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Character Information




Ah. Brilliant. You have heard of me, and I have begun to hear quite a bit of you.

Zul is a thief, sometimes a thief-for-hire or a 'guide', whom Sadie meets on her adventures. He works for The Underground and is the leader of its Egypt branch. Owney Madden (the Turkish branch leader) and Zul have a very strained relationship. Zul and Sadie interact in a witty manner that can sometimes be flirtatious (especially on Zul's side). Though Zul does steal for money, he also does not want artifacts to get into the wrong hands, namely the hands of "Anglo-Saxons taking things that don't belong to them".

Capers[]

New York

Egypt

Australia

Turkey

Official Description of Zul[]

This is a description of Zul's background given by the developers of the game through the official forum that discusses some the background of his name, his age, his personality, values, and ethnicity:

First of all, bear in mind that Zul categorically isn't his given name.  It's an alias he took - and our suspicion is that it traces back to the name of a marauding villainous sheikh in some pulp novel or silent movie.  Using it is his way of teasing people like Roland's syndicate baddies: it amuses him to think they see him as a larger-than-life cartoon bandit.

Regardless, he himself would say that the main thing about him is that he's anti-colonial.  He's not necessarily Egyptian, or even in favor of Egypt as an independent state (as opposed to part of a larger Arab or post-Ottoman pan-national entity); he mostly doesn't want rich Brits and Americans to have stuff that's rightfully not theirs, and he has a certain romantic bias toward keeping antiquities in or near their place of origin.  At the same time, though, he's notoriously willing to sell Egyptian antiquities to, say, private Turkish collectors.  If a trade gives him some money and puts treasures safely out of the hands of people he doesn't like, he's generally okay with it.

As far as his ancestry goes: it's hard to be sure (since he lies a lot), but Roland's best guess would be that he's descended from an Indian merchant family that relocated to Muscat (in modern Oman) in the 19th century.  It's not clear where he got his archaeological training, but he's believed to have corresponded with Sir Mortimer Wheeler (and, for that matter, Ruddy) in the late `20s under the name "Dr. Rahul Malik," and at the time he displayed real familiarity with both contemporary archaeological techniques and academic politics in and around Oxford and University College London.

All that said, he's probably happiest in Alexandria and Beirut, when he's not out in the field somewhere.  If that makes him Egyptian or Lebanese in his heart... well, why not?  He certainly has fake documentation to back it up.

He's in his early to mid-30s.

[2]

Trivia[]

  • Zul al Zan is a made-up name.
  • Zul was such a popular character, the fans convinced the game creators to add a route for Zul in the sequel.
  • Zul knows German, Turkish, Arabic, and can read Hieroglyphics.
  • Zul can assume a convincing British accent.
  • Completing all capers featuring an appearance of Zul may yield the achievement Bonded with the Bandit.
  • Zul has a scar over his left eye.
  • Zul had a stash of stolen items in Marc Antony's chamber in the Pergamon Library ruins.
  • Zul used to be an archaeologist.
  • Zul is known as The Pirate of the Sand Seas (self-titled).
  • Zul was a successful antiquities preservationist under the name Mesud Osman (though he was actually fencing some items).
  • Zul may write to Sadie: "Madden and I are no longer... associates," meaning that he may have left The Underground.
  • Roland states, "(Zul) brings in enough to make quota and to gain access to (The Underground's) resources, but he doesn't like loot found in Muslim territories going to the West....Most of what he finds goes to private collectors in Turkey and Damascus...The Underground has its agents in those places too, of course - and that makes Zul as much a competitor as a partner in some cases." Zul has a very loose association with The Underground and is really just using it as a means to an end.

Gallery[]

References[]

  1. [1]Black Chicken Studios Forum post by the developers, 9th post
  2. [2]Black Chicken Studios Forum post by the developers, 4th post
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