Riven­dell: Imlad Gelair is circled.

When­ever I’m in Riven­dell, some­one invari­ably asks “How do I get to that closed off area in the south­east?”. When I first arrive in a new area, par­tic­u­larly a town, I’m prone to want to search around and find every­thing I can. I couldn’t for the life of me fig­ure out where the entrance was to this lit­tle closed off area. Even­tu­ally I just gave up on it. I finally fig­ured it out a few days later.

The area in ques­tion is called Imlad Gelair. The rea­son you can’t enter it is sim­ply because the Elves of Riven­dell do not trust you enough. You sim­ply need to raise your rep­u­ta­tion with them to Acquain­tance, which is not ter­ri­bly dif­fi­cult. Many quests in the area offer rep­u­ta­tion rewards and you’re likely to get at least a few rep­u­ta­tion items along the way as well.

Once you’ve reached Acquain­tance, an elf on the steps out­side of the Last Homely House will have a quest for you. He will tell you of Imlad Gelair and send you on your way. You do not need this quest to enter Imlad Gelair, but why skip the expe­ri­ence? The entrance to Imlad Gelair is through a small door that lies across the water from the Last Homely House.

I always loved enter­ing pre­vi­ously barred areas. Imlad Gelair is quite cool, as is the Blue Stone Gar­ri­son in Thorin’s Hall. As you make your way through Imlad Gelair, you’ll even­tu­ally come to a clear­ing with a Supe­rior Forge and a few expert-level craftsman.

Hav­ing a supe­rior forge in Riven­dell is noth­ing short of a god­send. You’ll be spend­ing a lot of your higher level time near Riven­dell. Hav­ing to oth­er­wise travel to Thorin’s Hall each time you need a supe­rior forge for craft­ing quickly becomes obnoxious.

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