New Death Knight starting screen and skeletal gryphon mount

by Adam Holisky Jul 29th 2008 at 4:03AM

Fresh from the new Beta build today: new Death Knight starting screens and our first look at the Death Knight flying mount – a skeletal gryphon! The starting screen pictured above is pretty cool. The Death Knight is standing on a terrace surrounded by Northrend. Neat. Be sure to click on the picture for a hi resolution image.

The gryphon that we're seen, which is pictured after the break, is about the same size as a normal flying gryphon – but a complete skeleton. The actual name of the flying mount item is "The Winged Steed of the Ebon Blade." It is something that I'm really looking forward to picking up now, and I'm pretty sure most of you will be as well.

Lots of great bits of information coming out from this beta patch – stay tuned for more

A Skeletal Gryphon for the Death Knights.

Purchasing a Skeletal Gryphon.

Many thanks to reader Jay for the mount photos!

Tags: alpha, beta, death-knight, flying, flying-mount, gryphon, level-70, mount, server, skeletal, skeletal-gryphon, testing, winged-steed-of-the-ebon-blade, wotlk, wrath-of-the-lich-king

Filed under: Patches, News items, Mounts, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King

Subscribe to these comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)

PimpyMicPimp Jul 29th 2008 4:17AM

Bah, I was just going to contact you guys about this :(

Anyways, I hope that isn't the final model, because it looks hilariously stupid in my opinion. Everyone fear the bone duck!

ScorchHellfire Jul 29th 2008 6:37AM

hmmm no skeleton wyvern?...

Baluki Jul 29th 2008 7:35AM

Ever watch a cartoon where there's a roasted chicken sitting on a table, and then something comes by and gobbles it down and spits out the bones fully-formed back onto the plate?

That's what this mount looks like right now.

Needs to be darker, with some glowing eyes and spell effects.

Noddegamra Jul 29th 2008 4:18AM

I'm sorry, that flying mount looks awful. They could have done a much cooler skeletal mount than that.

Super Guest Man 9000 Jul 29th 2008 5:36AM

Its always been the spectral version there Dirty, faulty recollection is all =D

I blame gnomish radiation fallout seeping into the groundwater

Super Guest Man 9000 Jul 29th 2008 5:37AM

Bah, wrong damn reply

DirtyPriest Jul 29th 2008 4:22AM

This is the same gryphon in the EPL PvP towers. Its suprising how many people don't know that thinking this is new. But who can blame them? :P Its a good time to finally reuse the artwork for something more meaningful then the lolsand PvP patch.

Also the tooltip seems to indicate you can use any mount now and that the speeds are determined by the riding skill. Anyone confirm this? Cause that would be awesome I've been wishing for something like this. ^^ Don't want to give up my dragon and I want to use my level 40 pally mount.

Super Guest Man 9000 Jul 29th 2008 4:35AM

Its surprising how many people think that this is the same as the EPL PvP gryphon, heh.. well one person at least. The EPL pvp gryph for the towers is a spectral gryphon, not a bone one my friend.
http://www.wowwiki.com/Spectral_Gryphon

The bony gryphon that seems to be the DK flying mount is the same model as the one we see winging it around kara at the top levels.

G Jul 29th 2008 4:48AM

Not the same.

http://www.circleoftherose.com/forum/album_page.php?pic_id=76

DirtyPriest Jul 29th 2008 5:22AM

Wow they must have changed it because it definately wasn't like that at all when I first rode it. Then again I only rode it once and it was a long time ago since lolsand patch.

zappo Jul 29th 2008 8:18AM

Actually that makes sense as a place holder then. If it was already game data already laying around in there, it was probably the easiest place holder to implement that was different.

crsh Jul 29th 2008 12:34PM

It's also used in Karazhan, there's one (two?) that flies around the tower as you're approching Prince's area.

Grimmy Jul 29th 2008 4:28AM

It doesn't look very fitting for a death knight, it should be way more evil looking!

Renzor Jul 29th 2008 4:31AM

Its prly a placeholder as it looks just like the skelly grif that flys outside of princes chamber in kara. They had a place holder for the land mount that looked just like the one that dropped from attumen.