Famous Mounts and Where They Come From

Greetings, collectors! As we enter the final week of Collector’s Bounty, I have a topical rundown of some famous mounts and where they come from. A lot of mounts have a pretty neat story connection that you may have missed, and today we’ll learn about some of them!

Today’s post idea comes from community icon, healer extraordinaire, the best gm ever, and my very good friend Broccoliz (yeslikeagirlz)! Give her a follow if you aren’t already and check out her fantastic boss guides on https://questionablyepic.com/manaforge-omega/ for the upcoming tier.

Let’s learn about some mounts!

Antoran Charhound/Gloomhound

These two mounts come from the 2nd boss of Antorus and the meta achievement. Turns out, they’re Sargeras’ pet dogs! Even the planet-sized bringer of fel devastation needs to play fetch once in awhile. These hounds morphed over the years, first into Felstalkers, then into whatever these are. Then he made a bunch, seeing how successful and scary they were. I like to imagine him giving them pets.

Ashes of Al’ar

While he’s got a whole bunch of phoenixes to go around, only this one is classified as a “Phoenix God.” Al’ar is Kael’thas’ beloved pet. He famously summoned this phoenix to help purge the corrupted Sunwell during his last mission in Quel’thalas. Al’ar is reborn from his own ashes during his boss fight and then we loot those ashes from Kael’thas. Well, surprise! This is, in fact, Al’ar still, just changing form to fit his new role as a very popular mount.

Invincible

Arthas had a horse who was his best friend (are you sensing a trend here?). He actually helped during this horse’s birth! Invincible was the prince’s personal steed and best friend, Seabiscuit style. Unfortunately, Arthas in his endless hubris stayed out too late during a snowstorm one time. Invincible fell on some rocks and couldn’t make it home, much less get up. Arthas put the horse out of its misery and ended its life then and there.

Invincible’s story becomes even more tragic. While the horse’s first death inspired Arthas to make a vow to protect others, its second life caused a much darker change in the prince. After murdering his father, Arthas raised Invincible with Frostmourne. Per the text of his novel, this caused Arthas to think “he had been right about everything.” Yikes. Invincible became Arthas’s shackled companion, able to appear or disappear at will, with Arthas remarking that the horse was the one creature who would never turn on him. Oh my goodness. We eventually find the horse’s reins on The Lich King’s body, but Invincible still returns to Icecrown from time to time. The Ebon Blade would eventually use the horse’s saddle to forge new mounts for their new Four Horsemen.

Vengeance

After it became clear that the writers were opting for the route of “omg she became her original oppressor” with the story of Sylvanas, which I still hate, it only makes sense that she would have an Invincible equivalent drop from her boss fight. As she comes from Quel’thalas, where nobility ride Dragonhawks, Vengeance takes the shape of one of her departed companions. She had to ride on Dragonhawk to multiple emergencies throughout her life, including to get the news of her parents’ demise. The mount’s text reads that “the darkness grew within her to fill the void,” causing speculation that this Dragonhawk is a shadow of a lost friend, manifesting in the empty space within Sylvanas as the vengeful grudge she bears.

Pureblood Fire Hawk/Corrupted Fire Hawk

Millagazor is fought as part of the 4.2 dailies in Mount Hyjal. Throughout the Hyjal storyline, we saw multiple Twilight’s Hammer hatcheries that housed dragon eggs pocketed in the Firelands. It became clearer over time that some of these eggs were also corrupted fire hawk eggs. The mount journal entry for the Corrupted Fire Hawk indicates that we don’t know how many eggs were polluted with shadow magic. However, the pureblood line can be traced back to the very creation of the Firelands. The smoldering egg drops off of Ragnaros, indicating he held on to some of the original line.

Crimson Deathcharger

Well-known and loved by wielders of Shadowmourne, this boe mount comes from one of the rewards you get for killing Arthas with Shadowmourne. Side note, this is still the coolest legendary in the game for reasons like the final reward items. You loot a chest of Arthas’ personal effects (read: things he stole or kept from former friends and enemies) that lead you to some of the characters he had a significant impact on: Jaina, Sylvanas, Muradin, Uther, and Darion Mograine. This horse is Darion’s former steed raised as a Deathcharger. It’s one of his last remaining ties to humanity. I find it lovely that he hands it off to us since we brought back his father’s soul shard.

Glacial Tidestorm

Jaina’s water elementals are iconic in WoW. They used to exist purely for smiting cosmic bad guys, but one of their most famous appearances is as a boss mob in the purge of Dalaran, killing defecting Sunreavers and civilians. Jaina’s had water elementals since WC3 and used them as recently as her boss encounter in Battle of Dazar’alor. Absolutely phenomenally modeled, the Glacial Tidestorm is one of Jaina’s water elementals itself.

Jani

*HEK HEK HEK HEK HEK*

If you’ve gone through the agony of completing the BFA meta achievement, you know this giggle all too well. Jani is a troll Loa, a wild god, and specifically rules over one very important thing: trash. While he has other domains, we interact with him by clicking trashpiles. Stunning. Your reward for completing the BFA meta is that you get to literally transform into Jani as a mount. Definitely one of our wildest mounts: brief god transformation.

Kor’kron Juggernaut

Boss 6 of the Siege of Orgrimmar is the Iron Juggernaut, a huge-ass war machine made by Siegecrafter Blackfuse for Garrosh’s True Horde and eventual Iron Horde. The Juggernaut gets trounced by us way before we fight Blackfuse and he is not happy about it. Garrosh has this mount on his corpse, and actually came up with the original concept, but how cool is it that we have a boss model as a mount? Lasers! Buzzsaws!

Mimiron’s Head

No but actually it’s his head. The old version, but still his head. Mimiron is one of the keepers of Ulduar, so like equivalent ish to keeper Tyr importance, but since he’s the original mechanical Gnome, he had parts that made up his body. This is the old version of his head. The mount journal makes me really happy on this one: “a piece of craftsmanship hoarded by Yogg-Saron.” Yoggy was so jealous of Mimiron’s sick model that he wanted it himself. Kinda sad?

Onyxian Drake

This is one of Onyxia’s eggs! In her boss fight, you famously have many whelps to handle, but what about some drakes that grew up from her younglings? We don’t know where it grew up, but this is absolutely one of Onyxia’s eggs in its teenage years.

Netherwing Drakes

For those of you who haven’t done this rep grind yet, I recommend it for many reasons, the top being these beautiful models. Netherwing drakes are famous among all players. What’s really cool about the mounts we get in our journal is how we canonically bond with them as a mount: these are drakes we helped save throughout our work with the Netherwing! After reaching exalted and completing your quests, you get to greet six Netherwing drakes in Shattrath and can take a quest from any of them to take it to Azeroth to continue adventuring. We can of course get the other ones, but there’s something very neat about choosing your first Netherwing friend who wants to hang out with you forever.

Rivendare’s Deathcharger

Continuing our trend of Men Who Make Their Horse Undead, here’s Baron Rivendare’s! Apparently every man who became slightly relevant in undeath just had a favorite horse that he also condemned to undeath with him. I didn’t really realize this was a trope until I made this blog post, but now I think it’s really funny. Speaking of dead horses…

Dead Blanchy

Welcome to Revendreth, Old Blanchy. This horse has been in the game since Classic. We found young Blanchy in the Escape from Durnholde Keep dungeon in TBC, and could hang with Old Blanchy in Westfall. She was tragically killed in Cataclysm by the Defias. As you may remember from Shadowlands, Revendreth is the realm reserved for evil but maybe redeemable souls. Yes, this seemingly innocent horse ended up in the realm of atonement.

What the actual fuck did Blanchy do to end up in Revendreth?

Nightbane

Karazhan has a lot of WoW’s most famous voice lines, mysteries, and characters attached to it. The optional summoned boss Nightbane is legendary among them. Nightbane was originally known as the blue dragon Arcanagos, a magical guardian who was among the first to pick up on Medivh’s erratic behavior. Working with Aegwynn to confront Medivh in Karazhan, Arcanagos was cursed with a grisly spell that burned his soul from the inside out. Rule of cool applies and gives him one of the coolest undead models in the game: a skeletal dragon lit on fire. Back in TBC, he was just an optional boss. In Legion, when Karazhan returned as a megadungeon, speculation arose that Nightbane would return again. Sure enough, the chill of the air changed as the heroes entered the tower. Secret finders pieced together that you had to interact with the echoes of Medivh throughout the tower to gain a buff that let you summon a reinvigorated Nightbane, this time looting him as a mount, the Smoldering Ember Wyrm. The scariest part about Nightbane? After the events of BFA, Mathias Shaw and Khadgar both reported sensing his presence around the tower once more…

Elegon

A twist in Mogu’shan Vaults revealed the Titanic origin of the Mogu for the first time. Guarding that secret was Elegon, a typical constellar creation, but in the form of a cloud serpent to match Pandaria’s culture. This attendant guarded the Engine of Nalak’sha for a super long time until we killed him. Either way, Elegon is well-known for being a rare drop at all times throughout his existence, never guaranteed, and has been hunted by players for over a decade because the model slays. Anyways, the model is literally Elegon’s boss model, so another entry in “whoa I get to ride this super cool raid boss.”

Taivan

The best boy to ever do it! We met Taivan in side quests in the Ohn’ahran plains. He is a huge hunting Bakar, the companions of various Maruuk Centaur clans, but he never had much of a penchant for violence. As part of our time with him, we help identify where he can contribute in his community, and it turns out he does really well as a comfort and emotional support doggo. We earn Taivan’s eternal companionship by completing the Dragonflight continent meta achievement. He’s huge in game as well, to match his big heart, and accompanies us as a form of gratitude for helping him figure out how he can support his friends.

Zovaal’s Soul Eater

Conversely, the worst boy to ever do it! As a reward for completing the Shadowlands continent meta, you can earn Zovaal’s Soul Eater, the only Soul Eater model not tied to Shadowlands pvp and seasonal only. Per the mount journal, this soul ended up in The Maw and asked Zovaal (the Jailer) if he was a good boy. Unfortunately, this poor fella didn’t know how the afterlife worked yet. Zovaal likely fashioned this companion into his own personal Soul Eater during his early days of imprisonment in The Maw for getting around. I can’t think of a worse punishment than having to hang out with the fucking Jailer for all eternity.

Tarecgosa

A very special mount for a very special character. Tarecgosa helped us uncover Arygos’ deception during Cataclysm, where he fought Kalec for the title of Aspect of Magic but was going to sell the flight out to Deathwing. As part of our work, Tarecgosa was mortally wounded, but chose to accompany the adventurer who fought with her forever in a legendary staff. In Dragonflight, we had the honor of returning her to her eternal rest. If you haven’t done the fantastic Blue Dragonflight Reunion questline, I highly recommend doing it on a character who has Tarecgosa’s Rest, as you’ll be rewarded with being able to summon her as a mount forever and more phenomenal writing. Tarecgosa was another “friend” of Kalecgos (Kalec is a slut and you know what good for him) who saved her flight from a potential 2nd annihilation at the hands of Deathwing, and now, she’s forever one of my favorite skyriding friends.

Experiment 12-B

Speaking of dragons, this colorful drake comes from a long line of very scary Deathwing experiments. Deathwing has created innumerable horrors over the years in his laboratory: Ultraxion, Sinestra, undead Nefarian, undead Onyxia, Chimaeron, Atramedes, his own warped body, Chromatus, and this mount. It’s funny to think about how Deathwing is capable of causing the Cataclysm while simultaneously being the most unethical lab nerd to ever exist. Anyways, this drake has a unique color scheme, similar to Chromatus, and is an amalgamation of multiple flights. At least he’s got a friend in us.

Uncorrupted Voidwing

Twilight dragons were the precursor to the fully consumed Void dragonflight we began encountering in BFA. While the original Twilight dragonflight was meant to be twisted by any form of cosmic power, these dragons were just straight up Old God dragons. Giga void. Tentacular. Vexiona showed up extremely juiced as the final form of a Twilight dragon: a husk, a shell, entirely consumed by the force of endless hunger. Wrathion used the power of his previous work, our BFA legendary cloak, and his research on silencing Black dragonflight corruption to purify this egg as our AOTC mount reward in BFA. It’s pretty amazing that this dragon survived at all, but even more questionable: what is its fate? Will we see more Void dragons in the future? Was Vexiona the last of her kind?

Grove Warden

As another AOTC mount, we received the Grove Warden from Malfurion and Keeper Remulos. Looting heroic Archimonde dropped a remnant of chaos that Malfurion traced back to the Emerald Nightmare. Grove Wardens are found within the Emerald Dream and tend to various dreamseeds and boughs within. Keeper Remulos and Malfurion offered one to us as a companion for alerting them of the return of the Nightmare’s corruption, especially concerning in the hands of the Legion.

Cindermane Charger

Last but not least, this recruit-a-friend mount has one of the most surprisingly tender origins ever. The elemental lord of Azeroth are famously independent, but some of them have families. Therazane the Stonemother had a daughter that we killed in Maraudon, has endless rock children in Deepholm, and cousins in the form of Earthen. Ragnaros has endless sons of flame that fight against us in his boss encounters. But what about a daughter of flame?

Per the mount journal, the Cindermane Charger was created by Ragnaros “as a gift for the daughter he never had.” This text alone makes Ragnaros a multidimensional antagonist: did he really want to torch the world for the power, or did he want to rule over it with a beloved daughter? Devastating turn of events.

I hope everyone has gotten some long-awaited drops during Collector’s Bounty! Thanks for learning about some mounts with me today. The event ends on July 29th at reset, so make sure to farm your remaining mounts again this week. After that, I’ll see you all on K’aresh on August 5th! Our next post will take a brief look at the history of Ethereals to prepare.