Tell Me A Tale

I'm presenting here what I believe is the working mechanism behind this achievement. I have tested it over the last weeks and my results are supporting the theory.

It has to do with the "primary enemy" of the island.

You can identify the primary enemy of each island map by simply opening the mission table, and look at the cartoons. An even easier way is going to wowhead.com homepage, and it will say "Crestfall with Orcs". The "Orcs" are the primary enemy of the Crestfall island. The primary enemy assignments change each week.

Killing the primary enemy has a high chance to a corresponding quest item. Please see following.

Weathered Pamphlet - Venture Co.
Wriggling Mass - Old God Minions
Strangling Root - Keepers of the Grove
Druidic Fur - Druids
Vorus'arak's Carapace - Nerubian
Razorfin Hunting Spear - Jinyu
Broken Compass - Pirates
Glittering Scarab - Tol'vir
Murloc Eye - Naga
Venture Co. Business Plan - Venture Co.
Battered Twilight Scale - Twilight Dragons
Unscarred Black Scale - Black Dragons
Elemental Core - Elementals
Magical Spyglass - Pirates
Icetusk Fur Cloak - Trolls
Sonic Stone - Mantid
Bloodwake Drinking Horn - Vrykul
Ring of the Reefs - Kvaldir
Ancient Crypt Key - Mogu
Notched Coin - Hozen

Notably, some items require killing a specific rare mob, such as Vorus'arak's Carapace requires killing "Vorus'arak", however this mob will only spawn when Nerubian is the primary enemy.

In a nutshell, this is another insanely time-gated achievement which will take (at least) months to complete.

Why does NO ONE actually say HOW you get these "quests"?

Tell Me A Tale
Complete all of the Island Expeditions quests listed below.

At the end of an Island Expedition Win, there is a chance to get a quest based on the theme of the invading enemies. For example you might get Druidic Fur Druidic Fur after defeating the druids in a Verdant Wilds Island Expeditions, or Unscarred Black Scale Unscarred Black Scale after defeating Black Dragons.

Ran around like mad on at least a dozen of these silly things looking for these quest items.

For those completing this in 2025 - TWW and beyond: This is a painful, grindy achievement BUT it is not nearly as bad as you might remember if you are coming back to do it.

There is much speculation in these wow head comments from years past and I hope to help save YOU from the completely fruitless strategies some of these comments will lead you on (they may have been relevant once apon a time)

Thanks to Greytness for leaving this helpful comment: "11.0.7 will come a big change to this achievement. This achievment will be changed to "Complete 10 of the Island Expeditions quests" instead of ALL according to the PTR." - So by my estimation many comments mentioned 500-600 runs. I am 6/10 and on run #62 (and if I had known what I know now, would probably have finished. 30 of my runs were a waste of time.

Some of the most popular comments are absolutely wrong and will lead you to a deep, deep unsettling and exhausting depression.

Firstly: as its not obvious How to get these items. These are given to you as loot at the end of the island expedition, along with a sack of plunder, The quest item is a white item and it will give you an "accept quest" toast on the right of your screen.

Learn From My Mistakes and what absolutely is not true:
Many comments speculated that you needed to kill the same mob type that is shown on the map when clicking on the expedition table. In particular a very highly voted comment by Elodeon in patch 9.0.7 mentions abandoning Expeditions, and then re-queuing under a different difficult to optimize what island you get, to try and match the Mob shown on the map and to match the island "inhabitant" shown on the map, with another highly rated user's sedna1666 "associated" list of mobs and chance to drop. sedna1666 mentions that killing specific mobs - with a hard coded lookup table e.g. Weathered Pamphlet - Venture Co. or Wriggling Mass - Old God Minions

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO ANY PART OF THIS - This Strategy Will Lead You to A Cell With Padded Walls - I mean it!
I did roughly 30 runs - with not a single drop.

Now in retrospect I found a Blue Post that clarified: https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/island-rewards-update/36759
"there will be no need to strategize around invaders. The most efficient way to receive cosmetic rewards will be whatever tactics cause you to complete the Island quickly, on the highest difficulty that you’re comfortable."

What do I think is complete snake oil?
With the confirmation from the blue post - looking for specific rares, or killing swathes of specific mobs is just snake oil. The proposed 'lookup' table of inhabitants, or mobs killed, for me every single item did not match. In fact, my longest unlucky streak was optimizing around these two highly rated comments - 30-40 runs of nothing. In short you want to Just complete mythic expeditions. Period. Killing and Looting invading enemies' chests. Quickly.

What Should You do?
I had fantastic success doing the following (Netting one quest item on average every 3-5 runs) and, some of what I did may or may not increase chance of success.

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• Focusing on doing the red X objectives (killing the ogre/giant and looting the azerite sacks (Nets you around 1150) or starting the extractor
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• Kill a rare or two on the way to the red X if convenient (They give +650 azerite each)
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• Doing all Red X's should take you to halfway and close to spawning the mid-point invasion event (e.g. Flynn mentions something about an invading enemy - Saurok invade, Elemental Lord, Black Dragon flies in, Azeroth 'coughing' etc. etc.)
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• Immediately go to the newly spawned red X's, kill all mobs, loot all chests (I picked up the 'Extra action button' item, just for fun and for tin-foil hatsies)
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• You want to move quickly because one of these red X's in an invasion will be: a 'bigger' boss with two giant loot chests - this is the conceptual "final boss" and, for me at least was critical to drastically improving the drop chance. I personally believe this, but that doesn't match the blue post - maybe I am just a snake-oil salesmen better than all the rest? - once I got a good hit rate I stopped experimenting and stuck with the same strategy.
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• always enter a portal if one spawns because the conceptual 'end' boss will always be inside, with his two giant chests, not on the over world. Some special events are totally different (e.g. azeroth coughing is just mineral veins).
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What do I think is NOT snake oil?

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• Some users suggested changing to alts - and anecdotally for me at least that felt true. It did feel like an increased chance for the first 2-3 runs, per character, per day.
• However I can point to unlucky streaks that disproved this, but in those streaks I did receive Rep tokens and Pets, leading me to believe that there is some kind of daily pity roll and that the quest item shares a loot table with Pets, Rep Tokens and Transmogs
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• Speed! On alts where I slowed to a crawl, I would get nothing, nada, or a green pet. On my main, I would typically always get a blue item, (token, pet, quest or transmog) The blue post also suggests doing it as quick as possible is important.
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• So, for me anecdotally I had a rate of about 1 quest drop every 3-5 runs, by swapping to new characters and doing it once or twice, per day on my alts that could speed through it
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• I did consistently receive either a Rep Token, or Pet, or quest item every 1-2 runs doing this method by swapping to alts.
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I kept track of my last 20 runs:

For example the last 4/6 I recieved - the "associated" mob wasn't even present on the island as a spawn, nor was it the invading force.
- Run #52 - I recieved Icetusk Fur Coat
- Verdant Wilds with Druids as the inhabitant.
- Elementals as the invasion

-Run #54 -I Recieved Battered Twilight Scale
- Whispering Reef with Murlocs as the inhabitant
- Kvaldir as the invasion

- Run #61 (After an unlucky streak of pets, and rep tokens) I received a Weathered Pamphlet
- Whispering Reef with Murlocs as the inhabitant
- Saurok as the invading enemy

(Next Day)
- Run #62 I Received Strangled Vine
- Verdant Wilds with Druids as the inhabitant
- Mogu as the invasion

This may be subject to change, but, with the reduction to 10 drops required, this while being still a big headache I think is manageable, even doing it once per day on a few characters will see you finish this up quickly.

Maybe you can start your own list to see what results you get - maybe you can test my hypothesis about the 'big' boss providing the main loot table? Maybe you can test the hypothesis of a pity timer or increased luck for first 2-3 expeditions per character?

Best of luck!

Some common questions:

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• On alts you may need to do the very short introduction quests - by the ferry man Will Melbourne get a tour of Boralus once you hand everything in, Flynn is leaning against the wall accept his quest, shoot the barrel, turn in to Cyrus Crestfall - Flynn appears behind the expedition table
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• If you are trying to get to BFA the first time, then Hero's Herald next to the call to arms board in your main city gives you 'Battle for Azeroth: Tides of Vengeance
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• Speak to Flynn to queue solo, the table needs a group