I watched a pale steed slip between tents in the Gold Coast Bazaar and felt a tight, immediate want. You close your inventory and swear this will be the season you finally collect something worth showing off. I spent an hour chasing event boxes and came away with a plan you can follow.
I’ll walk you through how the Thorn’s Bite Withersteed drops, which pieces arrive when, and how to stop wasting Trade Bars on hope. I play regularly and I pay attention to Zenimax Online Studios’ event cadence, so you won’t have to guess which festival to camp.
How to get all parts of the Thorn’s Bite Withersteed mount in ESO
Every seasonal festival drops a fresh batch of boxes and a predictable flurry of players camping the same spawns.
The Thorn’s Bite Withersteed is a piecemeal mount: each cosmetic part appears during specific events and then cycles through the Impresario’s stock. Think of the mount as a velvet guillotine—gorgeous, ominous, and assembled one shard at a time.
- Blooming Saddle: Available from golden Jester’s Festival boxes and purchasable from the Impresario during the Anniversary Jubilee.
- Gilded Stirrups: Drops from Glorious Anniversary Jubilee boxes and shows up in the Impresario’s inventory with Zeal of Zenithar.
- Withered Antlers: Begins dropping during Zeal of Zenithar event boxes and returns to the Impresario when the Witches Festival runs.
Each component can also be bought from the Impresario for 1,000 Trade Bars during their featured celebration. Trade Bars aren’t real-world money, but they’re the in-game currency you’ll burn if you don’t want to gamble for drops. Event boxes are casino chips for collectors, each one a small coin stamped with chance.
How do I get the Thorn’s Bite Withersteed in ESO?
You collect the mount by gathering its three separate parts across events. Open golden Jester’s Festival boxes for the saddle, grind Anniversary Jubilee content for the stirrups, and chase Zeal of Zenithar and the Witches Festival for the antlers. If you miss a drop, the Impresario usually stocks pieces during the following celebration for Trade Bars.
Can I buy all parts from the Impresario?
Yes, but there’s a price. During the Anniversary Jubilee and similar sales windows each piece often shows up for 1,000 Trade Bars. That’s a decent shortcut if RNG has been unkind, but if you’re economy-minded—grab a golden box daily and treat Trade Bars as a fallback.
What drops the Withered Antlers?
Withered Antlers start appearing in event boxes during Zeal of Zenithar, then later in the Impresario’s stock during Witches Festival. You can also get similar items from world boss loot, dungeon and trial final bosses, arenas, and sources like Tho’At Replicanum in Infinite Archive.
Practical tips I use: prioritize one golden box a day from the Gold Coast Bazaar when Jester’s Festival runs, and collect event crates from daily quests, incursion events (the Alik’r Desert dolmens are common), Tales of Tribute, and Cyrodiil’s Rewards for the Worthy. Note that there’s roughly a five-minute cooldown between obtainable boxes, so spamming the same dolmen isn’t efficient.
The Roseblood Wings Recall may be absent for now, but the Roseblood Bat pet parts still appear via the Impresario for the same 1,000 Trade Bars each—so if you’re hoarding Trade Bars for cosmetics, that’s another tempting drain on your stash.
I’ve chased mounts across festivals and tested the cooldown math for a week; you can do this without emptying your vault, but you’ll need patience over panic. Do you think farming every event box until you get the antlers is worth the time, or should collectors just pay the Trade Bars and move on?