Are wearable item cosmetic overrides locked behind real-money?

[Espionage724]

I got Ghostly Robes recently and thought it would be kind of neat to override my gear with it for a bit. If I understand right, I need Keepsake keys for every individual item I want to make a cosmetic override (6). And if I recall correctly, to buy that amount of keys, I need an amount of Runecoins that comes to over the price of 1 month of membership.

I'm hoping I'm just misunderstanding something? In WoW, I can transmog gear freely with a very small amount of in-game gold, and GW2 hands you dozens of their cosmetic override equivalent for free for playing the game (completing quests, dailies, and events).

Is there a way to get wearable items as cosmetic overrides without real-money?

[Alex Undeath]

You're correct, you will have to buy the keepsake keys and each item consumes a key which is a one time use. You can buy bonds in-game with gold and use it to buy Runecoins to purchase the keepsake keys with. I've done that from time to time.

There are also some tokens on the Grand Exchange that have some cosmetic overrides, not sure if they would be outfits you're interested in but may be worth taking a look at.

[fiat luxia]

Buy a bond with ingame gp and you can unlock keepsake keys with runecoins without using real money.

Whether it's worth the ingame gp cost is up to you. Or you can use your debit card.

[Xaphnir]

No, they are not locked behind real money. You can acquire the premium currency via gameplay without spending a single real dollar.

But it does cost far more in game currency than, say, transmog in WoW.

[Mumfy ξ]

If you are a member you can go into the solomon store to accept a free cosmetic/pet/item each month.