Rep: Sons of Hodir

The Sons of Hodir are one of the most important factions to have reputation with (unless you happen to be a Scribe) because they control our much needed shoulder enchants. Where in Burning Crusade players had a choice to support either the Aldor or the Scryers,  in Wrath there are only the Sons of Hodir and they make you WORK to get THEIR enchants. Lets begin by covering who exactly this faction is then move on to how you go about gaining their favor.

The Sons of Hodir are not actually the biological offspring of Watcher Hodir as the name somewhat implies. Rather these Frost Giants are Hodir's creations. Servants designed to assist Hodir in his duties as guardian over the ice and snow. There is also some speculation that Hodir is where the concept of Father Winter first came about, his workers are just A WHOLE LOT larger than those of Santa Claus. When Prim Designate Loken betrayed the rest of the Watchers, Hodir disappeared from his Temple of Winter and the Frost giants believed him dead.  Before they could take the time to truly investigate however they found themselves under attack by their former ally Thorim who believed them responsible for the death of his wife. It is at this point that players first encounter them.

Thorim's followers, the Frost Vrykul and the Earthen, with the loss of THEIR leader to his grief are now in three separate camps. The Hyldnir, which are an exclusively Frost Vrykul female organization, have coped with their leader's despondency by continuing his war against the Frost Giants and battling amongst themselves in hopes of discovering one of them worthy to replace Thorim's deceased wife Sif. The idea is that if a NEW mate is found he will snap out of his stupor and get back to work. Of the Frost Vrykul males, they are treated as slaves to the females, (think blue skinned amazons). The rest of Thorim's Frost Vrykul followers have fallen to the thrall of the Lich King. The Earthen on the other hand have recognized that Thorim was deceived and battle alone against Loken's forces, continuing Thorim's work while he is unable to.

When players first enter Storm Peaks, not having a clue about any of this history they will discover that both the Hyldnir and the Frost Giants are hostile to them. In fact one of the goblin females located at the small outpost of K3 will ask for assistance in recovering her male colleges. Thus begins the long attunement like chain to discover exactly what is going on in Storm Peaks.

The first section of the chain which is sixteen quests in length begins with "They took our Men" from Gretchen at K3.  This part of the chain deals with learning about the Hyldnir and eventually becoming a part of them (via disguise). Once you are deemed worthy to be a fighting member of the Hyldnir you are asked to create bear riding  harness. This will send you on to an eight part chain in which you capture yourself a bear mount before entering competition to be Thorim's new wife. At the end of this section Thorim wakes up enough to explain what has happened and admits that he was deceived. It was the realization that he not only had lost his wife but one of his best friends that has sent him into deep depression. Finally he decides that purhaps it is time to attempt to repair the damage he caused so he sends you to help mend the fence so to speak.

While helping the Frost Giants against their common foe the Iron Giants you need to make sure you pick up the Slag Covered Metal off of one of the corpses. This will start a two part parallel chain which is needed to continue further. Once you have completed BOTH Mending Fences AND A Spark of Hope return to Thorim at the Temple of Storms. Now at this point you are Neutral with the Son's of Hodir. This means you can now land in their capital of Dum Niffelem with out fear.

Previously you would now see a variety of quests open up around Dum Niffelem, completing these will open the six daily quests. There is also a six part chain which sends you BACK to Thorim, now relocated to the Terrace of the Makers. Thorim has two quests for you The Earthen Oath and Loken's Lackeys. Once you have completed both of these Thorim asks you to accompany him to the Temple of Wisdom while he confronts Loken. It doesn't go well and in the end Thorim is captured just like Hodir was. When you report what you have seen to King Jokkum, the present leader of the Sons of Hodir he sends you to the Halls of Lightning, where Loken is known to be working. I personally find the quest he gives you rather disturbing as he wants Loken's lying tongue as proof he is no longer living.

Now since patch 3.0.8 there IS an easier way to get reputation with this faction. However you STILL have to do ALL the quests up to Forging an Alliance. Once you are neutral with the Sons of Hodir you can go to their quartermaster Lillehoff and turn in stacks of 10 Relics of Ulduar for 250 reputation each. The Relics drop off of pretty much any mob located in Storm Peaks or the Ulduar 5 man dungeons. Doing this can easily get you from hostile to exalted in just a matter of hours verses the WEEKS it use to take. Relics are also MUCH easier to farm than Everfrost. Not only that unlike Everfrost which is bind on pick up the Relics can be sold on the auction house so it is rather easy to pick up a stack if farming is not your thing.

Lillehoff has more than just the shoulder enchants to sell. Mount collectors will be interested in his TWO land mounts, the Ice Mammoth or the roomier three passenger Grand Ice Mammoth. Tailors will want to pick up the pattern for Glacial Bags, while these now have a 7 day cool down they will ALWAYS sell on the auction house for a decent amount. Leather workers can also find buyers easily for the Mammoth Mining Bag so that is recipe they should obtain.

At the beginning of Wrath players cursed this faction to all perdition due to the time consuming demand of grinding daily quests. Now they are MUCH kinder to the casual player. The only issue people seem to have is getting lost while working on the attunement chains. My encouragement would be to make sure you have a set aside a couple of hours of uninterpreted play time to work until you have access to Lillehoff.

Happy Grinding!