	Tûm Fuin
Tyl Ruinen (island to SW)	Tyl Ruinen (main island)
Tyrn Fornech (near Rantost)	Tham Ornen
Tham Andalath	Barandalf (across river from Dwaling)

I admit, I had to check the LOTRO Wiki on where to find that last cache in Barandalf. I had visited the eastern shore of the Brandywine River, but further north near Barad Tharsír. Still, it was fun finding most of them myself, and Myndariel completed some deeds, reached kindred with the Wardens of Annúminas and finally got the mount.

Treasure of the Misty Mountains

Hunting treasure chests in Gondor was so popular, they have added treasures to zones in Eriador such as the Misty Mountains. Low level characters can find the caches, but they won't be able to get credit towards the deed until level 90.

You get quite a few rewards for finding them all ... 10 turbine points, 60 marks, 5 Gift-giver's Brands, a title ("Treasure Seeker of the Misty Mountains"), a virtue (Fortitude) and reputation with Thorin's Hall. The treasure chests contain level 100 equipment and Westemnet crafting materials.

There are 12 Caches hidden in the Misty Mountains. So as to not completely spoil the treasure hunt, I won't give exact locations, but here are some general clues ...

Bruinen Source West (near Snárskrith Dell)	Bruinen Source North
Pinnath Fenui	Bruinen Source West (accessed via High Crag)
Imlad Norn	Iorbar
Writhenbores	Northern High Pass (near Hrimbarg)
Dómstoll	Northern High Pass (near The Black Crack)
Bruinen Source West (near Frosthyle Pond)	Southern High Pass

Happy hunting!

Special Event: Treasure Hunt, 19-23 June 2014

After first discovering the treasure hunting grounds while exploring Ered Luin, I have been looking forward to the treasure hunt. My little hobbit scholar Robinya (who spends most of her time at the library except during special events) eagerly took her pickaxe and started digging.

At first she didn't find much; a few tokens, an abandoned pickaxe, a moldy treasure hunter's pack. She took a meal break then went and spoke to Halthor Goldeneye about getting some more pickaxes. One of the other treasure hunters had a trained cave-claw who was hungry so she gathered some berries for it and they gave her some more tools for her own excavations.

She worked like this all night - hunt for a good dig-site, test it with a cave-claw or a dowsing gem if she had any, dig and hope, then when she ran out of tools she'd have a bite to eat and help the other treasure-hunters to get more tools.

Just before dawn, it finally happened. She hit a huge dig-site. She was on her last pickaxe and was about to start going "eeny-meeny-miney-mo" to pick a site, when she spotted an out-of-the-way dig-site and had A Feeling. You know, like you're holding the winning lottery ticket. Well, she dug and she dug, and she dug some more and finally reached the bottom and she found .... a pile of tokens, a rusty mining pick, and a treasure-laden pony.

The pony was very nice. She had been hoping to get the 1000 tokens to buy the special Harvest-brew Goat, but at the rate of 4 pickaxes per 15 minutes and 1-10 tokens per dig-site, it would have taken a long time. So she decided the pony was the jackpot and she'd done enough. She could go back to her books now.

But as she sat on her new mount and watched the sun rise over the chilly mountains, then turned and saw the dig-sites sparkling in the light, she had a crazy thought to get a couple more pickaxes and just dig randomly - who knows when she'd get another opportunity to be a treasure hunter?

On her second dig, she hit another huge dig-site. She couldn't believe it. She stood staring at the hole she had dug and almost couldn't dare to look in and see what she had found. It turned out to be rather disappointing - just a pile of tokens. She rubbed them together between her fingers and decided treasure-hunting wasn't a good investment so she'd spend what tokens she had and take the pony back to civilisation. She just needed something to show for her efforts, something she could write about in one of her books and maybe one day in a few hundred years or so, some elf might read about her adventures and think she was a hero.

One of the vendors at the base camp looked at her bag of tokens and listened to her request for a souvenir that would look like she'd been a great treasure hunter. The dwarf's eyes crinkled as he gave a deep belly-laugh and pulled an old battered box off the back of his wagon and started filling it with shiny rubbish left lying around after the hordes of hopeful treasure-hunters camped all over the hillside. He presented it to her with a wink and told her no-one would know the difference. She shrugged and strapped it on the back of her pony and headed back to her homestead near Bree.

The practice dig-sites

Sparkling dig-sites waiting to be mined

Professional treasure-hunters

 

Treasure Laden Pony

"Treasure"