Blog: Behold, new stuff!

2024/06/27

Written by Ryan Mattson

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‍Ka'imû l'athgir dô!‍

I can find a use for this!‍

Retaking Moria sounds simple enough, but there’s more to do than simply walking in and asking all the Orcs to kindly vacate. We talked recently about cooking, but a Dwarf’s day comprises so much more. You search for resources for crafting or building, clear a spider infestation from a sacred site, or challenge a belligerent orc leader. But what of the time you retread old ground, or want to merely wander in the mountain that you’ve been dutifully restoring?

There have always been things to discover as you explore Moria’s environs, familiar or not. But as you pass by buildings, it’s hard to know if there are reasons to go further in, other than to break barrels or crates for wood, or collect cloth scraps.

For certain things you could find in the world, such as muznakan carvings, or ranger journal pages, we’ve added visual effects that help them stand out in the world. Now it’s easier to glance around as you’re exploring and see some of the more important things to collect.

You might see that there’s a muznakan carving high up on a building, but it’s not immediately obvious how you get up there. You could build your way up the outside, of course, but maybe exploring inside for a way to the carving will reveal some other things worth bringing back to base.

You’ll also find other methods of storage the Dwarves would have used during the height of Moria.

These are much easier to spot at a distance, and you know you’ll always find something useful for your journey in them, including Dwarven âbakh (most easily thought of as short-term boosts to aid in exploration or combat), new resources, gold ingots, or tomes and scrolls of Dwarven build-lore.

Loosely translated from Khuzdul, âbakh is “a thing that makes (someone/something) into something else.” You might use an âbakh to briefly give you more stamina for sprinting away from an unexpected horde. Or if you want to stay and fight, you might use an âbakh to briefly supplement your armor and strength.

And some of the new resources you find will let you craft your own âbakh at the workbench, as well.

There are many âbakh to discover and craft, such as:

• Boost - increases stamina
• Power - increases attack power
• Warding - increases armor effectiveness
• Reflex - dodge without using stamina
• Swift - sprint without using stamina
• Fury - increases armor effectiveness, attack power, and stamina, but damage health
• Cleansing - reduces poison buildup rate and increase poison recovery rate
• Resolve - reduces shadow buildup rate and increase shadow recovery rate

As you’re exploring, you’ll also find tomes and scrolls of Dwarven build-lore, which you can bring back to bookcases or scrollshelves that you can build in your base.

As you collect more and more-build lore, you’ll be able to study these to become a Master Builder for a short time. Master Builder is a boost that gives a small chance that your next built structure or crafted item will not cost you any resources. That’s right, free!

Keep an eye out for these tomes and scrolls, and you’ll be able to harness the deep lore of Dwarven craft. Study your collection often to make sure you get the best economy from the resources you collect throughout Moria.

All of these additions are meant to fill out the places you explore in your journey restoring Moria. Moria feels more lived-in with more valuable things to find, as well as being able to more easily recognize those valuables as you explore. Now there is a stronger reason to search an abandoned blacksmith in Westgate, or pore over a dusty old library in Dwarrowdelf.

‍Igat rabbâ!‍

Back to work!

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Our next big update, which includes the new items mentioned above as well as Updated Cooking, is due to be released in Fall 2024 alongside the release of the Steam and Xbox versions of The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria™.  Join our Discord and keep an eye on the dev-updates channel for more sneak peaks of what's to come in the next update and choose the Forge Fire role to recieve alerts when we post in that channel!

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