Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria — How to Get Orc Keys

While wandering the depths of Middle Earth, you’ll come across enemy camps with locked chests that require specific items to access. Filled with treasures, including ores, gems, and statues, you’ll want to open them up. Here’s how to get Orc Keys in Return to Moria.

Return to Moria Orkish Chests Explained

Once you unearth the Elven Quarter in the Western Halls of Moria, you’ll start finding Orc encampments. Each sentry post features three to four enemies, a locked chest, a meat spit, and a center pole. All of that is surrounded by wooden fortifications.

Opening these chests is well worth the effort. They contain various useful items, such as Topaz, Hide, Cram, Coins, and more. However, they’re locked and take a considerable amount of time to break down with even a Steel Pickaxe. Thankfully, there’s an easier way to get into the locked Orkish Chests.

Where to Get Orc Keys

To get Orc Keys, take down the camp’s center totem pole. You can do this while the enemies are along the edges of the camp or busy fighting other creatures. While they can run into spiders deeper in the mines on their own, I’ve found that you can have a bear chase you through the camp to distract the Goblin Men if you’re in the Elven Quarter.

Of course, you can take them out first. I typically kill all the Goblin Men, Goblins, and Orcs before mining away at the pole so that I don’t have to look over my shoulder. Since mining makes noise, it’s almost impossible to bring down the pole without having enemies alerted.

When the pole is destroyed, an Orc Key will drop along with Wood Scraps. Pick up the key and unlock the chest to loot the materials and Coin inside. Like with Ori’s Chest, you won’t be able to put items into the chest. However, you can leave some of the loot behind if your inventory is full, though I suggest searching these out with a relatively empty inventory so you don’t have to.

One tactic I use is to go into a camp, take down the pole, grab the Orc Key, and run like the wind. Later on, you can return and sneak into the camp to open the chest. This is risky, though attempting this during the day increases your chances of success. This way, you don’t have to fight anyone and still acquire what you want.

Taking out the pole also reduces the chance that enemies will return to the camp. While enemies may respawn or stay at a camp if they chase you there, no new items will appear in the chest. Since I’m a little obsessive about how I like things to look, I tend to break down the full camp, chest included, once I loot everything I can from it.

That’s how to get Orc Keys and unlock the Orkish Chest in Lord of the Rings Return to Moria. For assistance locating resources, where to find the first piece of Durin’s Axe, or how to smelt Bronze, delve into our growing guides library.