Hakkar, the Blood God

We have yet to meet a friendly Wind Serpent deity.

To step outside WoW for a moment to another iconic RPG, in Dungeons and Dragons, the closest equivalent to a wind serpent is a Coautl, which is actually a Lawful Good Celestial (the creature type shared with beings like angels.) Inspired by Mesoamerican mythological figures like Quetzalcoatl, they're basically good guys.

In WoW, Wind Serpents are an ordinary type of animal, and thus there are Loa (Wild Gods) who take that form - possibly they began life as ordinary animals that were uplifted by the Keeper Freya, which we know is what happened to make Ashamane a Wild God.

There are four wind-serpent deities we know of in WoW. Three are affiliated with Trolls (two even within Zul'drak specifically) while one is from Draenor.

Sethe was a Wild God (if that's what huge, powerful, magical, intelligent beasts are called there) who allied with the bird gods Anzu and Rukhmar to free Arak from the Primals. Each brought their own powers to the table, and what Sethe brought was a connection to the Shadow and the Void. After their victory, Sethe became jealous of Rukhmar's ability to fly high above the spires, and plotted against her. But Anzu confronted him, slaying Sethe by slamming him into what is now the Broken Spire. Sethe threatened to poison the whole world with his blood, and so Anzu ate up all of his flesh to prevent the spread of his corruption. Anzu was cursed for this, losing his ability to fly and being connected to the Void himself. Later, when the Adherents of Rukhmar cast down the Talon King Terokk to be maimed by the blood of Sethe in Sethekk Hollow, Anzu came to him as a patron deity.

How did Sethe become connected to the Void? By the time of his death, he was so filled with it that he blood created a poison that would curse people forever. This curse was the basis of the Red Mist the Horde used against the Draenei of Shattrath, creating the Krokul, or Broken, just as the Adherents had created the Arrakoa Outcasts (the existence of Krokul on Argus, independent of the Draenei who lived on Draenor, is another big question mark in that puzzle, though it could be the influence of L'ura, even so high above the surface in Mac'aree.)

On Azeroth, there are two Drakkari Loa who were both slain by the Drakkari in their desperate attempt to hold of the Scourge. Quetz'lun was slain at her shrine, and her only solace has been to torment the souls of her killers within the Shadowlands. Now, the question of Tharon'ja is sort of open: it's possible that Tharon'ja was actually a Troll, perhaps the one who siphoned the power of Quetz'lun to take on a Wind Serpent form, albeit a skeletal one. Either that, or Tharon'ja was a Loa who was somehow already undead even before the Scourge conquered Drak'tharon (with our unwitting help.)

However, the most famous of the Wind Serpent deities is Hakkar the Soulflayer. A ruling priesthood within the Gurubashi Empire attempted to summon Hakkar multiple times, first in the Temple of Atal'Hakkar, also known as the Sunken Temple. It earned that second name when the Green Dragonflight descended upon the massive temple and sunk in beneath the swamp - in fact, there's a good chance the Swamp of Sorrows is the way it is because of this destructive act to safeguard the world.

Ultimately, the Atal'ai were eventually successful, though, and summoned Hakkar to the central palace of Zul'Gurub. There, Hakkar loomed over the empire in total domination until a band of adventurers journeyed within and defeated him.

Later, when the Zandalari, spurred on by the prophet Zul, attempted to re-create their global empire, the Gurubashi, led by Jin'do the Hexxer, now called Jin'do the Godbreaker, began to channel the power of Hakkar. Jin'do pulled us into the Shadowlands, and we were only able to escape by breaking the shackles on Hakkar and setting the Blood God free. That's the last we've heard of him.

But what is Hakkar's deal? Why is he so dangerous that the Green Dragonflight had to destroy the Temple of Atal'Hakkar? And perhaps most cryptically, why does the flavor text of Soulflayer's Corruption, a Blood Death Knight legendary, specifically point out that his origins are a mystery and that he does not exist in any Titan records?

The simplest explanation for Hakkar would seem to be that he's a Wild God like the other Loa. But why such special attention, or rather, why such a mystery?

Hakkar, in addition to being called the Soulflayer, is also known as the Blood God. In the announcement for Battle for Azeroth, we learned that in the swamps of Nazmir, we're going to enter a facility called Uldir, where the Titans attempted to experiment with the Old Gods. They knew that they couldn't just tear them out of the planet after what happened with Y'shaarj, and so instead they tried to understand them and potentially change them into something that could help foster life on Azeroth rather than threaten it.

What they created instead was something that Blizzard made a special point to call a Blood God - something that was potentially more dangerous than even the Old Gods.

We know that Nazmir and even Zuldazar are being overrun by fanatical Blood Trolls, maybe devout followers of the Blood God.

But is this Blood God, which I think I read somewhere is called G'huun, the same sort of thing as Hakkar?

It could actually offer a different explanation of that line from the legendary's flavor text. Perhaps the reason there are no Titan records is not because the history has been forgotten, but because it was intentionally redacted. Maybe whatever Titanforged being was running the experiments wanted to cover up his or her actions. Maybe they wanted the record purged so that the experiments would not be repeated.

But if Hakkar was the unfortunate result of Titan experimentation, it could explain why such massive efforts went to preventing his summoning.

Still, we have a few unanswered questions:

Where were the Atal'ai summoning Hakkar from? We see him in what I assume is the Shadowlands during the Jin'do the Godbreaker fight, but that makes sense seeing as he's dead (you know, thanks to us.) Where was he when the Atal'ai tried to summon him to the Swamp of Sorrows?

Is there a connection between Hakkar and Sethe? Both are wind serpent deities whose blood is highly corruptive. They're from different worlds, but given that the Orcs associate Goldrinn with their own wolf spirit, Lo'gosh, is it possible that Hakkar and Sethe might even be the same entity in different forms?

And is Hakkar truly a "Blood God" in the "Titan+Old God" sense? Did Hakkar come out of Uldir, or somewhere else? And what connection, if any, does he have with this G'huun entity?

And why does he have the same name as a prominent Legion demon who is the final boss of the Hunter class campaign, Hakkar the Houndmaster? (Ok, that one's a silly one - I assume they named Hakkar the Soulflayer after forgetting that they already had a Hakkar in the lore. Hey, you know, one of my best friends has the same first name as I do. It happens.)

Depending on the answers to some of these questions, we might learn a lot more about Hakkar in Battle for Azeroth, and perhaps finally follow up on setting him free back in 4.1.