Zazul

* Chibi
* AQW
* Old

Dark Carnival Ringmaster

## Biography

The origins of Zazul are pretty much unknown. The earliest records of Zazul's presence is at the beginning of Safiria's rule over the vampires. Together with Nythera she has trained him to be her dark minion in the AQWorlds timeline.

By the looks and with some logic it is possible to claim that Zazul is a vampire and that Nythera bestowed him some of her void or chaos powers.

Yet he is to be considered lawful evil, since he enjoys hunting the guilty for punishment or to scare them. Over time he grew more and more independent.

The character of Zazul is rather gloomy and mischievous. He enjoys to scare people and is a lover of the dangerous side of fun. He loves tragedy, malevolence and misfortune. And indeed meeting him usually is a sign of very bad luck.

The appearance of Zazul varies from an undead victorian noble with a mask, a malevolent chibi-like creature to a scary ringmaster with the same eerie mask. He is an avid collector of Purgatorio Coins. Purgatorio is an place where souls are being send to be punished.

He set up and leads the Dark Carnival, or Cirque du Muerte. Which is a circus show led by him as ringmaster. Featuring some really dark acts. Like the Carnivorious Clowns, an alligator man, and acts wherein you can lose a lot of money... or your soul. And he travels far and wide to find more scary acts.

## AE Lore

### AQWorlds Lore

The most famous Zazul has been for in the AQWorlds lore must have been his house, which is still around. His house has despite the little decorations a lot of (death) traps, an invisible maze and a room that leads to... Purgatorio? There have also been rewards for players there.

When BattleCon was released in 2014, Zazul had a place at the entrance of the event together with Nythera. Collecting the entry ticket and warning players about account safety and BattleCon rules. His NPC got replaced by Nevaya later on. But you can still see him in the background of the yearly AE anniversary events.

Another rare event about him was released on Friday the 13th in 2015. It was the unluckiest day of Lore and Voltaire joined to show off the Dark Carnival to Lore's inhabitants. Zazul leads the show and sends heroes on quests to prove that life is one big masquerade and a divine comedy.

As he left with his Dark Carnival after, he 'accidentally' destroys the infamous original Wheel of Doom. Ending that event too at the same time.

### Hero Smash Lore

During Friday the 13th in Hero Smash, Zazul still appears seasonally with his 'Cirque du Muerte'. He challenges heroes and villains to take up against his leading acts, like the carnivorous clowns... and boasts a bit about the creepy oddities he collected for his shows.

If you manage to please him, you can get some new hero powers and items from him. For a price of course.

## Fun Facts

* Zazul actually hated the Wheel of Doom for real, because it caused a lot of Player Support issues.
* He is a fan of Voltaire.
* His character is indirectly based on Dante's Divine Comedy and he likes things like that.
* Has a pretty morbid sense of humor.
* Besides various skulls and skeletons he also had a couple of jars with candy in his office.
* Can act his character in real life too.
* Is very proud of his moustache and beard.
* Once joked that purgatorio is where permanently disabled accounts go to.

## Real life story

The first record of Zazul being with Artix Entertainment was when he got hired in 2008, shortly after the launch of AQWorlds. As being quite engaging with his audience he actually took some time each week to hang out with players in-game. Xyo made a recording in that time of hanging out with Zazul and eventually fooled him as well.

As Zazul worked from the Secret Underground lab for Player Support he closely worked together with Safiria and Nythera. Safiria eventually left, leaving Player support to him and Nythera only until it got busy and they were assisted by Kiara, Sorciakat and eventually Stratos.

Being good friends with other staff like Artix, Cysero and Warlic; Zazul was often seen in team pictures the team posted together. And yearly accompanied Artix to DragonCon in Atlanta. At Dragoncon 2010 Zazul threw candy at the attending players, an event which was later immortalized by a chibi-Zazul candy throwing battlepet for those that had attended.

Zazul took his role very seriously and is known to have been one of the most approachable Player Support staff members the community has known till this day. Despite being very strict, he did lay the foundations for what AE does now: offering small support over social media.

Because of him being this engaging, he spotted several characters in the community which became staff member later on. Like Stratos, Xyo, Gjappy and Lamp. He also was concerned about the security of the games a lot, endorsing reports about fake staff member and having a small but secret security team to make sure people didn't steal from AE.

Him being this progressive did sometimes cause him to explain things to his co-employees. After setting up the Whitehat Team in 2015 he found an interesting job offer and applied there. He got hired and thus left Artix Entertainment to chase his dream in acting and SEO marketing.