Sandstone Drake

Crafted as the Vial of the Sands by an alchemist with Cataclysm Alchemy at 75, from Recipe: Vial of the Sands. Only an alchemist can find the recipe, by chance, inside a Canopic Jar, one of the common Tol'vir projects of Archaeology. The vial takes 1 Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial, 8 Sands of Time, 12 Truegold, 8 Flask of the Winds, 8 Flask of Titanic Strength and 8 Deepstone Oil. The crystalline vial and the sands are sold by Yasmin, the innkeeper at the Oasis of Vir'sar in Uldum, for 29,000 gold together; the rest an alchemist makes from Cataclysm ore, herbs, volatiles and fish.

Chance 2.42% per try, so about 41 tries on average — The chance is the recipe's, not the mount's: Wowhead records Recipe: Vial of the Sands in 1,174 of 48,423 Canopic Jars opened (read 2026-10-11); every other jar held a Mummified Organ. The count is over every opener and only alchemists can find the recipe, so an alchemist's own chance is higher; by how much is not known. The wiki estimates 5-10% and wow.gg about 10%, neither with a count. Once the recipe is known, the craft always gives the mount

Time there about 2 min a visit

Guides Wowhead: Mounts and Companions from Professions · wow.gg: Vial of the Sands

• Alchemy with Cataclysm Alchemy at 75, its maximum, on the character that finds and learns the recipe: the recipe binds when picked up, and only an alchemist finds it in a jar · about 2 h
• Archaeology on the same character: 450 for the Canopic Jar project and for Tol'vir dig sites to come up in Uldum, 600 for the Crate of Tol'vir Archaeology Fragments that the quicker route uses · about 6 h
• Exalted with The Lorewalkers, for the Mantid Artifact Hunter's Kit, which makes every new Pandaria dig site a small mantid one for a day. Not needed for the mount itself; the hours of the next step suppose it · about 1.5 h
• Recipe: Vial of the Sands: Tol'vir projects solved until Canopic Jars come up (45 fragments each, roughly one project in eight), and jars opened until one holds the recipe. The fragments come from the Tol'vir dig sites in Uldum or, quicker, from Crates of Tol'vir Archaeology Fragments, which Brann Bronzebeard at the Seat of Knowledge in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms gives for Restored Artifacts, the crated finds of Pandaria's dig sites · about 20 h
• 1 Pyrium-Laced Crystalline Vial (5,000 gold) and 8 Sands of Time (3,000 gold each) from Yasmin
• 12 Truegold (each a transmute of 3 Pyrium Bars and 10 each of Volatile Fire, Volatile Air and Volatile Water, with a Philosopher's Stone), 8 Flask of the Winds (each 8 Volatile Life, 8 Azshara's Veil, 8 Whiptail and a Crystal Vial), 8 Flask of Titanic Strength (each 8 Volatile Life, 8 Cinderbloom, 8 Whiptail and a Crystal Vial) and 8 Deepstone Oil (4 to 8 Albino Cavefish in all, fished in Deepholm) · about 8 h

In all: about 37.5 h of play, 29,000 gold, starting from nothing.

/way is for the TomTom addon. Travel times are estimates: flying at 55 yards a second in a straight line and 30 seconds for a portal. A star marks a portal that needs a quest or other unlock done first.

The journal says only 'Profession: Alchemy'. The item made is the Vial of the Sands (65891), which turns its user into a drake that can carry a passenger. Three errands:

• the recipe, from Archaeology, by luck
• the vendor materials, from Yasmin, the place given above
• the crafted materials

Yasmin: the wiki has her in both versions of Uldum (npc 49406 in the Cataclysm one, 163252 in the one with N'Zoth's assaults), with the crystalline vial at 5,000 gold and Sands of Time at 3,000 gold in both. Her coordinates are Wowhead's tooltip (26.6, 7.2; the wiki 26.6, 7.3). The wiki's page for the Vial also names Big Keech in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms as a seller of Sands of Time, which was not checked.

Truegold: Wowhead's tooltip for the transmute shows no cooldown and a trainer as its source (Cataclysm Alchemy 75); the wiki's page mentions none either.

The recipe is the long part. At Wowhead's 2.42% about 40 jars would be expected, at the wiki's and wow.gg's 5-10% ten to twenty; the players' reports under the jar sit between the two, and the 20 hours given are a middle figure, not a promise. Which Tol'vir project comes up after a solve is chance; the jar is one of seven common ones.

The recipe binds when picked up and Wowhead's guide calls it an alchemist-only drop, so the alchemist has to be the archaeologist (comments of 2017 and 2022 say the same). A 2011 reply found it with Alchemy at 510 of the old 525, so the skill need not be full to find it. The wiki's page for the jar adds a tip that is not confirmed elsewhere: a jar opened without the recipe can be kept, and its contents are drawn again after the next game patch. wow.gg says jars can be saved up on a character and opened once it has learned Alchemy.

There are two ways to the jars. The plain way is Tol'vir dig sites in Uldum, which come up among Kalimdor's four active sites at random, only with Archaeology at 450 or more and only in the Cataclysm version of Uldum, set by Zidormi near the Seat of Ramkahen (56.0, 35.2; a 2020 Wowhead comment).

The quicker way is what the comments of 2017 to 2025 call the Mantid method, described in full for the Ultramarine Qiraji Battle Tank:

• Exalted with The Lorewalkers
• the Mantid Artifact Hunter's Kit
• mantid dig sites in Townlong Steppes and the Dread Wastes
• each finished common artifact crated into a Restored Artifact
• those handed to Brann Bronzebeard (Seat of Knowledge, about 82, 29 in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms) for Tol'vir crates

Dig sites of Draenor, the Broken Isles and Battle for Azeroth give Restored Artifacts too.

The Vial of the Sands itself is not bound until used (wiki: no longer bind on pickup since a hotfix of December 2010; Wowhead's tooltip shows no binding line), so a finished one can be handed or sold on; the route here is making it. It asks for Apprentice Riding (Wowhead's tooltip) and level 30 (wiki).

Guides: wow.gg's (updated 2026) gives the Alchemy skill as 525, the old numbering, and does not mention the crates or Zidormi. Wowhead's professions guide was last updated in 2022; it lists the recipe's source and every reagent with its own recipe.

Confidence in this entry: medium. Looked up in 2026.

Sources

• Wowhead: canopic jar
• Wowhead: mounts and companions from professions 3480
• Wowhead tooltip: spell 93328
• Wowhead tooltip: item 67538
• Wowhead tooltip: spell 80243
• Wowhead tooltip: npc 49406
• Wiki: Vial of the Sands
• Wiki: Recipe: Vial of the Sands
• Wiki: Canopic Jar
• Wiki: Yasmin
• Wiki: Truegold
• wow.gg: vial of the sands mount alchemy guide