Honor Hold for Alliance, Thrallmar for Horde — from $9.89 to Friendly, $120.59 to Exalted. Same grind, same rewards, different quartermaster: Logistics Officer Ulrike at Honor Hold, Quartermaster Urgronn outside Thrallmar, both in Hellfire Peninsula.
The Flamewrought Key is the reason to get to Honored. It opens Heroic Hellfire Citadel — Ramparts, Blood Furnace and Shattered Halls — which is where a fresh 70 farms badges and pre-raid gear.
The cap that ruins most plans: trash reputation in Hellfire Ramparts and The Blood Furnace hard-stops at Friendly, at 5999/6000. You can grind those two all week and the bar will not move past it. Beyond Friendly the rep comes from The Shattered Halls, Heroics, and quests.
What the grind actually is:
- roughly 54 Hellfire Peninsula quests, about 13,000 rep — enough on its own to push a fresh character deep into Honored;
- Shattered Hand mobs out in Hellfire while you are Neutral or Friendly;
- the Hellfire Fortifications daily at the PvP towers, 150 rep a day;
- Shattered Halls and Heroic Hellfire clears for everything above Friendly.
There is no mount from either faction. Some pages advertise a Honor Hold or Thrallmar exalted mount — it does not exist. The TBC reputation mounts are the Cenarion War Hippogryph, the Netherwing drakes, the Sha'tari Skyguard nether rays and the Kurenai and Mag'har ground mounts. What you get here is gear: the Flamewrought Key at Honored, the Hellforged Halberd at Revered, and at Exalted Honor's Call, Veteran's Musket and Blade of the Archmage for Alliance, or Marksman's Bow, Stormcaller and Warbringer for Horde.
