See the picture above? Yeah, that’s Desolace. I’m gonna talk about a questline there.
Wait, come back!
Okay, so it’s no secret that Desolace is wildly unpopular with both sides. For starters, it’s insanely ugly. It makes Duskwood look homey and cozy. And if you thought the Alliance outpost in Desolace was annoying to get to, try getting to the Horde one. And the quests? Fuhgeddaboutit! Demons galore, many of them elite or at least over-leveled in the southern reaches, kodos, and – oh yeah – the centaurs.
Of course, that’s what I’m here to talk about today: the centaurs.
Wait, come back!
Many of you may not have leveled in Desolace, but if you did, there’s a neat little questline that you can take part in, relating to two of the centaur tribes: the Gelkis Clan Centaur, and the Magram Clan Centaur. These two tribes are mortal enemies, split over a feud based on something someone said before he died. No, seriously.
Magra, the Third Khan, said before he died that strength was essential and that the tribe’s survival depended on their fighting spirit. However, the brother-clan that would become the Gelkis spoke out against this, stating that Theradras would always protect them and keep the tribes safe, and the Magram exiled the Gelkis for this.
Yes, the Gelkis actually believe that this is what keeps them safe.
Centaurs. Sheesh.
So, you have two tribes of centaurs, one that revolves around worshipping strength and strength alone, and one that seems more civilized – grasping the common tongue, having an actual social structure beyond “strong guy wins,” and so on.
Well, anyway, the Horde and Alliance can’t leave well enough alone, for varying definitions of well enough, and decide to either send you out to ally with the Magram (Magram Alliance/Brutal Politics) or the Gelkis (Gelkis Alliance/Strange Alliance) – it’s actually your choice. From there, you actually set out to slaughter the tribe’s enemy until they accept you as friendly, then you ally yourself with that centaur clan in their war against the others.
Gelkis Clan Centaur
Earth elementals roam their village, they speak the tongues of other creatures – overall, the Gelkis are about as close as you get to civilized centaurs. The contact point for the Gelkis Clan Centaur is Uthek the Wise. He will offer you the following quests, in this order:
- Raid on the Kolkar (yes, Wowhead currently marks this as an Alliance-only quest: it’s not). You see, while the Gelkis and the Magram are at war with each other, they’re also at war with everybody else. Centaurs. Sheesh. So this little quest sends you out to steal the charms of the Kolkar Centaurs, mutual enemy of both the Gelkis and the Magram. Think of it as a schooling in centaur politics.
- Stealing Supplies. Now you work directly against the Magram, for the Gelkis. Head to the Magram village and steal some meat from their storage. Again, just little peeks into centaur culture here (“They store extra meat so they may fight longer between hunts. If you raid their village to the east and take their stores of meat, then their strength will fail.”).
- Ongeku. Okay, so, the old world quests had this delightful habit of sending you halfway across the world to get an item. The Gelkis line is no exception – you get to go to the Swamp of Sorrows, to find the lost one Ongeku (how did they even find out about this guy?!), and steal his piece of draenethyst. This, interestingly, was an obvious reference to Draenor: “One secret I hear is of a red crystal. It is called draenethyst, and it is new to our earth. It comes from a place where mountains fly, and where demons rule.”
- Khan Jehn – you’ve weakened the Magram, now kill their leader!
- Khan Hratha. It’s all been building to this: a confrontation with the Maraudine centaurs and their Khan, to bring the Gelkis to power in Desolace. The Gelkis promise to sing praises in your name when they rule in Desolace, and (presumably) the world.
Magram Clan Centaur
The Magram Clan Centaur quests, as befit the Magram themselves, are much more brutal – less collection, more running things through with a spear. Good times! Your contact person is the centaur Warug, and your assignments are these:
- Assault on the Kolkar. See what I mean? You’re not collecting their little magic trinkets, friend – you simply slay a bunch of centaur. (Honestly, this alone might be the best reason to side with the Magram – this is much easier than getting those damn charms to drop.)
- Broken Tears. The Gelkis, remember, wanted you to steal meat to weaken the Magram. The Magram also want you to steal, but in this case, you’re going into the Gelkis Clan’s cave to steal the crystals therein – the tears of Theradras. Warug is amusing in this quest. “You got the tears! Now the Gelkis will know that Theradras will not help them. She will not cry when we crush them! The Magram will rule!”
- Gizmo for Warug:
“Long ago, a little gnome came to Desolace. He had horses and a cart, and the cart held strange things. Funny things. Things that burned different colors. Things that moved and weren’t alive. I killed the little gnome, but before that… he made me laugh.
I kept my favorite thing from his cart. It was a human made of wood and it waved at me until I hit it and broke it.
I want a new one. Get me a new one!”I think that sums up everything you need to know about Warug, and this quest. You just have to bring Warug an Advanced Target Dummy – the kind any engineer can make, pretty much.
- Khan Shaka. Off you go to kill the head (hurr hurr) of the Gelkis Clan, so that Warug can stare at his head and laugh at him! Delightful!
- Which leads to, of course, Khan Hratha. This time it’s for the glory of the Magram, and they promise (should you succeed, of course) to not trample you when they rule the rest of the world. Oh yes – the Magram are ambitious. They’re going places!
Did You Catch That?
More of Blizzard’s vanilla WoW pop culture references.
- Khan Jehn = Jehn Khan = Gen Con
- Khan Shaka = Shaka Khan = Chaka Khan
- Khan Hratha = Hratha Khan = Wrath o’ Kahn
They’re amusing when they put their minds to it!
A Caveat
While these quests do count towards your Loremaster achievements, they do not count towards any of the exalted reputation achievements, because reputation with both the Gelkis and the Magram will cap out at 11999/12000 Honored. Sorry gang.
Now Go Play With The Nice Centaur.
You might just have fun doing it. Of course, at the end of the day, it’s still Desolace. Your call, really. I have no logical explanation for why I like this quest chain pair as much as I do, and I know most people will overlook it because, let’s face it, most of Desolace sucks – but to me, it’s one of the little treasures of the old world that I still like to do when I can.
Stop used to be a warlock, then he was a death knight; first he was Horde, then he was Alliance again, and now he's Horde again. For good this time. Lok'tar ogar! 
Another thing to consider, from an RP standpoint, is that the Magram centaur are involved in some form of necromancy, raising skeletons and reanimating them (that you have to kill for the Scarlet Monastery Quest for the Alliance). For that reason, as well as that the Gelkis don’t seem to be “UG SMASH” types, my characters have usually allied with the Gelkis… except my warrior, who is perfectly OK with force for force’s sake.
I think I’m the only person in existence that actually *likes* Desolace, and most of my characters spent a good bit of time there before the leveling change. The Kodo Kombobulator is a favorite quest of mine.
I started this questline on most of my characters, as it was as good a place as any to grind (pre 2.3). Never carried them through to completion, though.
Anna you are not alone
I’m one of those few who really really enjoy doing Desolace. Every character I ever levelled has been through this zone, I love the centaur questline, I love the Night elf rescue quests, and I actually like how the place looks.
Depending on my character, I’ve done both centaur quest lines. I prefer the Gelkis one. But the magram one is worth doing just for the last part – attacking gelkis hold – much more fun than the magram camp.
After my first character (an Alliance Warlock on a PvP server in early ’05) I decided I would NEVER do STV again.
So when my warrior go to that level, I found Desolace as a nice alternative. My Paladin and Mage ALSO went through Desolace. Like Barefoot I also have done both sides of the conflict. And while traveling to Swamp of Sorrows was annoying, it was infinitely easier than trying to find an Engineer to make that Target Dummy.
It wasn’t until I was leveling a Druid in the last two weeks of TBC that I decided to do STV again.