Siege of Mirkwood, the recently announced digital expansion to The Lord of the Rings Online will launch on December 1st, 2009, according to an announcement released by Turbine today.

The announcement of a new LOTRO Adventurer's Pack was also part of today's announcement. The new pack will launch simultaneously with the Siege of Mirkwood digital expansion, and will contain 2 additional character slots, and a shared storage slot allowing for players to share their items across all their characters on the same server. Customers who pre-order the Adventurer's Pack will also receive two exclusive in-game items, the Harbinger's Cloak which provides an 8% speed buff, and a new Dusky Nimblefoot Goat mount.

Both the Siege of Mirkwood and the LOTRO Adventurer's Pack are available for pre-order now and will run you $19.99 each, though there are some special offers going on as well. Former subscribers who renew their accounts, or current subscribers who upgrade their accounts to a multi-month (3, 6, 9 month) subscription between now and October 31st will receive Siege of Mirkwood free. Also, Lifetime Subscribers who purchase the LOTRO Adventurer's Pack will receive the Siege of Mirkwood digital expansion free of charge.

Speaking of Lifetime subscriptions, they're back, and will run you $199 if you're interested.

Pre-order the "Siege of Mirkwood" digital expansion and LOTRO Adventurer's Pack here!

Turbine has also sent us a batch of new screenshots of the upcoming Siege of Mirkwood digital expansion, which you can find in our The Lord of the Rings gallery.