Old player, new NPCs

[Driado]

I've come and gone a few times over the course of the years. After coming back, I completed the quest at the end of Book 8 ( http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Quest...irith%27s_Fall ), and Sarah Oakheart showed up. The ensuing conversations with Gandalf (http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Quest..._Palant%C3%ADr made it sound like I had come across Sarah Oakheart before, so I wanted to go read some back story on her. It turns out her Monster page in the LoreBook is gone, and her NPC page is blank: ( http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Monster:Sara_Oakheart http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/NPC:Sara_Oakheart ). Searching around I see a few quests like these:
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Quest...art%27s_Flight
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Quest...art%27s_Plight

I don't remember them very well. I was wondering if these are the only times we see Sarah Oakheart before Volume I Book VIII? Or did she show up in the Epic quest arcs somewhere as well?

[Duwis]

I don't remember them very well. I was wondering if these are the only times we see Sarah Oakheart before Volume I Book VIII? Or did she show up in the Epic quest arcs somewhere as well?

Sarah Oakheart appears quite a bit in the epic story; I remember her back at Fornost at the very least. As for her Lorebook entries... She is a mysterious figure; we'll see if we can pry her secrets loose...

[thalialotr]

She is tucked away as a prisoner in the goblin enclave southish of Gondamon quite early in our questing lives. *shakes head* Can you say "bad penny"?

[Driado]

Sarah Oakheart appears quite a bit in the epic story; I remember her back at Fornost at the very least. As for her Lorebook entries... She is a mysterious figure; we'll see if we can pry her secrets loose...

So then I'm left with in the same predicament. Perhaps I can be a little more direct. I don't know if her mystery is as much due to her mysterious nature as it is due to my poor memory (being stretched pretty thin at this point.) I played pretty heavily when the game was first released (I even played a Dwarf up to level 30 in the Public Beta,) but traded my furry toes for some better grades at school in September 2007. I picked up the game again for the summer in 2008, but not much in 2009. Now that we're near the end of 2010, it's effectively been 2 years since I've done much work on the Epic Quest Arc.

So has Sarah's Role in the Quest Arc changed at all in that time? I think I'm hoping the answer is "No," but if her role has changed, I would like to be able to trace her story and see what role she has played by viewing any quests she was involved in.

Thanks for the responses!

[Duwis]

So has Sarah's Role in the Quest Arc changed at all in that time? I think I'm hoping the answer is "No," but if her role has changed, I would like to be able to trace her story and see what role she has played by viewing any quests she was involved in.

While the path along the way has changed a bit, her song... er, story... remains the same. That is to say, some of the quests and areas have been rearranged, e.g, Garth Agarwen revamped into separate instances, the epic story around her is still the same.

[Driado]

Great to hear. Thanks

[Banaticus]

Like you, I really can't remember every detail of the original epic storyline. However, I've recently run a character up through them and can talk about what it's like now. As I remember it, it hasn't changed much.

SPOILER ALERT!

I'm presuming from, "I wanted to go read some back story on her. ... I was wondering if these are the only times we see Sarah Oakheart before Volume I Book VIII? Or did she show up in the Epic quest arcs somewhere as well?" that the OP wanted spoilers. If you don't, then now would be a good time to stop reading this, since getting spoilers kind of seemed like one of the main points of this thread. Anyway...

SPOILER ALERT!

Sara Oakheart is an intrinsic part of the Volume 1 book quests.

In the Human prologue, when Amdir goes crazy and starts yelling about the voices then busts out of the jail where the brigands have imprisoned him, the other prisoner in that cell is one Sara Oakheart. You follow her through the cave as the dotard looks for her walking staff, as she's just not whole without it. You help her find her staff, then make your escape, protecting her from brigands along the way. But then more supernatural events predominate and your attention is taken by something else (namely Amdir). After the prologue the quests all tie together -- the elf/dwarf prologue sets up Storgrim Dourhand, and the hobbit prologue features... uhm, it's been so long I don't remember. Anyway...

Sara needs rescuing from the back end of Garth Agarwin in the Lone-lands, back behind Ivar in the barrows (I believe this is relatively new, or at least I never noticed it before Mirkwood or something). She needs rescuing in the front of Fornost over in the North Downs (always been there) and it's actually somewhat hard to miss her here. Then finally you get to Angmar and you get quests there in book 6. Then in book 7 you have to travel all around the world and now's the time when (if you had the misfortune to roll something other than a Warden or Hunter) you start to curse all the time spent staring at the back end of a horse because book 7 is literally all about traveling back and forth and forth and back across the world and any maps you have are very swiftly on cooldown. Then you get up to book 8, where you are now, and stuff starts happening.

That poor woman, doomed to forever be kidnapped by dark forces and need rescuing...

[Panahasi]

Sarah Oakheart's "Escort Quest" was behind Ivar's Crypt (within the original Garth Agarwen/GA instance) and had been there for some time. I don't recall completing the Garth Agarwen instance in Closed Beta but I assume her escort quest has been within GA for some time (if not since Open Beta/Year One).