I offer this advice as someone who did the first character through the questline and then simply took two alts straight there.
If you do that, you will not be able to unlock the Renown track. Yes, you will still earn reputation but the Renown ‘abilities’ and benefits will not activate.
It would be fine, perhaps, for just a dual farming character but if your character is a crafter or one you wish to gain the Renown benefits on, you have to do the questline. Whether this is deliberate or a mistake on Blizzard’s part I have no idea. If it is a mistake, hopefully it will be corrected soon.
I’ve tested it so far on one of my alts that I took straight to the Cavern. I used Wowhead’s option to copy/past a check on each of the quests on the Forbidden Reach to ensure I had done the full questline there, and once I did that, the first ‘breadcrumb’ quest became available on the small island to the east of the main island. I picked that up and was able to activate the Zaralek questline. Took me about 30m to complete it and activate the Renown.
If others have different experiences, I obviously don’t know, but thats my advice based on my personal experience.
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All they know how to do is make mistakes.
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This seems unintended. Hopefully they fix it.
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The character i took to Zaralek was not the one i did the Forbidden reach campaign on. I wondered why there were so few quests in the Cavern!
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Definitely seems like a mistake
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What’s the benefit of unlocking renown on an alt for this faction?
Certain professions gain extra stuff - enchanting for example and most of the others. Just depends on whether that is something the player is interested in. There are probably more but I can’t recall what all the steps of Renown give.
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How do you skip and go straight there? I’ve done it on 3 alts and haven’t gotten the option to skip anything. And yes I finished all that was available for the campaign on my main.
I did the intro on all my toons so far. What’s confusing me now is these crazy quests down the line that have you kill elites. Not just one here or there but multiple elites. My PvE ilvl is not good because i just want to play BGs. So I haven’t continued the quest line very far.
You just get on your mount and fly there without picking up the questline. There are quests (and WQs) to pickup and do as soon as you get there.
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There is no official skip, as such. The zone isn’t instanced so you can just fly there and start doing stuff. However, as I mentioned, the Renown track wont open unless you do the introductory questline because the quest that does that is only available by doing that.
I find that odd, because for the previous content your Renown track just activated as soon as you made contact with any npc of that group.
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Fun Fact. You can go back and do it. 
If you do the skip and then decide you need some of the crafting stuff, you can go back and pick up the intro quest and finish it properly to unlock the renown.
I sent my Alts down directly for gathering and to get everyone started on world quests and such. Once I realized I needed a currency for one of my crafting recipes, I went back and did the intro and everything opened up. I was at Renown 2 when I did this.
It does seem like an oversight.
You just fly straight to the hub city there. Personally ran there before starting quests on my alts so the 2500 loam rep would complete that quest but no there isnt an actual “skip” option
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Especially since the other 4 factions start tracking renown as soon as you gain rep with them. Niffen are the only ones that don’t for some reason.
As an altaholic, I don’t mind one bit doing through ZC campaign 4 times in a row, to collect every armor and weapon type. I have more level 70s to take through ZC as well, so that I have options regarding m+ and raiding. I’m throughly enjoying myself.
I mean my profession alts did the full campaign for the rep tokens you get throughout.
My advice is if you want stuff for professions, just suffer the campaign again lol.
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That’s what I did, Warrior, Hunter, Priest and Druid to get all armor types unlocked.
Then got my profession alts in as well to make sure they can start getting barter bricks
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