Get Lord of the Rings Lore Lessons In LOTRO, Starting Tonight

If you want to learn more about The Lord of the Rings, but don't have the time to read the Silmarillion -- or the patience to endure the Hobbit movies -- you're in luck. Signum University, the Mythgard Institute, and Dr. Corey Olsen, a.k.a. the Tolkien Professor, is offering to see you through various bits of Tolkien lore, and he's using The Lord of the Rings Online to do it.

Starting today, the 125th anniversary of the birth of J.R.R. Tolkien, Olsen will begin a program titled "Exploring The Lord of the Rings." The "class" starts at 9:30 EST and will occur on the Landroval server, with plans to rotate servers for future sessions. As his in-game character Narnion the Loremaster of Gondor, Olsen will read through a passage from the books, discuss it with attendees, and then take players on a field trip to a location from the passage.

If you don't feel like logging into the game, you can catch the session on the Signum University Twitch channel and check it out afterwards on its YouTube channel. For more information, check out the announcements on the Signum and Mythgard sites.