Everything we know about the Kyrian Covenant in WoW Shadowlands

In Shadowlands, the Kyrian Covenant is all about righteousness, valor, and humility, while giving us fluffy owl buddies and wing transmogs. They are one of four Covenants that we can ally with at max level and each Covenant oversees a different part of the afterlife for Azeroth’s souls.

The Kyrian Covenant resides in Bastion and is responsible for the righteous and the pure. Souls come here to shed their past burdens and purify their souls to ascend to eternal noble service.

Who are the Kyrians?

The Kyrians are angelic beings who function as soul guides. Their eternal role tasks them with shuttling souls between the lands of the living and the dead, and the Val’kyr count themselves among their ranks. These soul guides value humility, righteousness, service, meditation, and reflection. The upheaval Sylvanas has caused in the Shadowlands left the Kyrians in disarray, and their ranks are dwindling. That means there are fewer soul guides to ferry souls to the afterlife, putting the whole faction in jeopardy.

In addition to the Kyrians, there are other denizens who inhabit Bastion.

• Kyrians: the noble beings who shepherd the souls of the dead to Oribos to be judged. Kyrian Aspirants train to join the ranks of the Ascended.
• Stewards: the groundskeepers and artificers who maintain the realm and attend Paragons.
• The Forsworn: failed aspirants who wander Bastion to lament.
• The Centurians: anima-fueled automatons that train Aspirants, enforce order, and defend Bastion if needed.
• Memories: physical manifestations of tormented thoughts shed by the Kyrian trainees. Kyrians must defeat them to cleanse themselves in order to ascend.

We know of one noble soul who will be present in Bastion — Uther the Lightbringer.

What are the Kyrian abilities?

When you join a Covenant, you get access to two spells — a Covenant Signature Ability and a class-specific ability. The Signature Ability is available to every single class and spec, similar to the Garrison/Zone Abilities in Warlords of Draenor. In Bastion, that takes the form of a steward to assist you in your adventures. There are also further upgrades that change how the Signature Ability works. Many of the upgraded spells are available through the Soulbind talent tree, and it’s likely that more could be obtained through activities such as the Torghast system or the Legendary system.

Kyrian Signature Ability — Summon Steward: Call your steward to bring you a Phial of Serenity that can be consumed to restore some of your health and remove all Curse, Disease, Poison, and Bleed Effects. Your Steward additionally offers access to a selection of useful amenities, each once per day.

Kyrian Anima Powers

• Bottomless Chalice: Your Steward also provides Phials of Serenity for your allies.
• Darksight Orbs: Your Steward can now hunt for materials within Torghast.
• Parliament Stone: Your Steward cheers you on, increasing your movement speed by 35%.
• Phial of Light: Your Steward’s Phial of Serenity now restores an additional 40% of your health.
• Phial of Pain: Your Steward’s Phial of Serenity increases damage and healing by 40% for 15 sec.
• Strigidium: Your Steward can now assist you in combat.

In addition to the Signature Ability, you receive a unique ability for your class. The class abilities also have possible upgrades that change how the class abilities work, though we don’t know yet how or where you’ll acquire them.

• Death Knight — Shackle the Unworthy: Admonish your target for their past transgressions, reducing the damage they deal to you and dealing Arcane damage over time. Shackle the Unworthy’s cooldown is reduced when you damage the affected enemy with a Rune-spending attack.
  • Anima Powers: Darkhelm of Nuren, Eyes of the Unceasing, Hateforged Cilice, Oppressor’s Chain, Reinforced Manacle, Twisted Hellchoker
• Demon Hunter — Elysian Decree: Carve runes into the ground in front of you, which detonate to deal Arcane damage and shatter Lesser Soul Fragments from enemies.
  • Anima Powers: Flail of Merkur, Mask of the Winged Dominator, Sacrificial Soul-Ash, Scouring Rags of Torghast, Searing Deathbrand, Souleater’s Claw
• Druid — Kindred Spirits: Form a bond with an ally. On a cooldown, you may empower the bond for a period of time, granting you an effect based on your partner’s role, and granting them an effect based on your role.
  • Guardian — Kindred Protection: Protect your bonded partner, redirecting damage they take to you, unless you fall below low health.
  • Restoration — Kindred Focus: Focus on your bonded partner, replicating healing you deal onto them.
  • Balance/Feral — Kindred Empowerment: Energize your bonded partner, granting them primary stat for damage you deal.
  • Anima Powers: Bounty of the Grove, Command the Grove, Darkening Canopy, Giving Tree, Overgrown Garden, Sun-Drenched Grove, Winds of Bastion, Wisdom and Fury, Wisdom’s Embrace
• Hunter — Resonating Arrow: Fire a resonating arrow to the target location and fill the area with echoing anima. The effect causes your attacks to ignore line of sight to enemies in the area, and you have an increased critical strike chance against them.
• Mage — Radiant Spark: Conjure a radiant spark that causes Arcane damage instantly and additional damage over time. The target takes a percentage of increased damage from your direct damage spells, stacking each time they are struck. This effect ends after a number of spells.
  • Anima Powers: Anima-Flecked Topaz, Long-Forbidden Words, Scroll of the Arcane Meditator, Urael’s Finality, Winged Curio, Wizard’s Prayer
• Monk — Weapons of Order: For a short duration, your Mastery is increased by a percentage. In addition,
  • Brewmaster — Keg Smash cooldown is reset, and enemies hit by Keg Smash take increased damage from you (stacks up to a set amount).
  • Windwalker — Rising Sun Kick cooldown is reset instantly, and your Rising Sun Kick reduces the cost of your Chi abilities.
  • Mistweaver — Essence Font cooldown is reset instantly and heals nearby allies on channel start and end.
  • Anima Powers: Anima-Tinged Weapon Oil, Balancing Stave, Cragsman’s Fable, Forgotten Armor of Order, Haven’s Breath, Maw-Darkened Slippers
• Paladin — Divine Toll: Instantly cast Holy Shock, Avenger’s Shield, or Judgment on several targets within range (based on your current specialization).
  • Anima Powers: Belt of the Mawsworn Avenger, Big Clapper, Cacopony Core, Ember of the Carillon, Sonorous Shards, Soul’s Tolls
• Priest — Boon of the Ascended: Draw upon the power of the Ascended, granting access to Ascended Nova, replacing Mind Flay (Shadow) / Smite (Discipline and Holy) with Ascended Blast and increasing your movement speed. Upon expiration, releases an Ascended Eruption, exploding to deal Arcane damage to all enemies and heal to all nearby allies, increased for each stack of Boon of the Ascended.
  • Anima Powers: Deeply-Held Vow, Faithstone, Feathered Fetters, Glorious Prayer, Second Chorus, Torch of Humility
• Rogue — Echoing Reprimand: Deal Arcane damage to an enemy, extracting their anima to Animacharge a combo point. Damaging finishing moves that consume the same number of your combo points as your Animacharge deal damage as if they consume 7 combo points.
  • Anima Powers: Elysian Trickster-Ring, Lightblade Haft, Razorfeather, Screaming Signet, Shadesinger’s Bargain, Sharpened Harpstring
• Shaman — Vesper Totem: Summon a totem at the target location for 30 seconds. Your next damage spells or abilities will cause the totem to radiate Arcane damage to enemies near the totem and your next healing spells will heal allies near the totem. Casting this ability again while the totem is active will relocate the totem.
  • Anima Powers: Brooch of the Vale-Spirit, Diamondine Vesper, Generosity of the Winged Seer, Vesperwind Bit, Weightless Spirit, Wildzeal Wraps
• Warlock — Scouring Tithe: Deal Arcane damage instantly and additional Arcane damage over time. If the enemy dies while affected by Scouring Tithe, you generate additional Soul Shards. If they survive, Scouring Tithe’s cooldown is refreshed.
  • Anima Powers: Ash and Anima, Indebting Word, Languishing Soul Detritus, Shard of Slath’gerrar, Tithing Dish, Tome of Taking
• Warrior — Spear of Bastion: Throw a Kyrian spear at the target location, dealing Arcane damage instantly, dealing additional damage over time, and generating Rage. Enemies hit are tethered to Spear of Bastion’s location for the duration.
  • Anima Powers: Ancient Prolegomenon, Elysian Shoulderwrap, Kyrian Warhelm, Soulcarved Vow, Spearheads of Eternity, Stonepiercer Signet

What are the Kyrian Soulbinds?

When you choose your Covenant, you receive the option to bind yourself to a powerful member. This grants you access to their power and also powerful bonuses. Soulbinding will work similarly to previous systems like Artifact Weapons in Legion and the Heart of Azeroth in Battle for Azeroth. The progression system will allow you to unlock different tiers of power as you progress through the tree and even swap Soulbinds for different activities.

Souldbinds incorporate “sockets,” referred to as Conduits, in three types — Throughput, Survival, and Utility. These give you customization for your character’s power and will likely work similarly to Essences or Artifact Relics.

Based on the other Covenants and their datamined spells, the following “upgrade” spells for the Kyrian Signature Ability could be Soulbind talents or class-specific Conduits for the yet-unnamed Kyrian Soulbind NPCs.

• Flattered: Have your steward give a compliment to a friend!
• Kyrian Armaments: Summons a steward to retrieve the stolen item, gaining reputation with the denizens of Bastion.
• Phial of Mastery: Increase mastery by 50%.
• Venerable Kyrian Defender: Summons a steward to retrieve the stolen item, gaining a large amount of reputation with the denizens of Bastion.

What are the Kyrian rewards?

Shadowlands is full of beautiful art assets, and the cosmetic rewards are no exception. Each armor type — cloth, leather, mail, plate — will have a full armor set styled to their Covenant. The Kyrian armor sets take their cues from the Light-based classes such as Paladins and Priests, incorporating a lot of gold and white with blue accents. The mail armor set wasn’t included in the datamining, but we found art of all four armor sets here.

One of the first promotional assets to come out of Shadowlands was unique cloak transmogs for each Covenant. Cloaks have never been widely popular and these new transmogs take their place while offering us a unique style to accessorize with. The Covenant cloaks come in three different tiers which each have a unique appearance. The Kyrian cloak starts out as a halo, then a sigil, before transforming into glorious wings at the final tier

Interestingly enough, different tints and variations of the Kyrian armor sets have also been datamined, and we can see in the cloak preview that it has different colors. These could possibly come into play similar to Artifact Weapon appearances in Legion.

Last but not least, Covenant followers will be able to get a Covenant-specific mount and battle pet. The mount will have different color options and later you’ll be able to upgrade it, similar to Artifact skins in Legion. The battle pet will have a unique ability depending on which zone you’re in, allowing it to interact with the world around them. There is currently no information on what the Kyrian mount and pet will entail, but the mount could be related to a datamined questline.

None of this is set in stone, as information can change rapidly in the testing cycle on alpha and beta, but it should give you a good idea of what we’ll encounter in WoW Shadowlands.