In the original Diablo, rumors of a “secret cow level” spurred on conspiracy theories that, eventually, led to the creation of an actual Cow Level in Diablo II. While Diablo III (Check out our Diablo III review) doesn’t feature the popular map, it has something arguably sillier – Whimsyshire. The secret world is essentially the same as D2’s bovine-filled paradise, but requires a few more hoops to be jumped through before it’s opened. We’ve navigated said hoops and now have a full guide to opening up the path to the whimsical world.

Spoilers for Diablo III included, obviously...

The first ingredient is the Black Mushroom, an item that spawns in the Cathedral Level 1 in Act 1. Take the Waypoint to the Cathedral Garden and head inside. In a random room, you’ll find some large mushrooms sprouting up in the middle of the floor. Click them, and the first step is done.

Also in Act 1, Leoric Shinbone is right inside of Leoric’s Manor (because, naturally, there's where a skeleton king would leave his bones around). Swing inside and look for a fireplace – if you can use the logs inside, they’ll drop his shinbone. If not, reload and try again.

This ingredient brings you to Act 2. Head to the Waypoint “Path to the Oasis” and go straight down and hug the bottom wall. There’s an offshoot to the south with a shack, and there’s a small chance there will be a man there. If he’s not there, reload the game. If he is, save him from an attack event and he’ll let you into the Mysterious Cave. Inside the Mysterious Cave there is a chance that you’ll find a Mysterious Chest (not to be confused with any other named chests). If you find it, you have rainbow in a bottle. If not, reload and try again.

This is both incredibly easy and difficult to get. Head to the Bazaar in Act 2’s main city and wander over to the merchant on the bottom left named Squirt. She’ll sell you Wirt’s Bell for a pricy 100,000 gold. Small price to pay for Whimsyshire, though.

Load up Act 3 and head to the Fields of Slaughter (The Bridge of Korsikk Waypoint is the closest). Go straight up to the area and look for the Caverns of Frost – if there’s another cave in this area reload and try again. Inside there will be a typical assortment of enemies, but the Gibbering Gemstone can drop off of one of them. We had it drop from a random Rare (yellow-named) Chiltara, so keep an eye out for it since it’ll have a white name when it drops, making it easy to mistake for junk loot.

Izual in Act 4 has a chance to drop this. That’s it, no tricks, no frills, just keep killing him. We’ve seen it drop on the first try, and we’ve seen it drop on the 20th. Just get grinding.

Once you have everything head to the Artisan and right click on the recipe. If you have everything in your inventory and 50,000 more gold, click the Craft button and you’re the proud owner of the Staff of Herding... on Normal. To get the harder difficulty recipes you'll need to beat Nightmare or Hell, and then make a game at the last checkpoint in that mode. Go to the trainer near the companions and he'll sell you the recipe, which costs 200k (Nightmare) or 300k (Hell) to assemble.

Now, to use it…

The description for the staff says that “Only one bovine in all of Sanctuary could possibly have a use for this,” and that bovine’s skeleton is in Act 1. Head to The Old Ruins and go south on Old Tristram road until you see a cow’s skeleton. Approach and you’ll meet the Ghost of the Cow King (which we all know isn’t canon, since NO ONE actually killed the Cow King). He’ll throw out some horrid cow-themed puns before opening the door to…

Welcome! Kill all of the fluffy animals, slaughter the ponies, and loot their gold. Repeat over and over again to your heart’s content, it’s packed with phat loots and awesome experience.

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