WoW Hallow's End 2023: Dates, Headless Horseman, Events, Loot

Publish date: 2024-07-31

Everything about World of Warcraft's Hallow's End 2023 Halloween event, from the level requirements to the Headless Horseman boss.

Brace yourself; Hallow's End is coming to the world...of Warcraft. Hallow's End is a World of Warcraft (WoW)'s Halloween event featuring a tonne of spooky rewards, activities to participate in, and mini-events across Azeroth for both Horde and Alliance to enjoy.

This guide outlines everything you need to know about WoW Hallow's End 2023, including the Headless Horseman boss location, requirements, and drops, alongside items and rewards, quests, and more players can acquire.

To quote the Headless Horseman: "Prepare yourselves, or be overwhelmed. The horseman descends upon this realm!"

Update on 18 October 2023: With the Hallow's End event for WoW Dragonflight now live, you have until 1 November to claim all the goodies and slay the Headless Horseman a few more times.

What is Hallow's End in WoW?

Of course, Hallow's End is World of Warcraft's Halloween event. However, according to the game's ever-expanding lore, there's a bit of a different story to it.

According to the WoW lore, Hallow's End celebrates the day a group of undead broke free from the Lich King's grasp. This group later became known as Forsaken as they regained their free will. It is celebrated by setting alight a Wickerman (more on the Wickerman festival later in this article).

Hallow's End was also used by the Alliance to celebrate the end of harvest in Lordaeron. Speaking of humans, an interesting note from the book Arthas: Rise of the Lich King is that apparently, the Alliance celebrated Hallow's End before the rise of the undead (Scourge) in Lordaeron.

WoW Hallow's End 2023 Start & End Dates

WoW Hallow's End 2023's version has a start date of 18 October 2023. It is expected to end on 1 November 2023.

Therefore, inhabitants of Azeroth have roughly two weeks to complete everything they want from Hallow's End, including getting achievements done, enjoying the festivities, and slaying the Headless Horseman over and over again for some spooky loot.

WoW Headless Horseman Boss Location & Loot

There's some more story lore and quests, and a possible hard mode added to the Headless Horseman for Hallow's End 2023, according to reports by WoWHead.

As the Halloween boss for World of Warcraft's Hallow's End, the Headless Horseman is located in the Scarlet Monastery. Players must queue up for the encounter via the Dungeon Finder, otherwise, the Headless Horseman will not spawn.

This is a 5-man encounter for players levels 10 to 50 in Hallow's End 2023.

Headless Horseman loot includes:

Only players level 45 or higher can get the Loot-Filled Pumpkin drop. The main prize that everyone wants is the Horseman's Reins mount.

The Loot-Filled Pumpkin drops:

The Horseman's Sinister Slicer
The Horseman's Horrific Hood
The Horseman's Reins
Magic Broom
Sinister Squashling
Hallowed Helm

By slaying the Headless Horseman daily during the Hallow's End 2023 event in WoW, you can turn yourself into the horseman with his sword, headpiece, mount and have a little Sinister Squashling following you around. Worth the grind, in our opinion!

Shade of the Horseman Event & Rewards

Want some riding brooms to get your inner witch out? You need to participate in the Shade of the Horseman event for WoW's Hallow's End.

In low-level villages for Alliance and Horde, players can complete tasks provided by the Marton of the area to put out fires, and then you defeat the Shade of the Horseman.

Alliance villages to protect:

Goldshire
Azure Watch
Kharanos

Horde villages to protect:

Falconwing Square
Brill
Razor Hill

After putting out the fires and defeating the Shade of the Horseman enemy, a Jack-o-Lantern will appear on the ground. Click on it to get a quest called "Smash the Pumpkin", and turn it in at the Matron for a Crudely Wrapped Gift and some Gold. The Crudely Wrapped Gift item can be opened to get Riding Brooms, candy, and masks.

Hallow's End Garrison Decor & Spooky Supplies

You can decorate your Garrison during Hallow's End. Izzy Hollyfizzle sells decorations to players, and Pepe has a Tiny Scarecrow Costume disguise for you, so don't miss out.

Decorations can be purchased with Spooky Supplies. You can get Spooky Supplies by completing the following four daily quests.

Culling the Crew - 1x Spooky Supplies
Foul Fertilizer - 1x Spooky Supplies
Smashing Squashlings - 1x Spooky Supplies
Mutiny on the Boneship - 2x Spooky Supplies

Each of the five Garrison decorations for Hallow's End 2022 costs five Spooky Supplies, so you must complete all the daily quests for five days to get them all set up.

Hallow's End 2023 Tricky Treats & Items

There are a lot of items to acquire during Hallow's End 2023, including creepy crates that provide players with Battle Pets, from the Sinister Squashling to Naxxy, and much more.

You can also purchase Creepy Crawlers in your Garrison to spawn wild pets, namely:

Spectral Spinner
Ghastly Rat
Ghost Maggot

That's not the only Hallow's End item, not even by a long shot. Players can acquire Candy via trick-or-treating, offering a buff to various stats when consumed.

Speaking of sweet treats, players can purchase Hallow's End Pumpkin Treat from Katrina Shimmerstar (Alliance) or Rachelle Gothena (Horde), which has unique effects depending on which one you get.

Large and orange, 5% chance to increase the time between attacks by 25% and reduce movement speed by 30%.
Pirate disguise and 50% swim speed increase.
Skeleton transformation and underwater breathing.
Spectral tint and levitate.

Then there are also disguises to purchase for 200 Tricky Treats, which have 50 charges each.

There's also a plethora of Marks and Wands to get during Hallow's End and Toys, with our favorite being Little Wickerman.

These items can be purchased with Tricky Treats, which brings us to our next section.

How to get Tricky Treats in WoW

You can farm many Tricky Treats during WoW's Hallow's End 2022 event. Check out the ways to get more Tricky Treats below:

Complete daily quests for up to 17 Tricky Treats daily at max level.
Complete one-time Hallow's End quests for 10 Tricky Treats.
Get four to six Tricky Treats inside the Loot-Filled Pumpkin by slaying the Headless Horseman.
Get up to three Tricky Treats from every Candy Bucket.
Convert Spooky Supplies in your Garrison to Tricky Treats.

As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to get Tricky Treats, but the fastest might be opening those Candy Buckets across Azeroth.

WoW Hallow's End 2023 Candy Buckets

Pumpkin buckets have appeared in every Inn for the Hallow's End 2023 event. These Candy Buckets are located near the Innkeeper, and each one offers a once-off quest.

Players can complete these quests for Gold and a Handful of Treats. These treats contain between one and three Tricky Treat items, and they also have a chance to include items such as snacks, masks, and more.

Interacting with one of these Candy Buckets can also debuff players (Trick), from Frog to Bat, Wisp, and Mini-Diablo.

Want to find all the Candy Buckets in WoW's Hallow's End event? WoWHead has you covered all the Candy Bucket locations in Kalimdor for both Horde and Alliance. We suggest using the Wowhead Looter addon to quickly get the locations of all Candy Buckets in WoW Hallow's End 2023.

After all, interacting with all the Candy Buckets in Inns from your faction will get you an achievement.

Please note that to see Candy Buckets in some zones, max-level players first need to speak to an NPC called Zidormi in Silithus or Darkshore.

Hallow's End 2023 Wickerman Festival Buffs

For the duration of the World of Warcraft Hallow's End event, players can pick up Wickerman Festival buffs every four hours.

You will see an announcement that the Wickerman Festival is about to begin, and 10 minutes after that, players can receive a buff from either Genn Greymane or Sylvanas. The latter is outside Undercity, while the former is outside Stormwind. This requires players to be close to the NPC in question when the Wickerman Festival kicks off.

For Alliance, the buff is called Unburdened, while for the Horde, it is called Grim Visage. Both buffs are the same, providing players with 10% experience and reputation buff for two hours.

New Hallow's End Hats in WoW

"Head to Val’sharah to undertake a quest that begins with the Hag of the Crooked Tree in Bradensbrook. Follow the tale through to its culmination and you’ll receive some Tricky Treats and a chance of receiving one of four utterly bewitching hats."

Yes, you can get some new hats during Hallow's End 2022, namely:

Hat of the First Sister
Hat of the Second Sister
Hat of the Third Sister
Hat of the Youngest Sister

There are also 21 achievements to be earned during the event. Completing the Hallowed Be Thy Name meta achievement rewards players the title: "The Hallowed"

So there you have everything we know about World of Warcraft's Hallow's End 2023 event, including all the details on Headless Horseman and other spooky activities players can get up to in celebration of Halloween.

For more World of Warcraft news, be sure to check out our dedicated section or some of our WoW Guides & Tutorials below:

Holiday Events - Hallow's End| Feast of Winter Veil

Featured image courtesy of Blizzard Entertainment.

Check out our video below, where we dive deep into the lore of the Dragon Aspects in World of Warcraft, discussing all the leaders, their history, and some family drama!