Having decided to eschew Mirkwood, Lothlorien, the phishing attempt by Lady Galadriel to get me to come do the heavy lifting in Dol Guldur, and hopefully the balky server performance I was experiencing, I turned in that last quest about the siege engines and invoked the hunter “Guide to Rivendell” skill.

I chose Rivendell over a number of other options… I have buttons for Bree, Esteldin, Evendim, Ost Guruth, East Angmar, and a few more… because Rivendell is a central hub.  In a world where some stable masters have oddly brief connecting points you can get a lot of places from Rivendell.  And Endewaith was on the list!

Destination Available – Direct Flight Too

I paid my mithril coin and off I went, ending up in Lhanuch, a town in a new style for me.

Lhanuch is the main town, the hub of commerce

That was in the middle of the zone, in the heart of Nan Laeglin.

Enedwaith – The Old Style Map

I prefer the old map because it illustrates the different areas of the zone better than the current map.  But if you want the new one… the one that doesn’t align with the marker… I have that too.  The road I appear to be on is to the north of where I am marked.

Enedwaith – Current Map

Also, I realized about half way into the zone that I had been spelling it “Endwaith” when it is “Enedwaith” and now I can’t spell it the same way twice on the first try and end up saying it “Enid Wraith” or some such.  Oh well.

Where I wanted to be was up at the north end of the map, in the Forditith area at Echad Dagoras, where the first quest.  So I saddled up and rode, the better to see the zone.  During that I discovered that the map is not correctly aligned with your marker so when I went to make a right on a road, the connecting road wasn’t there… but was about 50 yards north of my location.  Odd, but you get used to it.

Also, I later found that there is a direct route from Eregion to Echad Dagoras, something I later took advantage of as the Eregion end of that is on my list of hunter teleport locations.

When I got there though… there wasn’t much going on.

One guy with a quest? Really?

But this was the intro to the Grey Company, a group of rangers who have set up shop in the zone… and one of the two factions to earn rep with… and were apparently in over their heads until I showed up.  The first thing on the list was to go rescue the other quest givers who were hiding around the north end of Enedwaith.

This guy is hiding up on a rock

But they seemed happy to see me and showed a commendable sang froid when faced with the fights required to rescue them.

Everybody wants to be noticed by the media influencers

I was willing to go along with them… it was a series of escort quests, because of course… as I was now into new content.  While my mantra up until now had been to not get bogged down, to keep moving forward and keep my eye on the prize, I was now arriving in a place I had not previously visited.

So my “just keep swimming” theme will be replaced by “let’s take a look around the place.”  As such, I went in and did every quest I could in the zone and most of the deeds.

That means I won’t go into too much detail… because as I write this I am at the far side of the place and ready to move on.

In addition to the Grey Company, there is the Algraig faction, the men of Enedwaith, who are being woo’d by both the free peoples and the master of Isengard, Saurman.

The council will now hear arguments from the wizard in white

As we learned from George Lucas, all great struggles start with trade negotiations, and it was no different here.

All Saruman wants is a free trade agreement… and an enforcement mechanism

Of course, I had spent half a dozen quests or more sniffing out what Saruman’s minions had been up to in the area, all of which gave lie to everything the agent of Saruman was saying.  When you point this sort of thing out though, people get really huffy.

Suddenly this is all MY fault…

Anyway, there was a fight there in the middle of the council, which was fine because it had been all talk talk talk though what seemed like ten minutes of stilted negotiations… authentic in a way that makes you fall asleep… so I was good with the dust up and defeated the man from Isengard handily.  Then it was three cheers, good guys win again!

I think that was the main storyline for the zone, get the locals on the side of the free peoples and all that.  But Enedwaith is a mixture of experiences, like the devs wanted to give you a Middle-earth sampler in case you missed something along the way.  So it had parts that feel like the North Downs and Angmar and the Trollshaws and Eregion and the Barrow Downs and even a bit of snow off at one end to remind you that the Misty Mountains run down this far.

There are even some hobbits, so you spend a bit of time doing some hobbit things.

Planting Marigolds

There are also a few of the usual tropes.  Old women seem to figure into things.

You aren’t related to Sara, are you?

There is another old woman with a boat you end up meeting.  I guess men die and become ghosts while women linger on.

I mention that because there is also a whole undead aspect down in the barrows area and you end up in a tomb waking up the ghost of somebody’s dad and there is The Huntsman who gets involved.

The Huntsman shows up…

Then, later on, if you persist, you end up in the camp of The Huntsman and you have to go do a few tasks off in a spirit plane that really seems to be pushing the extreme limits of what was going on in the index at the end of the books.

Wait, what do you have to do with the war with Sauron?

I mean, I get it.  Even The Huntsman of local myth has mundane, day to day tasks he’d rather not deal with and here I am, the busy bee looking to help… but still, does Elrond even know this guy?  Am I just a push over for hauling water for this rando?

But there is a lot going on in the zone that maybe I shouldn’t think to hard on.

Who? What?

Overall, a pretty zone.  It has some size to it, maybe on the order or Eregion.

Out in the fields of Enedwaith

It isn’t a pain to ride across like Forochel.  It has a few new art assets, but still feels familiar, like zones you’ve visited before.  But I guess we’re still in Eriador.

Enedwaith road, take me home…

I ran down every quest I could, along the way leveling hitting level 66, which meant my next legendary reforge.  I am starting to feel like I know something on that front, having figured out some of the fiddly bits.  But that is something for another post.

Hitting that level meant losing the xp boost from Derudh’s Stone… Derudh comes up in a quest line… which also means slower going.

Fell out of my pocket at 65

It also meant I had no piece of gear in my pocket slot.  So I pushed and got myself to kindred with the Grey Company.

In there with the Iron Garrison

I did that both to get their mount and to be able to buy the pocket item from their rep store, which requires kindred status.

Something new in my pocket

I also chased down most of the deeds, including the slayer deeds.  Why not?

That meant 300 down

Meanwhile, the other part of my gripe about heading towards Mirkwood was server performance.  Enedwaith didn’t fully solve that.  I saw my share of lag and got a warning about server load a few times.

Things not perfect still

But what are you going to do?  SSG is still trying to figure out what their plan is.

Overall though I am happy to have diverted from Mirkwood.  I think, given my push to move forward would have gotten me through it, but I had also been there before.  It was better to have gone down a different path.

And the path forward from here is all new stuff, with the next stop on the list being Dunland.