Sym Zarafat

Born and raised on Draculous, the Ptevos home world, Sym Zarafat serves at the pleasure of Rex Saasha, the Ptevos king. He has been doing battle with Captain Smoke for a very long time, and is responsible for destroying the Clipper. The death of General Zarafat’s son, Yason, changed him. What was once a Ptevos with morals, is now a bloodthirsty killer.

He stands at least 7′ tall with thick gray skin, short powerful arms, and thick, muscular legs. The off-white horn above his forehead is over a foot long and is in stark contrast to his black eyes. General Zarafat dresses in thin, black armor that covers his torso and legs.  His voice is raspy and menacing.

Author’s Note:

Over the course of a seven book series, a lot can happen and I like to think that all of the characters I have created will morph into something different than they originally were. As the story continues General Zarafat might be the character that transforms the most. I’m not a big fan of setting a character in stone. People change, and so do characters in a book.

People ask me if General Zarafat was named after Yasser Arafat and the answer is yes and no. I was in the Borders book store on 2nd Ave and 32nd Street in Manhattan and I was trying to come up with names for the main villain. I had decided that I wanted his name to start with a Z for some reason. I think I had Zaxxon on the brain. I was near the magazine aisle and I spotted a copy of some magazine with a distorted version of Arafat on the cover. They had made him look like a snake, just pure evil. I put the Z on the front of his name and that became General Zarafat. This is not a political statement nor a comment on the man himself. I saw a striking image and the name just fell together.

Charlie’s Note:

General Zarafat was very difficult to understand at first. He burned with a rage I had only seen once before. It wasn’t until I learned about his son that I figured out how he had become such a monster. The back and forth battles he had with Brandon caused me to worry no end. I wondered what it would take to stop this creature.