A Very Large aMOUNT

I like mounts. Not quite to the point of obsession as the people who must obtain every mount in the game, but I’ve collected a decent little number of ones that I really like.

Most of my mounts in the “early levels” have some sort of roleplaying reason to them. In my mind, being a relatively low-level character with a mount of a different race makes a great strong-yet-subtle statement about your character. I have done this on multiple characters and it never gets old (although, as Blizzard lowers the required mount level, it does become more difficult to do.)

Unfortunately, in the higher-levels, Blizzard really pushes you to become exalted with everybody thanks to achievements, the Argent Tournament, etc. so the uniqueness of having a cross-racial mount sorta fades away. For that reason, once one of my characters hits 70 or 80 or so, I typically start branching out and riding what I just plain feel like riding.

Come with me on a field trip and check out the stable of my two most played characters, Tawyn and Lunapike…

Tawyn:

ChestnutMare

The Chestnut Mare was my Very First Mount ever. Ever. Remember, Tawyn was my first character (and yes, still my main), so yeah. Let me take you back to a time when you didn’t get mounts until level 40 and before the Great Leveling Nerf of Patch 2.3. Let me take you back to a time when I spent what felt like eons Aspect-of-the-Cheetah-ing my way up and down Stranglethorn Vale. Getting a mount was a Big Deal. My boyfriend and I rode up and down the entire southern half of Eastern Kingdoms just cause we could.

I named my new horse Buckles.

SwiftPalomino

I spent days farming Briarthorn and Swiftthistle for the 600 gold you needed for your epic at that time. This is an absolutely gorgeous mount… I still think so. His name is Chip!

GoldenGryphon

Of the three available gryphons, I picked the Golden Gryphon for two reasons. The first was that I reasoned that as Tawyn lived in Stormwind, she would probably ride your plain ol’ Stormwind-looking gryphon. The second is that eeeeeeeeeeverybody had either the black or white variants and I wanted to be unique. I’m silly like that.

His name is Feathers. I’m super creative. /cough

SwiftGreenGryphon

Saving up the 5000g for this guy was one of the most painful things I ever did. It was accomplished by spending several weeks living at The Island of Quel’danas and it was horrible. The only way I was able to do it was with the encouragement of (and a couple of financial boosts from) my friends and then-guildies. It was worth it though; being able to zip around so swiftly and not have to worry about flight points was an Azerothian Dream-Come-True.

I actually don’t think I ever settled on a name for him. In a way, I think I still consider him to be Feathers, but in Armor. He’s a good-lookin’ bird.

RedDrake

…of course, when Wrath of the Lich King came out, I soon upgraded to a dragon. The Red Drake in specific. I wanted him pretty much immediately after doing that quest where you fly around Wyrmrest Temple and fireball stuff from dragonback, and for weeks I did Wyrmrest Accord dailies and wore the tabard. I finally hit exalted and nabbed him on my birthday. It was an awesome present for myself.

His name is Spirakistrasz but Tawyn calls him “Sparks” for short. He doesn’t mind. He is capable of turning into a blood elf form *SNEEZES LOUDLY* uh, did I say something?

WhitePolarBearMount

I got this guy around the same time, after a few days of absentmindedly doing Brunnhildar dailies. At the time, he was bugged, and was tiny compared to all other bear mounts. It was absolutely hilarious. I proudly rode my BabyBear all over the place until they buffed him back up to normal size in the next patch. Now he doesn’t get out much, but I still like him.

I never really “named” him but I kinda want to call him Iorek Byrnison BECAUSE HE TOTALLY LOOKS LIKE HIM! Don’t you think? Or how I envision him anyway.

(While we’re on the subject, it feels thoroughly awesome to ride around on Iorek Byrnison with a hunter pet for a dæmon and a Haunted Memento for a Death.)

BronzeDrake

It took me longer to get this than it did for most people, mostly because of my own inability to find a group for the timed run. Once I did nab him, he quickly became my flying mount of choice: he’s such a lovely color. I never came up with a good name for him, though, which sort of makes me feel bad.

He has lately been semi-retired in favor of another mount which I shall speak of shortly, partially because it was starting to feel like everyone in the world was using the Bronze Drake and partially because I was just feeling like something different.

CenarionWarHippogryph

…and this is my current flyer of choice, the Cenarion War Hippogryph. I’ve wanted it for a while now… yes, this is a mount that has been around since Burning Crusade… but despite being exalted with Cenarion Expedition since forever thanks to all the heroics I ran, I never could justify dropping the 1600g on him. But money is a lot less painful to make now than it was then, so I was able to talk myself into doing it a few weeks back. These guys aren’t seen that often, since many of the people who had it originally have moved onto new mounts and many other people didn’t have their current 80 for Burning Crusade and thus don’t have the rep– so he is pretty rare– but the best part is that he’s gorgeous =D

I still need a name for him. It’s gotta be something celestial sounding, I know that.

*movie announcer voice* And now, the Mechanostrider Army:

BlackBattlestrider

Black Battlestrider

SwiftGreenMechanostrider

Swift Green Mechanostrider

GnomereganMechanostrider

And my latest pride and joy, the Gnomeregan Mechanostrider. I have this weird thing for orange-and-purple. I think it goes back to my Neopets days when I was a huge Kreludor fan during the Altador Cup. (Actually I still am. Don’t tell anyone.)

My current mount macro cycles through my three Mechanostriders at random, and uses my Hippogryph when I can fly. I <3 my mounts!

Well, I was going to delve into Lunapike’s mounts here, but now that I look at it she has just as many mounts as Tawyn does and it would make this already long article rather obscenely long, so you’ll just have to wait until the next post. So our Field Trip is on a brief hiatus.

Until then, don’t touch the Magic School Bus*. He’s a bit… unpredictable.

* [Magic School Bus] = Summons and dismisses a rideable Magic School Bus and a lizard companion pet. This is a very fast mount that is capable of traveling into space and inside a targeted player’s digestive system.

20 thoughts on “A Very Large aMOUNT”

  1. Oooh, the CE hippogriff! I forked over the money needed for both epic flying and that hippogriff only two months after I hit 70 (which was…. Feb ’07), and he remains my favorite flying mount, even though I nabbed a Netherdrake, Nether Ray, and the ol’ armoured windrider (also with green armor! :D). I named him Ebony. :3

    (For me, saving money was relatively easy because I brought nothing except the arrows/bullets, threads and the such for LW, and the occasional LW recipes from AH. I don’t raid, I rarely die – only, what, 100 deaths on Watermist – and I get the meat I need to feed my pets from mobs. :D)

    The point of my comment? Good to see that you have great taste, too. 😉

    (My preferred ground mounts alternate between my White armored Kodo and White war Talbuk. They’re just so gorgeous!)

  2. I soooo want that hippogryph! But I might just settle with the white one you can get with seals for now. And His Dark Materials..! Good stuff. 🙂

  3. And there was this one time where the magic school bus shrank the kids down and they had to play pinball with light.

    Don’t ask me why I remember that, I just do.

  4. [Magic School Bus] = Summons and dismisses a rideable Magic School Bus and a lizard companion pet. This is a very fast mount that is capable of traveling into space and inside a targeted player’s digestive system.

    It had better require Engineering (450), or so help me god…

  5. …wait, no complimentory Nightsaber? I thought all Night Elves got one courtesy of the Darnassus Authority For Transports (DAFT)?

    …you don’t have it? Why, Pike, WHY??

  6. Aw, no Winterspring Frostsaber? I do hope Lunapike has done the dailys for the Venomhide Ravasaur, they are a nice little RP quest series. I got mine a couple of weeks back and I’ve only seen one other person with it.

  7. @BlackDragon – I chose to Just Say No to the Barbie’s Princess Adventure Cat Mount.

    /hides from 99% of WoW players

    @Nnof – No Winterspring Frostsaber for the same reason as I gave BlackDragon. >.> As for the Ravasaur… toooooons of people on my Horde server have it. It’s on my “To Get” list anyway… just cause I have a thing for raptors… *nod*

  8. Looove the Cenarion Hippogryph. I was slowly working my way towards it before I started on my “break”. If When I return to WoW, it’ll be one of my top things to work on.

    The Altador Cup! That was exciting. I supported Haunted Woods and somehow they won! I loved the Altador plot as well. Those were the days…!

  9. There’s something not right about a NElf sitting on a Mechanostrider. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but…it’s…just…not right.

    Maybe it’s the same thing as a Gnome riding an Elekk, or a Human on a Ram; it just looks very strange.

  10. Yea! Cenarion War Hippogryph is my flying mount of choice too! I got it a while ago after doing steamvaults repeatedly. It was tough because I didn’t have artisan flying when I was grinding reputation so I had to save ~5000g before I was actually able to buy this and artisan flying.

  11. @Pike:
    “Barbie’s Princess Adventure Cat Mount”
    I lol’d. Very Hard.

    I actually love the cat mounts, though I’d have to say the my favorite ground mount id my Deathcharger, who the Baron Rivendare kindly lent me after a persuasive talk…

  12. Speaking as someone who has grinded out Wintersaber Trainers rep for the Winterspring Frostsaber, and done the series of quests for the Venomhide Ravasaur, the Horde has it easy getting that mount. It looks okay, but I much prefer the Winterspring mount.

  13. So, in order to get the crossracial mount, you had to hit exalted with that faction, right?

    And you did that by the time you hit lvl 40? How? You were farming STV for herbs, selling them, then using the profits to buy cloth for the reputation turn in?

    Is that it, or am I missing something?

    And as for the NElf cat, it’s the first mount I bought for my female draenei priest. Got one of the battle mounts with BG token turnins. Was so much better that the elephant. Space goat riding a space elephant was too much.

  14. @ Kimberly – Aww, I’m glad you liked it!

    @ WB – I was exalted with Stormwind at level 37. I did it all simply via questing in the “human” areas– no cloth turn-ins needed.

  15. lol, “Barbie’s Princess Adventure Cat Mount”

    I think it rather looks like “Battlecat” from that 80’s cartoon He-man…

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