There are a number of challenges and trials to complete to test the player's skill and unlock great power in the Shadow Of War. One particular trial that has caused headaches for fans are the Ithildin Poems. It’s a challenge that, while not particularly difficult, can be annoying if you don’t know what you’re looking for or what’s expected of you to complete them.
Hopefully, this guide will serve to eliminate some of the problems players will face and give greater insight into what the poems are, why you should bother in the first place, and what to do after completing them in this great RPG.
10 What They Are
The Ithildin Poems serve as a locking mechanism to doors harboring strong artifacts and useful weapons. They were inscribed ages ago and were made in such a way that only Wraiths could discover them, likely to prevent any mortal from finding and accessing them.
Fortunately, as a hybrid of Talion, a mortal being, and Celebrimbor, a Wraith, you are uniquely capable of finding the doors, accessing them, and wielding the items they contain.
9 The Reward
The items found behind the Poem doors are parts of the Bright Lord legendary set. They provide great bonuses and abilities that can serve the player well as individual pieces or as a whole set. For instance, the Bright Lord Bow can recover 15 health whenever the player kills an enemy.
Even if you don’t intend to wear the full set, having a few of the pieces can be immensely helpful and a few aren’t all that difficult to obtain early on.
8 Why You Want It
But before you write off the Bright Lord set, it’s important to know what the main perk is. The Bright Lord set is designed to exploit the Elven Rage ability by allowing you to gain Wrath more efficiently and stay in that enraged state longer.
This is great for Rage-based builds or even players who want to tap into Rage more often. Two pieces together will increase Wrath gain by 50% and doubles the duration of Elven Rage. When four pieces are together, every kill in Elven Rage will replenish all Elf-Shot.
7 When To Get It
Unfortunately, it’ll take you some time to obtain the entire set. You will need to visit each region to find each poem to gather every piece. This means that you’ll be building the set piece by piece as you progress through the story.
You may be tempted to wait until all regions are unlocked and then go back and get everything, but bear in mind that if you progress too far into the story certain regions will become locked for quite some time. It’s best to obtain it piece by piece as you visit each region.
6 Five Poems In Total
Given there are five regions in the game, this means there are five poems for you to discover. Gorgoroth, Nurnen, Seregost, Ithil, and Cirith Ungol all have their own poems for you to find and solve.
The Gorgoroth poem hides the Bright Lord Sword, the Nurnen poem hides the Dagger, the one in Seregost contains the Bow, Minas Ithil has the Armor, and Cirith Ungol holds the Cloak. The mechanics for finding and solving each poem in each region is the same and relatively simple when you know what you’re doing.
5 The Doors
Finding the doors is a bit easier as they’ll be given to you, simply access the quests tab in your menu and select the Ihtildin Door section towards the end. You can then use the map to find the location of each door.
While you may know the door location already, they’re utterly useless until you find the six words sprinkled throughout the region. Make a mental note of where it is and get to hunting for the Ithildin glyphs.
4 Find The Six Words
The first thing you want to do in each region is use the Haedir Tower to mark the locations of each Ithildin glyph. There are six and each Ithildin glyph will bear a single word that will be used to solve the Poem above the Ithildin doors in each region.
Some will be very easy to get to and others might be located in the center of a nasty Orc camp. You could either prioritize these before doing anything else in the region or collect these while doing other things.
3 Mechanics Of The Poem
Once you’ve found all six words you then need to go to the door. Once triggered, the poem will appear on the screen showing six blank spots where key words are missing. The six words you found scattered through the region will be displayed at the top.
Your job is to then match the words into the poem so that the poem makes sense. It might take some finagling to figure out which word goes where, but with a bit of guesswork and some deduction you’ll figure it out pretty quickly. If you’re having a really tough time, for whatever reason, you can simply brute force the combinations like a safecracker.
2 One Piece At A Time
Now that you have the mechanics down you’ll settle into a rhythm when you get to each new region. Solving the poems will open the door and grant you access to one of Bright Lord's items that can be helpful individually and powerful as a set.
You’ll obtain the items from each door in this order, the Armor from Minas Ithil, the Cloak from Cirith Ungol, the Dagger in Nurnen, the Bow in Seregost, and the Sword in Gorgoroth. You can either obtain each piece as you play or prioritize the ones you’re interested in.
1 Shadows Of The Past
You might have noticed by now that the Poems only grant access to five of the seven items in the Bright Lord legendary set. After completing the Poems you’ll still be missing the Rune and the Hammer. These final items are obtained from getting both Bronze and Gold on all Shadow Of The Past quests respectively.
You’ll need a separate guide to give you tips on how to accomplish that. But by following the above steps you’ll solve the Poems and have a majority of the set already, some of the rewards may even help you achieve those quests.