Just a similar model. Sethe was also void aligned.
As the sort of top caste within the troll religion, the Zandalari probably acknowledge all loa observed by all tribes in all pantheons. They just have a particular set of loa specific to their homeland that are revered above the rest.
Technically all of the trolls “believe in” and recognize all of the loas; there are just certain ones elevated above the rest within each troll empire, probably in no small part due to many of them being spiritual and physical beings, meaning they literally lived in the regions where those particular tribes established their nations and so were especially powerful and capable of granting boons there.
Remember, the animal loas at the least seem to be Wild Gods like the Ancients and August Celestials, so they probably started out as mortal creatures in ages past who were then empowered during the eruption of new life caused by Azeroth’s spilled natural energies to become more intelligent and more powerful. Eventually the trolls came along, settled in their territories and started worshiping them.
Sethe - as well as Anzu and Rukhmar - seem to be similarly born from an explosion of life on Draenor’s surface (in that case resulting from the breaking of the Sporemounds and dispersal of their hoarded life-giving energies) empowering three individuals from among the native animals on the planet. There might be others like them who just never became as prominent, or perhaps they were completely unique. Draenor’s had its own native wind serpents from as far back as TBC (though Outland’s were mutated), so that species is probably where Sethe originated.
His void “alignment” was - like Anzu’s proficiency in shadow and the arcane or Rukhmar’s mastery of Light - probably an acquired power he garnered by his increased intellect and power leading him to delve into and consort with dark forces. Anzu looked into the Void and turned away from its whispers, but I have a feeling Sethe may have at some point looked into the Void and listened to those whispers more closely than he should have.
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There’s multiple cat loa too:
Har’koa (snow leopard, Drakkari)
Bethekk (panther, Gurubashi)
Kimbul (tiger, Zandalari)
Shirvallah (tiger, Darkspear??)
Halazzi (lynx, Amani)
Xuen (white tiger, I’m counting him)
Ela’lothen (owlcat, again I’m counting him)
Unnamed Lion loa that MOTHER experiments on/kills
From what I understand, the Gods of Arak were not unique on Draenor. The life-giving energies released from the Evergrowth’s destruction caused the emergence of many giant, intelligent animals with magical powers. The problem was, at the time the conflict between the Primals and the Breakers was at its height and land-dwelling animals were constantly in danger from both of these factions, ultimately resulting in all of their deaths. Only the flying creatures, and the three super-beasts that came from flying species, were able to escape the turmoil on the surface that claimed the others.
There doesn’t seem to be a specific rule saying that only one wild god can come from each species. In fact we have one example of to bears who were brothers becoming wild gods.
It is worth remembering that Loa basically means ‘spirit entity’. Wild Gods, even when they take physical form, have their true power tied to their spirits. This is one reason the suckers keep coming back if you kill their physical bodies. By that definition, Loa cover a very broad range of things.
Now you don’t specifically have to be tied to the trolls to be considered a loa by them. However Trolls tend to revere Loa who enter into a relationship or contract with them. In fact Shadows of the Horde suggested in one of Bwonsamdi’s visions that troll origins are tied to their species forming a relationship with the spirits of Azeroth and much of their traits today are as a result of that in a similar manner to how the energies of the Well of Eternity shaped elves into what they became.
After all, troll regeneration, one of their most notable traits, is tied to their relationship to the loa and the loa have to power to take it away from them as Bwonsamdi did to Vol’jin for a while.
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He’s definitely a Wind Serpent, there was a quest in vanilla WoW about killing wind serpents cause they were related to Hakkar.
He just used void, I don’t believe he had any real connection to it. Outside of anything a regular Shadow Priest has. He was a Primal god like Rukhmar and Anzu, he just chose to use dark magic.
Primal Gods are pretty similar to Wild Gods.
Trolls do also get to pick and choose, to an extend. Darkspear, for example, choose not to worship any avian Loa because they think avian loa are weak.
Yep. One of the lore objects in Thunder Isle also indicated that there are outright thousands of loa in troll culture, to the point that individual households within tribes even observe reverence of their own collections of family loas in addition to honoring those shared within and between the tribes.
He was imbued with the void at his inception, in the same way that Anzu was with the arcane, and Rukhmar the light. From Chronicles 2:
Nevermind then, Anzu wasn’t, but Rukhmar and Sethe were. The wording for Rukhmar has no room for interpretation, but I would say that there is for Sethe’s, however the distinction is made that Anzu sought it out, Sethe “had” it and Rukhmar was explicitly imbued with it (the light). I’d therefore say Sethe was intrinsically imbued with the void.
I wish the lore was more clear cut on Loa and the Emerald Dream; the Wild Gods would probably all be considered ‘Loa’ by the Trolls, yet not all of the Loa would be considered Wild Gods by say the Night Elves. Loa tends to refer to powerful spirit entities regardless of their origin (like spiritual sponsors), whereas Wild Gods usually refer to those of animal origin.
It gets a bit convoluted because each culture has a different name and sometimes definition; for example the Gurubashi referred to them as Primal Gods while the Pandas call them (the four native to Pandaria anyway) August Celestials.
Being a predominantly Alliance player my knowledge of Troll lore isn’t as thorough, but as far as I know, Loa don’t ever truly die… do they? If not, where do they go?
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I’ve always been super interested in this as well. Is Bwonsamdi considered a ‘wild god’ the same way other Loa would be to any race? I know the Trolls tend to identify anything of a higher spiritual nature as a ‘loa’, so that’s a bit unclear.
Like, would the Trolls see the Naaru as Loa? The Old Gods?
There’s a few hints that come from neutral quests/sources.
In Zul’drak, most of the loa that are killed and have their powers stolen by the Drakkari either appear in a weakened spiritual form, or are implied to have some way to be reborn. The only loa that is dead forever there is Mam’toth, because he blew himself up, this one is 100% known.
It’s never mentioned if they have their own spiritual realms, or if they do go to the Emerald Dream. IIRC Quetz’lun in Zul’drak implies that she has her own spiritual realm to damn her traitorous followers to. Hakkar is definitely still chilling in a spiritual realm of some sort (disappointed we didn’t get anything about him in Zandalar) after the events of Zul’gurub in Cata.
In terms of Zandalar loa, we saw Sethraliss get reborn after dying to protect Vol’dun. Shadra gets offed by Yazma who wanted her to “die forever”, but even Blizzard came out and said that she might return. Rezan and Hir’eek’s fates aren’t known right now. If I had to guess, Hir’eek is probably fine because he was only killed by Troll poison from the Horde PC and Rok’han. Since Rezan was killed by Old God magic, who knows. I think it’s also the first time we’ve ever seen the physical body of a loa/wild god become an UNDEAD before though.
Between the loa and whatever the voodoo/spirits truly are, I would absolutely LOVE for Blizzard to expand more into Troll spirituality.
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Mam’toth might not even be as 100% dead as was believed either, since even though he exploded himself to prevent his power from being stolen, as evidenced by Moorabi in Gundrak that power was stolen anyway, suggesting the mammoth loa’s physical suicide may have failed to completely destroy him.
So players killing his prophet in Gundrak may well have released some portion of Mam’toth that could eventually be reborn like the others.
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