Angau Tanodd Hithae Glir..!!" means Death Under the Misty Mountains

What is that you said? Oh, my apologies. I thought you could read elven. I will try and interpret as best I can. The title reads, 'Death Under the Misty Mountains'.

There is in fact, another small range of mountains less important, that lie under the Misty Mountain's shadows and known as the Ettenmoors. This area is the cross over point from warm lands to the extreme cold in the north. It has for centuries been a beautiful land of forest, fields, streams and small waterfalls. If you have reached your tenth level of life within Middle Earth, you can go there and visit if you like, but BEWARE..!!

My name is Battlebones and already I see that you are staring at me now with that 'look'. Yes I'm an orc of great stature, but I know my place. That’s how I got this scar across my face. I once said 'his' name to someone next to me and he heard it. He screamed at me and said, 'You slime of the caves. How dare you speak the name of the Witch-king of Angmar..!!' Oh, he mindstruck me so hard....so hard. I dare not ever say it again, because I survived that brutal attack. He is my master, and yet I find myself writing this to you without his knowledge. Its my wickedness within my wickedness, if you see my meaning.

If by chance you see the Scrying Pool in Bree and you stare at it until you come under its spell, you will awaken to questions in your mind. Who am I? What can I do here? What do I want to be for 'him'? Your choices lie before you, and then you can enter the Ettenmoors.

An Orc Reaver? An all out warrior able to run with the wargs in speed, even while carrying double deadly blades and a mysterious resistance to death. If he catches his prey the cutting steel blades are cold and bloody as they slice through skin and bone.

What of the Warg Stalkers and their sneaking, stealthy, attacks? These enormous ferocious mutant wolves can remain invisible at will and even silently invade the enemies' camps. They are hated for their ability to spy without interruption, and yet gnash and bite when the battle arrives.

Behind this front line lies in waiting the Spider Weavers. They can crawl into the smallest of holes and hide, laying their deadly trap. The enemy might slay his way past others not knowing these eyes are watching his every move. He springs the trap and the deadly giant spider releases the sticky white mucous webbing, stopping the attacker cold in his footsteps. Vicious bites and poison ensue. Death is near.

FFFTT!! FFFTT!!.....FFFTT!! The Urak Blackarrow is an orc of terror and fear to his enemies. His deadly black feather arrows are a streak of white trails as they fly into the front ranks of the opposing force. Moving forwards and backwards in the battle line he is most effective. He is easily the most feared.

The prize though is the great 'Urak Warleader'. He screams a bloody yell of power and his brothers and sisters become emboldened and their health improves immediately. If one should lose hope and lie near death, the unholiness of the Warleader will bring them back from the depths of hell itself.

Given the opportunity of shape-shifting you decide to try them all, one at a time until you find your life within the Ettenmoors. After all, how bad can it be? Suddenly you black out and you feel his brilliantly blinding eye upon you, and all thought and hope drains from your mind. When you come to, you are hungry and sick. Your ten levels on the other side are now gone and you find yourself trapped inside the stinking and powerful body of a level 50 servant of the Dark Lord. He has you!

You try to escape....its no good!! You feel panic ensue, and you try to run. You turn and the most ungodly armored cave troll stands before you and slaps you across the mouth and says, 'Maggot, you are now in the Dark Army. Do as I say now or be whipped. Here are your tasks. Get them done and I will give you more power..!!'

You don't understand it? How can this be, that all of a sudden you are craving this power? You scream a terrifying scream of power out of shear wickedness. You look down and your mighty body is now rippling with muscles and the sweat is shining on your skin. You feel the power and yet you feel the addiction to it. Do you understand me? The addiction holds you to 'him'. He knows it, you feel it.

You do what you once called quests but here it is different and they are called tasks. You work at them and constantly a series of killing and butchering until you become numb to it. It no longer effects your sense of what is right and what is wrong. This is your destiny, in fact these points that you make with your new bosses are called 'Destiny Points'. Spend them on power, armor, tactics, abilities, and in some cases even war-paint or 'looks'. Buy health in exchange for power or power for damage, all to simply appease 'him'.

What do you mean a day in the life of a Creep and Freep? Oh...oh...okay. Yes, let me explain in terms that you will understand. You try to spend time and build your character in power. Then as others like yourself start the day, a warg may spot the enemy here and there. You realize that you have to stop your task and join their ranks. The enemy is near. Who is the enemy?

On the goody-two-shoes side of the world...the good side, you have the 'Free Peoples' of Middle Earth and their Heroes. These rumored Heroes have reached level 40 in their life and they too may take this journey as well. Find the horrid place known as Rivendell and seek out a stable-master. When you arrive its obvious that you would like to kill us. So what. We....don't....care. Okay? Free Peoples you say? No....you are 'Freeps' to us and you can say Heroes all you like, and in fact you call us Creeps as much as you want. We are proud of it. Thats right....pride!

A part of the Dark Lord's mind is called the Vilya, or just Vilya. I'm there, and my brothers and sisters, regardless of how ugly they are, we work well together as we know that our lives are at stake if we don't. Its fun to kill and to share a kill. We have many amongst us that are infamous even on the good side. Killers and murderers you say? Nah...Twisty, Bluedoom, Skewr, Kuhost, Skaithe, Zu, Cutterfang, Khazul, Doomdog, Raynor, Rovok, Ubane, Fenom, Evilsandien, Gniit, Mardak, Fellheart, Merrow, Heroslayer, Kazar, Halagost and Battlebones (me), are some of the smartest, knowledgeable players in the game as well as many, many more.

I will lower my voice now and tell you of just one night in the 'Moors', if you like. I clicked on OOC, do you know what that is? Do you? Right...an out of character chat, but that is a slight error, because we are who we are. Immediately Urakhealer yells at me to get to the Lumber Yard and sends me an invitation into my mind. I accept it without question and head to LY. In my mind its all clear and my senses are so acute. I see we are a raid force of eighteen and a nice mixture of all races. The leaders and co-leaders send the wargs out. They creep up on the lumber yard in stealth mode. They report back that seventeen Freeps have taken hold of the LY and that their ugly blue flag magically appears on my map...my mind map.

Our leader yells in excitement to assemble on the banks of the river just below the ugly spider keep nearby. After we are all together in a gang, its very impressive and you know that you are emboldened beyond your real powers. I watch as the creepy spiders begin working their way up behind the wargs and then drop down to hide in their hell holes. The Freeps are restless and they are constantly moving in and out of the LY on their silly horses. I love horse flesh...maybe more on that later.

Now the main body moves up. Myself and the other orc reavers like me, stay low and creep forward with the archers behind us and the healing Warleaders behind them as well. Twisty howls, 'Stay together..!' 'Bluedoom yells, 'Not yet, be patient.' I'm quivering all over in anticipation as I see the enemy for the first time and I duck behind a bush. A strange quiet is floating over the area. The Freep captain comes up slowly on his horse as he patrols. He stops now and I can see he senses something. He doesn't turn as he naturally would, but instead slowly spurs his horse to back up.

Twisty, who misses nothing sees the horse back up and gives the warshout, 'ATTACK'..!! An explosion occurs on both sides as everyone ran forward at the same time. Total pandemonium erupts and I bolt as fast as I can run. I'm behind my warg friend Kuhost and my other warg friend Skewr. I see one of our weaver spiders hit a Freep with sticky webs holding him in place. The two wargs go crazy on him, and I jump in as well.

It took us a long time to kill him. The whole time all hell has broken loose around us, but we are so focused on our prey. He finally dies, but not before I gained a strange new respect for this one lonely Freep laying there. Blood all over his shiny wonderful suit of armor. He was a 50 and probably had a family as well. I slit his throat and took a bauble. What? It was just a small bauble? Oh his family....yeah....sad....I got 20 silver on the bauble though!

Then a total realization came over me as I turned and noticed that our force was now running into the tree line and the Freeps right on their heals. We were cut off and vulnerable. The Freeps seen this and reacted like lightning. The three of us fought extremely hard, but they used traps on us and sickening draining spells. It was horrible I was trying to fight while throwing up. The wargs broke finally of their roots. Their lives nearly gone they had no choice but to run.

I spun to follow them, but too late. I felt the horrible feeling of the trap, as it sunk its terrifying steel teeth into my leg. I screamed a blood curling scream so loud that it surprised even me. That only drove them into a furious state as even more of their warriors jumped on me. The pain was excruciating, but it was the thought in my mind that worried me more...'he' will punish me if I fail..!! I dropped to the ground onto my back and the world turned grey to me. Knives, blades , and clubs started to fade from my sight. The Dark Lord pulled me away and I revived in a stone circle surrounded by his nasty guards. They whipped me horribly for my failure, and told me to get to Dar'Gazad. Yes, I received a terrible beating once there, but I was alive. I lived to fight another day.

Author's Note:

This is LotRO's answer to player versus player (PvP) and important that you understand, its not like a quest that has a predetermined ending. You live here by your strategy, tactics, and sometimes you have to think quickly on your feet as the enemy is hard upon you. You can cry and whine for help all you want in the different chats, but if caught out alone on your own, the distance will be your final loss of hope as your will is broken, while sadly your friends hear the rumor of your death.

So, I openly invite all of you to join either side as you will find hours of camaraderie and fun. There are around ten keeps and they are guarded by NPC's of your side as long as your flag flies above the fortress. So basically when an opposing force comes in they have to destroy your force plus the NPC's. That is not easy, no matter who you are. You have no choice but to go and defend them or to try and take them back, and so that is your game to win or lose.

Vilya is a wonderful community of really good people, and we all try to get along, even though we are in a theater of war setting. You will see forum posts actually giving praise to the enemy for their efforts from the night before. Oh, and yes, they love to tell their war stories. Myself included....lol..!!

'Yr Diwedd' Huh? Oh....forgot. 'The End'