The lore behind this mount is probably what makes it unique in all of wow, at least to me. The quest chain in question was available only to druids and it involved their long quest to obtain their swift flight form. Now though the quest has been removed and the skill is taught to players at the appropriate level.
But I had gone through the quest line myself. I still have the moonstone. Basically it started out with me going to Zangarmarsh, which is a blue swamp that had giant mushrooms for trees. Originally the Druids of the Talon were given the task of teaching druids the mastery of flight (turning into a stormcrow so they can fly), but now not many druids from the Talon remain. There is one though, and he accepted me as his apprentice. But the relic that was used to teach this form was entrusted to another for safekeeping, and this person's body slept while his spirit walks in the Emerald Dream. So I had to gather ingredients to make a potion...
Then I traveled to Moonglade, back on Azeroth on the continent of Kalimdor, and once I found the druid in question I gave him the potion, and he stirred from his rest. In his spirit form he gathered the relics I needed while I defended him from the nightmares that lurked in the Emerald Dream, including a large raven that seemed intent on dominating the dream. Retrieving the relics, the guardians of the dream return to the defensive battle that seems to be waging inside the Dream, and I return to Outlands and report to my master of this turn of events.
At this point we decide to try and help the Cenarion Circle by seeing if there is a connectiong between this mysterious Raven and the problems in the Emerald Dream. So I head off to the Bladesedge Mountains, where the Cenarion Circle has been hearing rumors of a bird-like people called the Arrakoa, and that one of their tribes in the mountains worships a raven... So off I went.
Once there a druid gave me a spell to disguise myself and speak to one of the Arrakoa spirits, which mistakes me for one of his own. I ask him about the book of the raven, and he told me, "The true believers have lived in shame since the day our treacherous cousins in Skettis stole the book from us, shattered its tablet, and buried the fragments in their wretched city! Pray that the raven will choose you to restore it, my son. Be faithful and remember always the prophecy, "From the dreams of his enemies shall the raven spring forth into the world.""
Returning to the druid, we decide to find this book before the Arrakoa does, so I head into the green lands of Nagrand and speak to yet another soul there in the hopes of harnessing avian sight. We capture a sparrowhawk and cast a spell over it, and then tell it to fly over to Skettis and wait for my signal. Then the bird flies away, and I head out to do my part. Once I reach Skettis, I whistle, and the sparrowhawk finds the prices of the book for me. Once I found them all I returned to Arthorn Windsong in the Bladesedge mountains, and the story unfolds:
"This is it! This is really it -- the Book of the Raven! It's all here... how the raven's followers captured and subdued the spirits of rivals, trapping them forever within stone statues! The tablet even mentions the raven god's name -- Anzu. I'd thought it was lost to history! There's something else here, too. After a description of a bloody battle and the downfall of the raven, there's a prophecy. Anzu will haunt the dreams of his enemies, twisting them to affect a return to this world...
"The tablet has the confirmation we need, just as I thought. Now, we have to use this information to draw out and defeat this Anzu before he can do any more damage to the Emerald Dream! Since the sparrowhawks have proven such a success in hunting down the raven stones, Watcher Elaira has trained another one to relay my voice at great distance. He can help us communicate as you investigate the bird spirits revealed in the tablet!"
So now, since the Raven's rivals have been trapped in stone, I have to go free them. Each statue was guarded though, so I had to fight for each of them; the Hawk, the Eagle, and the Falcon. Once I get their essences, I take them to my master of the Talon and tell him of what I had discovered. Now I have to find a way to contain all of them together so I can use them to summon Anzu and destroy him. The answer is a moonstone. I head off to Azshara and obtain a very rare moonstone, yet just as I'm about to grab it, a little goblin comes along who steals it and heads down the southfury river! Furious as can be, I chase after her and in the end she gives up as long as I don't hurt her. I wish I could have kicked her though...
At last I return and the moonstone absorbs the essences of the Hawk, Eagle, and Falcon, becoming an [Essence-Infused Moonstone], which I could now use to summon the raven lord and defeat him.
For that, I had to be able to access the Sethikk Halls on heroic difficulty, then I had to clear the location of all that were in it. Once I was ready, I placed the moonstone on the raven's claw (a kind of stand that was shaped so it would hold the moonstone), and Anzu appeared. Once I defeated him, I returned the my master, and had thus proven myself worthy to be one of the Druids of the Talon. I was given the swift-flight form shapeshifting ability, and I took to the skies like never before as a violet stormcrow.
I completed this quest chain back in November of 2009. After you've completed the quest you can talk to the Druid of the Talon again, and under concern that the Arrakoa might try to bring Anzu back again, he gives you the Essence-Infused Moonstone to keep forever, that way you can go back and kill him again.
That moonstone was the druid's key to unlocking this optional boss in the Sethekk Halls heroic instance in the Outlands. Druids could solo-farm this boss at level 80, and I tried doing that myself when I had the time and remembered to go attempt it. As Wrath of the Lich King progressed I got better gear and stood better chances at killing Anzu quicker.
Now with Cataclysm released, I can kill Anzu much faster. It's been a year and a half since I completed the quest to gain this key so I could farm the mount day after day. There were times when I'd become discouraged and would stop farming him for a while, and then I'd see another player riding on one in the city and start farming again. Off and on, I headed into the dungeon to try for the mount, without success.
Finally, this morning after I had won three pieces of leather armor in the heroic Zul'Aman instance, I prepared to head back to the Outlands. My friend Hammy asked what I was up too and offered to come along. I invited him to group and finished flying out there, and just outside the instance I used the guild perk which allowed me to summon him to me. It was worth the cooldown. We blaze through the instance, two level 85 players, blasting everything that stood in our way, not looting a thing. We get to Anzu and kill him before he could banish himself a second time...
And that was when the reigns of the raven lord dropped. Hammy passed, I rolled NEED. At long last, after a year and a half of attempts, I got him. It had taken so long that I lost count of how many times I had gone into that place to try and get this mount.
Now I have no other reason to go back to the Outlands again. Maybe for a reputation grind, but no... I have what I've been searching for at last. My face was tingly, I was so ecstatic!
Of course, everybody can farm it since Blizzard had removed the quest chain and made it so druids didn't have to be there to summon the raven lord to fight him, but I still have my moonstone. No way am I going to delete it. =)
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