Level 100 Beorning

Hooray! Tyravorth my Beorning has reached level 100 in Central Gondor. It might not be the max level, but it's the beginning of the end.

Questing along the Gilrain river at night

Now she has to start worrying about essence gear and getting the perfect legendary items for imbuing.

Essence Gear

As a tailor, she has made a set of Anórien armour and cloak for starters. She didn't have anywhere near enough essences to fill the 18 slots, and certainly not with the essences she needs. Questing through West and Central Gondor since level 95 has so far earned her about half a dozen essences. A couple for morale and finesse, and one each for evasion, tactical mitigation essence and critical rating.

She still needs new jewellery, and the crafted jewellery has more essence slots to fill too! 

Crafted Anórien Medium Armour

There is other gear available at level 100 with stats or essence slots, but the crafted gear is easy to get.

Where can fresh level 100s get essences?

• The skirmish camp - the curiosity vendor sells level 100 major essences for 500 marks each. 
• The auction house - since level 105 is now the max level, level 100 essences have reduced in price a lot.
• Essence vendor in Dol Amroth - completing quests for the city guard factions in Dol Amroth rewards tokens used to buy essences (some RNG involved for which essence you'll get though).
• Crafting - The Dol Amroth quartermaster has level 100 greater essences recipes, and each crafting profession can make a few types. 
• Quartermasters in Central Gondor - class-specific essences can be obtained with rep tokens. 
• Questing - some quests have guaranteed essences as rewards, particularly in the epic quest chains.
• Mob drops - occasionally. Elite mobs and instances may have a higher chance of dropping something.

I decided to go the skirmish camp route for essences - I'd rather have cheap level 100 gear and save up for good max level gear.

Dol Amroth Skirmish Camp

As an aside, I hated Dol Amroth when it first came out because of all the extravagant building decorations, but after travelling deeper into Gondor where the zones become more gloomy, Dol Amroth seems beautiful and bright by comparison, and now I quite like it.

So what essences to get for a Beorning who is mainly questing?

1. Mitigation - My physical mitigation was nearly capped but I needed a lot more tactical mitigation, so that was my first priority.
2. Avoidances - My parry was capped at 13% but I didn't have much evade, so that was my next priority.
3. Defence - My critical defence wasn't too bad for solo questing - I don't see my health dropping suddenly from enemy crits, but I increased it to 50% to be on the safe side.
4. Finesse - I've noticed mobs avoiding too many of my attacks, so I wanted more finesse.
5. Might - I grabbed a couple of might essences so that I wouldn't lose too much dps/healing. My mastery has still gone down, so I will aim to add more to my jewellery.
6. Morale - I filled the rest of the slots with morale. From everything I've heard, morale is the best for survival.

Your priorities may be different, especially if you do lots of instances or pvp or have already capped your stats.

Some people suggest grouping similar essences together so that you can easily switch pieces of gear and stats to suit the situation. For example, switching between one pair of boots with lots of critical defence and another pair of boots with lots of critical rating.

Legendary Items and Imbuement

Legendary items can be a real grind if you want to max them out, and if you do - good on you! Fortunately, the grind is mostly optional. You can get through most, if not all, content without maxed out legendaries, but the more effort you put into improving them, the easier the content will be.

While I'm saving up materials and/or gold for first age items, I'm going to be trying to get lots of third age items so I can extract the legacies I want and get plenty of relics and IXP runes.

Many of the consumable items for enhancing legendary items can be used before or after imbuement with only minor differences in outcomes.

Here are a couple of guides that may also help explain the legendary item and imbuement system:

• LOTRO Players: Imbued Legendary Items - Tips, Tricks and a Guide to the Grind
• LOTRO Wiki: Legendary Items

Pre-imbuement

1. Level a legendary item up to at least level 30 to unlock six legacies.
2. Use a crystal of remembrance to add a seventh legacy.
3. Use legacy replacement scrolls to swap out unwanted legacies for more useful legacies. Most legacies will have the same effect before and after imbuement, but a few may have a different effect. Check LOTRO-Wiki (the Legendary Items page has a comparison table) to find out which legacies are affected.
4. Use a scroll of delving to unlock an extra 10 levels. This will also increase the maximum tier by one for each legacy when the legendary item is imbued.
5. Level the legendary up to level 70 and get legacy tier upgrades (saves scrolls of empowerment).
6. Use 3 star-lit crystals to increase the base dps and passive stats on applicable legendary items (e.g. 2H-weapons).
7. Spend points to rank up legacies. Make sure the default legacy (e.g. the dps legacy on weapons) is at max rank so the highest possible base stats will be on the item post-imbuement.

Imbue legendary items at the Forge-master.

Post-imbuement

The maximum tier for each legacy will initially depend on what tier the legacy was pre-imbuement.

1. The maximum tier for the default legacy can be increased towards the final tier with star-lit crystals.
2. The maximum tier for normal legacies can be increased towards the final tier with scrolls of empowerment.
3. Use IXP runes or gain IXP through game-play to increase the current tier of each legacy.

When all legacies have full final tier experience bars, the item is maximised (until the next update that increases the final tier level). Don't forget to add some good relics and legendary titles to boost your stats too - these may help reduce the need for some essences!

Crafted 1H Clubs Gallery now Available

I've just added the gallery for crafted one-handed clubs made by woodworkers. They have never been one of my favourite weapons in-game as I associate them with cave-men and rioters, but there are some that look ok.

Of course there's a baseball bat-like club (Stout Ash Club). The Yew Club is rather nice with the large jewels and is available at low levels. The Supreme tier clubs seem to be more metallic than wooden - some of them almost look like maces. And I think the Club of the Rider and the Wildermore Club are probably the most interesting. The Club of the Rider seems to fit the Rohan style nicely while the Wildermore club looks like it is sprouting fur, which sort of makes sense, as Wildermore is very cold, but also really doesn't - if you're going to bludgeon something, does it really matter if it is warm or not?

Baseball Bat	Ooh ... Shiny	Metallic
Detailed	Is that Fur?

Tea-time in Middle Earth

My farmer was planting fields of tea in Bree and found that she didn't just get tea leaves, she also got fine tea leaves, perfect tea leaves and young tea leaves.

Tea connoisseurs and people with legendary items may be interested to know that these tea leaves can be used by cooks to brew special drinks that provide a bonus to legendary item XP.

There's just one catch - the cook has to have at least Artisan standing in the Cook's Guild.

So, what are the benefits of a nice cuppa?

Red Tea

"A simple drink loved by hobbits."

Red tea increases your vitality by 26 for 20 minutes if you are level 50+.
A superior cup of red tea increases vitality by 39 for 30 minutes if you are level 50+.

Great for chain drinkers - the cooldown is only 30 seconds!

Red tea can be made by Supreme Cooks, no guild requirement. This recipe uses bundles of tea leaves.

White Tea

"Light, smooth and delicious."

White tea increases the amount of legendary item experience gained by 5% for 60 minutes. Requires level 51+.

The perfect wake-me-up drink to accompany breakfast - the cooldown is 1 day!

White tea can be made by Supreme Cooks with Artisan standing in the Cook's Guild once every 18 hours. This recipe uses bundles of tea leaves and a young tea leaf (which seemed to be the rarest type of tea leaf harvested from about 6% of tea fields).

Green Tea

 "Smoky, subtle and invigorating."

Green tea increases the amount of legendary item experience gained by 10% for 60 minutes. Requires level 51+.

This one will leave an after-taste that lingers - the cooldown is 2 days!

Green tea can be made by Supreme Cooks with Artisan standing in the Cook's Guild once every 2 days and 18 hours. This recipe uses bundles of tea leaves and a fine tea leaf (which seemed to be harvested from about 14% of tea fields).

Black Tea

"Bold, powerful and dark."

Black tea increases the amount of legendary item experience gained by 15% for 60 minutes. Requires level 51+.

This tea has such a strong flavour you'll have to wait several days for the shock to wear off - the cooldown is 3 days!

Black tea can be made by Supreme Cooks with Artisan standing in the Cook's Guild once every 6 days and 18 hours. This recipe uses many bundles of tea leaves and a perfect tea leaf (which seemed to be harvested from about 10% of tea fields).

---

OK, so there's a long cooldown on most cups of tea, and the benefit to your legendary items may or may not be worthwhile. Perhaps while you slowly savour a cup (or make a special occasion of it and combine a nice cup of tea with Buttered Scones and Jam or Bubble and Squeak, also made by Supreme Cooks), you could take a moment to think of the English writer JRR Tolkien.

Random fact for the day - Did you know Tolkien and his school friends started a society called the T.C.B.S. (Tea Club and Barrovian Society) since they were fond of drinking tea in the school library and Barrow's Store near King Edward's School in Birmingham?

Crafted Halberds Gallery Now Available

It's been a little while since I added any more crafted weapon galleries. I've been collecting images for the legendary weapons galleries and I discovered you can't preview minstrel instruments in the wardrobe, so I'll have to get some action shots for those.

Halberds are unique to Captains and I think the Crafted Halberds Gallery shows that they are pretty cool looking. There's a lot of variety in shape and style and I can't imagine why a Captain would want to use anything else.

I think for my Captain, I have three favourite crafted halberds that would look good with her outfit, but I also have to give a shout out to the Galadhrim Halberd - usually Galadhrim weapons are copies of another crafted weapon skin, but this one is unique and beautiful.

Favourite 1	Favourite 2
Favourite 3	Galadhrim

Crafted 2H Axes Gallery Available

Yule Tide has arrived so my weaponsmith decided to dress for the occasion while she shows off the two-handed axes that can be crafted in LOTRO. You can view the full collection at the Weaponsmith: Crafted 2H Axes gallery.

My weaponsmith with her favourite crafted 2H axe

The two-handed axes weren't all that wonderful, unfortunately. Nothing that made me go, "Oh wow, my character would love to wield that!" The Supreme tier weapons are probably the best of the bunch as they look more like legendary weapons, with a bit more detail, colour and variation.

Crafted Shields Gallery Now Available

Shields stand out and the crafted ones in LOTRO are no exception. Metalsmiths can make some beautiful shields, as you can see in the Metalsmith: Crafted Shields gallery.

There is a great variety of motifs, shapes and colours that may be helpful for creating a nice outfit or role-playing. For example:

Dwarf

Elf

Man

Rohan

I also found a couple of shields that might be good matches for my guardian's current outfit (she's the hobbit modelling the shields). Which one would you recommend?

#1

#2

#3

#4

Cheers! Brewing Strong Drinks

There are a number of "strong drinks" in LOTRO that serve to make players tipsy and maybe make the screen go blurry. There are also vendors who sell a variety of beer and ale in taverns across Middle Earth, but sometimes it's more fun to try your hand at home-brew.

To make your own beverages in-game you need both a farmer and a cook.
The farmer grows the hops, the barley and perhaps some fruit for flavour while the cook turns the barley into mash, adds some yeast (ale yeast for ale, lager yeast for beer) and special ingredients then brews the mixture to perfection.

Bottoms up!

Below are some of the drinks you could home-brew in LOTRO.

Normally, drinking one of these will give you a status effect for 5 minutes (such as "You feel light-headed") and your character may have occasional bubbles floating around them. Having more than one drink will reset the timer.

Ales

Drink	Farmer Recipes	Cook Recipes	Comment
Apprentice Ale	2 Bunches of North Down Hops 2 Bundles of Spring Barley	Prepared North Down Hops Bucket of Spring Barley Mash Apprentice Ale	"A weak ale with a light, bitter taste." Effect: Light-headed.
Blueberry Ale	2 Bunches of Golding Hops 2 Bundles of Spring Barley 1 Bunch of Blueberries	Prepared Golding Hops Bucket of Spring Barley Mash Blueberry Ale	"The blueberry flavor is subtle, not too sweet, and surprisingly delicious." Effect: Light-headed.
Shire Spice Ale	2 Bunches of Pride of Chetwood Hops 2 Bundles of Spring Barley	Prepared Pride of Chetwood Hops Bucket of Spring Barley Mash Shire Spice Ale	"A few spices create a great aroma and add to the flavor of this Shire favorite." Effect: Quite merry.
Winterberry Ale	2 Bunches of Green Hill Hops 2 Bundles of Winter Barley 1 Bunch of Raspberries	Prepared Green Hill Hops Bucket of Winter Barley Mash Winterberry Ale	"A welcomed warmth on a cold winter's night." Effect: Quite merry.
Blackberry Ale	2 Bunches of Umbel Hops 2 Bundles of Winter Barley 1 Bunch of Blackberries	Prepared Umbel Hops Bucket of Winter Barley Mash Blackberry Ale	"A full-bodied fruity ale, made from only the finest blackberries." Effect: You've muddled your wits!

Slightly drunk

Beers

Drink	Farmer Recipes	Cook Recipes	Comment
Bold Stout Beer	2 Bunches of North Down Hops 2 Bundles of Spring Barley	Prepared North Down Hops Bucket of Spring Barley Mash Bold Stout Beer	"A humble brew with a bold taste." Effect: Light-headed.
Blue Bock Beer	2 Bunches of Golding Hops 2 Bundles of Spring Barley 1 Bunch of Blueberries	Prepared Golding Hops Bucket of Spring Barley Mash Blue Bock Beer	"A strong lager with a very berry flavor." Effect: Light-headed.
Honeybrew Beer	2 Bunches of Pride of Chetwood Hops 2 Bundles of Spring Barley	Prepared Pride of Chetwood Hops Bucket of Spring Barley Mash Honeybrew Beer	"A hint of floral aroma gives this beer a sweet, light flavoring. Just beware of nearby bears!" Effect: Quite merry.
Strawberry Stout Beer	2 Bunches of Green Hill Hops 2 Bundles of Winter Barley 1 Bunch of Strawberries	Prepared Green Hill Hops Bucket of Winter Barley Mash Strawberry Stout Beer	"Light berry flavoring combined with a hint of wheat make for a sweet brew." Effect: Quite merry.
Ultimate Honeybrew Beer	2 Bunches of Umbel Hops 2 Bundles of Winter Barley	Prepared Umbel Hops Bucket of Winter Barley Mash Ultimate Honeybrew Beer	"A beer for all true lovers of honey." Effect: You've muddled your wits!

Quite drunk

Crafted Bows and Crossbows Gallery Available

Woodworkers can make some lovely bows and crossbows and you can now view them in the Woodworker: Crafted Bows and Crossbows gallery.

There was quite a variety of bow styles - some were smooth, some were spiky, some had jewels, some had vines, some had glowing lights, some had a combination of these. The crossbows were simpler and much more solid-looking, but there were a few stand-outs. The cross-bows were more likely to have glowing lights, mostly red or blue, playing along the limbs.

Glowing blue lights move from tips to center

There was also quite a lot of collision with weapons poking through arms or back, which is a shame but every graphics engine has its limitations. Nevertheless, if I was choosing a weapon for its cosmetic appearance, that would be something to take into consideration.

My favourite bows:

Carved Yew Bow - pretty jewels

Black Ash Bow - nice vines

Wildermore Bow - colourful pattern

My favourite crossbows:

Yew Crossbow - beautifully carved

Smooth Black Ash Crossbow - uniquely leafy

Silver Ilex Crossbow - just wow!

Crafted Daggers Gallery Available

My burglar was happy to show off her crafted daggers, but only in the shadows of the forges of Thorin's Hall for some sneaky reason. You can now view the daggers gallery too.

The daggers were very simple and very similar at low levels. The Supreme tier daggers were my favourite with their unique shapes, gold and jewels. Fortunately, the higher tiers also showed some interesting variations in weapon shape.

Typical Low-level Dagger

Supreme Tier Dagger

Level 75 Dagger

I expect the legendary daggers will show off some more bling. I'll have to look out for nice quest rewards too. My burglar wants to fill her lair with dangerous but beautiful weapons that will prove she has robbed rich and powerful villains and lived to tell the tale (whispered in dark alleys and shady taverns).

Farming Pipe-weed

I was recently asked about pipe-weed farming and cross-breeding in LOTRO and I promised to look into it. My farmer has never grown pipe-weed (until now) because she focused on crops used for cooking and dye-making, but she's decided she's willing to support the smokers and drinkers in Bree with pipe-weed and strong drinks.

Once she got started growing the pipe-weed, she found it very interesting. There's the descriptions of the pipe-weed, the celebration of harvesting a cross-breed seed and she even found the different smoke-ring patterns intriguing (after she got over her coughing fit from accidentally inhaling the smoke).

Pipe-weed Descriptions:

• Longbottom Leaf: "A sturdy variety of pipe-weed, long grown in Southfarthing."
• Rushlight: "A poor sort of pipe-weed, usually grown in the Shire."
• Southlinch: "A poor sort of pipe-weed, usually grown in Bree."
• Sweet Lobelia: "A novelty variety of pipe-weed, which many find distasteful."
• Muddy Foot: "A variety of pipe-weed with an earthy flavour."
• Tighfield Choice: "A decent sort of pipe-weed, traditionally grown in Tighfield."
• Hornblower: "Named in honour of the first hobbit to grow pipe-weed in the shire, Tobold Hornblower."
• Southern Star: "A variety of pipe-weed usually grown in the Southfarthing."
• Old Toby: "A fine grade of pipe-weed, named after Tobold Hornblower."
• Shire Sweet-leaf: "A fragrant variety of pipe-weed, prized by Lore-masters."
• Sweet Galenas: "A variety of pipe-weed believed to be a favourite of the ancient King."
• Roper's Twist: "An early variety of pipe-weed grown in Gamwich."
• Dragon's Breath: "A variety of pipe-weed said to glow with an eerie fire when smoked."
• Eagle's Nest: "Some of the finest pipe-weed to come out of the Southfarthing."
• Gamwich Braid: "The greatest variety of pipe-weed ever grown in Gamwich."
• Wizard's Fire: "A pipe-weed representing the best of all leaf known to hobbits."
• Fungo's Fuzzy-leaf: "A variety of pipe-weed that has distinctive hairy leaves."
• Gold-fire: "A tasty variation of pipe-weed that combines the best of both Wizard's Fire and Fungo's Fuzzy-leaf."

Pipe-weed Farming Results:

No special soil was used in growing these crops. Crop yields were rounded to the nearest 0.1, or for yields of less than 0.05, rounded up to 0.1 rather than down to 0.0 (since if the yield was zero there would be no reason to include it in the table).

I received 1-10 leaf crops per field plus the occasional cross-breed seed of the same or next tier (e.g. planting apprentice pipe-weed granted me a few journeyman cross-breed seeds).

It was actually profitable to vendor the pouches. For example, it cost 14 silver to plant 50 fields of Longbottom Leaf and vendoring the 856 pouches of pipe-weed earned 25 silver. Tool repairs reduce profits slightly. It may be even more profitable to sell pipe-weed or cross-breed seeds on auction house or via trade, but when I looked at the auction house on my server there was very little on offer.

The higher tiers of seeds are harder to get. You need to grow a lot of the common tier 3 seeds to get enough tier 4 cross-breed seeds and hope that those cross-breed seeds generate enough tier 5 seeds (Wizard's Fire) to get some tier 6 seeds (Fungo's Fuzzy-leaf and Gold-fire). I tried using special soil to see if that would increase the seeds yield, but although I got more crops (6.5 crops/field) and more seeds of the same tier (0.5 seeds/field), it didn't increase the number of seeds of the next tier (0.1 seeds/field).

At tier 7 (Westfold), you need reputation with Theodréd's Riders to buy the Wild Pipe-weed Field recipe. You can buy wild pipe-weed seeds from vendors. Unfortunately, my farmer isn't high enough level to get reputation, so I can't experiment with this just yet.

Pipe-weed (Tier)	Fields	Crops	Crop Yield	Smoke-ring
Longbottom Leaf (T1)	85	320 Longbottom Leaf 4 Muddy Foot Seed 5 Tighfield Choice Seed	3.7 0.1 0.1	One Ring
Rushlight (T1)	30	79 Rushlight 2 Muddy Foot Seed	2.6 0.1	One Ring
Southlinch (T1)	30	117 Southlinch 2 Muddy Foot Seed 1 Tighfield Choice Seed	3.9 0.1 0.1	Puff of Smoke
Sweet Lobelia (T1)	30	116 Sweet Lobelia 1 Muddy Foot Seed 1 Tighfield Choice Seed	3.9 0.1 0.1	Two Rings
Hornblower (T2)	30	97 Hornblower 4 Muddy Foot Seed 4 Tighfield Choice Seed 1 Dragon's Breath Seed	3.2 0.1 0.1 0.1	Double Ring
Southern Star (T2)	80	273 Southern Star 11 Muddy Foot Seed 4 Tighfield Choice 5 Roper's Twist Seed 8 Dragon's Breath Seed	3.4 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1	Double Ring
Muddy Foot * (T2)	21	79 Muddy Foot 1 Muddy Foot Seed 2 Tighfield Choice Seed 3 Dragon's Breath Seed	3.8 0.1 0.1 0.1	Triple Ring
Tighfield Choice * (T2)	16	62 Tighfield Choice 2 Muddy Foot Seed 2 Tighfield Choice Seed	3.9 0.1 0.1	Double Ring
Old Toby (T3)	80	297 Old Toby 7 Dragon's Breath Seed 13 Roper's Twist Seed 4 Eagle's Nest Seed 2 Gamwich Braid Seed	3.7 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1	Heart around Ring
Shire Sweet-leaf (T3)	30	99 Shire Sweet-leaf 3 Dragon's Breath Seed 4 Roper's Twist Seed 2 Eagle's Nest Seed 2 Gamwich Braid Seed	3.3 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1	3 Butterflies
Sweet Galenas (T3)	65	215 Sweet Galenas 11 Dragon's Breath Seed 7 Roper's Twist Seed 2 Eagle's Nest Seed 6 Gamwich Braid Seed	3.3 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1	Ship
Roper's Twist * (T3)	54	197 Roper's Twist 4 Roper's Twist Seed 3 Dragon's Breath Seed 2 Eagle's Nest Seed 4 Gamwich Braid Seed	3.6 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1	Spiral
Dragon's Breath * (T3)	50	193 Dragon's Breath 7 Roper's Twist Seed 9 Dragon's Breath Seed 3 Eagle's Nest Seed 4 Gamwich Braid Seed	3.9 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.1	Dragon
Eagle's Nest * (T4)	21	65 Eagle's Nest 1 Eagle's Nest Seed 4 Gamwich Braid Seed	3.1 0.1 0.2	Eagle
Gamwich Braid * (T4)	28	88 Gamwich Braid 2 Eagle's Nest Seed 3 Wizard's Fire Seed	3.1 0.1 0.1	Fish
Wizard's Fire * (T5)	3	12 Wizard's Fire 1 Gold-fire Seed	4.0 0.3	Bird

Note: * indicates the pipe-weed is a cross-breed variety.

Longbottom Leaf produces one ring	Sweet Lobelia produces two rings
Old Toby produces a heart and ring	Shire Sweet-leaf produces 3 butterflies
Dragon's Breath produces a dragon	Gamwich Braid produces a dark fish

Summer Festival Special Varieties

There are three special varieties of pipeweed that are only available during Summer Festival. The recipes and seeds are sold by Pipeweed Vendors in major festival locations (i.e. Celondim and Thorin's Hall in Ered Luin, Bree Festival Grounds in Bree-land, and The Party Tree in The Shire).

Pipe-weed (Tier)	Fields	Crops	Crop Yield	Smoke-ring
Stonecrop Leaf (T1)	30	116 Stonecrop Leaf	3.9	Stampeding Beast?
Lengalenas (T3)	30	96 Lengalenas	3.2	Crossed Swords
Summer Green-weed (T5)	30	102 Summer Green-weed	3.4	Pipe

The Stonecrop Leaf smoke pattern seems rather hard to distinguish. At first I thought it a row-boat, then I thought it might be a galloping steed, but then it seems to have a huge jaw or horns or tusks ... or maybe it's just a puff of smoke and she's imagining things! If anyone has a better suggestion, I'd love to hear it!

Stonecrop Leaf produces confusion

Lengalenas produces crossed swords

Summer green-weed produces a pipe

Crafted Staves Gallery Available

I couldn't wait any longer - I had to see what the full collection of crafted staves looked like - and now you can too by visiting the Woodworker: Crafted Staves page.

A good staff is a lore-master's best friend - after her pet of course! Fortunately, woodworkers can turn wooden sticks into some beautiful works of art. My favourite is the Scout's Staff; it might look familiar from my profile picture ...

Level 56: Scout's Staff

Close up of the details

Myndariel's favourite staff

Unfortunately, after level 65 there are only legendary lore-master staves that can be crafted. They're beautiful too, but we'll have to wait to see them when I do the legendary lore-master weapons article.

1H Axes Gallery Available

Following quick on the heels of the 1H swords gallery, the 1H axes gallery is now available to view on the Weaponsmith: Crafted 1H Axes page.

None of my characters normally wield an axe, but there were several axes I liked, particularly the double-sided axes such as the Heavy Iron Axe and the Elven-steel Axe. I can definitely see a dwarf guardian swinging it side-to-side through a crowd of clamouring goblins. Also useful for chopping wood for a campfire - and showing off your battle prowess to your comrades while drinking ale and singing loudly and badly - another favourite past-time of dwarves.

Heavy Iron Axe

Elven-steel Axe

Amongst the other axes, the Thain's Axe, Westfold Axe and the Axe of the Mark are quite detailed and interesting. The Axe of the Rider and Wildermore Axe are also unique.

Thain's Axe

Westfold Axe

Axe of the Mark

Oh, and there was also one that was unbelievably ugly ... the Sellsword's Axe. It reminds me of someone doing the sign of the horns, but with a blade along one edge. Maybe the weapon was supposed to be particularly good at warding against the evil eye (Eye of Sauron) and killing his minions? It does Westernesse damage, which is strong against The Dead, Unseen and Gaunt Men. Coincidence? Probably not.

Sellsword's Axe