”Pain will be the price for your insolence!”
Anzu was one of the few surviving gods of Draenor. Once worshipped by the arrakoa, few of his followers remnain, with most arrakoa having long since abandoned their old gods, in favour of, well, Old Gods. Much of Anzu's history had been lost in the destruction of Draenor, or else deliberately destroyed and covered up by the arrakoa who had turned their backs on him.
The Sethekk cult, while no longer worshipping their ancient gods, found a use for the fallen deity. They succeeded in summoning and binding Anzu under their control, and used him to attack the Emerald Dream. Druid adventurers were approached to investigate this situation, and eventually got together with four of their friends, and defeated the raven god within Sethekk Halls, in the ruins of Auchindoun. Anzu, however, was merely banished back to the shadowy realm from whence he came.
Knowledge of
Anzu was not lost in the alternate past of Draenor, however. Anzu, along with Ruhkmar and Sethe, were three ancient sky gods of Draenor. Sethe, the wind serpent, conspired to kill Ruhkmar, goddess of the sun, and sought Anzu's aid in the endeavour. Anzu pretended to play along, but instead tipped off Ruhkmar to Sethe's plans. With adequate warning, Ruhkmar was able to defeat Sethe when he ambushed her. Defeated, broken and dying, Sethe issued a curse, threatening to corrupt the world with his blood. Anzu, however, negated the effects of Sethe's curse by consuming Sethe's corpse whole. Only a single drop of blood escaped.
While Anzu had succeeded in containing Sethe's curse, the wind serpent's corruption was now inside him, robbing him of his ability to fly, and threatening to drive him mad. As a result, Anzu retreated into a shadowy realm of his own, and sent his children, the dread ravens, to destroy the remaining wind serpents.
Ruhkmar, in turn, created the arrkoa, creatures embodying her grace and Anzu's cunning. While the arrkoa once worshipped both Ruhkmar and Anzu, in time they abandoned the Raven God and came to worship Ruhkmar exclusively. Furthermore, they used the cursed pools created by the blood of Sethe as a means of punishment. The blood of Sethe seemed to have a similar effect on arrakoa as it had on Anzu, robbing them of their flight and threatening them with madness. Anzu was able to communicate with the outcast arrkoa, specifically the Talon King, Terokk, who had been betrayed and cast down. Anzu taught Terokk how to use shadow magic, and with his newfound power, founded a new home for the outcast arrkoa, the city of Sketiss.
Adventurers from Azeroth later aided Anzu in his battle against Sethe. Sethe's followers, the Sethekk, sought to resurrect their dead god, and take control of Anzu's physical form, in much the same way as they had in an alternate future. With the help of adventurers, their efforts to corrupt Anzu and resurrect Sethe were thwarted.
