My main character is on Brandywine, but I’ve had an alt on Landroval since 2014. I’ve only started questing semi-regularly on that character (Willamae) in the last year or two, but before that I’d occasionally log into Landroval for social purposes—and, of course, I’d stop by Weatherstock almost every year. There’s really no other player event in LotRO with the same sense of energy and camaraderie as Weatherstock: the feeling of looking into the crowd, watching people cheer and joke and sync up dances, seeing everyone flaunt their favorite cosmetics in the festival spirit, and understanding the dedication and sense of community that it takes for the event to come together on the scale that it does. And, of course, there’s great music too.
I logged into LotRO at about the two-thirds point of Weatherstock this year and headed over to the Lone-lands for the usual climb up Weathertop (which has the same “I memorized this half a decade ago, but also I just forgot which way I’m supposed to turn” dynamic as the ride up to Rivendell). Then I got sidetracked for about fifteen minutes because I caught the Lone-lands at dawn looking prettier than I’ve ever seen before.
I did keep riding up to the summit of Weathertop, just with a lot of pauses for carefully framed screenshots.
Unsuprisingly, climbing Weathertop gives you a great view of the region’s landmarks: I had to look up Naerost just now (it’s been a while since I took a character through anything lower level than Evendim), but I remember Minas Eriol as that place with the spiders and the annoyingly stealthed wargs.
Just one more landscape shot before I get to the event itself: this screenshot is my favorite out of all the ones I took that day.
Finally, I rode up to the summit of Weathertop to join the fun. I arrived around the start of DisEnchanted’s set—and, to my absolute excitement, they happened to be playing “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa. My other major interest that I blog about on the internet is pop music, and “Don’t Start Now” is one of my absolute favorite songs of the last year, so this was almost an unfairly good start to my Weatherstock experience. DisEnchanted went on to play a few other contemporary pop songs, and I had fun dancing along to songs I recognized in a very different environment than my usual music listening.
Next up were the Remediators. As their set started, my real-life friend (character name Madelenne) arrived on Weathertop to join the fun. I also noticed that just behind where I was standing, there was a chicken session player chilling on top of the wall. First of all, that player and any other people who attended as chickens are icons, and seeing this also brought back memories of the few times where I’ve seen horse session players hanging out in the crowd. Maybe next time I’ll go as a horse? Oh, but then how could I show off my cosmetic outfits? The dilemma. Anyway, the Remediators’ set was nice as always.
The other sets I watched were Polnolunie, P.I.E., and the Grayhawke Band. Of course I clapped and cheered plenty, and I also reminded myself what lots of the dance emotes look like (/dance_man is still my go-to, nothing tops the sassy claps).
Madelenne also saw a hobbit right next to us in the crowd who looked amusingly similar to her own character.
All told, I stayed at Weatherstock for about an hour and fifteen minutes—much less than some attendees, I’m sure, but enough time for me to revel in the atmosphere and get a solid dose of ingame fun! (Plus, I did have other things to do, but I’ll spare you the account of me going to Bree afterwards for inventory management, because that was mostly me sitting in silence and realizing I had to do LI upkeep).
Weatherstock is always an impressive, enjoyable achievement, and this year was no different: the music was good, the crowd was lively, and the scene on Weathertop was vibrant. Until next year!
Tales of the Traveling Elf 