❝ Long had she heard tales of the great fortress, but never before had she set her eyes upon Helm's Deep. Unlike many other Rohirrim settlements, solid stone protected the Hornburg, and it would require an army beyond belief to breach the impressive wall.
Her mind wandered to the forces within Isengard that now marched in their direction. Come morning, there was no doubt that Saruman's army would have slaughtered all inside and taken the keep for their wizard.
She did not fear death, but she found herself shuddering at the idea of perishing while surrounded by so much stone. ❞
finally reached helm's deep and oh boy am I ready for the longest night of wulfe's life
so i've been playing a frankly obscene about of lotro recently and because i'm incapable of playing any game like this normally, i'm gonna share some details about the beloved hunter i created
her true name and homeland (rohan) is something that she keeps close to her heart due to... an incident that made her run away. instead, she calls herself wulfe and avoids answering where she's from. not out of shame of her people but because she's ashamed of herself for leaving.
despite being a fairly troubled woman, she has spent many long years traveling around eriador and helping people when she can. she does it mostly out of the goodness in her heart, but also partly because she relishes in the way people view her after she helps them. it's not to fill her ego, but to instead make her feel less like some sort of ill-omen or curse.
on that note, she's always been a little... strange. her eyes, for one, always made people double take. one brown and one green, though neither of her parents have green eyes. she's always had remarkably vivid dreams and has felt strangely drawn and connected to the wilderness. she's eerily steady with a bow and has never missed a shot. some would say she has elven qualities to her, but no one knows for certain what exactly is up with her to make her this way. either way, it made the people around her in her childhood view her warily, some claiming it may be some sort of witchcraft.
by the time of the war of the ring, it is not something she had dwelled on much anymore. that, however, changes very quickly when she is faced with the increasing horrors and loss of friends left and right. she is not having a very happy time, needless to say. she has terrible survivor's guilt and thinks she didn't try hard enough to save the people around her. it's a problem she needs to work on.
there's more things about her that i have locked inside my brain, but i'll stop here. if she strikes anyone's interest i'll 100% continue sharing things about her and all things lotro. i'm currently questing through rohan and having the time of my life. this game has become an addiction, i fear.
her features are very androgynous, and she was mistaken as a boy a few times when she was younger. it did not really bother her, but she is quite proud to be a woman. she also loves her horse dearly and talks to her like she's a person. typical rohirrim.
so obviously his death is important for the plot™ but i also think if we just. replace him with another ranger then the forsaken road can have the same effect on the player.
but obviously i can't just keep him alive without consequence. so candaith is still there with the player to talk to that one oathbreaker but there's another ranger with them. i haven't decided who exactly it would be. it could be my own ranger oc halston or perhaps someone like langlas or lenglinn. i think it being someone met early on in the story makes it more poetic since candaith was met early on.
anyway. candaith still claims to be the heir of isildur but this other ranger can sense what the oathbreaker is about to do. he shoves candaith out of the way, thus getting himself killed instead. candaith may still be injured but he escapes from the forsaken road with the player and the other rangers that survived.
this would lead to candaith having terrible guilt about the ranger who died in his place. because like i could make it easy and just have him survive but making him feel responsible for that ranger's death balances out keeping him alive. like yes he's alive but he's also very unhappy about it since he believes he got one of his kinsmen killed.
everything else would play out pretty much the same way, except of course with candaith along for the ride. it also adds a different level of angst for my oc wulfe, who is the main reason i thought of this au. i adore candaith and wulfe deserves to have her lover boy in one universe. she escapes isengard, reunites with candaith after rescuing the rangers, only to be told by halbarad to go help theodred. so now wulfe has to spend the entirety of traveling across rohan wondering if she's ever gonna see her boyfriend again. relatively new boyfriend too since they only would've confessed sometime in enedwaith. i haven't quite decided when they would get together but that's beside the point.
i'll mess around with the details some more. but this gives me the opportunity to write one-shots centered around wulfe and candaith that i wouldn't be able to with him dead. wulfe and i deserve to have our emotional support ranger alive and well. actually probably not well but at least he's alive.
since wulfe will be heading into gondor soon, i decided to make a new outfit for her. it's mainly inspired by what aragorn and legolas are wearing throughout rohan because i really like how the white and red look together. the gloves are technically a work in progress until i can find some that match better.
for anyone who's interested :)
back: warden's wrap, dyed crimson
shoulders: padded mantle of the dunland soothsayer, dyed crimson
when your new friend is a sentient tree that can't talk or really understand anything that you're saying to it but somehow you've formed one of the deepest connections you've felt in a long time with him so you decide to call him astor because it means loyalty in sindarin and you hate simply referring to him as "the huorn". oh and then he gives you a sapling to care for as you go on your adventures and you nearly start crying right then and there. you name the sapling gwinig.
making and leveling wulfe (aka wulfre) on peregrin is so funny because in one universe she's level 97 and traveling through gondor after having a truly terrible few months and in another universe she's a mere level 11 and hasn't even left bree land. this wulfe has not seen the horrors yet.
