The Sons of Hodir are a group of giants that you can find in the far northern reaches of Northrend in the Storm Peaks.  When you first find the giants you will likely not be able to speak to them as getting to even neutral reputation with them is one of the many great tasks in Wrath of the Lich King.  Earning their favor and then high enough reputation to gain access to their faction reward items is something that all World of Warcraft players need to do though, since they offer shoulder enchants for all class types.

Getting to Friendly with the Sons of Hodir

Getting enough reputation so that you can even start doing the Sons of Hodir’s daily reputation quests can be quite a chore.   To start on the quest chain to earn your way in the Sons favor you need to be at least level 77 and have cold weather flying. This is due to the fact that to get anywhere in the Storm Peaks you really need to fly.  Once you can fly it’s time to head over to the goblin base camp called K3 and speak to the goblin Gretchen Fizzlespark.  She will start you on your way through one of the epic quest chains in the game.  By the time you are done you will have completed over 30 quests and earned a significant amount of gold.

Dun Niffelem looks like Superman may feel right at home

The chain starts off small with a simple quest called They Took our Men! that has you rescue captured goblins from Sifreldar Village in the mountain to the north.  From that point on you work your way through the quest chain exploring the mines to the north, making bargains with Crones, pretending to be a female Viking, to finally helping the Sons of Hodir themselves.

Once you are done with the complete quest chain you will have gained enough reputation to be friendly with the Sons and ready to start working your way through to exalted.

Daily Sons of Hodir Quests

Once you have reached friendly with the Sons of Hodir you gain access to three different daily quests.  Each quest grants 250 reputation with the Sons and a small amount of gold.  The quests are Polishing the Helm, Hot and Cold, and Blowing Hodir’s Horn.  Polishing the Helm can be completed by killing the viscous Oils located in the cave just west of Dun Niffelem.

Hot and Cold has you collect Essence of Ice from the Brittle Revenants located just east of Dun Niffelem.  You then head a bit further east to find smoldering scraps.  Use the ice on the scraps to create frozen iron scraps to collect and turn in for the quest. Depending on how lucky you are this quest can take from five to twenty minutes. 

Lastly Blowing Hodir’s Horn is a simple kill quest where you have to blow the horn over the defeated enemy bodies. The enemies you must defeat are the Niffelem Forefathers and the Restless Frostborn.  They are found just north east of Dun Niffelem.

Once you have reached Honored with the Sons of Hodir you gain access to two additional daily quests.  These are Spy Hunter and Thrusting Hodir’s Spear.  Spy Hunter has you follow a ghost wolf to sniff out and defeat spies in the valley just west of Dun Niffelem and grants 350 reputation.

The revenants for the daily Hot and Cold quest

Thrusting Hodir’s Spear has you attempt to defeat the wyrms flying over the valley.  While the daily is fun once you get the hang of it, it takes several attempts to learn the proper sequence and any failure is death.  Due to this fact many players skip this daily even though it grants 500 reputation.  While mounted on the wyrm you have several abilities: Tighten Grip, Dodge Claw, Spear Thrust, and Mighty Spear Thrust.  For this first part of the fight simply rotate between Tighten Grip and Spear Thrust to ensure you hold on and deal damage.  Any time you see the wyrm start to use its claws use Dodge Claw and Mighty Spear Thrust.  Once you have the wyrm down to 25% health it will grab you in its jaws and your abilities change.  You must now maintain a stack of the Pry Jaw ability until you are almost dead and then click Fatal Strike. 

Once you reach Revered there is a last daily that opens up for you called Feeding Arngrim that grants 250 rep.  To do this quest simply find a Jormungur in the valley and use Arngrim’s tooth on it.  Fight the Jormungur until Arngrim appears and eats it.

If you do nothing but the daily quests it will take you roughly 27 days from friendly to honored.  This can be sped up significantly by purchasing your reputation. 

Buying Sons of Hodir Reputation

In addition to the quest chain and daily quests you can also buy reputation with the Sons of Hodir.  There are three different items that can be used to buy the reputation. They are the Relics of Ulduar, Everfrost Chips, and the Sons of Hodir Commendation Badges. 

The Relics of Ulduar can be found as drops from various creatures in the Storm Peaks and the instances located there.  A stack of 10 can be turned in for 250 reputation.  The Everfrost Chips appear as small blue crystals that are found throughout the zone.  They grant 350 reputation when they are turned in.  The chips are rare and very small so they tend to blend into the predominantly white, blue and grey zone, and are very difficult to spot. Both of these items can be bought and sold in the auction house, so many players simply purchase their way to exalted.

Since the Relics of Ulduar are the cheapest of the two on most servers, they are the best of the two to purchase.  If you plan on buying your way to exalted here is what you would need:

This makes a total of 1560 Relics of Ulduar to get from friendly to Exalted.  Currently Relics of Ulduar average about 1 gold each on servers so this is about 1,500 gold. You can farm the Relics from almost any of the creatures in the zone, some of the best however are the creatures that you have to fight for Blowing Hodir’s Horn.

Typical Auction House prices

The last of the items is the Sons of Hodir Commendation Badges which are earned by completing the daily dungeon quest out of Dalaran.  When you complete the quest this is one of the badges that you can choose as a reward and it grants 500 reputation.
 
Rewards

There are several nice rewards that can be earned with reputation from the Sons of Hodir.  The most important to any player, other than a player with the Inscription profession, is the shoulder enchants that can be bought once you reach honored.  You can also purchase an upgraded version once you reach exalted.  These enchants are the only way for most players to get enchants on their shoulder slot equipment, and hence critical for all players.  While many players will be happy with the honored level, since the exalted level is not a huge upgrade, raiders will push for exalted as quickly as possible.

In addition to the shoulder enchants the Sons also have several nice items.  These include decent pairs of plate and leather DPS shoulders, a good one-handed axe and some leather spell caster legs.  In addition you can buy an Ice Mammoth and Grand Ice Mammoth mount from them and a few different patterns for various professions.