Hello The hello message contains the sending router's priority and state

information. Hellos are exchanged every three seconds. If a router fails to send a hello
in a specified amount of time, the receiving router, if priority dictates, becomes the
primary router for the group.

Coup When a secondary router becomes the primary router, it sends a coup
message to the routers in the group.

Resign When the primary router is about to shut down, or when it has received a
hello message with a higher priority than its own, it forfeits the primary position with
a resign message.

Preemption

The HSRP preemption feature enables the router with highest priority to immediately
become the Active router. Priority is determined first by the priority value that you
configure, and then by the IP address. In each case a higher value is of greater priority.
When a higher priority router preempts a lower priority router, it sends a coup
message. When a lower priority active router receives a coup message or hello
message from a higher priority active router, it changes to the speak state and sends a
resign message.

Most appliances that are set up in Active / Passive HA rely on gratuitous arp.
Generally the active node owns all the IP addresses and will use a 'Virtual MAC' address
which a client will cache as an ARP entry.
When the active node fails and the passive node then becomes the 'master / new active' node,
it is now owns those IP addresses and the Virtual MAC.
The problem is, for example, the CAM table of a switch. It will have the 'Virtual MAC'
bound to the interface that the 'original' active node is connected to causing a loss in
communication until the CAM table is updated.
With gratuitous arp, the passive node when it takes over and becomes the new active/master
node will say "Hey Mr. Switch, flush out the Virtual MAC address you have associated on
interface fa0/1 and register that to the interface I am connected on pronto! Cause I'm the new
bad ass on the block".
This is also applicable for when the failed devices recovers (depending on configuration).
VRRP:

Skew time = 1-(priority/256).

The skew time is inversely proportional to the priority, the hypothetical topology depicted in
figure 1 better illustrates the utility that lurks behind the concept.
Figure1: skew time and priority

The hold time allows backup routers to be aware of a failure of the master for them to be able
to send their advertisements and participate to the election of the new master, but with many
routers as backup with different priorities it is clear that only the backup router with the
highest priority will become the Master, so there is no need for the others to participate to the
masquerade : ); thereby, using the skew time, only the backup router with the next highest
priority will send its advertisements, become the Master and inform all others, if for any
reason it is also not available, The next highest priority backup router will claim the master
state.

This lab (Figure2) shows how to configure multiple VRRP groups to implement load sharing
Priority can be set in range of 1-254. Priority of 255 is reached only if vIP is the
same as address of interface. Priority of 0 means that router is not part of the
group anymore. Higher priority is better.