A Guide to Making a LoTRO Family

by Cameron "Aelryn" Sorden

I hope you didn't click on the link for this guide in the hopes of learning the dark secrets of hobbit mating rituals, because that is SO not what we're going to be talking about today. Well, I suppose we could... no, no. Lets keep this PG. I suspect that the hobbits might not like me revealing the ins and outs of their complicated dance... see, I've said too much already.

Anyway, if you're reading this, you probably want to know how you go about making a family in Lord of the Rings Online, what it gets you, and how it all works. Well, lets get the bad news out of the way first: You need friends that are willing to be your parents or children. I've seen a lot of people ask to make their character the son or daughter of another of their characters and so on. I don't know why Turbine didn't include the ability to do this (it would have made for some really cool role-playing options when starting a new character, after all), but you can't do it.

Once you've found people who like you well enough to adopt you into their family (or let you adopt them), you're ready to get started. If you want to do this and you can't find anyone, ask your guild. The primary reason for doing this is usually to get the titles, and there's often people that are looking for a new title. You see these ones less often since many people don't know about them, so you can make yourself look kind of unique.

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As you can see in the screenshot to the right, you'll need to set your character's generation before you can make a family. Pay attention to which way you want to go when you do this. You can't really have grandkids if you're a grandkid already, and no one can make you their child if you start at the top tier and adopt someone. You can get to this box by opening your character screen. At the lower left of your equipment view, there's a "Bio" tab. That's how you pull up the family tree. There's a dropdown box that lets you set your generation.

Talk to whomever you'll be making a family with and make sure that whoever the parent is going to be is set at one generation higher than the child. Once you've done that, target them and type "/adopt" into the chat box. They'll get a confirmation window and can accept or deny it. Once they accept, you become their parent and they become your child.

Now, this doesn't actually do anything or have any effect on gameplay, so it's mostly for RP purposes. But it does net you a pretty cool title that not many people have (Son of X, Daughter of Y, Father of Z). Slap it on, run around, and impress all the people who don't know how to do this. Feel free to expand your family further whenever you like, and remember to have fun with it!

- Cameron "Aelryn" Sorden

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2016

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