#Gundabad

[lothrandir]

maybe gundabad has some rights

#gundabad #lotro #mp #welkin lofts the only real bitch in this house

[lotro-tooltips-daily]

#lotro #gundabad #quest nodes #powder keg #this powder keg should be diffused immediately! #mission: cave in! #rescue the miners #defuse powder kegs #exit the cavern after rescuing the miners and defusing the powder kegs! #rescue the miners and defuse the powder kegs before the cave collapses completely! #note: *holding essential oil diffuser* instructions unclear...

[trapezequeen]

“Yes, he is my king, but he does not command my heart.”

#the hobbit the desolation of smaug #the hobbit gif #the hobbit #Legolas #legolas greenleaf #Orlando bloom #legolas x tauriel #tauriel #elf #elves #gundabad #king thranduil #thranduil #Evangeline Lilly

[rannadylin]

Gloomingtarn!

Cerphedis has now both outleveled Lennidhren and has reached a part of Gundabad that Lenni hadn't got to yet. But who knows? Maybe Lenni will yet assert her Main status and jump back into the race before Cerphedis hits 150? XD

#lotro #lord of the rings online #cerphedis of gondor #lennidhren of lorien #gundabad

[tehri]

So Gundabad is great.

We’ve got

Snowy/frostcovered stone-walls that mostly look like they’ve been splattered with paint,

PS1 era surfaces à la Tomb Raider,

and a Zhelruka dwarf aggressively T-posing at a bunch of other dwarves who were horribly rude to me and to the Zhelruka.

Loving Gundabad so far!

#tehri plays Lord of the Rings Online #tehri plays LotRO #Lord of the Rings Online #LotRO #Gundabad #Good times! #At least the first two can be boiled down to me not having graphics set super-high but...

[masterelrond]

during my time in gundabad i did not think i would be befriending lonely giants whose only friends are his goats yet here we are

#anyway skálgrund ur a legend<3 #lotro #gundabad #nori disrupts air

[kemendin]

So glad I snagged this chestpiece and cloak from the figments vendor before he poofed. Definitely one of my favourite outfits for Kem right now.

#lotro #lord of the rings online #lotro fashion #lotro oc #lotro screenshots #gundabad #lotr oc #high elf #lotro:kemendin #kem oc #kem screenshots #kem plays dress up

[rethdis-love]

Crystals of LoTRO

#nonsims #LOTRO #lord of the rings online #gundabad

[a-little-hobbit-hole]

Just finished the Throne of Zidir-nesad on a character for the first time ☺️

Nen's the first I actually sat down and did gundabad deeds on (I'm so sorry, my mini). I pretty much had a slayer accelerator the entire time I ran thru gundabad other than Máttugard...which was worth it bc now I have the pretty frame! (Forgot the pic oops)

And of course I got a pic of Ingor

#lotro #lotr #nennith #lotr elf #high elf #elf #gundabad #the throne is super super pretty #but it look a lot of work haha #now back to deeding in lower zones as i wait for umbar #ill get back to ali's adventures soon #even got pics waiting

[a-lonely-dunedain]

hey so in the instance "Breaking Through" Gundaband just, didn't show up? this is a cave? a glitchy cave?

my prince, are you sure that's all of Gundabad? are you absolutely sure that's all of it?? because, forgive me if I speak above my place, but that reaaaally doesn't look like all of it...

#lotro #gundabad #Durin #never encountered this one before #got a chuckle outta me

[negreabsolut]

Gundabad, per artofjosevega.

#art #pintura #iŀlustració #fantasia #fantasia fosca #fantàstic #fantasia èpica #espasa i fetilleria #Gundabad #fortalesa

[lotro-tooltips-daily]

#lotro #quest nodes #gundabad #crystal #rare crystals

[yad-plays]

Well, I’m back on Middle Earth.

Durthuzâram, the Dark Lake - Gloomintarn - Gundabad Abkân'aban, the Stone of Wakening - Gloomintarn - Gundabad

#jeu #jeu vidéo #game #video game #LOTRO #SDAO #Lord of the rings #gaming #mmo #Gundabad #Gloomintarn #The Dark Lake #Durthuzâram #The Stone of Wakening #Abkân'aban

[rannadylin]

Gundabad!

#cerphedis of gondor #lotro #gundabad #lord of the rings online #how beautiful bodies of water in this game are! #those are some very pretty mountains too :-D

[tehri]

Me: Oh, I like the questline in Cár Bronach actually, that's really- Game: *throws the reminder of Amdir in my face* Me: ... okay now you're just being rude, that's unnece- Game: *proceeds to throw the deaths of Thettmar and Stóthkell in my face* Me: OKAY HOLD UP-

#tehri plays Lord of the Rings Online #tehri plays LotRO #Lord of the Rings Online #LotRO #Gundabad #ngl I genuinely thought they meant to remind me of Candaith at first instead of Amdir #both reminders pain #but just... Why #and then following it up with Therrmar and Stóthkell?? #they're not pulling any punches now #they're actively stomping on my heart

[rohirric-hunter]

So the new wild theory about the Rift of Nûrz Ghashu doesn't actually hold up under closer inspection, and actually ended up raising more questions yet again, BUT I still think it was a good theory so I'm going to share it anyway (Gundabad spoilers):

The Rift of Nûrz Ghashu IS Thafar-gathol.

Not literally Thafar-gathol, obviously. Clearly the story about a Zhélruka city in the Grey Mountains was, as Durin thought, the vision of a confused Dwarf who was shown a vision of Biriz-zahar as Mótsog wished it to be. Thafar-gathol, in all its mythologized glory, never existed... but that doesn't mean there wasn't a city.

As a matter of fact, there was almost certainly a city. According to Gandalf, the lone Zhélruka survivor who bore the tale of Thafar-gathol to the rest of the world appeared centuries after his party went missing on its way to Gundabad. There was not a large party of Zhélruka wandering through the Grey Mountains for centuries, not without someone knowing about them. Gundabad and its surrounding holdings were still occupied by Longbeards at the time, after all. Surely they would have been aware of nomads in their territory for that long.

No, the Zhélruka went somewhere, and were living somewhere, for those centuries. Thafar-gathol might not exist, but there was a city.

And the Rift of Nûrz Ghashu boasts a ruined city quite close to Gundabad -- deep beneath the ground as the Dwarves like it, and secret. No one knows anything about it.

The history of the Rift, of course, is as always confused and difficult to piece together. Glathlírel reports that Thaurlach fled the Breaking of Thangorodrim to the land that would eventually become Angmar. She pursued him, but he managed to hide from her for years, until "the Dark Power rose again and Thaurlach awoke from his secret slumber." This seems to reference when Sauron began to reveal himself 500 years into the Second Age -- which means there's a 500 year timeframe where Thaurlach was hiding somewhere in Angmar and Glathlírel hunted him in vain. We know from the behavior of Askâdurs that Balrogs in hiding sleep in caves deep beneath the ground. So it seems likely that perhaps Thaurlach destroyed the city in the Rift when he awoke, much as Askâdurs brought down Khazad-dûm when he awoke. HOWEVER, he was not defeated and imprisoned for another 500 years -- Eimyr says that the Blue Wizards helped Glathlírel imprison him, and they arrived in Middle-earth about 1000 years into the Second Age and then soon after went to the east and never returned.

But this leaves 500 years between the Sinking of Beleriand and the awakening of Thaurlach when Angmar-to-be was a place of relative peace, and tired newcomers looking for a home could potentially begin some great delving in the mountainous north -- perhaps an easier prospect than turning back and finding their way back through the unfriendly roads that lead to Câr Bronach, especially if there was already something there to work off of.

And when Thaurlach did awaken, and the city was destroyed by a rampaging Balrog? Well, then perhaps a vision of Biriz-zahar being wrecked by a different Balrog would only resonate even more with the lone survivor, and he would feel even more as if that city was his, confusing the two stories. This also matches what the legend itself says about the fall of Thafar-gathol:

For in the dimness of the deep A shadowed shape did stir from sleep. He woke the worm-kin well past number, Avowing to avenge his slumber.

What could that possibly be except for a Balrog?

The theory doesn't hold up entirely. Asmólf says that the city in the Rift was originally built on the surface but "fell into the earth" during the "Great Destruction." Great Destruction almost certainly refers to the Sinking of Beleriand, implying that it was built before then, but the city doesn't look like it's fallen a great distance to me... or at the very least it's been cleaned up well.

And then of course there's the architecture found in said city. There are statues of Dwarves, but they are not central, standing next to statues of Elves and apparently Men. If the Zhélruka did live here they did not build the place, or not alone, at any rate. However, there is one interesting statue on the walkup to the final boss fight:

It's difficult to see in this screenshot, but the furthest-to-the-right statue is wearing a helmet that rises symmetrically to a point -- a helm style distinctive to Zhélruka armour:

(I would have gladly committed murder for the opportunity to get up close and personal with that statue while I could fly. Without a second thought.)

As far as I can find, this is the only use of this statue in the game. However, the other Dwarf statues do not share this particular distinctiveness, and while not all Zhélruka wear that particular helmet, that same statue asset is used regularly in known Longbeard ruins.

We don't know what Zhélruka architecture looks like -- the closest we probably see is Vóin's secret room in Khîl's house, but it would be silly to assume that room was not inspired at all by other architectural influences as well. (Like, you know, Mordor.) It is, however, very unlikely that it is, by complete coincidence, so very similar to Arnorian architecture that, for instance, game devs could just copy-paste the same assets for them. (Clearly most of the city, or at least most of the parts you are able to explore, were built by either the Númenóreans or whatever Elven society they inherited their city-building skills from, as pre-Númenor humans did not really build large cities.) It seems unlikely that the Zhélruka lived even in the ruins of the city without making it a bit more theirs... but perhaps they were guests?

Regardless, that's the theory. I don't think it holds up enough to properly headcanon it -- at best it's something the devs might have had in mind way back in 2008 when the Rift was first released, but the Zhélruka were first mentioned in 2018, and a lot changes in ten years, so who even knows for sure.

#lotro #lotro theory #gundabad spoilers #part of me wonders if i posted this on the forums #if one of the devs would step in with an actual explanation #probably not #theyve managed to avoid explaining the rift for 15 years they definitely arent going to start now