The newest Lord of the Rings Online developer diary entry devotes 10 pages to the Legendary Item system as we wait for the Mines of Moria to open on Nov. 18.

Chris "Hakai" Clay leads us through numerous aspects of Legendary Items, including terminology, leveling and identification, and well as re-forging and deconstructing the items.

Each Legendary Item contains the possibility of greatness. While they’re typically less impressive than comparable items of their initial level, they have the potential to grow into the most powerful items in the game. The power of your Legendary Items will depend greatly on the effort you put into them and the story you build around them.

The full entry can be found here. The terminology section is after the jump to give you a crash course in Legendary Items.

Terminology

• Legendary Item – The obvious one: these are the items that are the backbone of the system.
• Item Experience (IXP) – Legendary Items earn IXP through monster kills, much like an avatar would. Quest rewards and other mechanisms may sometimes reward IXP as well
• Legacies – These are class-specific modifiers on Legendary Items that can have their bonuses advanced
• Legend Points – These are earned by leveling up Legendary Items, and can be used to advance Legacies.
• Titles – Titles can be earned through performing certain quests, and are applied to Legendary Items. These change the weapon’s damage types, provide slayer bonuses, and other modifiers.
• Forge-master – An NPC that can help you Identify and Re-forge your Legendary Items.
• Identification – At Forge-master NPCs, you can have your Legendary Items identified. This will reveal the legacies on the item.
• Re-forging – At Forge-master NPCs, you can re-forge a Legendary Item every 10 levels. The re-forging process provides multiple benefits.
• Relic-master – At Relic-master NPCs, you can deconstruct Legendary Items or Combine simple Relics into more advanced Relics.
• Deconstruction – At Relic-master NPCs, you can deconstruct Legendary Items. The deconstruction process generates Relics, Heritage-runes, and Legendary Shards.
• Relics – These are items with set bonuses that can be slotted into Legendary Items. There are three types: Settings, Gems, and Runes.
• Heritage Runes – When you deconstruct a Legendary Item that has been leveled it can produce Heritage Runes which allow you to transfer some of the Item’s IXP to another Legendary Item.
• Legendary Shards – Legendary Shards can be used by crafters to create new Legendary Items. Like normal Legendary Items, they must be identified at a Forge-master to reveal their Legacies.