Originally summoned millennia ago to strengthen and protect the Troll tribes of Stranglethorn Vale (The Gurubashi Empire), Hakkar often demanded daily sacrifices and worse to appease him. Eventually, a few tribes realized Hakkar was using them to regain his full power in this world in order to conquer it all, and rebelled against him and his followers. In the bloody battle that ensued, Hakkar was banished and the Troll tribes splintered. Hakkar’s followers were exiled from the tribes, but they did not stop in their quest to serve.

The exiles banded together to form a new tribe devoted to his service, they were known as the Hakkari, and they were determined to see Hakkar regain his full power. Eventually, Hakkar was again not pleased with simple blood sacrifices, and demanded to be summoned into the world. It was then when the Hakkari finally realised that Hakkar was evil. However, a fanatical faction of the Hakkari, known as the Atal’ai (his High Priests in fact), believed that Hakkar should be summoned.

The Hakkari called upon the most powerful and mysterious troll tribe, the Zandalar Tribe from the South Seas, and with them united to destroy the Atal’Ai. However, the remaining Atal’Ai trolls fled north into the Swamp of Sorrows erecting a temple to summon Hakkar, named the Temple of Atal’Hakkar. There, they once again attempted to summon the Blood God into Azeroth, but Ysera, ruler of the Green Dragonflight, felt Hakkar’s unnatural spirit from the Emerald Dream and smashed the temple beneath the marshlands of the Swamp of Sorrows. She left loyal members of her Flight to guard the ruins, under the command of a Green Dragon, Somnus. Now, the Hakkari are once again devoted to summon Hakkar after being subtly brainwashed by him and his High Priests from the Atal’ai. Hakkar the Soulflayer has now manifested himself in the Gurubashi ruins in northeastern Stranglethorn Vale known as Zul’Gurub. In response to this, the trolls of Stranglethorn sent their most powerful priests of the Five Aspects to vanquish him:

High Priestess Mar’li of the Spider God, Shadra.
High Priestess Jek’lik from the cult of Hir’reek the Bat God.
High Priest Venoxis of arlokk Snake God.
High Priestess Ar’lokk, a devotee of Beth’ekk the Panther God.
High Priest Thek’al of Shirvallah the Tiger God.
In World of Warcraft he is a boss in two instances, the first is the Temple of Atal’Hakkar where one of the bosses is an ethereal shade of Hakkar, however this incarnation is a pale comparison to the actual Hakkar in terms of power, the actual Hakkar with his true power is the final boss in the Zul’gurub raid instance.

This incarnation of Hakkar is unrelated to Hakkar the Houndmaster from Richard Knaak’s War of the Ancients novel series.