IT'S WIZARD TIME MOTHER████ERS!!! No time to explain! I cast kooky crazy wizard dog!
Okay maybe there's some time to explain. Everyone, say hello to Doggone. My idea for Fool's Fate's chapter 5 boss and my submission into @grimmdeltarune's Chaos Clash Tourney! Remember when I said I was gonna go with a busted police radio? Bam! I lied! Crazy wizard dog be upon ye!
Okay but what's their origins? I need to explain where I got the name dog gone it! (Hehe, get it? That's where their name's from.) As for item, Doggone is a newspaper clipping about Dess's disappearance that's in an evidence folder at the Police Station. It's staff is even a branch with Dess's fur found on it that was also in the evidence locker.
"Lorrie, how did you get crazy wizard from that? " I hear some of you reasonably ask. All in due time, my little pupils, for now we must get onto text quirks! For Doggone's text, a lot of it their text gets blacked out and censored. Not all of it, mostly proper nouns like names or places, but also just random nouns that seem randomly censored. The exception being anything or anyone mentioned in the news paper clipping Doggone is in the Light World. I can show some examples under the cut with their backstory and dialogue. The only times Doggone can ONLY use words specifically from that clipping are when it's trying to talk about stuff the man doesn't want revealed.
For Doggone's soul mode, it uses the purple soul mode, like Bitsy. Just Doggone's purple soul mode attacks are lines of text rather than spider webs. Also unrelated to the soul mode but another fun fact about them before I get into backstory and stuff. Doggone is flat like paper. Literal Flat Stanley/Paper Mario physics. They seem like they might have mass, but when viewed completely from the side, they're just a line.
Backstory and Dialogue under the cut (Fair warning, it got really, REALLY long...)
Dogson D. Gonit. Investigative Journalist and reporter for the news station in the Police Station Dark World. Never an actual detective or private investigator, those sorta roles were filled by Captain Chariot and the guard, but Dogson always did his best to sniff out the best story. A true sleuthing pup, Dogson's keen nose and sense for a good scoop was something which found him a lot of success in his career, especially when it came to reporting on potential new cases for Chariot's guard.
That was until one day a particular Lightner went missing in the Light World.
Missing person's cases were some what rare in the Station Dark World, and Hometown in general. Most the time it was just some kid who pretended to run away or got a little lost playing in the woods and many of them were solved before a reporter like Dogson got to report on it at all. More often then not, the missing cases Dogson reported on where lost pets or items. But the case of Dess Holiday was a special one. It was something the entire station seemed to be talking about, and one that went unsolved long enough that Dogson got to report on it, and not just in the missing section of the paper.
"LOCAL GIRL GOES MISSING IN WOODS. On September 15th, 212X, local girl December "Dess" Holiday was reported missing. She was last seen playing in the woods with her younger sister and two neighboring kids. After loosing track of her, Asriel Dreemurr, one of Dess's neighbors contacted local police, reporting to Chief Asgore and Deputy Undyne that Dess and Kris, Asriel's younger sibling, had gone into the bunker in the forest and wouldn't respond when Asriel and Noelle Holiday, Dess's younger sister, called for them, after which Asriel went for help. After managing to rescue Kris from the bunker, the police weren't able to locate Dess Holiday and even though questioned about what happened, Kris was reportedly too shaken to answer. Mayor Carol Holiday, Hometown mayor and Dess's mother, has ordered a town wide search and advised citizens to stay away from the bunker. Are the towering trees surrounding our sweet little town really as safe as we thought? More on pg 12."
The case of the missing Holiday was a big one in the Station Dark World, with a lot of pressure on both Lightners and Darkners to perform and find her. This was something Dogson was well aware of, and he had every intention to report on every new bit of information that came the station's way. Yet it seemed by the time Dogson was ready to print his next update on the case, the buzz around it had already died down. Captain Chariot refusing to let Dogson release the story because of "bad PR", instead focusing on a story from one of Dogson's colleagues about the new police chief in the Light World. According to the Captain, anything new about this case had to go under the radar and eventually it seemed like the case was dropped all together, the trail going icy cold.
Dogson wasn't so content to just drop a scoop as big as this though, and so after putting on his jacket and hat and kissing his wife goodbye, the journalist set out into the depths of the Paper Trail Forest to find the Evidence Locker in hopes to find something to get Captain Chariot to reopen the case.
Ms. Gonit: And I'm afraid that's the last anyone's heard of him.
I've tried to convince some of the guard to go looking for him myself, but it seems none of them want to risk it...
Lightners, you seem strong, aren't you?
If you decide to venture towards the Paper Trail Forest, would you be willing to look for my dear Dogson for me?
These past few years have been tough, and even if the worst I fear has come true...
Some closure at least would be nice.
Accept ❤ Decline
Accept ❤
Oh? You will look?
Oh, thank you so much, Lightners. You can't imagine how much this means to me.
Here, ever since that KNIGHT came around, I never know what Captain Chariot has decided to lock down.
If you ever find any trouble making your way into the forest, take this.
*You got the PIN KEY.
It may not work on every lock, but I hope it can at least aid you somewhat.
No one really knows what happened to Dogson D. Gonit out in those woods. The only thing his wife and family knew was that he never came back. In all honestly, Ms. Gonit expected her dear husband to be gone forever. In a way... he was.
Dogson got lost looking through the Paper Trail Forest and couldn't find his way back. He wandered and wandered for what felt like days looking for the Evidence Locker, or at the least the exit, yet it seemed like he was just chasing his own tail. Just going in endless circles and circles, every corner he turned looked like the last, the pages and pages of leaves all blending together as one. It was maddening.
It wasn't until all hope seemed lost when Dogson found somebody. Or rather, was found BY somebody. A strange someone, a man who offered a helping hand. A man who led Dogson to the Truth. Not the truth about the case of the missing Holiday as the straggled reporter might have hoped when he agreed to follow the man out of desperation, but a greater Truth. A Truth which showed him just how trapped he was... A Truth... which broke Dogson freed Doggone from the burdens of it's mind.
Dogson was gone. A life forgotten along with the name. Now there was only Doggone. A crazy old Darkner believing themself to be a powerful wizard, living out in the woods and on an eternal quest to find the Evidence Locker the Chamber of Truth. Doggone may not know why it wants to get into the Chamber of Truth, they just knows they have to find it. Inside such an illusive and mysterious trove of treasure and truth there must be something truly great and powerful, after all. Some kind of artifact befitting a great and powerful wizard like Doggone.
And Doggone seemed to find the perfect opportunity to get to the Chamber of Truth when it saw three young Lightner heroes enter it's domain...
*Doggone jumps down from the trees and in front of the party*
AND NOT ANY █████S EITHER! THREE █████S OF LIGHT!
LET'S SEE, A ██████, A ██████, AND A ███! HOW WONDERFUL!
CK: UH, WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL US?
HAVE YOU ████████S COME TO TAKE MY WIZARD TOWER?
WELL TOO BAD, IT'S MINE!
Remie: ... That's just a very tall tree, ribatto, ribatto...
OH! OR MAYBE YOU █████S ARE HERE TO AID ME IN MY DASTARDLY WIZARD QUEST!
CK: QUEST? UH... I GUESS WE'RE SORT OF HERE ON A QUEST.
Remie: What is your name, if we may ask, ribatti, ribatti?
████? HOO HO! I FORGOT THAT LONG AGO! ██████? ███? ██████ █ █████? I DON'T KNOW!
I GUESS YOU KIDS CAN CALL ME DOGGONE! SINCE I DOG AND GONE LOST MY LAST ████! HOO HO HO!
Remie: D-doggone...?
YEP! THAT'S MY ████ NOW! THAT SOUNDS LIKE A ████, RIGHT?
Remie: Um, s-sure... Ribatto, ribatto.
CK: MWEH HEH! I SAY IT'S A GREAT NAME! (AT LEAST I HOPE THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE SAYING...)
Remie: -._-. CK...
CK: ER... SO WHAT ABOUT THIS QUEST, MR. GONE?
OH PLEASE. MR. GONE WAS MY ██████. JUST CALL ME DOGGONE.
AND YES! THE QUEST!
WE MUSTN'T SPEAK OF IT HERE, YOU NEVER KNOW WHO MIGHT BE LISTENING.
WATCHING IN THE ████, RECORDING EVERY ████ YOU SAY...
MEET ME AT MY OTHER TOWER! IT'S JUST ████ OF HERE AND THROUGH THE █████ WOODS, PAST THE ███████ █████!
YOU CAN'T MISS IT!
Remie: Um, could you maybe repeat-
NOW I MUST GO! I CAST SMOKE █████!
*In a puff of smoke or... spores? Doggone disappears.*
CK: *COUGH COUGH* W-WHAT? HEY! WHERE'D HE GO!? AW MAN... COULD EITHER OF YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND WHERE HE SAID TO GO?
Remie: I'm afraid not, ribatto, ribatto...
CK: WELP. GUESS WE'LL HAVE TO TRY AND FIND OUR OWN WAY...
------------------
I had a lot of fun coming up with Doggone, especially since I was on call with friends and we kept referencing wizard memes. Originally, I just had the idea of a journalist who got lost investigating the story of a missing girl (cough cough, Dess, cough cough), but I worried that would step on Detective Noir's territory too much. I think with the wizard aspect, I no longer have to worry about that.
Doggone and Noir are still rivals though. Even if Doggone has completely lost its marbles and will try to interview people by asking them to step into its office, that is really just a mossy clearing with a stump in the woods or a bus stop.
