Those passages may be dark, but they are not empty. Once you leave the Deep Descent, you risk wandering into passages with no lights or lanterns but those you bring with you. In any case, prepare for a long and perilous hike beneath a dark and uncaring ceiling of stone. There’s much to be done, and too few brave enough to do it: seek out untapped veins of Khazad-copper and Khazad-tin, locate and rescue poor prior travelers who have fallen lost between the Deep Descent and the Waterworks, antagonize the goblins who have claimed the cracked caverns north of the region’s old palatial district, squash the giant bugs in their mineshaft hives. Here, smart explorers and adventurers setting out to rediscover or tame the Silvertine Lodes can coordinate their actions with the planners from the Moria expedition. It was from here that the most recent expedition group bound for the Waterworks set out, though no safe path yet connects that region in the south to this camp. This is the staging ground for journeys to the south. Where the refuge in the Great Delving is bright and airy, this somber camp huddles nervously amid crumbled passageways. Here, just across the border into the Silvertine Lodes-a short jaunt from the lively refuge of the Free People in the Dolven-view-the sole expedition post in the region stands at the edge of the mines, offering explorers one last chance for camaraderie before they plunge into the dark tunnels that beckon beyond. New travelers to the Silvertine Lodes are most likely to enter the region from the Great Delving in the north, by way of the gateway called the Stone Council. They form a gap in the hopes of the Free Peoples, making for both a settler’s nightmare and an explorer’s challenge. So it is that now, though carved out and built up by the Dwarves, the Silvertine Lodes sprawl dark and terrible. As happens with any dark place in Middle-earth, creatures and minions of the Shadow seeped in and laid claim to the place. When the Dwarves were forced to abandon Moria, to retreat before the terror of Durin’s Bane, the Silvertine Lodes were left dark and empty for many lifetimes. They scratched away at the dignity of the mines until little was left but a pit in the earth. But the Dwarves of Moria kept digging, beyond caution or reason, mad in their pursuit of mithril, until the Silvertine Lodes were all but exhausted. Once, many long centuries ago, this hole was begun beneath the mountain to supply stone for great palaces and castles in Khazad-dûm and in far-off kingdoms beyond. While it's informative when the dev diaries focus on gameplay, it's post like this that bring Tolkien's amazing world to the forefront. These guides are always entertaining and full of lore. Now it gapes like a hole not just in the earth but in the image of Khazad-dûm. This deep place, known as the Silvertine Lodes, once glittered with ore and shone with the light of crystal lamps glinting off raw mithril. With the first Mines of Moria patch now live, the Lord of the Rings Online team found it to be a good time to publish its newest hero's guide, which takes us through the Silvertine Lodes.ĭeep in the belly of the great Misty Mountain peak called Celebdil by the Elves, Zirak-zigil by the Dwarves, and Silvertine by Men, one of the great quarries of Khazad-dûm lays in shadow and dust, waiting for its restoration, waiting for the echoes of pick-axes and miners’ songs to fill its empty caverns and tunnels once more.
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