How to collect every Night Fae Soulshape in Shadowlands, including new ones added in 9.1

When you choose a Covenant in Shadowlands, you are given extra abilities to use — one class-based that typically increases throughput, and one universal ability that tends to be more about utility. For the Night Fae, that ability is Soulshape, a hybrid Blink-Dash-Ghost Wolf ability that gives you some additional mobility, lasting for 16 seconds out in the world and indefinitely while in a rested area, i.e. you can hang out in Soulshape in a city all day long.  The speed boost is secondary for most people, though, as one of the features of Soulshape is the ability to change your appearance.

There are currently 26 different Soulshapes available to players: the default Vulpin shape and 28 others acquired in various ways. The additional appearances are all unlocked via a quest object that you bring to Lady Muunn in your Covenant, which is convenient as she is also the NPC that lets you choose your Soulshape appearance. It’s swappable at any time (there is no cooldown), although unlocking Soulshapes isn’t accountwide so you’ll need to do a planning to make sure your Night Fae toons are targeting their own desired Soulshape.

Here’s how you pick up every Soulshape in the game as of patch 9.1.

Soulshapes acquired via Covenant Activities

A healthy number of the Soulshapes that you can obtain come through the various activities associated with the Night Fae. These are nice because they come about organically as you play through the Covenant Campaign and use your Sanctum Upgrades. If there’s a specific Soulshape that comes from a Sanctum Upgrade, you may wish to focus on that one first to accelerate the acquisition.

The Covenant Campaign itself rewards three Soulshapes:

• Equine Soul, which is acquired by completing Chapter 5 of the Campaign, unlocked at Renown 11
• Ardenmoth Soul, which is acquired during the final Chapter of the Campaign, unlocked at Renown 22
• Hippogryph Soul, which becomes available when you complete Chapter 5 of the Chains of Domination campaign, unlocked at Renown 52

Another Soulshape, the Heron Soul Crane Soul, can be purchased once you’re Honored with the Wild Hunt faction for 1500 Anima.

The Anima Conductor opens up four different Soulshapes. The first two involve killing rates in Ardenweald:

• Moose Soul is available to purchase for 1500 Anima from Master Clerk Salorn after defeating five different Star Lake Amphitheatre rares. Note that it’s not required that you use your Anima Conductor to unlock the rare: as long as you participate in a kill you’ll gain credit. Since there isn’t a set cycle of appearances, it may take longer than five days to complete the unlock.
• Shadowstalker Soul is dropped by Valfir the Unrelenting, a rare in southwest Ardenweald. When he’s up, he has a buff that prevents almost all damage; however, someone who has channeled their Anima Conductor to his area is able to use Animaseed Light to remove the buff. Level 3 Anima Conductor is required to do this, but you don’t need to have upgraded to level 3 to attack, kill, and loot Valfir. Since there are a fair number of characters that have opened up level 3 Anima Conductors and Valfir drops a mount, it’s pretty easy to find a raid to join via the groupfinder. The Soulshape has a very high (guaranteed?) drop chance for Night Fae members.

Two other Soulshapes are available via the Anima Conductor’s reputation faction, the Court of Night. Once you’re Friendly with them, you can purchase them from the faction vendor Spindlenose for 1500 Anima and 5 Grateful Offerings each:

• Leonine Soul
• Lupine Soul

The Night Fae transportation network Sanctum Upgrade opens up a reputation as well, with Marasmius. Once you’re Friendly with the faction, you’ll be able to purchase two Soulshapes from the quartermaster Cortinarius for 1500 Anima apiece:

• Ursine Soul
• Tiger Soul

The final two Soulshapes you can acquire from Covenant activities come from the Queen’s Conservatory, the Night Fae’s unique Sanctum Upgrade. Unlike the other Soulshapes in this section, both are drops from activities within the Queen’s Conservatory:

• Gulper Soul
• Snapper Soul

If you desire these Soulshapes you may need to deal with RNG — it’s currently unknown whether or not these are guaranteed drops when using a specific combination of materials.

Soulshapes that drop from bad guys

Other Soulshapes are found “in the wild,” dropping from specific bosses or activities. In some cases there is some confusion as to whether or not a drop is guaranteed, so if you’re in pursuit of one or more these Soulshapes it may require multiple attempts.

Besides Valfir the Unrelenting, two other rares found in Ardenweald can drop Soulshapes, and both drops appear to be guaranteed:

• Wolfhawk Soul drops from Skuld Vit, who can only be accessed while in a Soulshape
• Runestag Soul drops from Mystic Rainbowhorn, who requires a rare spawned item to summon

PVP activities can reward three Soulshapes:

• Gryphon Soul
• Wyvern Soul
• New in patch 9.1: Cobra Soul

Despite their faction-based appearances, there are no faction restrictions for the Gryphon and Wyvern soul, and all three can drop when completing PVP events. Most acquisition reports indicate that they were from rated Arena runs, but they do appear to drop from random BGs so Rated PVP may not be required to obtain.

Dungeons are also the source of quite a few Soulshapes, including three Soulshapes added in patch 9.1:

• Raptor Soul drops from Mueh’zala in De Other Side
• Shrieker Soul drops from Mistcaller in the Mists of Tirna Scithe
• New in patch 9.1: Hyena Soul can drop from any Mythic+ dungeon run
• New in patch 9.1: Direhorn Soul drops from the Menagerie in Tazavesh, the new mega-dungeon
• New in patch 9.1: Yak Soul also drops in Tazavesh from the last boss, So’leah, but apparently only in the hard mode version of the dungeon

Patch 9.1 also added new Soulshapes that drop from patch-specific activities:

• Saurolisk Soul can drop from the final boss of the Adamant Vaults in Torghast (it is currently unknown as to whether it is guaranteed).
• Hippo Soul can drop from the Night Fae Maw assault reward, the War Chest of the Wild Hunt, but isn’t guaranteed.
• The extremely creepy Spider Soul comes from Riftbound Caches in Korthia’s alternate Rift realm, and it appears to be a guaranteed drop from the first looted chest for members of the Night Fae.
• Stag Soul is a potential reward from Korthia daily quests given by members of the Night Fae.

There’s a couple Soulshapes from raiding:

• Veilwing Soul, which drops from Sire Denathrius in Castle Nathria. It’s a guaranteed drop on Heroic or Mythic difficulty, but still has a chance to drop on Normal Difficulty.
• Owlcat Soul, which drops from Heroic or Mythic Sylvanas in the Sanctum of Domination raid.

Future Soulshapes

We don’t know whether Blizzard intends to make more Soulshapes available in the future. Datamining has revealed that there are three additional Soulshapes with quests in the game — Shoveltusk Soul, Kodo Soul, and Mammoth Soul  — but no indication whether they are implemented. There are many NPCs using Soulshapes unavailable to players, and while I don’t expect to see mice or celestial dragons as player options, there’s a large range between those two extremes.

Hopefully Blizzard will continue to add Soulshapes to the game throughout Shadowlands’ patches as they’re a fun addition to the game. And while I don’t expect them to be widely available in the next expansion, hopefully they won’t be abandoned entirely and find another way into the game.

Originally published 1/6/2021, updated 8/18/2021