Everything you need to know about the WoW Headless Horseman event, now live!

Hallow’s End, World of Warcraft’s Halloween-themed seasonal event, is now live and runs through November 1! The main draw of Hallow’s End is the Headless Horseman dungeon — most players queue up for the dungeon because Hallow’s End is the only chance they can earn the rare Horseman’s Reins mount (which we’re pretty sure does actually exist, despite years of not seeing it drop).

Hallow’s End was revamped during Dragonflight, with new narrative surrounding the Headless Horseman, revamped the dungeon’s fight mechanics, and streamlining rewards, so if you haven’t participated recently the encounter may be different than you remember.

If you’re looking for the Horseman’s Reins — maybe this is your year! — here’s what you need to know about the Headless Horseman encounter during Hallow’s End in modern WoW.

The origin of the Headless Horseman questline

A new questline diving into the origin of the Headless Horseman is available to all players participating in Hallow’s End. This questline provides new players an introduction to the Headless Horseman, why he exists and attacks certain areas, and why he has his own dungeon. It also gives veteran players who are already familiar with the story of the Headless Horseman more in-game lore and story they can interact with and be a part of. (But you’ll have to do more work if you want to get a spectral horse of your own.)

You can begin by picking up the opening quest, A Ghostly Message, from Matron Seacole outside of the Stormwind City Gates if you’re an Alliance player while Horde players will receive the quest from Calia Menethil near Grommash Hold in Orgrimmar.

After getting the introduction quest, you need to travel to Tirisfal Glades to complete the rest of the questline. I won’t spoil it for you but if you enjoy Halloween-themed events and stories like I do, this is one you’ll want to check out.

The revamped Headless Horseman dungeon encounters

Like questlines in other World of Warcraft zones, when you complete the story portion of the Headless Horseman’s origin quest you’ll receive a final quest objective to queue up for the dungeon to fight Headless Horseman himself. As of patch 10.1.7, the Headless Horseman’s standard encounter appears as the default option and remains largely the same with a few mechanical changes.

Normal Mode

The normal mode Headless Horseman encounter can still be queued up for in the dungeon finder and takes place in the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard. You begin the fight by summoning the Horseman through interacting with the Jack O’Lantern in the graveyard. He has had some changes made during the fight itself — his head no longer flies around after you drop his health and he has a few new abilities:

• Pumpkin Breath — An AOE fire attack erupts from the Horseman.
• Vine March — The Horseman summons additional mobs to fight you.
• Insidious Cackle — A circle appears around you character that, after a few seconds, causes a flee effect if it overlaps with another player when it goes off.
• Hot Head — The Horseman throws a flaming pumpkin projectile at someone.

Hard mode

Hallow’s End now has hard mode that enhances the Headless Horseman’s fight mechanics.

If you want to access hard mode you’ll need to interact with the four Wicker Men at the beginning of the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard. Each Wicker Man offers a curse. Choosing one enhances an ability of the Horseman with extra mechanics and can inflict another stackable debuff called Wicker Man’s Shadow that reduces your health by 10%:

• Ember Curse — Enemies emit Shadowflame bursts that apply Wicker Man’s Shadow.
• Cursed Hot Head — Players suffer hallucinations they have to move towards and dispel. Failing to do so applies two stacks of Wicker Man’s Shadow.
• Shadow Curse — Players must destroy the shackles on soul-copies of themselves before they reach a burning flame or else they receive two stacks of Wicker Man’s Shadow.
• Thorny Surprise — Thorns from Vines erupt, enemies hit suffer from two stacks Wicker Man’s Shadow.

Choosing to enable the hard mode version is entirely individual — you can choose to activate one, some, all or none of the curses and those choices will only affect you and not the rest of the party. Everyone needs to individually opt-in to hard mode.

Players successfully complete the dungeon under hard mode if no one dies during the fight, and the goal of both normal and hard mode versions is deplete the Horseman’s health to zero.

Rewards for beating the Headless Horseman

When you defeat the Headless Horseman, you get a Loot-Filled Pumpkin that contains all of your rewards. Blizzard has confirmed the first Headless Horseman kill each day also has a higher chance to drop the Horseman’s Reins mount, with the chance increasing for each curse you apply to yourself if you choose to opt-in to hard mode.

The Hallow’s End 2025 event introduced a new set of rewards to the Loot-Filled Pumpkin’s pool and now has a chance to drop a second Horseman’s mount, the Headless Horseman’s Ghoulish Charger from the first kill of the day. This first kill also guarantees one piece of cosmetic armor from the Headless Horseman’s Ghoulish Armor set:

• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Helm
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Cowl
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Grips
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Cinch
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Treads
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Breastplate
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Cloak
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Greaves
• The Horseman’s Ghoulish Mantle

Rewards from each of the previous Hallow’s End events can also be purchased for Tricky Treats from each factions candy and toy vendors: Alliance can find  Dorothy outside the gates of Stormwind and the Horde can find Chub in the past version of the Undercity courtyard.

Originally published August 21, 2023. Updated October 21, 2025.