Tirion Fordring in exile in Eastern Plaguelands

I headed over to Eastern Plaguelands, originally to take on Stratholme by myself, and ended up working on the level 60 quests in Western and Eastern Plaguelands.

My curiosity led me down Terrorweb Tunnel where I came across a rare giant spider spawn and killed it. 20 silver thank you!

And out the other end of the Tunnel, at the very western border of Eastern Plaguelands was a tiny hut, a horse and Tirion Fordring.

Of course most of us now know Tirion as the Supreme Commander of the Argent Crusade strutting his stuff out in Icecrown. But in Eastern Plaguelands he is a hermit in dull plate armor. And a father worried about his son.

From what I could gather, Tirion did something that got him exiled from both the Knights of the Silver Hand (the original Paladin group) and Lordaeron, his wife threw him out and told their son that Tirion was dead. The son, Taelan, grew up and became a highlord of the Scarlet Crusade. Tirion is not happy.

So I killed Plaguehounds, Terrorbats, dug up a grave and even headed into Stratholme to reclaim a painting for Tirion, for Taelan. Some time later I was decked out in a Scarlet Crusade disguise and heading north to confront Taelan in the keep of Hearthglen. Got to the keep and the room was empty. Unfortunately I passed some horde one step ahead of me in the quest (and escort) so I had to cool my heels waiting for Taelan to respawn. 15 minutes later and he was hacking his way out of Hearthglen to see his dad, quitting the Scarlet Crusade and killing pretty much anything that tried to get in his way.

Taelan attempts to leave the Scarlet Crusade

Unfortunately for Taelan he didn’t quite make it (he gets killed by the Grand Inquisitor of the Scarlet Crusade at the end of the quest). And Tirion shows up a few minutes too late. Tirion announces that he will establish a new order and rides off. I guess that’s how the Argent Crusade got started.

At some point during the day I handed in a quest at Light’s Hope Chapel and caught sight of the ziggaurat hovering overhead. Now that is definately a new addition to the zone with Wrath of the Lich King! I was slightly disturbed that none of the NPCs at Light’s Hope had seemed to notice.

I’m also left with one quest in the area that is causing me some trouble. I’ve tried to solo The Battle of Darrowshire [Raid] but the second person in the quest doesn’t seem to spawn. I gave up after about 20 minutes, but I’ll try it again another day.

ps. I ended up killing the “rare” spider in Terrorweb Tunnel at least three times in the space of a couple hours. How this makes it rare I don’t know…