Five Years of WoW – Onyxian Whelpling

Blizzard is celebrating an anniversary.   Tomorrow, November 23rd, it will have been five years since World of Warcraft went live.  And this year’s anniversary gift is an Onyxian Whelpling.

The Whelpling

As usual, Blizzard is including the nearest weekend day as part of the anniversary celebration, so when we were on last night and the server close rolled over to midnight, we all go the message.

And that meant that in all of our mailboxes there was a surprise waiting.

We were a little busy to go check our mail at that moment, being five low level horde players in Alliance territory, but mail keeps and we were eventually able to pick up our new pets.

Like other recent special pets (Mr. Chilly, Grunty the Murloc), the Onyxian Whelpling does not go away when you train it on your character.  It is a bind on account item that you can send to your future alts (on the same server/faction).

However, the feat-of-strength achievement is not tied to the pet, so you have to log on a character today or tomorrow in order to get that.  I’ve been through all my key characters this morning.  They have all been logged in, gotten the achievement, and claimed their pet.  Several still had Mr. Chilly waiting for them as well.

So now you’ll be seeing this guy all over Azeroth.

Onyxian Whelpling

Fortunately, the whelpling is pretty small, so it won’t be too obnoxious with hundreds about.

My own five year anniversary with WoW is still a few months off.  I wasn’t there on day one, but showed up about four months later.

Update from the WoW community site:

The World of Warcraft five-year anniversary celebration is now officially underway! To mark this special occasion, any character that logs into the game between now and Sunday, December 6 at 11:59 p.m. (realm time) will receive their very own Onyxian Whelpling non-combat pet, along with a special message from the development team. We have more World of Warcraft 5-year and Warcraft 15-year anniversary festivities coming soon, so be sure to keep your eye on the official website. Thanks for being part of the adventure, and we look forward to many more whelps and great memories in the years ahead.

So you have some more time to get the whelpling.