The Story of Aarawynn Athanestel

"...but what happened to Aarawynn?"

That has been the most popular question I've received since my last blog entry about the various photogenic views in LOTRO. Every time someone asks me this question, I chide myself in my head with, "Yeah, Carla -- who wants to see your silly screenshots, anyway? Elf hunters trump that every time." I get it. I totally do. So I'll humor the curiosity of the masses and focus on Aarawynn this time -- you may wish you hadn't asked.

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As mentioned previously, Aarawynn was originally a character created by others and they asked me to roleplay her. She was the daughter of a ranger-cleric named Baer and... well, I never really got an idea of what class Cayley was, as I never saw her in combat. Even so, the two were delighted that I had agreed to roleplay as their daughter. But real life has a way of wrecking plans for roleplayers, and I soon found myself without either of them to roleplay with. Not wanting to let go of a good foundation, I gained permission from the RP leaders and we sped up Aarie's aging process. Since she was an elf, that was no small bit of permission to obtain!

She soon became my 'fun' character who did what she wanted, flirted with young men, talked to animals, and became extremely proficient with a bow. My time with that roleplay group came to an end not long after, however, and Aarie had herself a good nap for about ten years until my first foray into LOTRO. She seemed the natural character to select from my arsenal of personas, as I'd never played an elf anywhere else aside from a very shy avariel cleric -- but I doubt anyone even remembers Celestia Wynd'mere.

I learned very quickly that ranged damage was amazing and I loved it. I hadn't had much experience with action games before this point, and my few experiences with NES and SEGA Genesis games had proven to me that I was not good at melee or anything that required a quick reaction. So this buffer I now had, which was proportionate to the distance between myself and my enemy, was the best thing since Van Halen's "Jump!" reached #1 on the charts (i.e. when I was born).

Excited that I was playing an action-based game and not failing all over the place, I recruited my best friend, Brionne. He chose to play an elf guardian named Dvaran, as he has always preferred to be up close and personal when fighting and we both figured that would be a decent balance for my ranged damage. We were proven right as we progressed through the levels and worked very well as a team.

As the levels wore on, however, he became less enthralled with the game and had problems staying awake long enough to get much accomplished. This led to me creating alts so I would have other characters to play when we weren't playing together, but eventually it became obvious that I should just forge ahead on my own. This is why Aarie is currently level 104 and Dvaran is 91.

 

Now, while I have recently created a handful of new characters on a different server (Landroval), I still log into my characters on Arkenstone -- though I dearly miss my days on Elendilmir. People were much more laidback on Elendilmir and it seemed like there was a lot less lag-causing congestion. Even so, Aarie is very much my favorite character since she was my first, and I am determined she will make it through end-game content before my main character, Birle, on Landroval. That being said, she's going to need some help. Dvaran was crafting her armor but no longer has the recipes to outfit her. She's also so much of a glass cannon that she is stuck in an instance in Central Gondor. I will be attempting to invest in some landscape soldier tokens to remedy that situation, but if anyone reading this is playing on Arkenstone then I encourage you to drop me an e-mail and play with me!

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