Timbermaw Hold

Timbermaw Hold is located in north east Felwood and includes the tunnel that connects Felwood with Moonglade and Winterspring. It is inhabited by Timbermaw Furbolg. Only if someone proves themselves by driving back the corrupted Deadwood and Winterfall tribes, may they one day consider them as an ally. Only allies are allowed to pass freely through the tunnel. The tunnel also branches into Hyjal and Azshara as well, but they aren't available to everyone.

Overview
This tunnel, which starts in Felwood, is the primary means for a player to initially enter Winterspring if they have never been there before (there exist two other ways to get to Moonglade; the Druids learn to teleport there early on, and for the other one, see the Moonglade article). In order to traverse the tunnel, you must either fight through, stealth or run through, or gain at least "Unfriendly" reputation with the Timbermaw Hold faction so they won't attack you. The last option is definitely the smartest, as the Timbermaw Hold faction also offers rewards as you gain standing with them.

Another section of Timbermaw Hold is found in the north-eastern mountain-side at the zone of Azshara (Kalimdor). The Hold is a stone structure built within the mountain, similar to Ironforge. The architecture of the human-built Greymane Wall in Silverpine Forest and Thoradin's Wall in Arathi Highlands look similar to the exterior of the Timbermaw Hold. This could mean that the structure in Azshara was built by humans, but taken over by the Timbermaw some time later.

The Timbermaw furbolgs of Azshara are the same faction as the Timbermaw in Felwood and will react the same way they would react to you in Felwood.

History
Centuries ago, dragons abandoned the Timbermaw Hold when it was overrun by satyrs. Heroes waded the shallows and reclaimed the land. The tileset is called "Ashenvale".

This ancient furbolg fortress is located near Felwood's eastern border. It is a vast and rambling place, rumored to run deep into the slopes of Mount Hyjal. No one knows for sure how big it is, since the furbolgs abandoned it in ages past. Undead and satyrs may now wander the shadowed corridors...along with whatever cursed furbologs still roam the depths. Wise travelers would bypass the site entirely if it were not the only passage through to Winterspring and Hyjal Summit.

There are rumors of an insane furbolg leading the clan.

Reputation
The Timbermaw Furbolgs guard the Timbermaw Hold cave that connects Felwood, Moonglade and Winterspring. You start out as Unfriendly with these Furbolgs. Starting the quest at Emerald Sanctuary will quickly get you into Neutral.

All players start off Unfriendly to Timbermaw Hold (100/3000 points). There are currently a scant handful of quests that improve this reputation. Most rep points must be earned by grinding. Building a high reputation with this faction allows access to a number of high-level recipes and other benefits. Killing furbolgs originally only awared reputation through 11999/12000 honored reputation, but as of Patch 4.0.3a continue to do so through exalted. Players also get reputation from handing in tokens from Winterfall and Deadwood furbolgs. When you reach, the quests and  become available to you. Completing The Root of All Evil gives you trinket, and The Brokering of Peace assigns you to give an offering of peace to either  or.

In the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, players are able to obtain achievements for becoming with Timbermaw Hold. The first,, is for becoming exalted with Timerbmaw Hold itself. The second, /, is for becoming exalted with Timbermaw Hold, Sporeggar, and either Mag'har or  Kurenai.

Quests and mobs

 * After completing or, you will be able to turn in Deadwood Headdress Feathers from furbolgs in Felwood. Turning in 5 feathers yields 2000 reputation. Drop rate estimated at 20–30%, stack in lots of 250.
 * After completing, you will be able to turn in Winterfall Spirit Beads collected from furbolgs in Winterspring. Turning in 5 beads yields 2000 reputation. Drop rate estimated at 20–30%, stack in lots of 250.
 * After completing, you will be able to turn in Winterfall Spirit Beads collected from furbolgs in Winterspring. Turning in 5 beads yields 2000 reputation. Drop rate estimated at 20–30%, stack in lots of 250.
 * After completing, you will be able to turn in Winterfall Spirit Beads collected from furbolgs in Winterspring. Turning in 5 beads yields 2000 reputation. Drop rate estimated at 20–30%, stack in lots of 250.

By using only the beads and feathers to get from revered to exalted you need to do about 11 turn-ins as a non-human (about 10 for humans). That's 55 beads or feathers (50 for humans).

Deadwood and Winterfall furbolg can be found in the following places:


 * Southern Deadwood furbolgs are in the extreme southwest of Felwood. Here you will find Gardeners, Warriors, Pathfinders, Overload Ror, and Ragepaw (rare).
 * Northern Deadwood furbolgs are in the far northeast of Felwood. These include Den Watchers, Shamans, Avengers, and Chieftain Bloodmaw.
 * Western Winterfall have three villages: two are directly east of the Timbermaw Hold tunnel exit in Winterspring, and the other is south of the road further east before the first fork (map zone "Timbermaw Post"). Totemics, Pathfinders, and Den Watchers can be found in these villages.
 * 3 Winterfall Runners make a slow march along the road between Timbermaw Hold and Winterfall Village in Winterspring.
 * Eastern Winterfall are found in Winterfall Village, northeast of Everlook in Winterspring. Here you will find Ursas, Shamans, more Den Watchers, High Chief Winterfall, and Grizzle Snowpaw (rare).

Patch 1.9 replaced the repeatable quest with another non-repeatable quest of the same name that when completed enables acquisition of Winterfall Spirit Beads. Salfa no longer offers the original, repeatable quest; however, it's still in the game and can be shared back and forth between players (player one shares quest to a party member, hands quest in, party member shares quest back, ad infinitum).

Strategy
Like most reputation grinds, the basic strategy is to kill mobs that give reputation until they no longer do, and only then complete the quests that give reputation. The minor wrinkle for Timbermaw Hold reputation is that you will likely want to complete the and  quests to allow for looting of Deadwood Headdress Feathers and Winterfall Spirit Beads as you grind.

Starting from 2500/3000 Hostile, a total of 24,500 reputation points are needed to reach Revered, or 45,500 for Exalted. Assuming that at a minimum the quests and  are completed, for 700 and 50 reputation respectively plus 18 kills for the first quest, that makes 430/3000 Unfriendly (good enough for safe passage through the tunnels). From there for non-human characters it would be 257 green non-boss kills to Neutral, 300 more kills (557 total) to Friendly, 600 more kills (1157 total) to Honored, and 1200 more kills (2357 total) to Revered. These values will, of course, be offset by however many boss kills you can get, if you choose to do any other quests before Revered, or if you are a human with the 10% reputation bonus racial skill.

The Path to Revered
For those who don't care about the Exalted trinket reward, here's the quickest way to get Revered. Since all of the furbolg kills that give Timbermaw Hold reputation do so up to Revered, there is no need to wait to do any of the quests; complete them as soon as they become available. This is a 4100 reputation base from quests, 600 from the 60 furbolg killed just for the quests, plus 500 more for a tailor, and 10% more for a human. With 19800 more reputation needed, that's 1980 green non-boss kills &mdash; but those furbolg will be dropping beads and feathers as well. Figuring a 20–30% drop rate, that means one turn-in worth of beads or feathers every 17–25 kills, or very roughly 1050–1250 more kills to Revered, 10% fewer for humans, and still fewer for a tailor who can do. As of Patch 3.0.8, reputation rewarded for killing mobs will no longer automatically deprecate, meaning gray mobs will still reward full reputation.

Level 48–53+: Talk to Grazle, just south of Emerald Sanctuary in Felwood near the road, to get the quest, which when completed allows you to loot Deadwood Headdress Feathers. These feathers can be turned in via a repeatable quest to Grazle (or Nafien in the north) for 300 reputation per 5 feathers. Grind these furbolgs until you're ready to take on the northern camp. Note: By turning off the "at war" checkbox in your Reputation tab for the Timbermaw Hold faction when you reach Unfriendly, you can now safely pass through the Felwood tunnel to reach Everlook and Moonglade. The "At War" checkbox turns itself off automatically when you reach Unfriendly.

Level 53–56+: Head to the northernmost point of Felwood and speak to Nafien outside the Timbermaw Hold tunnel entrance, and complete his quest to kill more Deadwood Furbolgs in the northern encampment. Grind these Deadwood, or the ones in the south if they still con green, until you're ready to move into Winterspring. Keep an eye out for the Deadwood Ritual Totem, a dropped item that you can turn in inside Timbermaw Hold tunnel once you reach Neutral reputation.

Level 56+: Head through Timbermaw Hold tunnel into Winterspring and talk to Salfa, just south of the tunnel exit and around the corner, who gives you a quest to slay Winterfall Furbolgs. Slay the required Winterfall to complete the quest objectives, and turn it in as soon as you do. This allows you to collect and turn in Winterfall Spirit Beads, similar to Deadwood Headdress Feathers. While killing Winterfall, Winterfall Ritual Totem will be a fairly common drop until you complete the quest that it gives. Note: the Shamans and Ursas can only be found in Winterfall Village, which is northeast of Everlook on the other end of Winterspring.

The Path to Exalted
If you want the Exalted trinket, technically the most efficient way is to complete ONLY the quest that Grazle gives you as soon as possible, as well as, since that quest is not available at Revered. Then grind ONLY the Deadwood, saving all feathers. As soon as you hit Revered, immediately complete and  to enable the drop of Winterfall Spirit Beads (to ensure optimum retrieval of beads), then all other non-repeatable quests. Turn in all of your feathers and beads; you will almost certainly have still more feathers and/or beads to collect. With an estimated 1100 kills (less bosses) and an estimated 25% drop rate on feathers, you should have more than 250 feathers(118 turnins). 3800 Rep from the remaining quests (excluding Sacred Cloth) and 17200 rep from turnins (58 turnins, or 290 feathers) will push you into exalted.

A somewhat less efficient method, but one which gives you more flexibility for moving back and forth between the Deadwood and Winterfall groups as well as potentially getting better random drops from the higher level Winterspring Furbolg, is to complete Nafien's and  quests, and Salfa's  quest, as soon as possible. This effectively costs you 1400 reputation that you could have earned at Revered, that will need to be made up by an additional 5 feathers/beads turnins, which is 25 feathers/beads from around 100 more kills. This additional burden will have been offset somewhat by reaching Revered sooner. This method is especially encouraged for Alliance players grinding Wintersaber Trainers faction; see below.

Either way, do not do the, , and  quests until Revered. Also, if you get more than 300 feathers, you should turn in the excess before hitting revered. It only takes 290 feathers to get the 21000 rep needed to get to exalted.

Additional Notes
Teaming up with other players as you grind is highly effective. This certainly make it less boring, but can make it slower to get to exalted(see below). While it used to be the case that you had to hit a mob for some type of damage (spell, melee, wand, whatever) in order to get the reputation points for the kill, many patches ago it was changed so that all teammates / raidmates will get reputation as long as they are in a suitable range of the kill. They do not need be on that specific mob's hate list. The range is relatively far, similar or possibly even equivalent to the range where you get a "roll for loot" popup when special quality items drop.

If you are on the path to exalted, you may want to consider going it alone. If you are grouped with someone the whole time, you will not get enough feathers/beads by the time you hit revered. This will be offset somewhat with a faster kill rate, and reaching revered sooner, but overall it will take longer to get to exalted. If you can team up with someone that only wants to get revered, that would be ideal, as you may be able to make a deal with them to get all of the feathers in exchange for the rest of the loot that drops (which can include several BoE blues).

If you are also grinding for Wintersaber Trainers faction will almost certainly want to have completed Salfa's quest, as you will spend a lot of timing grinding on Winterfall Furbolgs for Rivern Frostwind. His quest would need to be completed 108 times by non-humans, 98 times by humans if it were the sole reputation quest done from halfway to Friendly through to Exalted. Each completion of that quest requires the killing of 10 Winterfall Furbolgs (5 Ursas and 5 Shamans), that is 1080 (980 for humans) total kills or roughly 432 (392 for humans) beads. The Wintersaber Trainers quests used to give much less rep: just 50 rep instead of the current 250 for. That would have required doing the quest 540 times (490 for humans), and gotten many more beads.

Donova Snowden, located by the pond a bit south of Salfa, also has a couple of quests involving the Winterfall Furbolgs, which you may want to work into your griding. Her quests give no reputation.

Completing the level 55 quest, from Arathandris Silversky (Alliance) or Maybess Riverbreeze (Horde), each in the rough vicinity of Grazle, will grant you a Cenarion Beacon that, as long as it is in your bags, will cause killed Deadwood Furbolgs to often drop a Corrupted Soul Shard, which can be presented in batches of 6 to your side's Emerald Circle contact for Cenarion Plant Salve, used to cleanse plants in Felwood for several different useful buffs.

It seems that the Deadwood Headdress Feather are dropping at a much higher rate then the Winterfall Spirit Beads Each turn in is worth the same amount of Timbermaw reputation and is a quick way to get to Exalted.

Rewards
When you reach Exalted, Gorn One Eye within Timbermaw Hold offers you a quest, Quest:The Root of All Evil. The quest explains that the source of the corruption stems from a Satyr named Xandivious. He gives you a Demon Summoning Torch which you must take to the top of Winterfall Village. Using the torch summons Xandivious. Xandivious has an aura that deals 150 damage, casts Shadow Word Pain, and Curse of Weakness. He can be killed with as few as 2 people. When defeated he drops a bag that contains "Essence of Xandivious", the requirement for the quest. Xandivious has no other drops of any kind, including cash. When you return the essence you are awarded the, a trinket with a 10 minute cooldown that summons a pet shaman (casts healing wave and lighting bolt) that can both heal and fight. Though earning reputation is no longer relevant at this point, this quest will also give you 999 Timbermaw Hold reputation plus 25 for killing Xandivious.

After completing this quest, you receive a followup quest called Quest:The Brokering of Peace (This quest is no longer available in cataclysm). This is completed simply by returning to either Ironforge or Orgrimmar and speaking with the racial leader there. Upon doing so, King Magni Bronzebeard or Thrall announces in Ironforge/Orgrimmar:
 * yell

You will also receive 500 reputation with all of your main Alliance / Horde factions.

Speculation
Some have speculated that the Hold may become a future instance. Others also speculated that the Timbermaw Furbolgs might have been the new race playable to the Alliance based on their past relationship with the night elves and their pursuit to cleanse their brothers from the corruption which currently affects them. It is unknown what adventurers may find within the walls of Timbermaw Hold if the gates are ever opened. Currently the entrance is filled in with dirt and guarded by Gatekeeper Rageroar, a Timbermaw Shaman furbolg, and two Timbermaw Den Watchers.

The structure could have been formerly made by primitive humans. Nevertheless, based on lore, dwarves are the race that build structures within mountains. According to War of the Ancients: The Sundering, the Earthen joined the night elves in the War of the Ancients, fighting alongside with the Tauren and Furbolgs. Dwarves were revealed to be formerly from the Earthen race, created by the Titan Khaz'Goroth to dig the depths of the earth to rise and shape Mountains. The Timbermaw Hold could be the fortress of the Earthen that assisted the night elves during the War of the Ancients. After the Great Sundering, most Earthen hibernated within the halls of Uldum, Ulduar and Uldaman.

There is also the possibility that the Timbermaw Hold may be related or connected with the Barrow Deeps since in the Barrow Deeps are known to live at least one uncorrupted furbolg clan and also there is a side tunnel in the Timbermaw Hold, currently blocked by a door, that may connect it with the Barrow Deeps.

Patch changes

 * Bead/Feather turn ins now grant 2000 rep per 5 beads.
 * Bead/Feather turn ins now grant 2000 rep per 5 beads.