This is our "Main Guild Rp Line" page, following the current story on Hakkar the Soulflayer and our part in it up to date.

This is a place of reference for those newcomers who have absolutely NO idea what's going on/we're talking about, and should hopefully be updated weekly as it needs to be. (So even if you regulars take a few days off and some big stuff happens, you can catch up here as well.)

The post immediatly following this one is some background information on Hakkar the Soulflayer (as taken from www.WowWiki.com), and the post following it is the story of how the Roses got involved in Hakkar in the first place. It will be changed as it needs to be, and I will be locking this thread after each update. If anyone has any questions or concerns about anything that's posted here, you may address these in the "Concerns? Suggestions? Updates?" thread over in the General forum.

Hakkar is a powerful entity in the history of Azeroth, and old god to the trolls. Brann Bronzebeard believes that he may be a son of an Old God or even an Old God himself.

The long centuries following the Great Sundering of the world were difficult ones for the troll race. Famine and terror were commonplace within the broken kingdoms. The Gurubashi trolls, driven to desperate ends, sought aid from ancient, mystical forces. Though both of the troll kingdoms shared a central belief in a great pantheon of primitive gods, the Gurubashi fell under the sway of the darkest one.

Hakkar the Soulflayer, a vile, bloodthirsty spirit, heard the trolls' call and decided to aid them. Hakkar gave his secrets of blood to the Gurubashi and helped them extend their civilization across most of Stranglethorn Vale and certain islands of the South Seas. Though he brought them great power, Hakkar wanted more and more for his efforts.

The bloodthirsty god demanded souls be sacrificed to him daily. He dreamed of gaining access to the physical world so he could devour the blood of all mortal creatures. In time the Gurubashi realized what kind of creature they had courted with -- and turned against him. The strongest tribes rose up against Hakkar and his loyal priests -- the Atal'ai.

The terrible war that ensued between Hakkar's followers and the rest of the Gurubashi tribes is spoken of only in whispers. The budding empire was shattered by the magic unleashed between the angry god and his rebel children. Just as the battle seemed most hopeless, the trolls succeeded in destroying Hakkar's avatar and banishing him from the world.

Even his Atal'ai priests were eventually driven back to the capital of Zul'Gurub and the swamplands of the north.

Though the priests were defeated and ultimately exiled, the great troll empire collapsed upon itself. The exiled priests fled far to the north, into the Swamp of Sorrows. There they erected a great temple to Hakkar - where they could prepare for his arrival into the physical world. The great dragon Aspect, Ysera, learned of the Atal'ai's plans and smashed the temple beneath the marshes. To this day, the temple's drowned ruins are guarded by the green dragons who prevent anyone from getting in or out. However, some of the fanatical Atal'ai have survived Ysera's wrath - and recommitted themselves to the dark service of Hakkar.

Their spiritual leader, Jammal'an, had what he called a prophecy. He believed the summoning of Hakkar will bring the Atal'ai immortality.

They even prepared a dark ritual to call the Avatar of Hakkar back into the physical world, but it was finally interrupted by a group of heroes, invading the temple.

In recent times, the Atal'ai priests discovered that Hakkar's physical form could only be summoned within the ancient capital of the Gurubashi Empire, Zul'Gurub. Unfortunately, the priests have met with recent success in their quest to call forth Hakkar -- reports confirm the presence of the dreaded Soulflayer in the heart of the Gurubashi ruins.

In order to quell the blood god, the trolls of the land banded together and sent a contingent of High Priests into the ancient city. Each priest was a powerful champion of the Primal Gods -- Bat, Panther, Tiger, Spider, and Snake -- but despite their best efforts, they fell under the sway of Hakkar. Now the champions and their Primal God aspects feed the awesome power of the Soulflayer. Any adventurers brave enough to venture into the foreboding ruins must overcome the High Priests if they are to have any hope of confronting the mighty blood god.

The Wind Serpents are the cousins of him and their spirits are linked to him.

The above information was obtained via www.Wowwiki.com/Hakkar_the_Soulflayer

While venturing through the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale, Meru and Wulff happened upon the northwest waters off the coast of the Vale, the Vile Reef.
Explorers that they are, neither of them could resist swimming the Reef's waters to check out what kinds of wildlife inhabited the area, along with any enemies they may enounter. They had swam roughly halfway out into the reef when Meru spotted a small island off to the North. After a quick discussion, both elves changed direction and headed directly for this island, eager to check it out.
Halfway to their destination, Meru was overcome with a feverish need to reach land, and shapeshifted into her Sea Lion form, leaving the Hunter trailing far behind. Morphing back into her elven form once her feet touched the sandy shore, she paused and stared about in awe. A troll tribe, the Zandalar, had made their home here and after a few words with one of the inhabitants, she learned the isle's name was Yojamba.

When the Hunter finally reached the shore with Wrath in tow, he found Meru walking slowly around the isle's shore, speaking to the few trolls who would conversate with her. He frowned, something seemed off about this place...
Wulff shook it off momentarily and approached one of the nearest trolls and introduced himself. The troll, who refused to give her name, smiled lightly down at him and told him of part of the Zandalar's purpose for inhabiting the small isle. They had come to Yojamba to recruit fighters of all classes and races to aid them in their fight against the resurrected Blood God, Hakkar the Soulflayer.
Not liking the sound of being 'recruited' by the strangely creepy trolls, Wulff turned to call to Meru and suggest they leave when he spotted her walking off down the path toward a shrine of sorts. Calling after her, the Hunter quickly caught up and ventured through the narrow passageway into a bone and skull littered shrine. Meru paused and knelt down to read the inscription set in the stone at the center of the shrine while Wulff looked about with unease. The skulls around them were defidently Human, Orcish, Elvish, and a Dwarf or two... nothing that boded very well with his earlier assumptions of 'recruitment' to run off and help slay a powerful Old God.
He tugged lightly at the Druid's shoulder, insisting that they get the hell outta there as he pointed out the origins of the bones around them. Contemplative of the stone and it's meaning, she reluctantly came to her senses and made her way out of the shrine with him.

The two of them were making their way past a well-dressed troll with deep crimson hair and a book of ancient texts in his hand, when Meru suddenly paused. It felt as though something had just pierced through her, causing the Druid to shudder. She turned slightly to make eye-contact with the troll, who allowed a small smirk to spread across his lips as he chanted something inaudiable under his breath, and Meru froze up, blanking out as her conscious was put under.
Wulff turned on his heel and frowned at her, small slivers of fear prickling up his spine when he couldn't seem to rouse her out of the deadlocked gaze her and the important looking troll shared. He watched as Meru stepped away from him and knelt before the troll, her head bowed, and after giving her a small smile, the troll turned to one of his guards and commanded he bring the Atal'ai Priest they held captive before him.
Wulff tried again to rouse Meru from her transfixed state as the troll drew binding circles out of dark magic on the sand, which the Atal'ai Priest was then stood in, but the Druid refused to move; turning her head to snap at the Hunter and tell him to leave her be, she was observing "Master Exzhal", whom the Hunter could only assume was the importantly dressed troll before them. In slight horror he watched as Exzhal interrogated the Priest before him, the two of them talking over such things as Hakkar's return to this world, the destruction it would bring, how nothing the Zandalar's did would help because not even the Primal Gods could help them now... all stuff that Wulff cared not about, only that there was something off about these trolls and they had managed to loop his wife into it somehow.

Not long after the interrogation began, Exzhal ordered the execution of the Atal'ai Priest, and returned to looking over the book in his hands. Seeing this as his opportunity, Wulff reached out to the Druid again, but she did as she had before and snarled at him, refusing to move. After several more futile attempts to get her to leave, the Hunter reluctantly drew his sword...

He sliced deep into her left arm, hoping the pain would be enough to shock her back to her senses, but it only infuriated her and she turned on him; transforming into her panther-like Cat form as she made a lunge for him, her claws extended.
The two of them fought hard against each other, and Wulff's battle became one for his life as he realized that the Druid attatcking him was not Meru, but indeed some other spirit who would have absolutely no problems killing him.
Finally, he landed a blow to her face that left a long jagged cut starting from her forehead and ending at her jawline... a cut that ran right through her right eye.
The pain and shock of one of her eyes suddenly lacking vision was enough to jolt "Meru" back into her own body, and the panthress shook and screamed in pain. Realizing what he'd done, Wulff immediately threw his swords off to the side and dropped to his knees before the Druid, panicking as he saw that he'd nearly killed her in addition to taking out one of her eyes. Summoning the Druid's Great Horned Owl, he sent him with a message to the Roses' most present Healer, Aiden Crane and used their hearthstones to transport the two of them back to their tavern in Menethil Harbor.

Aiden was ready for them when they arrived, and quickly set to mending the worst of the Druid's wounds that she could. Nearly all of them were soothed beneath the Priest's hands, except for the huge slice running the length of her face. One of Wulff's swords had been enchanted with Beastslaying, and sadly, that had been the one to hit her. Try though she might, Aiden couldn't get the wound to close or heal at all for that matter, and had to settle with bandaging it for now. Shaken by the experience, Meru and Wulff fled the Roses, each going their own seperate ways, not ready to deal with the clan or what had happened.

Nivven Blackstrider, the Head Tracker and mentor of both Meru and Wulff, returned to the clan shortly after the other two's departure. When he learned vaguely what had happened from Aiden and the few others that were there to witness the couple's arrival that evening, he set off hurridly to find them, needing to hear what the two of them had to say about their encounter themselves. He located Meru in the outermost reaches of the Wetlands, and slowly coaxed the Druid into speaking to him. She told him of Exzhal, the trolls of the Zandalar tribe, and what she could remember before "blanking out" and fighting Wulff. Nivven listened with growing dread building within him... he knew all to well what she spoke of, though it would still be several weeks later before he would reveal just how much he knew about the situation to them.

Several weeks after the incident on Yojamba, Nivven finally managed to coax Meru into returning to the clan, the Druid reluctant to do so because of her missing eye that she took to covering up with bandages and a azure silk hood. One evening, he revealed to her and the rest of the gathered Roses that as a child, he'd gotten into some of his mother's (a devout worshipper of Hakkar) old texts and inaverdetly became a vessel for the Blooded One. Upon learning this, Meru seemed to freeze up again before lunging at the Hunter with her skinning knife, trying to kill him. Nivven managed to fend her off with the help of Aiden and Kelldor Blackheart, a Warlock who had recently joined up with their clan. It was made apparent that there were two sould inhabiting the body of their leader: one her own, the other of one of the founding Druids of the Cenarion Circle whose name would later be revealed to be Rume Stormrage.

Rume had been deployed into Meru's body on the Druid's venture to Yojamba by the Servitor Exzhal who had been waiting for someone he deemed worthy of holding Rume's soul to come along. Apparently, the older Druid had been a great Crusader for the Zandalar in ancient times when they narrowly defeated Hakkar when he was first summoned into existance by their bretheren. She had perished in the fighting, but her soul had been stored, and now that Hakkar was again a threat in this world, Exzhal thought it fitting to give her physical form again. Rume explained to Nivven, Kelldor, Aiden, and the others gathered in the tavern, that her whole purpose in this renewed life was to defeat Hakkar and rid Azeroth of any remnants of him she could find, and with Nivven's ability to be used as a vessel by the Blooded One, he was currently number one on her list of things to destroy.

Thankfully, Rume's outbursts have been kept under control through much effort on Meru's part, and the older Druid is slowly beginning to work with them to find a way to defeat Hakkar, rather than working against them. However, the time the Roses have to sit and work on this matter is growing rapidly short. Not long after Rume's second possession of Meru, Nivven fell victim to a possession by Hakkar himself, and after a gruff screaming match between the Druid and Elder God, Rume grimly informed them that they'd all been marked... Hakkar would be doing all he could to ensnare as many of the Roses as he could with his influences to prevent any of them from working against him. Wulffsbane was the first to fall victim to this...

The Hunter finally returned to the clan after departing for several months after the incident on Yojamba. However, he was changed... something wasn't right about him... the two blades he'd possessed seemed to glow with more malice than before, as did his eyes. Wrath was no longer with him... he now held the companionship of a Wind Serpant who had coincidently 'saved' him on his journeys named Tiamat. He was hell-bent on spilling blood, and only spilling blood. The atmosphere in the tavern changed whenever he was around... it became more tense, more chilled, darker...
And finally one day... it snapped.
Rume confronted the Hunter after taking controll of Meru's body, her eyes blazing as she'd stalked towards him with her skinning knife out. Several of the tavern's occupants called to her not to harm him as they quickly made their way to the two of them, but Rume had already sprung and was stabbing the small knife into him as hard and quickly as she could, screaming about him being tainted by Hakkar's influences. Thankfully, she was pulled from him before she could kill the Hunter off, Nivven snarling at her in troll to go and stand by a post behind the counter. Reluctantly, the Druid did as she was told while Nivven and Kelldor rushed to save the dying Hunter on the tavern floor.
Nivven bandaged his wounds, and Kelldor sealed his soul off in a soulstone to clense it at a later point in time. The Warlock helped the injured Hunter up the stairs so he could go and rest while Nivven picked up his weapons from the ground and turned to the smirking Rume, asking her to elaborate just what she was on about.
With an air of someone explaining something to someone they'd rather not waste their breath on, Rume explained that since Nivven's possession, Hakkar channeled his influences into corrupting Wulff's soul... seeing as how the other Hunter was the Husband of Meru, he viewed it as a oppertune way to worm in close to then command Wulff to slay his wife; ridding Hakkar of Rume's only tie to this world.
Nivven was shocked by the news, and when told of it the next day, so was Wulff. Naturally though, the younger Hunter tried to laugh and shrug it off, but truly, all of them were concerned now. It seemed they really didn't have a choice in helping the Zandalar tribe now... and really, it seemed they never had a choice in the matter. Not since Exzhal implanted the soul of Rume Stormrage into Meru.

They got right to work. Wulff left again to re-train himself in something other than swords, having done away with the two tainted ones that had turned him into a monster and turned him from his family, Kelldor left on several solitary journeys to the Swamp of Sorrows and beyond, scouting out more information for Hakkar and just where he might be lurking. Nivven ventured off into the Barrens and then to Dustwallow Marsh, seeking out the Wind Serpants that were rumored to be the cousins of the Blooded One, determined to inspect them closer; and Meru, who was heavily pregnant, was forced to stay behind in the tavern with the rest of the Roses who conducted their daily lives while she poured over book after book of old and ancient lore, researching.
Between the four of them, they were able to uncover more information about Hakkar and his servents, the Atal'ai troll Priests. Where they reside, how they conduct operations and rituals and sacrifices... Meru was on the verge of organizing a team expedition to venture out and inspect them as a group, when personal conflicts got in the way and the search to seek out and destroy Hakkar and his supporters before they all fell victim to him and his will, was put on the back burner due to the birth of her daughter Okamii Valorin and her seperation from her husband, Wulff.

It's been several weeks since, and she has slowly been delving back into the many books she borrowed from Stormwind's ancient library, the need to get back to the clan's original task clouding her mind. However, it's all the same text, just stored in different books with slightly different spins on them. It seems the team expedition will not be able to be put off for much longer... and a group, or several groups, of the Roses will need to venture out to the Sandfury troll city Zul'Farrak and then to the Sunken Temple (the temple named Atal'Hakkar by the Atal'ai trolls) in the Swamp of Sorrows to gather more information.

This, is where our story resumes.