WoW Archivist: WoW's 18 weirdest quest items

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Adventuring in Azeroth has never been what some would call "conventional." The weird happens everyday for the heroes of the Alliance and the Horde. After all, we inhabit a world of talking walruses, and recreational marmot punting. But some quest items go above and beyond into the realm of the truly bizarre. In no particular order, here are my top 18.

1. Valoren's Shrinkage Totem

In a questionable mashup of Free Willy, Seinfeld, and a certain infamous subgenre of Japanese hentai, Wavespeaker Valoren asks you to use his "shrinkage totem" on the tentacle horrors imprisoning Wil'hai the whale shark. Why does Valoren carry such a thing around with him? It's better not to ask such questions.

As if we needed another reason to avoid questing in Vashj'ir, Blizzard went out of their way to remind us how all that cold water affects male genitalia. The totem works as advertised, and I can't help but feel a pang of sympathy for those tentacles when they shrivel up.

2. Vol'jin's Hearthstone

After Garrosh sent his Kor'kron goons to assassinate Vol'jin as part of the Dominance Offensive quest line, the wounded troll leader is on death's door at Binan Village. Vol'jin tells us to "Find Thrall" and gives us his personal hearthstone, set to Durotar.

It makes total sense that NPCs would also use hearthstones to get around, but this is the first time we've seen any evidence of that. I remember being taken aback when Vol'jin handed his over. But hey, it saved us the hassle of a trip to Kalimdor. You're good people, Vol'jin.

3. Chambermaid Pillaclencher's Pillow

The redoubtable Chambermaid Pillaclencher, a level 49 elite, spawns while you are plundering pillows for the Searing Gorge quest Kill 'Em with Sleep Deprivation. She yells,

Her abilities are called Smother (a DOT and silence) and Pillow Fight (a knockback). Has any mob's abilities ever made more sense?

By killing her and looting her pillow, you can cash it in for Evonice's Landin' Pilla. It's a handy Slow Fall trinket (as if it could be anything else).

4. Didgeridoo of Contemplation

The name of this one just tickles me to no end. What sort of instrument do the Oracles of Sholazar Basin use when they are meditating? Nothing could be more contemplative than the soothing, mellow notes of a didgeridoo.

One of their dailies asks you to play the instrument at the four pillars in the zone, presumably to achieve enlightenment and a splitting headache at the same time. Please someone make these and sell them on Etsy.

5. Booterang

The ultimate technology for motivating lazy peons without needless projectile retrieval, the Booterang is your tool of choice for this daily quest in Shadowmoon Valley. The Booterang: A Cure for the Common Worthless Peon required you to discipline 20 Dragonmaw peons with flying footwear. One of the most entertaining dailies ever, it rewarded Netherwing rep.

The Booterang could be used while mounted, but it couldn't catch you if you moved at full speed. Players had fun with this, trailing dozens of Booterangs behind them as they completed the quest.

Don't confuse it with the Bootzooka.

6. Stack of Questionable Publications

Crazy Larry in Swamp of Sorrows is a desperate goblin. His ship has been attacked by gilblins and he needs you to retrieve his most precious goods. He's even willing to launch you onto the deck via a convenient cannon -- a mode of transport that has seen a disturbing rise in popularity the last few years.

One of those goods happens to be called "Stack of Questionable Publications." The in-game object is merely a pile of books, which could be anything, right? The icon, however, leaves little room for doubt regarding what is "questionable" about them... The flavor text reads, "Improper!"

7. Billy Goat Blaster

Goats are a big problem in the Badlands, at least according to upstanding Steamwheedle Cartel member Garyanne Fleezlebop. She asks you to "gently nudge" the goats away from her equipment with this trusty blaster.

As most goblin products are, the blaster is far more powerful than necessary and turns a nudge into a devastating shockwave of force that sends the hapless goats soaring off into the distance.

Rapid goat blasting rewards you with the achievement Ready, Set, Goat!

8. Big Bag of Poop

The tradition of feces-focused questing began in The Burning Crusade. First, Shizz Work in Hellfire Peninsula had us feeding helboar carcasses to a felhound and searching its dung for a goblin's shredder keys. Then A Rare Bean in Nagrand tasked us with sifting through piles of talbuk dung for Digested Caracoli. In Wrath, Lupus Pupus again required us to bust out our poop scavenging skills, this time for Microfilm from wolf dung. Yes, you read that right. We also examined our own artificially hastened bowel movement for the quest Doing Your Duty in Zul'Drak Grizzly Hills.

In Cataclysm, Blizzard's quest designers took poop to the next level with a Giant-Sized Laxative. You feed it to a giant named Gormungan -- for science! That experiment ultimately fails, though, and Blizzard couldn't leave us hanging for an entire expansion without getting some animal waste on our hands, or in this case everywhere. The Alliance-only quest Bravo Company Field Kit: Camouflage makes the logical leap that the only way to infiltrate the orc stronghold in Redridge is by smearing yourself head to toe with Leaves and Fox Poop. Sometimes I really think the quest givers say this stuff just to see if we're so desperate for XP that we'll actually do it.

For Mists, Blizzard put aside any last vestiges of subtlety and just told us to go out and gather five Big Bags of Poop for the quest Pooped. If this pattern is any indication, in Warlords we're going to cannonball into a steaming pile of gronn turds.

9. Delaris's Prism

Yet another quest involving some kind of crystal. What could be more trite?

But this no ordinary crystal -- this is a prism!

The Felwood quest Open Their Eyes asks you to terrify 20 imps. And as we all know, the thing that an imp absolutely can't abide is a beautiful rainbow.

After completing the quest, Arcanist Delaris rewards you with the Rainbow Generator trinket, an item that is on most players' short list for the most desired toybox conversion in Warlords.

10. Bottle of Zombie Juice

Zombies are many things and, I suppose from a certain perspective, "juicy" is one of them. Abercrombie in Duskwood asks you to retrieve this item for him to "keep [him] warm on these cold, dark nights." Again, it is better not to question...

Upon providing the juice, Abercrombie tells you,

The questline eventually leads to Abercrombie assembling Stitches and letting him loose upon Darkshire.

11. Bahrum's Pants

Some Cataclysm quests really go off the deep end. They Took Me Pants! is one of them. We first encounter the pantsless Bahrum Forgehammer modestly standing in a grain crate. He explains how he wound up in this predicament (poorly) and reveals that the pants were handmade by his sister (OK...) and that she engraved his name on them (convenient).

To reclaim his pants, you must defeat Gorosh the Pant Stealer.

Bahrum rewards you with a Sack of Grain labeled "You're so not eating this." It sells for 25 gold, so we can assume that you don't tell the unsuspecting vendor about the compromised condition of the grain.

12. Sack of Murloc Heads

As Azeroth's mightiest heroes, sometimes it feels like half of our job is obtaining and transporting body parts. Ears, eyes, scalps, tongues, teeth, hooves, horns, hands, hearts, claws, spines, scales, sacs, glands, livers, gizzards, wings -- it's all part of this adventuring business we chose to take up. But there is something uniquely appalling about a straight-up sack of murloc heads.

They were generated by the now-removed Hillsbrad quest Farren's Proof after you remove and bring 10 heads to Farren Orinelle. Perhaps regretting his request, even Farren didn't want to touch it:

A runner-up for the most disturbingly aggregate quest item ever, though, is Remains of Cowlen's Family.

13. Marvelous Mobile Murloc Manor Maker

Not all quest givers have a genocidal attitude toward murlocs. Some just want to relocate them. Archaeologist Groff in Darkshore goes out of his way to construct this device, which sets up a cozy beachside home for the lovable fish-people on use. (Of course, this is his plan after he tells you to off a whole bunch of them. Murlocs never catch a break.)

When you bring him the raw materials for the manor maker, he comments,

After you set up the murloc manor, dozens of them arrive to take up residence, and Groff regrets his plan. More murloc murder seems inevitable.

14. Irresistible Pool Pony

The quest of the same name from the Lost Isles has a strange and sinister premise. Megs Dreadshredder believes that the naga hatchlings in the area will be compelled to follow the delightful pool pony. Then you can lead the kids away, Pied Piper-style, and use them as hostages to force the enemy's surrender.

This is WoW, so of course the pool pony works just as imagined. The words "pool pony" and "war crimes" have never appeared in the same sentence until today. But here we are.

15. Demon Kissed Sack

Dirty jokes aside, exactly which demons are amenable to sack kissing and why would you want them to do so? This item is a reward from the quest The Demon Forge (no longer available). Lorax, a satyr in Winterspring, sends you to slay and steal the soul of Goraluk Anvilcrack in Upper Blackrock Spire.

Completing the quest earned you both the sack and the blacksmithing plans to make the Demon-Forged Breastplate. The sack contained a random uncommon quality item, apparently brought into being by magical demon saliva.

16. Dark Iron Fanny Pack

No, really. Oralius sent you into Blackrock Depths to murder dwarves for their fanny packs. These were the objective of the obsolete Burning Steppes quest The Good Stuff. Exactly what the good stuff is was never explained, but fanny packs were apparently the main mode of storing it. Your reward was A Dingy Fanny Pack, which dropped a random uncommon item. I'm pretty sure a demon kissed this one, too.

17. Knockoff Grumplefloot

Even the method of obtaining this item is strange. You have to /dance with Grandpa Grumplefloot at the Kun Lai Bazaar, which is apparently such a grave offense in grummle culture that he challenges you to a fight to the death:

Cashing in the "floot" allows you to fight Grampa Grumplefloot in the Brawler's Guild arena. He summons good Lucky-dos that you can run through to heal yourself and bad Lucky-don'ts that you have to avoid. You receive the Floot-Tooter's Tunic when you defeat him, which gives you a buff that reads "Toot toot!"

18. Gordok Ogre Suit

Possibly the most beloved quest item of all time, the Ogre Suit allowed you to disguise yourself as an ogre for 10 minutes. It came complete with the sexy ogre dance animation.

A tailor or leatherworker could make the suit once they completed a quest to learn the recipe. Once disguised, you could trick a boss in Dire Maul into running after another ogre. This was required to complete the original version of the Dire Maul "tribute run" and become king of the ogres.

Wrath of the Lich King followed up on this idea with the equally awesome King Mrgl-Mrgl's Spare Suit. It was not as convincing in appearance as the Ogre Suit, with obvious stitching, but the murlocs didn't seem to mind.

After months of surveying, WoW Archivist has been dug back up! Discover lore and artifacts of WoW's past, including the Corrupted Blood plague, the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, and the mysterious Emerald Dream.