The Wild Hunt warriors were originally a tribe of elves, fey and celestials ruled over by a king, the Master Hunter. Although they were originally a force of good on the Prime Material Plane, other elves believed them to be evil, more out of fear, than out of reason. At the time, whenever a great force of evil threatened the lands of the Prime, they would proceed to hunt the evil down and annihilate it before returning to the Feywild.
However, because of the Master Hunter’s growing ambition and thirst for power, their behaviour changed to the point where they were no longer what they once were. Fueled by the greed and desire of their king, they slowly began to threaten the balance of the Prime Material Plane and the Feywild, their actions creating major planar bleed between the two. In order to stop them, a group of fey from the Feywild managed to gather allies and use rituals that allowed them to banish the Wild Hunt to the Far Realms. It did not end there however for the Wild Hunt, the members became warped and corrupted by the influence of the Far Realms. Instead of fighting the darkness and corruption, they embraced it. With his warriors' newfound abilities and psychic powers, the Master Hunter, now known as the Spectral King, became the herald of one of the most destructive forces on Toril.
Upon learning about their origins, many wonder how the warriors of the Wild Hunt became such juggernauts, straying so far from what they used to be. Aside from the obvious corruption from the Far Realms, the answer might also lie in their profane consumption of souls, fueling their might. With their stay in the Far Realms, the members of the Wild Hunt had been changed forever; the only way for them to feel alive was now through devouring the souls of others, feeding from them to fill the void they felt inside. Doing this allowed them to continue living a while longer, with the need of constantly feeding the hunger inside of them, the emptiness, before it would consume them all.