Yule Festival 2013 Cosmetics

This must be indeed the "Year of the Robes" for LOTRO. We haven't seen a new dress since this year's Spring Festival. Once again, we're seeing a reskinned robe model from the early days of LOTRO. It's a simple winter-themed set this year. Nothing extravagant, at least not in comparison to the stunning job done last year for the Yule Festival.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to catalogue three years of items for my blog, especially for our new players. Perhaps I will be able to that after Christmas, when the holiday chaos has settled down. For now, I can only post the 2013 additions. However, Cosmetic LOTRO has pictures of the cosmetics available from previous years. Please stop by and say thank you to Hymne for providing these screenshots:

Yule Festival Cosmetics 2012
Yule Festival Cosmetics 2011
Yule Festival Cosmetics 2011 (Mid-festival additions)

These new robes are simple and unassuming with a pretty snowflake motif. They are, by default, dyed an interestingly muted shade of teal...at least that's how it looks to me. The images on the far right of each set show how the pieces dye, and I've used purple because the undyeable portions are so dark.

Wintertide Robe (35 Festival Tokens)

Winter Series - A Long Expected Yuletide

Why not kick off the Yule Season with a very simple and easily obtainable outfit? Well, mostly obtainable. The Fine Elven Circlet can only be earned from the Anniversary Festival gift boxes. If you don't have it, there's no need to worry! This cosmetic set still looks wonderful without it. With a little work for the upcoming Yule Festival, you can earn most of these easily without having to worry about instance grinding, leveling or endgame. Versus seeing these festival exclusives on stationary models found on the LOTRO forums and blogs, I wanted to give you an idea of how these look combined and in motion. And if you're a first timer to this season in LOTRO, you've got a wonderful idea of what to expect!

This year, the Yule Festival will run from December 18th, 2013 to January 14th, 2014.

Thane for a Day - Morghann of Gladden

It wasn't until the release of the Wildermore on Bullroarer that I was able to find an appearance worthy of a Thane. After all, my captain had recently completed building Hytbold and the closing quest chain to go with it. It's not often I'm in a role-playing mood, but walking around with the title "Thane of Hytbold" without the proper accompaniment felt wrong. Lo, and behold! Here came the medium Wildermore Armour recipes, providing me with an elegant, gold-trimmed tunic dyeable in the most heavenly ways! Even the Wildermore Pauldrons are lovely!

Cosmetic Challenge - Wilderness Scavenger

Last year, in October I believe, I was challenged by a friend and former LOTRO player to devise an outfit revolving around the Jacket of the Fist-way (or any of its identical cousins) from the Warden class vendor at the Ox-clan Camp in Nan Curunir. Naturally, it had to be one of those pieces that dyed oddly. If you've ever worked with any T1 Tower of Orthanc gear from the Ox-clan Camp, you'll have noticed that all the pieces dye a muted color due to a greyish-blue base. If you didn't know that, now you do! I had become so frustrated with that centerpiece that I put this outfit aside for a while. Unfortunately, I had almost forgotten about this outfit. If it weren't for me recently cataloging creations that I've never used or had no intention of using, I wouldn't have resumed working on this almost a year later. 

Luciana, my dear friend, this is dedicated to you! Hopefully you're still checking out this blog : )

Wanderer of the West - Andalost of Gladden

Being the cosmetic packrat I am, I had to use one of my extra character slots and build a new character. Even though a new character meant more storage, it also meant seven more outfits to create. And so I built one using a few pieces that were collecting dust and created a sensible traveler's outfit for a fresh Lore-master. It's a rather unassuming compilation. Plenty of earthy colors and a minimal amount of designs that prevented it from looking gaudy. I felt like I was blending in with the townsfolk, even though these pieces seemed a fashionable step higher by comparison.