I haven't gotten far into the show yet, but didn't someone say that Star starts creating her own spells at some point? That screams "someone who understands magic" to me.

Also, five seconds of research tells me that early on she starts writing her own book of magic, they sell a copy of it on Amazon and apparently the books is filled with notes that Star wrote, in addition to the magic and secrets and stuff.

Someone writing their own book, and even if it's literally just copying stuff from a source or just writing down stuff she already knows it still forces her to memorize information and consciously think about it, and filling in the margins with extra notes and stuff ... that screams to me someone who understands magic and has at least a decent level of knowledge on the subject in an academic sense.
 
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Curse of the Kernelumper
Curse of the Kernelumper

Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorpated,

12:58 A.M.


"Mama, may I come in?" A lawn-gnome asks into a door behind himself.

"No!" says a voice from inside a lone, wooden cottage.

The lawn-gnome shivers as the cold air of Drusselstein strikes him fiercely. He has been standing out here for hours, protecting his family's garden from witches' spells and wood trolls. If not him, then who? Their previous lawn gnome had been repossessed, and so he was forced to protect the garden himself. Still, for a young boy, it did get rather lonely in the dark nights of Drusseilstein, where the wolves still howled and the Doonkelberry Bats flew free.

He hadn't eaten for hours. No matter what, he was told to stay still, and stay in place, lest the worst of Drusseilstein ruin their family. He was already in bad straits with his family for humiliating them. He had been a schnitzel instead of becoming a man, making his family the mockery of the town. He knew that he couldn't afford to mess up again.

Still, his eyes glanced over to a bowl a few feet away from him. His mother had left a bowl of delicious doonkelberries out to dry overnight to eat during the coming winter. He alone was responsible for keeping them safe from the swarming Doonkelberry Bats. Every time he asked for a bite to sate his hunger, his mother simply said, "No!"

After so many hours without food, however, they looked rather tempting. He looked to his left and right, checking that no one was watching. He slowly inched over to the bowl before starting to reach out, awaiting his mother to yell, "No!" at him again before threatening to disown him for leaving the garden unprotected. There was no yell. His parents must have finally gone to sleep.

Content that he wasn't being watched, he reached out to the bowl of doonkelberries to finally snack. A shadow began to rise over him from behind.

"GOOD CHILDREN DON'T STEAL DOONKELBERRIES," a harsh, grating voice said.

The gnome tensed, slowly turning to witness the shape that had approached him. As his eyes laid upon the horrific figure's gaping maw, he screamed,

"AHHHH, der KINDERLUMPER!" Heinz Doofenshmirtz shot up from his computer with a yell. Still feeling the beating of his heart from the nightmare, Heinz quickly erased all of what he had been working on for the past few hours.

He had been working for days to set up an actual system to govern the Tri-State Area. He had gotten tired of the mountains of paperwork, the endless Human Resources complaints from Max that "Elrik the Visigoth isn't suited to run the teen-outreach program," the feeling of a bowl of mints when he wanted to call for someone! Thus he toiled for days on end to straighten out his bureaucracy for the first time since he became ruler of the Tri-State Area.

It occurred to him though, "Why should I have to do any of this work if I hate it so much?"

In his sleep-deprived mind, Heinz had a most EVIL idea! His pumpkin had warned him that the Trojans had been hacking at computers lately and to get better security. He trusted Genghis to be able to defend him, but could Genghis defeat an entire army of Trojans? Heinz wasn't sure. Greeks were very good at beating nomads, and even 200% of a Mongol warlord might not be enough to defeat Trojans, so Heinz felt he needed another layer of security.

Instead of just being a bureaucracy A.I., Heinz thought, it could also have a mode for defending from Trojans and other invading enemies! Like every other invention he made, Heinz took inspiration from his Tragic Backstoriestm to design an A.I. that would truly be capable of assessing all threats and stopping all foes. He would call it, "der Kernerlumper," after the Drusselsteinian tale of der Kinderlumper. Like der Kinderlumper, his A.I. would profile all people coming into close contact with his important employees or with Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated incorporated properties, assess what their known status was and their stances towards his territory, and potentially defend any of those deemed "Naughty" by the Artificial Intelligence. With time, he might even be able to advance it enough to connect it to a camera system through all of Doofania!

His dreams had other plans though. After a nightmare like that, no defense system was worth being reminded constantly of der Kinderlumper every day. Still, with that model of code dashed, Heinz was back to step one. He had to devise an A.I. advanced enough to delegate his administration to, without risking bugs that could doom Doofania or annoyances to stress him, as had happened with Norm's programming. Like the lords of his homeland of Drusseilstein before him, he had a responsibility to reign over his citizens, and he knew couldn't do it alone. With that thought in his sleep-addled mind once more, Heinz pondered more on what he could do with his A.I. to better help him deal with all of these stupid papers.

A thought struck him. If he wants an A.I. that can help him rule, then just make an A.I. to help him rule! Why go for silly themes when he can simply directly make it part of its program to rule subordinate to him? With a bit of well-placed code, it could even grow to help him in other areas of Doofania as well!

Heinz jumped out of his chair and let out a euphoric yell, "I GOT IT!"

White quickly filled his vision as he was forced to the floor.

"CURSE YOU BUREAUCRACY - ow - AND CURSE YOU PAPERCUTS!"

---End---


@Made in Heaven Tagged for omake. I just really wanted to include the Kernelumper idea into a story in some way, since it lost the vote. I know this is probably gonna be non-canon, but I don't really care. I am satisfied that the Kernelumper lives on in some way!
 
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Okay, she may not be the highest scoring in terms of occult. She'll still probably have an occult in the 20's and offer us insight into the different dimensions. Occult covers knowledge of magic stuff as well as knowing how to cast. Heck she might even still have her old pair of dimensional scissors which alone would be worth looking for her. And if she can figure out "dip down" she becomes a magical powerhouse of the highest degree. Like "I'd give her decent odds of out martialing Ghengis or even Shego if she got that figured out" levels of sheer power.
Oh, no question that Star is a Martial powerhouse. Her peaks are very, very high. OTOH, I think even 20 Occult is maybe overselling her too much. Like, there's a whole episode where Star needs to speeddial Janna for help because Janna has more occult knowledge than Star. Let me repeat that: when it comes to occult knowledge, Star has to rely on Janna.

So that means Star either has a middling to good Occult stat with a malus for knowledge-based things, or a low Occult stat with a bonus for Star-related activities.
 
Rising Back Up
Even Later

You've finally prepared for the auction that Xanatos invited you to. The magical community of New York City is pretty quaint, you suppose, even though it's a little hard to navigate. As you settle in, you notice Xanatos, sitting a short distance away from you.

And someone sitting next to him.

With a duck-headed staff.
Okay, so I think this is implying Toffee killed her and took the staff.. However, as I am incurably optimistic, so I choose to deny this and substitute another, equally* plausible result. Janna doesn't really sound like herself, but circumstances are rather different, and oh boy she's mad.

*May not actually be equal.

Rising Back Up

Infiltrate Toffee's Territory (DC 90 Intrigue)
67+20+10 (Local Knowledge)=97 Success

Janna Martial Check: 88+10+12+20=130
Toffee Contest Check: 19+47+5-10(Surprise Attack)=61
Toffee Critical Failure!

The first sign Toffee gets of an intruder in his territory is when a Chimera throws him bodily into the side of a building hard enough to crater it - in the far wall. Embedded as he is, it takes him a moment to pull himself out of the wall, his regeneration already starting to repair the damage. He looks around, and sees the creature advancing forward by its master's side.

Does Toffee know who this is, or what this is about? (DC 80 Learning Check):
62+24= 86 Success

"Must we be so uncivilized? That was an impressive effort, but it won't get you anywhere against me. That being said, I'm always on the lookout for talent, and you certainly have that. I'm even willing to overlook this attack." His words flow smoothly out, unherried despite the situation. Listening to him, you wouldn't think he'd just suffered massive blunt force trauma, nor that the instigators of said attack were advancing on him with murder in their eyes even as he continued to speak. "I know we've had our differences in the past, but you know what I'm capable of. Surely that boy wouldn't want you throwing your future away."

Can Toffee Recruit Janna (DC 350 Diplomacy)
94+32+10=136 Critical Failure!

"What was his name?"

The question takes Toffee aback. He'd been prepared for a hard sell, but this was hardly where the conversation he had plotted out was going. "I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

"That boy you're talking about. My friend." Janna replies, her voice barely controlled. "The boy you killed. What was his name?"

Does Toffee know his name? (DC 80 Learning Check)
43+24=67 Failure

"Mathew?" Toffee tries, some confusion still evident in his tone.

"Wrong answer! Fireball!"

Janna Martial Check: 67+10+12+20=109
Toffee Contest Check: 50+47=97
Janna Success!

The burst of flame envelops him, Janna's anger given physical form by the knowledge and power of Lord Felldrake. The heat is intense, even from where she's standing, and Janna has to restrain herself from taking an involuntary step back. Any closer, she knows, and she'd be dealing with singed eyebrows. Toffee is at ground zero for the fire, and comes out badly burned and coughing from the soot. The veneer of affability slips off his face, leaving behind rage. As the smoke clears, he straightens, and prepares to attack

Toffee Martial check: 63+47=110
Janna Martial contest: 85+10+12+20=137
Toffee Failure!

Before he can try anything, however, he's interrupted by a massive burst of lightning that arcs into his body. His muscles seize up and he collapses to the ground, writhing. The stream of lightning lasts for several seconds, and when it ends, Toffee lies on the ground, wreathing in pain.

"His name was Marco. And I'm going to make you pay for what you did to him, and what you're still trying to do to Star now."

Toffee laughs, or at least tries to; the sound comes out barely recognizable, between the coughs and muscle spasms. Even as he struggles, however, the damage begins to right itself, injuries closing and leaving no sign of having ever existed. "It was a mistake to challenge me. Even the magical high commission wasn't a match for me, and you think a staff and some training changes things? You were better off staying gone; nothing you've done to me has done the slightest bit of real damage."

It hardly seems possible, but if anything, Janna seems even angrier than before. If looks could kill, hers would be at least on par with the spells she's throwing around. She grit's her teeth and raises the staff above her head. Pain joins the rage, as the raw anger joins with the dark magic and flows to a painful extent. Her body is wreathed in flickering shadows despite the bright summer sun, and in front of her forms a ball of ominous purple flame. "Maybe not those, but that was just the warmup."

Janna Martial Check: 100+65+10+12+20=207
Toffee Contest Check: 38+47=85
Toffee Critical Failure

The ball flies forward deceptively slowly. Toffee attempts to dodge, but the electricity still flowing through his muscles hampers him, and the attack catches him on the arm. From there, it spreads, the purple flames eating more and more of his body - and not going out, even as they burn though him more quickly than he can regenerate.

Can Toffee cancel this spell? (DC 120 Occult)
77+15=92 Failure

Toffee's other hand pulls out a pair of scissors, and a portal appears in the air. He steps through it just ahead of another burst of lightning from Janna, and it vanishes behind him. Attracted by the commotion, various monsters and supers of Toffee's arrive. She's tired out from the spellcasting, but the shadows still coating her body make that impossible to verify. Turning to look at them, she prepares to make what may be her last bluff. "Alright, which one of you is next?"

---

Later

You've finally prepared for the auction that Xanatos invited you to. The magical community of New York City is pretty quaint, you suppose, even though it's a little hard to navigate. As you settle in, you notice Xanatos, sitting a short distance away from you.

And someone sitting next to him.

With a duck-headed staff.

"Ah, Mr. Doofenshmirtz, just the man I was looking for. I understand you and Ms. Ordonia are already acquainted? We were just in the middle of discussing the future of the New Mewni economic zone."
 
"What was his name?"

The question takes Toffee aback. He'd been prepared for a hard sell, but this was hardly where the conversation he had plotted out was going. "I'm sorry, what do you mean?"

"That boy you're talking about. My friend." Janna replies, her voice barely controlled. "The boy you killed. What was his name?"

Does Toffee know his name? (DC 80 Learning Check)
43+24=67 Failure

"Mathew?" Toffee tries, some confusion still evident in his tone.

"Wrong answer! Fireball!"
That was DEFINITELY from DBZA! The epilogue no less.

I am genuinely surprised and glad to see fans of TFS and their abridging works.

I do want to see something made with lines from FF7MA or some other abridged series.
 
New Doof cards, huh? Hmmmm... how about Oswald the Lucky Rabbit? Here are some others, assuming none of these are just ClassicK:
-Lady and/or Tramp
-Pongo and/or Perdita
-The cat from That Darn Cat!
-Herbie
-Christopher Robin (non-meme)
-Adrian Cronour from Good Morning, Vietnam
-The Mighty Ducks
-Kermit the Frog
-Jamaican Bobsled Team from Cool Runnings
-George of the Jungle
-Flubber
-Sully/Mike Wasowski
-Edna Mode
-Riley Poole from National Treasure
-Bolt
 
Honestly its funny that Khan is going for Fusion Power when we can Campaign for Flubber and possibly just blow that out the water.
Well, in that case Khan wins the world publicity race, and we come across as the dangerous mad scientist who uses absurdly reckless power technology. Our shit works, mind you! But everyone's terrified it's gonna go boom like a gigaton bomb and leave a giant crater where the Tri-State Area used to be.

Your new hero units are up! I haven't updated loyalty yet though, I'm still going through everything.
Hm cool.

OK, Dr. von Drake is excellent at mad science (disturbingly, better than we are, arguably!). Stacking her Learning with ours we can now reliably get a +78 combined bonus on the die roll, which means we can start knocking off projects very fast. It also means we only specifically need Jumba to work on biology and GalFed tech, because for everything else, von Drake is better anyway.

She has a flake trait sort of like Janna's, but unlike Janna's she randomly completes another, entirely different action with broadly similar chance of success. For Learning actions, this usually isn't that bad, because if we clear a chunk of the tech tree we still clear a chunk of the tech tree, regardless of which chunk we clear. It's problematic for other subjects, though.

Furthermore, she has a +29 to Stewardship and a +35 to Martial when it comes to building or enhancing SCIENCE!-powered weaponry, which means she's actually a damn good choice for things like equipping our territory with rooftop laser artillery or upgrading Normbots or things like that.

Her Loyalty score is... not great, though at least it's a positive number. We should probably do "Chat with the Bossman" some time in the next few turns.

...

@Made in Heaven , "social death's head moth" is brilliant and you should be proud of yourself.

Lizzy is a very specialized Martial/Learning hero and hoo boy we are up to our eyeballs in Learning heroes now. We have at least three! She is a good Martial/Learning specialist to send along on any arbitrary quest we may be interested in. But, again, low Loyalty. We can work on that.

...

Tobe is Martial/Intrigue focused, and good enough at Intrigue that we can swap him in for, say, Mirage and let her do something else without worrying too much about the relatively lower stat.

+10 Occult is something at least...? It's not really good enough to make him a substitute for Janna, but maybe we can work on upgrading it.

I'm honestly confused by his 'Nema' action. I gather it lets him take "deal with this Nemesis of Doof's" as a Personal action, so that we don't have to spend our National Martial action dealing with him... as long as the Nemesis in question is relatively weaksauce so that a character reduced to effective Martial 9 has a chance against him. :p

And, again, low loyalty. We can work on that.

Even Jumba Jookiba, advanced alien mad scientist with incredible insight into genetics, was only able to tie our learning with the help of a literal biological supercomputer. The fact that Ludivine is smarter than us, however slightly, speaks volumes as to how smart she really is.
Note that in genetics, Jumba's effective Learning is in the upper fifties even without 625. If he were as good at everything else as he is at genetics, he'd be far beyond Doof.

This is the power of the "Omnidisciplinary" trait, it seems!

The fact that these knuckleheads have Occult 10 retroactively makes Janna's score worse. Their not just a trio or quartet but an actual goon squad.
Remember that Janna had never cast a spell before until she got that staff from Chicken Itza. So turn it the other way around.

Team Tobe's shaman has Occult 10, a score so unimpressive that someone with literally zero experience actually working magic herself can match it.

We can safely conclude that any real magicians we encounter will have, like, Occult 20+, just as any seriousface Martial or Intrigue characters tend to have relevant stats in the upper teens or higher. You wouldn't take even the goofiest superhero seriously with Martial 10; they'd be regularly losing fights to everyone except Mirage.

No! You won't take my precious 40 Learning away from me! Mine! Gollum, gollum, gollum
The trick is that in Martial/Stewardship actions that specifically involve mad science weaponry, she's actually damn near top tier in the same way that Learning 40 is. Think about our alternatives for the power armor action: Genghis Khan (who at -30 has effective Martial 25) or Norm (whose effective Martial is halved, dropping him into the teens or twenties depending on how his ACME WEAPONRY rolls).

Given that we have Lizzy at Learning 30, there will be turns when we can spare Dr. von Drake to work on laser guns or whatever.

I wonder what Jumba would do with Flubber
NO we are not giving the chaotic madman acess to a chaotic ball of limitless power and thus limitless destructive abilities
If I were running this setting I'd be tempted to say that all GalFed energy technology runs off Flubber. Think about it, it's freaking perpetual motion machine; it is by definition superior to almost all other plausible forms of energy generation, and can be put into much simpler and more compact forms than a fusion reactor. It's... probably, to be candid, only probably safer than fusion, too.
 
Better than letting him waste away in a prison, so sure.

Who should we psychoanalyze after him though? You guys wanted to begin going down the line for giving all our units therapy, so who should hold the highest priority?
It could be could to have doof psychoanalyzed. He was a lot of tragic backstories to unpack. And the introspection may allow us to lower the dc to rejoin the government.
 
So felldrake took advantage of Janna's anger to make her go off the deep end?
If by "off the deep end" you mean "work for Xanatos," I guess so?"

That actually makes a lot of sense for her. Xanatos probably has as good a payroll and benefits package as we do, at least for skilled Occultists! If she's a mercenary going "screw this, I'm out" then he'd be the logical place for her to go.

This is extremely concerning. This means it probably has happened to Janna before.

This is bad.
Well, Toffee winning somehow strongly indicates that some degree of fallout must have hit her from whatever drove Star out of town. On the other hand, this confirms that we can get a pretty good basic idea of who/what Toffee is by talking to Janna, which is good to have confirmed.

Xanatos recruited Janna.

That implies that Xanatos has a significant presence in Doofania, or Janna knew enough about the Occult to go to him.

It's probably both all things considered.
Remember that we sent Janna to that magic rummage sale in New York, using information only Goofy knew. Goofy almost certainly told Janna enough details of his mission to New York that Janna knows Xanatos is active in the city, and probably enough for Janna to deduce that Xanatos either is a magician or would at least like to have one on payroll. That'd be enough for her to travel east and try to reach him, quite possibly volunteering for his service as one of the few people likely to actually try to stop Toffee.

Basically, this would be Janna deciding to give up on us as part of that "Alliance of the Sane" idea we keep batting around.

What's interesting is that even with -50 that only bring her to enough to bring us to -10 which according to the lore post that is not even enough for her to hate us (which seems to start at -25). That makes me think that while taking the deal makes her mad at us, She left more over thinking we are a lost cause then her hating us.
It also underlines my repeated contention that just because a character's Loyalty doesn't drop below -25, doesn't mean they won't quit, change sides, start funneling information to a contact in the Resistance, or otherwise screw us over in some way IF persuaded to do so by circumstances. Loyalty 0 characters are not loyal to us; they are "meh, it's a living" characters who are working for us until and unless an offer they like better comes along.

So if we had, say, a Loyalty 10 character go do something that interferes with a faction they like better than us... well, we might end up with a problem on our hands.
 
Better than letting him waste away in a prison, so sure.

Who should we psychoanalyze after him though? You guys wanted to begin going down the line for giving all our units therapy, so who should hold the highest priority?
I say LOVEMUFFIN. In Jumba's personal action there is an action to meet up with them that could possibly raise their stats and I want them to receive a Psychoanalize and Chat to not let them humiliate us or worse show Jumba the It won't stop flushing video.
 
It could be could to have doof psychoanalyzed. He was a lot of tragic backstories to unpack. And the introspection may allow us to lower the dc to rejoin the government.
For future reference, you probably shouldn't use rejoining the government as a selling point to me. I am explicitly against doing that :p

No harm done. Just trying to help you in the future. Analyzing Doof would probably be helpful in the future anyhow. He's got loads of issues to talk about.
I say either L.O.V.E.M.U.F.F.I.N., Russ, Khan, Max, or Hego personally.
Hmm.

Max could be a good start for unloading all that's been on his chest since flunking - or being kicked - out of college, presumably facing anti-Toon bias, losing contact with his friends, etc.

Russ could be interesting for any of his secrets, along with any possible traumas or obsessions he may have gained along his career.

Hego...I don't know what could possibly come from his mind beyond maybe talking about his hero complex and desire to redeem his sister. The loyalty bonus would probably still be useful though. I suppose it could also uncover some possible hobbies or tasks from him as well.

Khan, boy that would definitely be a load to talk about.

LOVEMUFFIN still gives me that funny image of all the scientists piling into the room and yelling over each other at once. A good talk with a therapist would probably be good for them since they have a whole mess of issues though, and maybe move past their disrespect for Doof.
 
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We need to get goofy and russ up to stop whatever dream queen is.

Would psychoanalyzing help that?

And poor goofy should get a session anyway. All his problems with the incident, relationship with max, and all the horrible things happening to toons...

...guy probably needs to vent a bit.
 
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