LOTRO Legendarium: Five fun secrets hidden in Moria

Making your way through Lord of the Rings Online’s Moria can be a unique experience — for both good and bad reasons — but these days players are more focused on getting through it and out to the sunlight on the other side of the mountain range than exploring every nook and cranny of this underground realm.

And to be honest, there’s not a lot here to reward the diligent explorer. While Turbine-of-yore did a tremendous job with Moria’s scope, the team back in 2008 clearly had more pressing concerns than to populate the region with lots of hidden Easter eggs as it had done before and since.

Still, there are a few secrets to be found in Moria if you know where to look, and some of them are actually pretty helpful (or at least amusing). In today’s column, I’ll be taking you on a tour of five of these hidden gems underneath the mountain. How many have you discovered already?

1. The Chamber of the Crossroads well

For about the longest time, I never gave this giant cistern any consideration. You know how that goes, once you’ve passed by an object a couple of times, you stop seeing it altogether. I simply thought it was just another environmental decoration that sort of reminded me of the well that Pippin (Merry?) knocked that Dwarf skeleton down in the movies.

But it turns out that this is one well that actually serves a function, and that is to kill you. You can either stumble or jump down it and subsequently discover that this well leads all the way down to the Water-works. That would be an amazing shortcut if you weren’t pancaked upon arrival, but at least you earn the “Well Traveled” title for your troubles.

2. Moria’s pits

Speaking of jumping down holes that your mother told you to avoid, Moria has plenty of places to test your fear of heights — and you can earn a deed from them! There’s a hidden deed called The Pits of Moria that challenges you to find the bottom-most pit in six different areas. You won’t see anything update in your log, as it is hidden, but if you leap into the right pit some text should flash on the screen informing you of your great accomplishment.

So what do you get for being a crash test dummy? If you find all six pits, you’ll earn a whopping five LOTRO points — and the “Blind Leaper” title. Actually, that’s pretty cool. I might have to get it!

3. Floid and Dewitt

Continuing with the theme of earning strange, out-of-the-way titles, part of “The Wanderer” title can be earned in Moria. Floid and Dewitt, the famous man-and-horse explorer duo, have made it to Moria ahead of you and can be found just north of Jazârgund near the Endless Stair. If you’ve never found these two before, this discovery might set you off on a pretty fun scavenger hunt that spans all of Middle-earth — and has a sequel as well!

4. The Twenty-First Hall tavern

What if I told you that there’s an incredibly exclusive bar that’s been right over your head in the Twenty-First Hall all along? ‘Tis true, and its patrons have been sneering down on you for over a decade now.

This unnamed tavern can’t be accessed by any normal means, so you’re fresh out of luck getting there — unless you’ve obtained the Moria Keg from the Spring Festival. This special piece of furniture will randomly teleport you to seven different places across the game, with this tavern being one of them. And once you’re there, you might as well drink up, because there’s no way out other than jumping to your death or mapping home!

5. The Silvertine Lodes painting

I love seeing the random bit of mob wall art that pops up here and there across the game (most notably in Goblin Town). There’s one painting that you really should scope out, and that one is plastered against the wall in the northern goblin area of the Silvertine Lodes. If you inspect this closely, you’ll see that it is actually a mural of the rise of the Balrog (or Mazog, it’s hard to tell) and the subsequent expulsion of the Dwarves from their kingdom. That seems like something these foul and bitter goblins would celebrate!