Golden Cloud Serpent
Find a character at the top of the page to see whether your account has this mount, and where that character stands on what it asks for.
Look it up on WowheadHow to get it
Reward of Riding the Skies, the quest that ends the Order of the Cloud Serpent's story of raising a hatchling. Elder Anli at the Arboretum in the Jade Forest gives it at Exalted, and the Golden serpent is the reward for a character that took the Yellow Serpent Egg in the earlier quest Choosing the One. Any character at Exalted can also buy the same reins from San Redscale, the quartermaster a few steps away, for 2,400 gold, whichever egg it raised.
Time there about 3 min a visit
Before you go
- The order's opening quests at the Arboretum and on Windward Isle (Wild Things; Beating the Odds, Empty Nests and Egg Collection; Choosing the One, taking the Yellow Serpent Egg; The Rider's Journey; It's A...), which leave the character at Honored with the daily quests open · about 1 h
- Exalted with the Order of the Cloud Serpent: 33,000 reputation from Honored. The daily quests pay 1,500 a day (two at 450 and one at 600, a little more with Cooking, Fishing, First Aid or Archaeology), Onyx Eggs found on Windward Isle 500 each, and from Revered the Grand Commendation (50 gold from San Redscale) doubles everything · about 7 h over 2 weeks
- The hatchling's later quests, which open at Revered: They Grow Like Weeds, then Flight Training: Ring Round-Up, Full Speed Ahead and In Due Course · about 0.5 h
In all: about 8.5 h of play, spread over 2 weeks, starting from nothing.
Getting there
/way The Jade Forest 57.6 44.8 - Take the portal from Wizard's Sanctum to Jade Forest*
- Fly the rest of the way
- Take the portal from Pathfinder's Den to Jade Forest*
- Fly the rest of the way
/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.
Notes and sources
The reins are the reward of Riding the Skies 'for characters who chose the Yellow Serpent Egg', or 2,400 gold from San Redscale, and ask for Exalted with the order (the wiki's page for the reins). Since patch 9.0.2 they also ask for Apprentice Riding and level 35, and they bind when picked up (wiki).
Riding the Skies exists three times, one for each egg (the wiki, as read for the Azure Cloud Serpent):
- 31811 gives the Golden serpent (Yellow Serpent Egg)
- 31810 the Azure (Blue)
- 30188 the Jade (Green)
Wowhead's tooltip for quest 31811 (2026) confirms a Riding the Skies under that number but does not show its reward; Wowhead's page for it was not opened.
The rest is as found for the Azure Cloud Serpent, the same quest with the blue egg. The egg can still be changed before Choosing the One is handed in (a 2012 Wowhead comment). A character gets only the one serpent from the quest, and San Redscale sells all three at Exalted, at 2,400 gold on the wiki's page for the reins and 3,000 on its page for him, the same price before the discount that Exalted gives. Cloud Serpent Riding, once needed for the quest and the mount, went in patch 6.0.2.
The quest is tied to the hatchling's story and not only to the standing: players who reached Exalted mostly through eggs and tokens report that no final quest appeared (Wowhead comments of 2019 and 2020, as read for the Azure Cloud Serpent), which is why the Revered quests are listed under Before you go. A hotfix of May 2024 mended the quest handing out the wrong colour (wiki, as read for the same mount).
Faster ways to the reputation that the guide and its comments name, none of them counted here: the Quivering Firestorm Egg from Huolon and the Crimsonscale Firestorms on the Timeless Isle, a repeatable hand-in worth 1,000 that is bound to the account, and reputation tokens bought with Timewarped Badges. Whether the reputation itself is shared across the Warband was not established.
Elder Anli's place is Wowhead's tooltip position as read for the Azure Cloud Serpent (the wiki has 57.7, 44.9); San Redscale stands at 56.6-56.8, 44.4. Wowhead's guide dates from 2018 and does not name Riding the Skies.
Confidence in this entry: medium. Looked up in 2026.
Sources