On this night, the mystery of the mount “long forgotten Hippogryph” in World of Warcraft was solved. Cortyn was there to witness it.
How to get the “Reins of the Long Forgotten Hippogryph”
It was a wild night for me – well, in World of Warcraft. But (with a bit of pride) I can say that tonight the mystery of the “Reins of the Long Forgotten Hippogryph” was solved. This mount has been in the game data of World of Warcraft since 2007 and was only made available with Legion. However, no one knew how to obtain the mount – until now. And well, what can I say? Cortyn (that’s me!) initiated the breakthrough. While I was farming ores with my mage in Azsuna, I stumbled upon an “Ephemeral Crystal”, a pink crystal in the landscape.
Clicking on it didn’t seem to do much, so I consulted Google to figure out what it might be. In short: No one knew. Some suspected that the crystal was related to the mount, but until now, the crystals had only been found in the game data and had not actually been discovered.
I logged onto the Discord server that was dealing with the Hippogryph and shared my find: The chat exploded. After posting a proof screenshot, all hell broke loose. I was told to search for more crystals, and I indeed found a second one shortly after. Other players from different servers joined my group to decipher the riddle together. The third crystal was also found by me (at that point, I received several marriage proposals on Discord and was supposed to predict the lottery numbers of all participants).
Crystal number 4 was discovered by a group member and crystal number 5 by another person – the person who clicks all 5 crystals first receives the reins of the long forgotten Hippogryph, along with the zone-wide emote: “You hear a faint caw in the distance and then silence…”
At least the person was nice enough to apologize, saying that the mount would actually have belonged to me, since I enabled the search and found 3 out of 5 crystals – but hey, I’m not resentful (I am, but don’t tell anyone) and just glad to have been there when this riddle was solved. Thus, the player “Rawberry” from the server “Mal’Ganis” is the first player in the world to call this mount their own! Congratulations!
And now once more calmly in a compact guide form:
The Guide for the “Reins of the Long Forgotten Hippogryph”
To obtain the “Reins of the Long Forgotten Hippogryph”, it is necessary to click 5 crystals scattered throughout Azsuna on the map, which appear very rarely. Since the “World First” happened last night, there may be additional spawn points for the “Ephemeral Crystal”. So far, these 5 points are known:
1. Directly on the coast, north of the academy. The crystal juts out of the water on the beach. (54, 33)
2. At the spring of Nor’danil, hidden behind a wall. (37, 32)
3. In the cave at the Azurewing Rest. Caution! The crystal is very similar in color to the surroundings. (50, 20)
4. In a small cave. (34, 35)
5. At Ozeanus’ Bay, on a small stone ledge. (47, 61)
In the following images, you can see the individual spawn locations (click to enlarge). In the last image, no crystal can be seen… because that was already after Rawberry received the mount.
Touching the crystals grants the player an invisible buff that stacks up to 5 times. Once the 5th stack is reached, you automatically receive the reins. Important: Should you die while searching for the crystals, the buff ends and you must click the old crystals again! Once a player clicks the 5th crystal in a row, they receive the mount and all crystals disappear – only one player can therefore claim the Hippogryph at a time. Once this happens, you will be warned by the zone-wide emote.
If someone wants a summary in English, they can also refer to this: Summary in English with all key details.
Good luck on the hunt – may the search begin!
Note: Now that I’ve had some sleep, I have been pointed out by some people on a few points. I want to clarify that all the discoveries were definitely a team effort. Players like “Solveig” and “Blackfaded” contributed greatly by researching the “hidden buffs” and exploring the connections to them. Then there are all the people on Discord who spent their nights searching for the Hippogryph. I just happened to be lucky enough to randomly find one crystal and then two more. The actual credit belongs to many, many players.
