Skip to main content

Lotro Journal 30 April 2007: A brief history of Throg

No adventures to report today as poor Throg has succumbed to an unpleasant ague that appears to have afflicted most of the population of Eriador. I thought I would take this opportunity to fill you on some of Throg's personal history and how he came to choose the life of an adventurer.

A good place to start is with his name. Throg is not a usual name for a dwarf and indeed it is not his given name. His given name is Throgli and he hails from a long line of Throglis, miners of iron in the Blue Mountains. Throg does not use his given name any more. He has chosen to be called Throg ever since he was a child who's beard was not yet long enough to touch the ground. The reason for his choice is connected to his choice of profession and that is the story I will now tell.

As a child sporting a half grown beard Throgli was unfortunate to be gifted with a particular bandiness of the legs. Three of the older children, cruel as only children can be, chose to latch on to this trait and taunt young Throgli with the nickname "Throg the Frog". Their abuse did not stop at name calling. Being older and stronger than Throgli they bullied him unmercifully, stealing those of his childish possessions they had use for and destroying the rest.

Young Throgli was distraught. He knew that a dwarf of the blue mountains did not give in to intimidation but most of his family were deep in the mines on a prospecting trip of several months duration and he did not think he had the ability to tackle his tormentors alone. In desperation he decided to consult his great uncle Halcin a dwarf who had lost much favour in the eyes of the family when he forsook the mines to go adventuring about Erid Luin. Then over 250 years old Halcin had retired from adventuring and taken up residence in Thorin's halls. On hearing of Throg's difficulties Halcin's solution was to set Throg to training with wooden axe, sword and club. Throgli had to endure the abuse of his tormentors for many days more but each evening he practised blows and counter blows under Halcin's careful tuition.

As he practised his strokes Throgli felt new strength grow his muscles and new confidence grow in his heart. Halcin did not name day when Thogli was ready to face up to his abusers but when that day came Throgli knew.

When our three fine rascals came upon the youngster that morning they paid little heed to the stout walking stick he was carrying. Indeed why would they worry? Each on his own was bigger and stronger than Throgli. Throgli chose to open the conversation not with words but with a sharp thwack of heavy end of his stick on a particulalry sensitive region of the strongest of his foes.

Among certain peoples such a blow is considered un-chivalrous but dwarves adopt a pragmatic approach to chivalry. To Throgli's mind the fact that there were three of them and only one of him justified much. Indeed it is well known that aiming for that same region is a common tactic among dwarves when fighting members of the oversized races. They justify this as a natural consequence of the difference in height. The fact that it produces instantly debilitating agony in their foe is seen as a bonus.

With one combatant curled into a howling ball the odds were a little better for Throgli but still not comforting. Now alerted, his two remaining adversaries bore down upon him intent on making him pay dearly for his presumption. They had not had the coaching of a master fighter though and their fumbling lunges were blocked and parried with swift strikes of Throgli's club. Moreover they were made to pay for their failed attempts as Throgli's counter-strokes extracted a terrible retribution. Soon it was all over and three bruised and suffering dwarf rapscallions lay at Throgli's feet. As they cowered on the ground to avoid the awful vengeance of that terrible stick one of the three peered through blurring eyes and stammered: "Who.... who are you?"

Our hero stopped and thought for a minute before replying with his weapon held high (high for a dwarf that is):

"I am THROG. Throg the CHAMPION and I shall grow to be the most famous adventurer in all of Middle Earth."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Android Tip 3: Sharing a Folder between multiple users of an Android device

Android has allowed multiple user logins for quite a while now. This is can be very useful for tablets which are shared by family members. Normally Android erects strict Chinese walls between users preventing them from using each others apps and viewing each others files. This is a useful security feature and ensures your kids don't mess up your work spreadsheets when screwing around on the tablet and should also prevent them from buying €1,000 worth of Clash of Candy coins on your account. Sometimes however you really do want to share stuff with other users and this can prove surprisingly difficult. For example on a recent holiday I realised that I wanted to share a folder full of travel documents with my wife. Here are some ways to achieve this. 1. If you have guaranteed internet access  then you can create a shared folder on either Dropbox or Google drive. Either of these has the great advantage of being able to access the files on any device and the great disadvantage of bein

Portal 2 two screen coop on one PC.

I mentioned before that I intended to try Portal 2 in "unofficial split screen co-op mode. Well split screen on a small computer monitor is a recipe for a headache especially when the game defies gravity as much as portal. However a minor bit of extra fiddling allowed us to drive two seperate screens from one PC. The Steam forums describes a complicated method of doing this that I couldn't get working so this simpler method which worked for me might be of use to someone. 1. First I followed the instructions in this post to get split screen multi-player working: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1847904 A minor issue not mentioned is that you need to enable the console from the keyboard/mouse options menu I am using keyboard and one wired Xbox360 controller as suggested. Getting the controller to switch to channel 2 was tricky at first but as Chameleon8 mentions plugging it out and in again during loading works. The trick for me was to do the plug / p

Lotro: The Forgotten Treasury

Throg joined a Kinship group for the Forgotten Treasury instance last night. It was an enjoyable change from the solo questing that the now level 55 dwarf champion has been mostly doing so far in Moria. Some members of the group had tried and failed to clear the Treasury before so we knew it would be challenging but we were lucky enough to have a well balanced group with Guardian, Minstrel, Lore Master, Hunter, Burglar and Champion (Throg). Throg (level 55) and the minstrel (53) were both below the 56ish level of the instance but the others were all higher so it more or less balanced out. [SPOILERs ahead] It is a well designed enjoyable instance set in a circular chamber with balcony around. As you enter, a boss absconds to a locked side chamber with his treasure leaving the fellowship to clear trash ringed around the balcony. Once the trash are cleared you have access to a puzzle which must be solved in order to open the locked door. Clearing the (including six mini bosses) also get