By the Fires o' Ragnaros!

Well, after a marathon session clearing every world quest in Zandalar, I... was still about 270 reputation short of exalted with 7th Legion. So this morning I took a look at the new world quests, finished a couple, and then promptly returned to Stormwind to get my Dark Iron Dwarves unlocked.

The quests for Dark Irons is actually a bit more involved than I recall the ones for the pre-BFA allied races being.

The Dark Irons are sort of odd, in that they've been a part of Ironforge's population since Cataclysm, when Moira returned and demanded that her adopted people be allowed to return to the heart of Dwarvish culture. But while the Dark Irons have spent plenty of time as sort of unofficial members of the Alliance, with this quest chain you make it official.

You begin by being invited to Blackrock Depths where the Dark Irons are working on forging azerite. However, while you're there, a group of Venture Company goblins show up to raid the place. While you fight them off, you return to the Black Anvil to find that the legendary craftsman's hammer, Ironfoe, has been stolen, and the Venture goons have broken the Black Anvil itself.

In order to fix this central piece of Dark Iron culture, you first need to go chase down those Venture company jerks and take it back, which requires you to run the MOTHERLODE!! dungeon (I did it on Mythic because I still want a shield - no luck on that account - but I think you can run it on normal or heroic for the quest.) You then descend into the Molten Core to retrieve a fragment of the core... sorry a "Fragment O' the Core." From there, you then have to journey to the Firelands and power up the fragment at Ragnaros' seat in Sulfuron Keep, where you encounter some Dark Iron fire cultists who want to somehow revive the Firelord (despite the fact that Shamans established a new Firelord who seems way more friendly than Ragnaros ever was.)

With the core empowered and the leader of the fire cultists, Herald Grimstone, mysteriously vanished, you return to Shadowforge City and use the empowered fragment to mend the Black Anvil.

Having saved one of the Dark Irons' prize possessions, you return to the embassy, where Anduin officially invites Moira to bring the Dark Iron Dwarves in as full members of the Alliance, which she humbly accepts.

And then you get a one-headed Core Hound mount!

Dark Irons look very cool - skin tones are all various shades of grey, and they all have fiery red eyes. Your hair glows at the tips with a kind of burning ember - the Dark Iron colors are very distinctly red, black, and grey. You can also get facial tattoos, including a full-on Imperator Furiosa (and I'm sure we're going to see a lot of female Dark Irons with name variants on her.)

I had initially thought to make a Mage, but I chose instead to go with a Warlock. At lower levels I've had him as Demonology for some early-access AoE for dungeon grinding, but my intention is to make him primarily a Destruction Lock - this is one Warlock where I actually might think his spells look more appropriate without green fire. In only about an hour and a half of play, I've gotten him to 26, meaning he has Rain of Fire, so I might just have him stick with Destruction for the rest of his leveling.

While the pre-BFA allied races requires you to get to 110 for heritage sets, it appears that the new ones all require 120, so it'll be a while before I get his blocky Dark Iron plate-like armor (part of my motivation for choosing a cloth class was the incongruity of having a squishy clothy look like he's clad in plate.)

Probably the most notable Dark Iron racial ability is the Mole Machine, which has a 30 minute cooldown and lets you transport to various important locations. By default, you'll have Ironforge, Stormwind, and Blackrock Depths (the little starting area like Telogrus Rift for Void Elves, not the middle of a hostile dungeon.) There are apparently Mole Machines you can find all over the world, and these will get added to the list of places you can teleport to.