For some raiders, playing World of Warcraft for "purps" or "achievements" might be enough to convince them to grind out endless achievements but not for me. Seeing Warcraft lore influenced and inspired by sources outside of WoW, what follows could be easily considered spoilers for books, other Warcraft games, or even in-game quests.

Ahh, Reputations. For those of us who played in Vanilla WoW, we’ve seen quite a change in how they’re handled. From Vanilla’s love of constant rep turn ins (Cenarion Circle, Argent Dawn) to BC’s dungeon grinding/daily fest (sets of instances only granted rep for one particular faction, no tabards to wear) to Wrath's Tabards-For-Rep idea, Reputation has come a long way. I'm going to cover four achievements as we learn about the lore behind the Argent Dawn and the Argent Crusade. That will net you The Argent Dawn, The Argent Crusade, The Argent Champion, and Someone Likes Me.

Look up the definition of “Lawful Good” in any of your tabletop RPGs and you might just find the Argent Dawn’s emblem. An order dedicated to bringing about the end of the Lich King and the scourge but not nearly as fanatical about is as the Scarlet Crusade. The Argent Dawn understands the difference between the Forsaken and the Scourge and welcomes Queen Slyvanas’ people with open arms. They lead the fight against Arthas in his own citadel, and opened up the gate for brave adventurers to fight Ner’Zhul in Naxxramas during Vanilla WoW. Many of their own people have been lost, but still they hold true to who they are and what they believe in. The Argent Dawn was formed when a few Scarlet Crusade members discovered the corruption in their ranks thanks to High Inquisitor Fairbanks. Those members split off from the Scarlet Crusade to form the Argent Dawn, where they could fight the Scourge while still letting in members of the Horde and Alliance. They continued to grow in power, recruiting any and all that wanted to fight the scourge. Soon they started to keep their ranks secret, allowing only those in the organization to know who was running what and who was holding what position. This protected them against most assassination attempts, but gave some adventures a warning flag who didn’t want to be part of a “secret, shadowy army” even if it was to fight the Scourge.

Even with it’s many connections and wide spread influence, they have no central base and instead station themselves where ever the scourge are, from Light’s Hope Chapel in the Plaugelands, to Everlook in Winterspring. Even with a membership of 1,500 according to Wowpedia, they didn't have enough manpower to fight the Scourge on all fronts. That forced the Argent Dawn to have a very tentative truce with the Scarlet Crusade in the Plaguelands. After Arthas attacked Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms at the onset of Wrath of the Lich King, the Argent Dawn sent a detachment to go and fight in Northrend, renaming the group into the Argent Crusade, emblazoning that this was the last step in their crusade to end the Scourge once and for all. With the Argent Crusade being led by Tirion Fordring the Argent Dawn ceased to exist in its original form. Here the Crusade set up a few outposts around the continent. Mainly focusing on getting a foothold into Icecrown, with the help of brave adventurers, they were able to succeed. After battling the Scourge forces for a few months they decided their warriors were getting powerful enough to defeat the Lich King and held a tournament to weed out the last few who were to weak to carry on. Though this did do as intended, it also strained the already weak peace between the Horde and the Alliance as their heroes killed each other in combat. Still, this did not stop the Crusade from assaulting the Lich King's last bastion of power, Ice Crown Citadel, where they fought tooth and nail to gain every inch of ground until the fight.

The final showdown with their nemesis was a rollercoaster of emotion. Many brave adventurers died at the foot of the Lich King and the fate of last group to fight him looked the same. Though the group greatly weakened the corrupted Arthas, he still managed to destroy them all, until Tirion Fordring, who up until now, had been frozen in ice the entire battle, broke free and used Ashbringer to destroy Frostmourne, resulting in the release of all the souls it had collected, and then resurrected the fallen heroes. With the Lich King dead, the Scourge started to go haywire with no one controlling them. Tirion saw this and knew a new Lich King needed to be crowned but before he could dawn the mask himself, Bolvar Fordragon, burned and broken from the events at the Wrath Gate, offered his own body to the mask, donning it and forever becoming the Scourge's jailer.

With the defeat of the evil Lich King and the in-statement of Bolvar, the Argent Crusade has focused on eliminating the remaining Scourge from the world and repairing the damage they have done.