[The Éothéod's] settled homes were in the eaves of the Forest, and especially in the East Bight, which had largely been made by their felling of trees.
”
–The Northmen and the Wainriders, Unfinished Tales
The East Bight is a large clearing in the south-east of Mirkwood.
Upon entering this biome you gain the achievement"Axes of Old" and you unlock the waypoints of the Wilderland region. It was added in Public Beta 25.
The East Bight is the great indentation in the eastern edge of Mirkwood, a treeless region that is roughly square in shape, some fifty miles to a side, towards the southern end of the wood. The "Bight" is not a natural formation, but rather the result of generations of forestry by the Northmen who had historically occupied the lands east of the forest, from whom the Éothéod could claim descent, alongside the later depredations of Dol Guldur and the Balchoth. Because of the Bight, that part of Mirkwood immediately to the north of Dol Guldur is less than one hundred miles across, and so it is known as the "Narrows of the Forest".
The East Bight is a rather barren land, stripped of any significant undergrowth and large trees, similar to the Brown Lands and Dol Guldur. The land is flattened after years of erosion and the fertile forest soils have been flushed away and partially depleted. It's only partially covered with grasses and rotten logs are scattered all over the place. There's scarcely a live tree to be found. Small herds of horses graze the lands.
This is not a very favourable place to settle as traders do not frequent this area, but bandits and marauding regiments from Dol Guldur do.
Light Forest - A lightly forested version of the biome.
Steppe - A flat, grassy version of the biome with occasional trees.
Barren Steppe - A version of the steppe variant with even less grass, more dirt.
Structures[]
Only few structures remind of the permanent settlements this area once knew, among pillars of stone bricks and other minor ruins.
Ruined houses can be found here in three variants: just ruined and rotten or burnt. The ruined houses are crumbled and eventually rotten or burnt out. A chest and a furnace are all that remind of their former inhabitants.
Mordor Orc - Evil orcs of Mordor, equipped with Mordor armour, and armed with Mordor weapons, such as scimitars, spears, battleaxes, daggers, warscythes, or warhammers.
The trees are dead and their remnants feed the depleted soil. Patches of grass and barren dirt dot the biome surface and the wary traveller must watch out to not stumble over the rotten logs scattered all over the area. Most normal flowers can be found here. The 'light forest' variant has oak, spruce and beech trees, but they're all dead.