Deathcharger's Reins

Deathcharger's Reins summon Baron Rivendare's undead warhorse, a skeletal mount that drops from Baron Rivendare at the end of Stratholme. Its drop chance in Classic was tiny, so the reins became a byword for long, unlucky farming, and anyone riding the Deathcharger had usually run Stratholme a great many times.

How to get it

The reins drop from Baron Rivendare, the last boss of the undead side of Stratholme, often called Baron Run or "Strat UD" by players. Reaching him means fighting through the Scourge half of the city, killing the guardians of its three ziggurats (Baroness Anastari, Nerub'enkan and Maleki the Pallid), then Ramstein the Gorger, and finally facing the baron himself in the Slaughter House.

The drop chance in our patch 1.12 data is about 0.02 percent, roughly one in 5,000 kills. Even a player who ran Stratholme every day could go years without seeing them. Many players farmed Stratholme for other reasons, such as the Tier 0 legs that Rivendare also drops, the [Runeblade of Baron Rivendare], or [[forever:quest:8945]]. That quest, added in patch 1.10, is given by [[forever:npc:16016]] in the Eastern Plaguelands: when a group enters, the baron starts a 45-minute timer on his prisoner, [[forever:npc:16031]], and the run has to reach him before it expires. The reins were a rare bonus on top of all of these.

Before patch 1.10, Stratholme allowed raid groups of up to ten players, and some groups brought extra people to clear it faster. Patch 1.10 limited it to five, which made every Baron kill a full dungeon run.

Once looted, the reins bind on pickup. Using them summons the Deathcharger, a skeletal horse with glowing eyes that moves at the speed of an epic mount.

Classic details

The Deathcharger had a few unusual traits in Classic:

• No riding skill. Most mounts in Classic required a racial riding skill such as Horse Riding or Undead Horsemanship. The Deathcharger required none, so a player of any race, Alliance or Horde, could ride it after reaching level 60. Patch 1.3 specifically allowed tauren to use it.
• The only skeletal horse for the Alliance. Skeletal horses were otherwise sold only to Forsaken players, so the Deathcharger was the one way for an Alliance character to ride one.
• Quality change. The reins were a rare item until patch 1.12.1 made them epic and set the requirement to Journeyman Riding, in line with other fast mounts.

Compared with other skeletal mounts

Forsaken players could buy skeletal horses in Undercity for much less effort. The normal-speed [Red Skeletal Horse], [Blue Skeletal Horse] and [Brown Skeletal Horse] and the fast [Green Skeletal Warhorse] all need the Undead Horsemanship skill, which only Forsaken could learn from their own trainer unless they were exalted with the Undercity. The Deathcharger needs no riding skill at all in patch 1.12, which is why it was the one skeletal horse open to every race.

Lore

When Baron Rivendare gave himself to the Scourge, he took his favorite horse into undeath with him. The Deathcharger is that horse. Rivendare later rose to become one of the Four Horsemen in Naxxramas in Wrath of the Lich King, and the Knights of the Ebon Blade recovered his steed's saddle from Stratholme to make mounts for their own Four Horsemen.

History

The reins were in Stratholme from early in the game's life and kept their tiny drop chance until patch 3.0.2, which raised it to about 1 percent and renamed the mount Rivendare's Deathcharger. In Cataclysm, Lord Aurius Rivendare took the baron's place in Stratholme and became the new source. The mount later appeared on the Black Market Auction House as well.

Sources

• Deathcharger's Reins on Warcraft Wiki
• Baron Rivendare on Warcraft Wiki