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:

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.

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!

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

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.

…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?

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.)

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.

…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:

Black Battlestrider

Swift Green Mechanostrider

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.

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* [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.