Hopefully you've been paying attention to the Legendary Item System being implemented come Mines of Moria!  Turbine has explained it in great detail now, and after reading it, well, I went ahead and pre-ordered the expansion!

Weapons of eldritch power and memorable names are sprinkled throughout the lore of The Lord of the Rings . They are legendary creations of such arcane might that tales of their greatness are spread across all the lands of Middle-earth.

Consider these—

The sword Narsil , the blade wielded by Isuldur that was shattered by Sauron and Men and was used to cut the One-Ring from the finger of the Dark Lord.

For the entire article (be warned, it's long!) read on, for screen shots you can find the original article here !

Hadhafang , the weapon of the Elf princess Idril, Elrond’s ancestor, wielded during the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and later given to Arwen.

And lastly Glamdring , the defender of Gandalf that glows in the presence of an enemy and is inscribed with runes created by Elves for Turon, the King of Gondolin.

Now players of The Lord of the Rings Online ™ can forge their own fabled items by adventuring in the Mines of Moria ™ expansion. Having a special “named” weapon is an important part of Tolkien lore, and you can customize your own one-of-a-kind item using the Legendary Items advancement system.

The Legendary Items system gives you the tools to create powerful magical items, like Bilbo’s short sword Sting or Thorin’s sword Orcrist —provided your character reaches 51st level. This system lets you customize special equipment your hero finds within the evil-controlled halls of Khazad-dûm, and these items garner experience alongside your hero. As your item levels it earns Legend Points that can be used to advance the weapon’s Legacies, special modifiers that improve class specific skills and abilities. You can also add “relics” from other Legendary Items you find in Moria by “deconstructing” those items and applying the abilities to your own custom creation.

There are three types of Legendary Items: rare, incomparable, and epic. Each type possesses increasing amounts of potential power and advancement. The cost to identify, re-forge, and deconstruct each item is based on its rarity. Your character can have up to six Legendary Items bound to him or her at any one time, all of them gaining experience and becoming ever-more powerful.

Just as legendary characters such as Frodo and Bilbo started out as ordinary hobbits, so too do Legendary Items start off as rather ordinary items. The Legendary Item system gives you the ability to build them into legends through the choices you make and the stories you forge.

Most importantly, as your item gains levels you can also change its name to better reflect your own personal bravery and background, such as: “The Great Sword of Alastor of Bree” or “The Hammer of Lotor Gravelgrinder.” With a little work and a splash of creativity, you can have a weapon as powerful as Glamdring Foe-hammer , Durin’s Axe, or the re-forged Andúril –the Flame of the West.

At the core are the unadorned items your character discovers. From these, great weapons can be forged. These items are found in random loot drops in the ancient halls of Khazad-dûm. More can be acquired as quest rewards and barter items, as well as rescued from the clutches of some of Moria’s more notorious villains. They are not typically difficult to find, as characters delving into the numerous quests should discover multiple loot drops during a normal hour to two hour play session, so long as they’re working to wade through the enemies of the Dwarfs. The Legendary Items you can find in Moria are composed of Main-hand weapons, Ranged Weapons, and new Class Items that go into the new Class Item slot. Each of these items is class-restricted and can be traded or put on the auction hall.

As mentioned above, another way to obtain these items is through barter; this is accomplished with a Legendary Trader. These Dwarf traders operate out of The Great Delving, as well as in a few others locations in Khazad-dûm. There is a Legendary Trader for each of the character classes, and they accept Barter Tokens in exchange for items. Gained from loot, these Barter Tokens are based on minimum character levels, with the level essentially determining which items can be bartered for. Once bartered for and identified by the Forge-master, the true nature of an item is revealed.

So what do you do once you find a potential Legendary Item?

To begin the process of fashioning a Legendary Item, you first need to find a Forge-master within the Dwarf-occupied halls of Khazad-dûm. These Dwarves are stationed in any of the major quest hubs in Moria, beginning in the Great Delving beyond the Doors of Durin. Even if you happen to find a potentially powerful Legendary Item in the field, you still have to get it back to the Forge-masters to identify it before it can be equipped. The deeper you travel into the Shadowy Abyss of Moria, the more difficult it will be to get back to the Dwarf-controlled regions of Khazad-dûm. Of course, the deeper you delve the more interesting items you might come across.

The Forge-master identifies items for a fee, revealing the Legacies, which are special abilities and powers that can be increased as the Legendary Item gains levels. For example, if you are playing a Guardian, a Legacy might equate to an increase in your Engage Range percentage. Or in the case of a Rune-keeper’s Rune Bag (a class item), you could increase the potency of skills and effects. Since you can have up to six Legendary Items, careful planning can land your character with several different “versions” of weapons or class items. A Loremaster might use one type of Legendary Staff for raiding, another for heavy casting of support skills in a fellowship, and a third that is a combination of both for solo adventuring.

At this point you need to decide if the Legendary Item you’ve found is suited to you—based on the Legacies it possesses and how you have built your character. For example, let’s say that as a Guardian you obtain a weapon that gives you a +300 melee critical to your attacks and reduces the length of some of your skills’ cooldown values. While this is a definite bonus to your arsenal, another Legendary Item might instead present you with a +300 Parry bonus and provide +5% to your Warrior’s Heart morale heal. If you’re a Guardian looking to last a little longer during a boss fight, the latter would be a much preferable weapon. On the other hand, the former would be a better choice if you tend to go on solo adventures rather than Fellowship outings.

In addition, if you believe that the Legacies of this item will not further the path of your character’s development, then you might opt to sell it in the auction, deconstruct it for its parts, or trade it to a fellow player.

However, once you equip any identified Legendary Item it becomes bound to you. At this point it can no longer be sold or traded, or even destroyed by dragging it out into the world–it can only deconstructed for its parts.

Item Advancement weapons are tied to specific classes and become apparent when your character examines the item. Examination will also help you determine if it is something your character can wield or use. For example, if an item does not fit your character’s class and you need components to forge another item, you can “deconstruct” the incompatible item into its component Relics. In turn, these Relics can be applied to something more compatible with your class. The higher the level of the Legendary Item that is deconstructed, the higher the level of Relic or multiple Relics recovered. The modifiers on Relics are similar to what you can currently find on similar items in game. The difference being is Relics let you place the exact modifiers you want on your item.

There is a small amount of “random” factors when an item is identified, created, and deconstructed, and these are determined by the Forge or Relic-masters. Remember, no two items are the same. Regardless, the Relic-master requires a fee for each item he touches, and deconstructing items can become a very expensive proposition.

After a Relic-master has deconstructed an item, he gives your character a combination of several smaller relics in the form of settings, gems, or runes. A Relic-master can also combine lesser Relics to create greater ones, for instance taking sets of gems to forge more a powerful gem.

The most common method of obtaining Relics for forging Legendary Items is by deconstructing other identified items that you have no use for. One of the benefits of traveling in a Fellowship is the increased amount of loot that can be obtained by working as a team and defeating a greater number of opponents. Hence, it provides a greater opportunity to discover things than can be turned into Legendary Items.

Once your Legendary Item is identified and bound to you, it can now start earning experience and gaining levels. A Legendary Item gains experience when you kill monsters, complete deeds, or finish quests that have an Item Experience bonus assigned. In addition, you can use Heritage Runes consumables that increase the experience of your Legendary Item. Heritage Runes can be found in loot, as quest rewards, and can be obtained when you deconstruct a leveled-up Legendary Item.

The icon of the Legendary Item in your character interface designates its progress through an experience bar. This also indicates if it needs identification and re-forging and displays the color of the Legendary Item slot it occupies (blue, red, green, yellow, purple, or brown).

Item Experience is split between all identified Legendary Items in your Item Advancement Panel. Hence, the greater number of Legendary Items you have equipped and are gaining experience for, the slower each will advance. In turn, you can also disable an item’s leveling, This will increase the rate your other Legendary Item’s level at, though you’ll be earning less item experience overall. Legendary Items never take experience from your hero; it all comes from a separate pool.

As your Legendary Item gains experience, it progresses in its own level–to a maximum of 50th. In addition, after every 10th level a Legendary Item attains, your character must return it to a Forge-master to have its next 10 levels “unlocked” (the last one being at 40th level) so it can continue to gain experience. Until an item is “re-forged” it cannot gain further experience. There is one last re-forge available at level 50 that will add an additional legacy to the legendary item, but will not unlock additional levels of advancement. You will also gain new legacies during the re-forge process at level 10 and 30. At levels 20 and 40 the quality of one of your existing legacies will be improved thus decreasing the legend points necessary to rank up the legacy.

As your Legendary Item gains levels it earns Legacy Points, which in turn are used to increase the Ranks of your Legacies. It might sound complicated, but you’ll pick up on it quickly as your character continues to adventure. Your Item Advancement Panel will tell you how many Legacy Points you have available, and how many you have already spent. As the level and rank of your Legendary Item increases, the more Legacy Points you will need to gain to raise the Legacy to the next rank.

After your Legendary Item is unlocked by the Forge-master, up to four Legacies related to the class are initially revealed. The number of Legacies an item can have is based on its rarity, with a maximum of nine for the most powerful Epic items you will find in the caverns of Khazad-dûm. Legacies can also have different levels of qualities based on the rarity and item, with the higher qualities yielding the greater the bonuses for each rank.

There are six tiers of Legacy quality with the lowest levels costing more legend points to advance, while the higher quality legacies cost less legend point to advance. The Legendary Items user interface tells you the current power level and how many Legend Points are needed for the next rank. The tooltip for the legacy will also show you all the available ranks you can purchase, the bonus for each rank, and the cost to purchase that rank. During re-forging you can choose to refund all of your spent Legend Points, allowing you to re-spend them in a new way.

Legacies can only be added to a Legendary Item during identification or re-forging. As a special note, if you have all top quality legacies at levels 20 and 40 instead of upgrading a legacy you will receive another new one.