Steed of Winter Winds, Yule Festival 2014

Supergirl rides the Steed of Winter Winds

Wow. How about that; 2014 is nearly over. Did you get everything accomplished you intended to do? Was your journey through Middle Earth as satisfying as you hoped?

I have been having a great time! Timewise, I get drawn away by work and family and responsibilities and don't get to play as much, but when I do, it is always satisfying. I made all the festivals. I got all the new horses. I got most of the pets. I did all of the quests. I think I did all the new Deeds. Good times!

I need to update my To-Do list and get the All the Steeds Gallery caught up with all the horses that are written about on this blog. Soon, very soon. Thanks for continuing to come to the site!


Yule Festival 2014
Yule Festival is probably my favorite festival (Yes, I know I say that about most of the festivals!). My favorite things about Yule Festival are...

(1) Sack of Presents. I love running a simple quest and getting the presents. The presents include Marks, Medallions, Seals, Festival tokens, some cosmetic items, and the very rare Hobby Horse. I am still hoping and wishing for my Hobby Horse. Danaish got one a couple of years ago and I'm still envious (check out the Hobby Horse at the link below or in the Steed Gallery.)

(2) Easy and open. The quests are very easy. Like good festival quests, after you have run them several dozen times, you can do them with your eyes closed. I also like the wide open Frostbluff area with the open pretty wintry sky.

(3) Nice rewards. My favorite rewards from Yule Festival 2014 are the (a) Horse of course @ 80 tokens, (b) the Warsteed cosmetic @ 100 tokens, (c) the Pet Grims @ 75 tokens each, and (d) the Yule Sparklers @ 30 tokens each.

There are three Grim available: just "Grim" (it is the Snow Grim), Fire Grim, and Shadow Grim. Here is a shot of the Snow Grim.

Supergirl in a pointing contest with a pet Snow Grim

(4) Long duration. This Yule festival was set with about 4 weeks time to visit, which is great! As I type, there is still about 2 weeks left. Yule Festival ends Jan 13.

(5) History: I still remember Yule Festival before Frostbluff. It is great to go back and visit festival every year. :) Here are a few posts from previous years. There was a building storyline in previous years about my leading the Snowman Army slowly to a takeover of Frostbluff.

2013: snow-beast-steed
2013: steed-of-withywindle-and-hobby-horse
2013: yule-festival-wintertide-steed

2012: yule-festivals-end
2012: youll-yule-celebrate
2012: the-hobby-horse-lotros-100th-steed
2012: wintry-yule-warsteed

2011: youll-yule-festival
2011: fun-of-yule-past

(-) The downside: The only thing I don't care for about Yule Festival is that the Frostbluff storyline is depressing. The people don't want to work it, the mayor is thieving money, etc. We have come to an understanding though that it is another act, like the Frostbluff Theater. They pretend to be gruff and cheerless, and I pretend not to notice and just collect the rewards. It works, I suppose.


Enough about Yule Festival, let's see the Horse!

Steed of Winter Winds:

Here is the Steed of Winter Winds.
He has a grey spotted hide, white hair, and a lovely multi-blue caparison.

Steed of Winter Winds

The pattern has a nice starry look to it. Here is an overhead view, from slightly behind.

Steed of Winter Winds - from above and behind

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Default:

The Default Warsteed look is exactly as one would expect; it is the warsteed default grey. :)
Interestingly, the basic Horse has a nice matching saddle and the Warsteed cosmetic does not come with the saddle. The Caparison is a greyer blue than the shade of Indigo; there is no exact blue match on the color palette.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - default

Warsteed of Winter Winds - attempted Match to Horse:

Ha Ha! Here is my attempt at matching the Warsteed colors and patterns to the basic Horse. For this next picture I chose Spotted Hide - Grey, White Hair, and the Victory Saddle. Ok, the saddle is not an exact match to the basic Steed of Winter Winds, but it worked well. :)

Warsteed of Winter Winds - attempt to match the basic horse

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Evendim Blue and Black:

The Evendim Blue and Black is gorgeous. It is hard to go wrong with the blue shades on this horse. I took the picture from above to show off the fancy starry Caparison. It dyes well.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Evendim Blue and Black

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Rivendell Green, Dark Chestnut, Blood Bay:

Here is the warsteed in Rivendell Green and browns: Dark Chestnut hide with Blood Bay hair. This is an elegant hunter look.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Rivendell Green and Browns

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Crimson, White, Light Grey:

Here is the warsteed in Crimson with White hide and light Grey hair. Oooh, I like this one too. :)

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Crimson and White

Here is another shot of the stars on the Caparison. This one is wearing the Victory Saddle again.

Warsteed of Winter Winds - Crimson from above

For more horse views by a great blogger, tune in to The Elven Tailor @ The Elven Tailor/ the-winds-of-winter.

I hope you had a great 2014; I look to see you again next year. Thanks for visiting the Supergirl of Lorien site!  :)

Steed of Withywindle and a Hobby Horse

Supergirl rides the Steed of Withywindle

Hello hello! I am late getting this posted, but here are shots of the Steed of Withywindle, the December steed of the month! If this is the steed you desire, don't delay as it is scheduled to gallop from the lotro stable on December 31st. Visit all the other steeds at All-the-Steeds.

Also, don't miss the Yule festival which has a new horse with warsteed appearance and still has barterable last year's yule horse and warsteed appearance. And, for the collectors, Yule festival also has every previous Yule horse available for purchase at 70 mithril coins each. (Yule-festival-2013-wintertide-steed)

Oh yes, and one thing I didn't mention yet, a "Sack of Presents" is the reward once per day for doing at least one Yule festival quest. Personally, every day the lildanas and I try to go to Yule festival and do the "Empty Keg" quest since it takes less than one minute to complete. We get our Sacks of Presents (thank you very much) and move along (it takes about 20 minutes to cycle through all ten Angels, do one quest and get a daily present). The daily presents include things such as 150 marks, 500 marks, 30 medallions, 2 seals, 2-10 festival tokens, a couple of cosmetics, stat tomes, and Danaish got our favorite present, the very rare Hobby Horse! (All-the-Steeds/special-steeds-62).

Danaish rides the Hobby Horse - from Sack of Presents

So, there are lots of potential Yule presents this holiday season. May you find what you seek!
Here now is the December Steed, the Steed of Withywindle. :)

Steed of Withywindle: 
This Steed has an interesting colored hide, nearly pink. The outfit is greenish/yellow elven-style. Oppa! Next we will see what it looks like in a few different colors.

Steed of Withywindle

Warsteed of Withywindle - Default:
Here is the default colors. The outfit is indeed identical, and of course, the courser horse is default grey.

Warsteed of Withywindle - Default

Warsteed of Withywindle - Bay and Ered Luin:

Warsteed of Withywindle - Bay and Ered Luin

Warsteed of Withywindle - Red Roan and Crimson:

Warsteed of Withywindle - Red Roan and Crimson

Warsteed of Withywindle - Liver Chestnut and Forest Green:
This is the first time I have ever used hide color Liver Chestnut, lol! To me, it looks like a subtle blend between golden brown and green so I thought it complemented the natural greens of Withywindle. :)

Warsteed of Withywindle - Liver Chestnut and Forest Green

I hope you have a fabulous rest of the year. Y'all come back now. :)

Yule festival’s end, 2012

It feels like I wrote more about Yule festival than most festivals this year! the previous post listed a few more Yule links.

The clincher was that there were a lot of horses and warsteeds to talk about, which got the Steed Gallery fired up (all-steeds).

The lildanas always show up for festival, though the hobbit quadruplets usually stay home. This Yule festival however saw two very important reasons for them to come out.

#1 - Sack of Presents: Everyone who showed up to Yule Festival and did one quest got a sack of presents. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the sack of presents was worth camping out in Frostsbluff to get daily. Gifts we got from the sacks included Festival tokens, a special hat and cloak, stat tomes, Danaish got a hobby horse, and level 25 Danadalyn even won a Tarnished Symbol that she gave me to build my level 85 2nd age LI.

#2 – Festival Quest leveling: The quests were all considered as “on-level” quests. That didn’t do so much for me since I was at level 85, although the LIs all advanced with iXP for each quest. The lildanas were all level 25 or level 6, and never really leave the craft-halls except to come to festival. So, going to festival, it was like they were getting free xp for doing what they planned to do anyway. What a win! That reminds me, craft-leveling, I’ll talk soon about the joy of how crafters get xp just for crafting. J

A few friends: As always, festival is a good time to see people who you might not see often. Here are a few friends who I saw at Yule.

Bluepop has a sparkling good time at Yule.

Mysterixox and I wait in line for the Frostbluff Theater. Myst is the talent behind the Lotro Academy podcast Lotro Academy and thinks I am Awesome. J http://lotroacademy.com/?p=962

Aeronwy and I sport matching Fleet-footed Goats to stroll around the town of Frostbluff.

Betzi and Danaszar brave the winter’s cold to run through the snow toward a snowball fight.

Lildanas: The lil-danas As mentioned, because of the Sack of Presents (and general good time of festivalling), the lildanas showed up for the party. Here are a few parting shots to close Yule 2012.

DanaClaus disappears just before Christmas, muttering something about checking lists and and working off cookie weight. Yule festival is one of his favorites.

Danaish rides her new Hobby Horse around Frostbluff like a hobbit on too much sugar and pipeweed.

DanaOnar, one of the hobbit quadruplets, grips a Spring fest giant flower in one hand and a new Yule mug in the other. She enjoyed the warmth of a Spiral Horned Cloak from one of the Sack of Presents.

Danadelion poses stoically with one of the snowmen who leans his head on her shoulder.

Yule Festival was a great time and we look forward to seeing you again next year!