Ancient Master

My absolute favorite staff has always been the Staff of Storied Past. Although recently introduced through the LOTRO Store, this staff has been in the game's coding for years. Originally, it was called the Lore-master's Staff of the First Age (level 58). In my decade of playing LOTRO, I've never seen this staff drop. Nor have I seen any other First Age weaponry from level 53-58 drop. It's still a mystery, but I've never known the reason why these beautiful weapons weren't introduced into the loot pools. Luckily, the developers at SSG introduced some of those skins to the LOTRO Store as limited time items, appearing for approximately one week every couple of months. I purchased this staff on its initial release day.

Finally, I had the chance to make an outfit revolving around it. It was an interesting approach too!

Given the design of the staff, I wasn't quite sure where to start. As it was originally a level 58 staff, I thought about LOTRO's available content back then. Was the staff elvish? Dâr Narbugud was the endgame raid, Lothlórien was the current endgame zone, and the staff certainly had golden trimmings, which were characteristic of leaf-patterned elven gear. Was it dwarvish? If it were in the loot tables, that'd be part of the Moria instances. Very few of the Moria-based skins felt related. Or was it just a random design that looked somewhat Egyptian? It certainly evoked images from my Middle East Anthropology college courses. Whatever the case was, sticking exclusively to the cosmetics of the Moria and Lothlórien days had gotten me nowhere, so I expanded my search to all clothing with golden accents.

By the time I'd finished, I'd used a mixture of pieces unrelated by origin that chromatically referred to each other. Considering how limiting that staff was, I was extremely pleased with the result. I was hoping the clothing wouldn't be so dark, but LOTRO has a limited dye palette. If only the sea blue areas were a little brighter!

Head: Ceremonial Hat of the Written Word (Sea blue, skirmish camp cosmetics vendor - Moria light armor)
Shoulders: Shoulders of the Learned Master (Sea blue, bartered from the Lore-master trainer in Ost Galadh)**
Back: Linen Cloak (Sea blue, T3 Tailor recipe)
Chest: Robe of Resolve (Sea blue, Minstrel class vendor at the Ox-clan Camp)***
Hands: Dunland Caretaker's Patched Bracers (Gold, Dunland quest reward)****
Feet: Rugged Shoes of Mordor's Bane (Gold, bartered from the High-enchanter in Mordor)

Staff: Staff of the Storied Past (LOTRO Store exclusive)
Sword: Blade of Unity (Reward from the Epic quest 2.7.3)

**Shares appearance with the Shoulders of the Lady's Wisdom. Bartered from the Lore-master trainer in Caras Galadhon
***The Rune-keeper and Lore-master class vendors also have very similar purple-quality robes at the Ox-clan camp. The only difference is the golden pattern found on the upper half of the robe.
****Many quest rewards share appearances. To see where else these wrists can be earned, check out LOTRO Stylist's guide.