Guest: Dwalfor of Snowbourn

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Dwalfor travels a lot more than other dwarves. Since his previous appearance on this blog his adventures have taken him to Dunland, Rohan and Forochel, where he acquired new pieces of armour from the locals as thanks for the aid he has provided for them. And recently a group of adventurers even called for his help to defeat a terrible ancient evil sleeping deep within the land of Angmar: a Balrog of Morgoth. Thanks to his bravery and his deadly skill with an axe, Dwalfor emerged victorious with something to show for it: a pair of beautiful shoulder guards he took from the balrog's hoard.
 

This guest submission is very special for me, because this outfit was originally designed as a wish together by Dwalfor and myself. Only the breastplate, leggings and gauntlets remained until now and obviously, I like this enhanced version so much!

Chest: Chainmail Chestpiece of Fleetness, navy dye (world drop)
Legs: Steel Leggings, navy dye (T3 crafted)
Head: Strong Helmet of Théodred, navy dye (T7 crafted)
Shoulders: Rift-defender's shoulderguards, default dye (Rift level 50 guardian teal set)
Hands: Defender's Gloves, navy dye (T3 crafted)
Feet: Boots of the Charging Stag, navy dye (Dunland quest)
Back: Cloak of the Raven's Claw, default dye (Drop from Sari-Surma)

Wish: Battle-ready dwarven guardian

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Dedicated reader and guest submitter (1, 2) of this blog contacted me based on this article wishing for a battle-ready outfit for his dwarven guardian Dwalfor. He mentioned Dwalfor could use some woman touch, so I tried to give him some (metaphorically speaking, of course ;).

He had following requirements:

• distinctive dwarven look (no elven pieces etc.)
• battle-ready look, so chainmail/plate stuff over robes and fancy hats
• pieces can come from all sources except BG, OD and Rift raid drops

Dwalfor also sent me a picture of his character at that moment, wearing Lossoth set dyed blue. As he didn't specify preferred colour in his requirements, I chose blue (navy in particular) as the dominant colour for the new outfit, because I knew he liked it on the previous outfit he's been wearing. I sent him the first design to check if I took the right direction:

He liked the chest piece and gloves, but wasn't sure about the rest. He thought the leggings made Dwalfor look fat, wanted to see more cloaks and asked about any helmet resembling Gimli's helm from the LoTR movies (not round on the top):

This was a very interesting challenge for me, as I always struggled with choosing a good helmet :) But I found something I really liked. This was my second design:

Dwalfor was very happy about this version. He liked the leggings, shoulders, cloak and helm and praised avoiding of Wood-Wanderer's Cloak which I also attempted to use (I sent him pictures of a few different pieces tried out and the composition above as my preferred one). The only thing left were the boots - they didn't match the colour of the rest of the outfit really well. So I changed them and sent the final design to Dwalfor:

As he was very satisfied with the result, we met ingame (we both play on EU-Snowbourn server) and I lent him all pieces except for the reputation cloak, to save some time crafting, and a while after he sent me pictures of him proudly posing in the new outfit.

I am very happy he liked my initial idea and he taught me a lot about dwarven outfitting (and I mean it)!

Please let us both know how do you like Dwalfor's final armour composition in the comments :)

Final result:
Chest: Chainmail Chestpiece of Fleetness, navy dye (world drop)
Legs: Steel Leggings, navy dye (T3 crafted)
Head: Gleaming Dwarf Mask, navy dye (world drop)
Shoulders: Mirrored Dwarf-Make Knight's Shoulder Guards, navy dye (T5 crafted)
Hands: Defender's Gloves, navy dye (T3 crafted)
Feet: Defender's Boots, navy dye (T3 crafted)
Back: Warden's Wrap, navy dye (Annuminas reputation barter)