Anniversary scavenger hunt guide – paper scrap riddle and final rewards

It’s over! Or is it? Remember those pesky scraps of paper cluttering up your inventory as a ‘reward’ for each week? Eagle-eyed players quickly discovered that each scrap has a unique message and would eventually point to the final reward. As year 10 came and went, the riddle was solved but not without mild frustration. But never fear, this guide is here for you, though if you’re avoiding spoilers, look away now.

This article is part of a series on the Anniversary scavenger hunt. Find out more here.

The riddle

Let’s start with those scraps of paper. If you’ve thrown them away, don’t worry. You can still collect the riddle reward as long as you’ve completed Waldo Rumble’s year 10 wrapper quest and received the tenth paper. The contents of the papers are as follows:

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
.	,	.	5	5	8	3	7	2

The tenth scrap contains the key to unscrambling the messages encoded on the paper scraps:

“…it seems to be… 971624835”

If we spread out each paper on a hypothetical table numbered by the order in which we received them, the string of numbers in the tenth scrap tells us how to reorder the code to produce something intelligible.

9	7	1	6	2	4	8	3	5
2	3	.	8	,	5	7	.	5

That’s right, it’s a set of coordinates which, if we assume directionals of S and W, points to a location in northwestern Bree-land. Specifically, in Starmere Lake.

In-game map location (left) and terrain location (right)

Now that’s an odd structure with a quest ring to boot. And what’s this? Another riddle.

“Be close. The ritual to unlock my bounty is as followed:

John,
Marla Shelton,
Sergeant-at-arms Irminric,
Bragi Stoutclub,
Gapi.”

What the devil does that mean? You’ll notice also that the quest has a limited timer of 25 seconds but it is repeatable. So before accepting the quest, we must solve yet another riddle. The list of five names are NPCs that exist in the game. Lotro-wiki reveals their locations to us, and they all share an attribute.

(L-R) John in Meluinen, North Downs; Marla Shelton at Treslebridge; Irminric at the South Gate of Bree; Bragi Stoutclub near the Prancing Pony in Bree; and Gapi at Anazârmekhem in Moria.

Each of the NPCs mentioned perform an emote. It is highly possible we must use the very same emotes in the order listed to complete the ritual.

NPC	Emote
John	/cower
Marla Shelton	/mourn
Sergeant-at-arms Irminric	/lookaround
Bragi Stoutclub	/story
Gapi	/sit

Back at the mysterious stone in Bree-land, we can now accept the quest and perform the emotes in the time specified. To make things easier, you can add the emotes to your hotbar by dragging the icons from the Collections panel (or go old school and add them with the /shortcut command).

Collecting the final reward yields a large yard housing decoration with three slowly orbiting stones representing Standing Stone Games, the company that now develops LOTRO.

Oh, and by the way, you can finally get rid of those scraps of paper now.

Final rewards

Riddle reward:

Standing Stone (large yard decoration; sped up 10x)

Complete at least one quest for each year:

Title: Versed in Yesteryear

Majestic White Stag (cosmetic pet; default name: Reginald)

Steed of the Reminiscing Dragon and Armour of the Reminiscing Dragon

Complete all 10 tales quests:

• Title: Devoted to Company
• 3 Ashenslades Green dyes, Lórien Gold dyes

Complete all 10 travels quests:

• Title: Wanderer of Middle-earth
• 3 Belegaer Blue dyes, 3 Lavender dyes

Complete all 10 trifles quests:

• Title: Bustling Adventurer
• 3 Dark Clay dyes, 3 Moria Silver dyes

Complete all 30 scavenger hunt quests:

Title: Spinner of a Good Yarn

Anniversary Keg (large furniture decoration). Drinking from the keg will teleport your character to locations from the scavenger hunt.