Quest anywhere in the middle of The Barrens and sooner or later a red stone lands in your bags: a Blood Shard. Most players sell it for a few copper without knowing that a caged quilboar in Camp Taurajo trades it for real power. Mangletooth turns Blood Shards into six buffs, from +10 Strength for half an hour to +30% movement speed, and none of them costs a single copper.
WoW Forever keeps this Classic system unchanged, so it is once again one of the best small tricks of Horde leveling in the Barrens. Below you will find what Blood Shards are, the two quilboar camps where they drop fastest, how to unlock Mangletooth with a one-shard quest at level 14, every buff with its price and duration, what Alliance players can do with their shards and answers to the questions players ask most.
A Blood Shard is a small stone item that stacks to 10 and sells to vendors for 25 copper. In his quest text, Mangletooth explains where it comes from: the blood of the demigod Agamaggan soaked into the earth of the Barrens and stained some of its stones red. The Bristleback tribe digs these stones up and carries them as totems for strength in battle.
For players, Blood Shards have exactly one use. Mangletooth takes them in exchange for temporary blessings, and every blessing is a repeatable quest that you can turn in as often as you have shards. The shards are not soulbound, so you can mail them to an alt, trade them to a friend or buy them on the auction house instead of farming them yourself.
Blood Shards come from two sources: the Bristleback quilboar who live north of Camp Taurajo, and the copper and tin veins in the same part of The Barrens. Both sit in level 16 to 20 territory, which is exactly where a Horde character quests at that point anyway.
Four kinds of Bristleback drop shards. When a shard drops, it is one or two of them with equal odds, and three of the four mobs drop something on about every second kill.
| Mob | Level | Drop Chance |
|---|---|---|
| Bristleback Water Seeker | 16-17 | About 52% |
| Bristleback Hunter | 17-18 | About 38% |
| Bristleback Thornweaver | 18-19 | About 53% |
| Bristleback Geomancer | 19-20 | About 53% |
The quilboar live in two camps. The east camp, across the road from Camp Taurajo around /way 52.5 55, is the densest: all four types spawn close together, so you can pull without pause. The west camp stretches along the hills from /way 41 45 down to /way 47 54 and has more Bristleback Hunters, who drop shards less often. On average a kill gives about 0.7 shards, so the 30 shards for all six buffs take around 40 to 45 kills.
If you have Mining, mine every Copper Vein and Tin Vein you pass in the area. Each vein in the Barrens has about a 49% chance to give one to three shards on top of the Copper Ore or Tin Ore, so a miner collects shards at the same pace as a quilboar hunter and gets ore for free. Turn on Find Minerals to see the veins on your minimap. Copper veins open at skill 1, tin veins need skill 65.
Our WoW Forever mining guide shows where each ore spawns and how to level the profession from 1 to 300 on the way.
Short on time? Check the auction house before you leave Orgrimmar. Shards are not soulbound, and players who do not know what they are for sometimes list whole stacks for very little.
Mangletooth is kept in a cage in Camp Taurajo at /way 44.6 59.2. He is a quilboar shaman of the Razormane who still knows the magic of Agamaggan, and he only shares it with players who first show they understand it.
To unlock him, pick up Blood Shards of Agamaggan at level 14 and hand in a single Blood Shard. The quest gives 1,250 experience and 75 reputation with Orgrimmar. After that, Mangletooth offers six repeatable quests, one per blessing, and you can turn them in whenever you have enough shards.
Mangletooth also starts Tribes at War, which asks you to kill 6 Bristleback Water Seekers, 12 Bristleback Thornweavers and 12 Bristleback Geomancers. Take it before you head out: those 30 kills alone bring in around 20 shards, enough for four or five blessings.
Another level 14 errand starts on the same road. The Horde part of the Cozy Sleeping Bag chain begins at a burnt tower on the road south of Camp Taurajo, and our WoW Forever Cozy Sleeping Bag guide walks through every step of it, so both are easy to do on one trip.
Each blessing is its own repeatable quest. You pick it in Mangletooth's dialogue, hand in the shards, and the buff lands on you right away. Different blessings stack with each other, so you can wear all six at once, but the same blessing does not stack with itself.
Five blessings cost 4 shards each and the speed buff costs 10, so all six together cost 30 shards.
| Blessing | Effect | Duration | Blood Shards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agamaggan's Strength | +10 Strength | 30 minutes | 4 |
| Agamaggan's Agility | +10 Agility | 30 minutes | 4 |
| Wisdom of Agamaggan | +10 Intellect | 30 minutes | 4 |
| Rising Spirit | +25 Spirit | 30 minutes | 4 |
| Razorhide | +25% armor, damages melee attackers | 10 minutes | 4 |
| Spirit of the Wind | +30% movement speed | 5 minutes | 10 |
Thirty shards is a fair amount of farming at level 15, so most players pick the two or three blessings that fit their class.
The timers start the moment you hand in the shards. Buy the blessings when you are ready to leave Camp Taurajo, not before you sell your loot and train skills.
Mangletooth's blessings last half an hour at most. For longer buffs you can get anywhere in the world, see our WoW Forever camping guide, which lists every camp object and the hour-long buff it gives. And if the Barrens grind is not your idea of fun, our WoW Forever leveling service takes care of the climb.
No. All of Mangletooth's quests, from Blood Shards of Agamaggan to Spirit of the Wind, are Horde only, and he sits inside Camp Taurajo, a Horde town full of guards. Alliance players still loot shards from the Bristleback and from veins in The Barrens, but they cannot spend them.
The shards are not wasted, though. An Alliance character can sell them to a vendor for 25 copper each, or post them on a neutral auction house for Horde players who want to skip the farm.
These are the questions players ask most often about Blood Shards and Mangletooth.
They buy temporary buffs from Mangletooth in Camp Taurajo: +10 Strength, Agility or Intellect, +25 Spirit, extra armor, or +30% movement speed. They have no other use besides selling them.
To Mangletooth, the quilboar in a cage in Camp Taurajo in the Barrens, at /way 44.6 59.2.
Level 14. That is when you can take Blood Shards of Agamaggan, the one-shard quest that unlocks all six blessings.
Thirty: 4 each for Strength, Agility, Intellect, Spirit and Razorhide, and 10 for Spirit of the Wind. Add one more for the unlock quest the first time.
Different blessings stack, so you can have all six at once. The same blessing does not stack with itself.
Yes. Blood Shards are not soulbound, so they can be traded, mailed and sold on the auction house.
Not as of the October beta. The drops, the costs and the six blessings are the same as in Classic.
These guides cover more ways to get stronger and level faster in the same part of the world.
