Mystery: Missing Creature Karzeal
The "Missing Creature Karzeal" mystery was a long running confusion in regards to a creature named "Karzeal", with no supporting documentation of their existence. The mystery was resolved on October 22nd 2025, when it was decided that it was likely a misspelling of Karver.
Description of the Mystery
On January 14th 2019 at 19:15, a change was made to the old version of the creatures page adding a batch of creature references, including a reference to a creature called "Karzeal". None of these references had pages at the time of addition, and were there to be populated with a picture and creature description at a later time. All the creature references that were added had drawings that were easy to find later on, except Karzeal was seemingly not able to be found in any sketchbook, painting, or single page when they were attempted to be drawn later. This mystery kept popping up throughout the addition of creature pages and images, as it was an empty spot that would never seem to be filled, and small investigations would arise throughout 2024 and 2025. However towards the end of the "No SPeature Left Behind 2025" event, a more thorough and long investigation has begun.
Possible Causes
There were different theories as to what Karzeal was, or why it was there. Here are some of the major hypotheses.
The Construction of the Name
One idea was that Karzeal's name would have jogged Michael's memory, as sometimes SP creatures have names that combine English, Hebrew, or Russian words together. The name was thought of as a potential combination of the English word "Carve", and either the English word "Zealous" or the Russian word "Зеленый" (Zeloni). The possibility that the name was just a random string was not dismissed, but following some naming traditions given to other creatures, it was assumed that this creature might be sharp clawed, spikey from the first word, and either green or somewhat menacing looking from the second word. Nothing that wasn't already referenced in the added reference batch in January matched this description, with the closest being Karver, whose name references his sharp claws and cat like nature.
Potential Alternate Names
Throughout the history of documenting SP creatures, there have been very rare instances where a creature turned out to have two names instead of one. With this being known, part of the investigation was to determine if a creature that was already referenced or existed might have been referred to as Karzeal at some point before, but then took on a different canonical name.
One creature that was considered was Zelonoi, due to the name potentially fitting reasons mentioned prior (construction of the name). He was green, menacing, and had sharp claws, which would be a perfect combination if the name was a direct reference to the creatures features. Additionally, he was not mentioned in the new batch of character references when Karzeal was introduced, and was not anywhere on the wiki at the time either. However, messages were found from 2017 when Zelonoi was created, mentioning him by the name he is known by now. Due to this evidence, this option was most likely disregarded.
Another creature that was considered was Sinik, as he only got a proper name much after his initial inception. He was referred to as either "Blue Shell" or "Blue Death" in much older documents starting from around 2005, but got the name Sinik around 2020 or 2021. This made him a worthy contender for being previously named Karzeal if any supporting documentation was found, especially because he matched some features like green skin, as well as a spikey form in his "Blue Death" form. Due to a complete lack of evidence however, it was largely disregarded.
The only two other creatures that were considered were Karver and Gurezal. Both of these creatures had references to cutting in their name. Karver had references to carving and cutting like mentioned before, while Gurezal's name partially considered of the Russian word "Резал", which is the male past tense form of cut/sliced. It was unlikely that either of them had prior names, as Michael had a very sharp recollection of them only ever being called those names since they were created. However, this led to an important hint later.
Misspelling
One simple idea is that "Karzeal" was a misspelling of a different creatures name that went unnoticed for a long time, and caused confusion much later when interest arose in who this creature was. This could have been somewhat likely due to the fact that it was a relatively major update compared to other updates around the time to the wiki, so a mistake could have been easier to make from fatigue or trying to complete the update quicker. Once again, Karver was suspected as a misspelling due to the closeness of the name, and also because he was on the same sketchbook page as Gurezal. This could've caused an accidental combination of the two names resulting in an "extra" creature being documented. However until October 22nd 2025, this was not the most probable cause until later evidence was collected.
Considered Resolution
There were mainly two resolutions that were considered, but neither of them were favorable. The first resolution was the simplest, and involved just removing the reference to Karzeal from the wiki. However this idea didn't sit well with Michael at all, especially during the creature documenting endeavor in 2025. The whole point of the endeavor was to preserve every single creature drawn that could be found, including one off creatures, extremely simple creatures, and creatures that heavily stuck out from the others. Removing the reference to Karzeal, if they existed, would be the same as forgetting a beloved creature forever.
The second consideration was designing a brand new creature that would be named Karzeal. For a similar reason as the above, this was not favorable, as if Karzeal did really exist, this would be overwriting an existing creature in favor of another. Even when there were thoughts of potentially making the creature represent some kind of lost soul, it would still not be the same as finding the supposed Karzeal creature to reclaim the name. When a similar case occurred where there was a confirmation of Sinik having an older/alternate design in a document from 2009, a split creature with "shared history" called Sivrem was created instead to prevent sacrificing any aspect of a creature.
Resolution
As of October 22nd 2025, this mystery was officially resolved. The conclusion was that "Karzeal" was actually a misspelling of Karver. This conclusion was not determined lightly, and went through several evidence backed steps before being decided.
The reasoning to this decision started with the fact that all of the newly added creature references on January 14th 2019 at 19:15 were found to be from the same group of photos, taken on December 12th 2016 from 16:52 to 18:22. This collection of photos featured pages from one singular sketchbook, showing the following characters in order (by page):
- Shekrah
- Fushy, Psytork, Sinik (not named), Octopus11
- Bluppy, Perellia
- Galrosa, Cloblah
- Gonkoshlex, Alaper
- Bistriple, Adomathan
- Kvarol, Soverdat, Apandoom, Antibiotah, Perajchi, Goshadar, Mernie
- Ftroodel, Kamotork, Karver, Gurezal
- Karbik, Kusik
- Krovairus, Kravara
- Yarehshi, Kadusy, Neggy, Hakerah
- Listi (labeled as Leaf Fox in that page of the sketchbook)
- Gagma (for some reason the only character not included in the batch), Comex, Haleaf
This seemed to be more than just a coincidence, in which Karver was the only missing name when comparing the creatures mentioned in the sketchbook and the creature references added on that edit. From there, there were suspicions related to the previous possible causes mentioned. This specifically refers to Sinik possibly having an older forgotten name, and Karver or Gurezal misspelling or name combination. Since Karver was the only creature not mentioned, it became more likely that he was the one with a misspelt name. In fact, Karver was added much later to the wiki on June 24th 2022 at 14:53, as part of a minor maintenance edit. Conveniently in that edit, his name went right above Karzeal in the list.
This pointed towards the fact that Karver wasn't forgotten, but was just initially misspelled. Due to the fact that the much more visual view (pictures next to the names) wasn't around at the time, there was no way of telling who Karzeal was meant to be, so the name wasn't removed when Karver's was added. Additionally, the layout of the sketchbook page largely explains where the spelling error likely came from. If tired or quickly reading from left to right, the first name Karver can somewhat blend with the later name Gurezal, making it easy to misread as "Karzeal". The idea that Karzeal might have been Sinik's old name was dismissed due to there being nothing to support it, and this new finalized idea much more likely.
Therefore, due to the fact that both Karver and Gurezal were found on the same sketchbook page, photographed as part of the same batch as all the other creatures from the same date, and Karver being the only missing reference from the edit on January 14th 2019 at 19:15, it was concluded that Karzeal never existed, and was a misspelling of Karver's name.