Doing the old AQ Opening Questline, Part 1

(The pictures are minimized, so click them to see larger versions if interested)

We all do odd things when we are bored.

I first became interested in the AQ questline through cooking.  On a lark, I looked to see how many cooking recipes I had.  I realized that I had almost every recipe in the game, except a couple of horde-only ones and a few hard-to-get ones.  I had my wife get me the horde ones to me through the neutral AH, and then I was left with just Dirge’s Kickin’ Chimaerok Chops – an epic recipe that drops as part of the AQ opening questline.

Aside:  for those who are new to the game… back in 2006 when the Ahn’Qiraj raids were first added to the game, the gates were initially closed.  It took a server-wide effort to get them opened, and there was a huge rep grind and quest chain.  The first one to finish the chain and open the gates got a unique title and mount.

The questline can still be done today, except for the last step since the gates are already open on all servers.

So I started grinding Brood of Nozdormu rep by doing the rare AQ pug raid.  You start at Hated and have to get to Neutral before you can do the quests.  I just got to Neutral this week and started the quests.

First, you talk to Anachronos, standing outside of the Caverns of Time.  He’s part of the Brood of Nozdormu so he’s not hostile to me anymore).

He sends you to Silithus, outside AQ.  You look in a crystal there and you see the dramatic events played out before you.  Fandral Staghelm and four dragons appear before you.

One at a time, the dragons turn from their human guise to their dragon form to combat the Qiraj forces before the gates.

Finally, Anachronos and Fandral Staghelm realize that the Qiraj forces are too many, and together they they magically seal the gates.

Anachronos gives Staghelm a sceptre that can open the gates if ever there is a reason.  Staghelm was in the midst of an emotional breakdown because his son was killed in the fight against the Qiraj.  He refuses the responsibility and shatters the sceptre.

Anachronos takes the pieces of the sceptre and gives them to the blue, red, and green dragonflights for safekeeping.  The rest of the questline involves retrieving the pieces.  I’ll need to visit Eranikus of the green dragonflight (in Sunken Temple), Vaelestraz of the red dragonflight (in Blackwing Lair) and Azuregos of the blue dragonflight (in Azshara).  They will each have their own tasks to complete.

Along the way I will have to visit and kill several world raid bosses that are unique to this questline.  Did you know there is a raid boss on the Isle of Dread off the coast of Ferelas?  Or another one on Alcaz Island in Dustwallow Marsh?  How about a summonable one in the water off of Azshara?  They all required 30+ people to kill back in vanilla WoW, but I should be able to solo or duo most of them now.  I’ll document some of this and post it for posterity.

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