How to unlock the Shadowlands to farm transmog, mounts, toys, and other rewards

Shadowlands has some appealing mounts, collectibles and armor drops and as of The War Within it’s mostly soloable on characters above level 71 — and fully geared level 80s can defeat any challenge that the Shadowlands could throw at them. However if it’s been a while since you’ve ventured into the Realm of Death you may find yourself wondering what your alts have to do in order to have access to the zones and instances — particularly if you’re playing a different character than you did during Shadowlands. If your character started the process back in Shadowlands but didn’t finish unlocking the region, and if you’re a playing new character it can be confusing to head to the Shadowlands for the first time, because you can’t just walk in to the realm of death without some preamble.

Skips are available to speed this up significantly, but a character in your Warband needs to complete the steps first before the skips can be unlocked; if you missed Shadowlands or started playing after everyone had moved on to the Dragon Isles, you must follow the campaign quests as required to unlock everything. It’ll take a lot of time but it’ll be faster than it was at the time due to increased power and compression/speedups added over the course of the expansion. Note that if you’re under 70 you can journey into the Shadowlands in Chromie Time and the skips should be still be available if they’ve already been unlocked. However don’t expect the content — especially the Maw — to be a pushover if you’re in Chromie Time.

Let’s walk through how to get into Shadowlands content as a current character to hunt for transmog, mounts, pets, and other rewards.

What to do when there are no questgivers or flightmasters in Oribos — how to skip the Maw and the level up campaign

Because the portals to the Shadowlands in the Alliance and Horde portal rooms are accessible without unlock, you may find yourself in an Oribos largely devoid of questgivers and the flightmaster. Attempts to jump in Maw just teleport you right back out. The issue? You haven’t actually started Shadowlands questing on the character, so this empty world is all that’s available to you.

Return to your capital city and speak to Highlord Mograine in front of the Stormwind Keep or Grommash Hold and pick up the quest Shadowlands: a Chilling Summons. You’ll be directed to speak to Whitemane (Alliance) or Nazgrim (Horde), both conveniently standing next to Mograine. This is you first skip opportunity on alts: choose I have heard this tale before to skip the Maw introductory experience. Note that if you choose not to skip right away you’re able to speak with Jaina during the early part of the Maw experience to skip as well.

The skip takes you to Oribos and you are automatically given the quest Stranger in an Even Stranger Land. Speak to the Protector Captain and then follow them to speak with Overseer Kah-Delen. Here is the second skip you can utilize to bypass the campaign through all four leveling zones: choose I’ve been here before to skip the level up campaign and unlock world content. You will be prompted to make certain you wish to skip: click Accept if you’re sure (you can’t undo this decision!). The NPCs will phase in and you can get the quest Choosing Your Purpose from Tal-Inara to continue questing. But more importantly you can now use the flightmaster to access the Castle Nathria raid and the launch dungeons and jump into the Maw.

But you may want to do something else before you go…

How to unlock Zereth Mortis before you unlock most everything else

While the various skips in Shadowlands were added post-launch in an ad hoc manner, the Zereth Mortis skip was added alongside patch 9.2 so through a coding oddity you can actually unlock it on alts before you unlock other content. After you’ve chosen a Covenant as part of the quest Choosing Your Purpose, Tal-Inara will have an option to Skip ahead to Zereth Mortis and have Pocopoc unlocked. You can even do this before turning in Choosing Your Purpose and venturing anywhere else in the Shadowlands. The portal to Zereth Mortis will be accessible from the Ring of Transference in Oribos, and flying will be unlocked and you’ll be able to enter the Sepulcher of the First Ones raid.

The main issue this skip causes is that if you find yourself unable to get around easily in the Maw or get to Korthia it’s likely that you only unlocked up to the Zereth Mortis skip back during Shadowlands because you had no interest in accessing older content at the time. Read on for how to rectify this.

What to do when you can’t mount in the Maw or you take damage from being in it — how to unlock Torghast and Korthia skips

If you jump into the Maw and Ve’nari has no quests for you and you can’t mount up that means you haven’t done enough of your Covenant unlock to reach the skips added in patch 9.1 as part of the campaign. In this scenario the first thing you want to do is return to Oribos and make sure you’ve turned in Choosing Your Purpose to Tal-Inara. The next quest is Report to [Covenant NPC] in Oribos, which in turn unlocks a breadcrumb quest to your Covenant Sanctum.

While at your Covenant Sanctum you’ll have to complete a couple quests and then your guide will give you the option “I know my way around the Sanctum” that allows you to Skip ahead in the campaign chapter to meet your first soulbind. You’ll have a few more quests to do including soulbinding and unlocking the forge of bonds. You’ll then receive a quest titles The Highlord Calls which sends you back to Oribos to speak to Bolvar. Complete this quest and pick up the next one Into Torghast. You can speak with Bolvar again and you’ll get the option to Skip ahead to finish the Torghast chapter and Torghast, Ve’nari, and the Runecarver unlocked.

Enacting the Torghast skip will auto-spawn the quest The First Move which directs you to speak to Polemarch Adrestes. Instead speak to Bolvar again and choose “I have heard this tale before” to Skip ahead to Korthia. This will unlock the portal to Korthia in the Ring of Transference.

How to unlock the Chaotic Riftstones and the Animaflow Transporter to get around the Maw

While completing the Korthia unlock will allow fast travel via the Animaflow Teleporter between Korthia and Ve’nari’s Refuge you won’t have access to the super-convenient teleport to the Sanctum of Domination raid that was added in patch 9.1.5. The unlocks for Chaotic Riftstones and the Animaflow Teleporter are not accountwide although the option to purchase them from Ve’nari is — if you’ve unlocked them on your main, your alts will have access to them.

Use of the Chaotic Riftstones is unlocked by purchasing the Encased Riftwalker Essence for 1130 Stygia, and the Animaflow Teleporter requires the Animaflow Stabilizer that is purchased for 1650 Stygia. If either of these items are not available for sale that likely means you haven’t reached the required reputation with Ve’nari and you’ll need to grind with her — or take the long way around.

Fortunately Stygia can be transferred between characters at no currency loss. If you don’t have enough Stygia available from your Warband you’ll need to grind it from questing for Ve’nari although it should be fast especially if you’re at level 80. The Stabilizer is the more important of the two items if you need to prioritize as it gets you quickly to the Sanctum of Domination raid entrance.

And now your new character will be able to access all of the wonders of the Shadowlands. Good luck and have fun storming the castle!