The development of Nummorrian religion

...as in "how I came up with it," not as in "how it developed on Nummorro over thousands/millions of years' time."  That would be an entirely different post, and not one that I've come up with enough history to actually write at this particular moment. XD

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Now on to the actual thing I wanted to write some stuff about... I had an odd realization while I was driving home from work tonight.  I remembered that way back in the elementary school days when I was first coming up with the planet Nummorro and the various species that populate it, I never actually came up with any Nummorrian religions -- even the "evil cult" style religions, like Rupoo cultists and such, were completely absent back then (even though I'd actually made up the Rupoo itself already, as of 5th grade... though originally it only existed as a placeholder for Queen Bridget due to the "ban" on Burijeoo -- still known as "Bridgetoids" at the time -- that was in place among some of my teachers during those later elementary school years. XD)  When asked about what religion the Numnums followed by one of the older kids in Boy Scouts (one of the not-awful older kids, to be specific), I basically just said that I didn't think they had one, and for a loooong time that was pretty much the beginning and end of my thoughts on the subject.

The realization? The reason why I never came up with Nummorrian religions back then was basically this: Back then, I was still a Christian.

...No, don't worry, this isn't going to turn into some post bashing on Christians, keep reading!  Anyway -- because I still believed there was one "true" religion (and all others must be false to some extent) back then, I had two options with Nummorro's religious beliefs.  Option #1 was making the Numnums and K'hyurbhis and Blurbys and so forth Christians too, and Option #2 was giving them their own "other" beliefs that would be, in my 10-year-old mind, incorrect.

Option #2 was out right away; I liked the Numnums and such too much to basically just send them all to Hell without so much as a second chance (because yeah, I actually believed in Hell back then, though since I hadn't really met many non-Christian people at the time I never really thought much about how messed-up it would be for people to end up punished eternally for just... not following a certain religion, not even actually doing anything legitimately bad.)

And even as a 10-year-old (and a Christian who had never even really questioned the beliefs he'd grown up with), some part of me realized that it would be really, really silly for a whole planet full of aliens with little-to-no connection to Earth to believe in an Earth religion.  Or more specifically, a human religion.  Remember that this was back in the day when Nummorro was populated by flying butts, Yuckow Foods were actually animated piles of cafeteria food, and Numnums had no legs -- but even to 10-year-old me, the idea of Nummorrian species following a human religion that they, logically, should have never heard of was sillier than all of those combined!  So that, of course, meant that both of my previously-mentioned options were crossed off the list.

So, as has become a recurring pattern for me, I went with an option that wasn't initially on the "list" at all: Option #3, not giving them a religion/belief system at all.  That avoided the silliness of the "Christian Numnums" option while also avoiding the awfulness of the "they have their own non-Christian beliefs and thus go to Hell" option.  By not following a "wrong" path (simply by virtue of not choosing any "path" at all, as far as religion goes), they would be spared from Hell.

...yeah, you can probably tell by now that I hadn't really thought about religion much at all when I was in elementary school (when I started thinking about it, of course, I rapidly started drifting away from first Christianity and shortly afterward the whole idea of organized religion), but really... who did think about that kind of thing much in elementary school? And I mean really think about it, not just asking one random question every now and then ("why aren't there dinosaurs in the Bible?") but unquestioningly accepting the answer your [insert religious leader's rank here] gave no matter how flimsy it was.

But yeah... that's most likely why Nummorro never had any religions during my elementary school years.  Things started to change beginning in high school, though.  In my crappy old RPG Maker 2000 game, The Story of Supernum, the Umpupu K'hyurbhi tribe made an appearance -- and rather than just the black-cloak-wearing, vaguely creepy guys they were originally, they had been converted into cultists who worshiped Dark Blubber.  Dark Blubber, by the way, was this awful character I came up with in the mid/late elementary school years whose whole point was basically to be the most absurdly overpowered recurring villain possible (I compared him to Dragonball Z characters during the high school years... putting him at a power level of one hundred billion during a time when I believed that nobody in all of DBZ ever got above one billion.)  Later on, when I finally ditched Dark Blubber, I switched them over to being Rupoo cultists instead.  But still, they were the first religious group to appear in any of my Nummorro-based things.

Various other "Cthulhu Cult style" groups followed the Umpupu, and eventually in the late 2000s I finally came up with the first few "good guy" religious groups.  Interestingly enough, this probably started during the time when I was at my most hostile toward real-life organized religion (2006-2007 or so.)  This was the time when I first began to come up with the starting ideas for the Blurby religion, which has continued to grow from there -- I could probably write a whole post on here about just that, and I probably will at some point.  I took the earlier (elementary school era) idea of Blurbys following a set of rules known as "the Tahttu" -- I think I may have spelled it "Tattu" early on and only later added the H? -- and expanded on that, adding a system of borderline ancestor-worship where they would build temples devoted to "Great Blurbys" who had accomplished something significant during their lifetime.  A little later still, I added the figure of Zaj Tanduo, the greatest of the Great Blurbys who had an even higher title (that being the "Zaj" in his name, which is of course not actually part of his name but just a title -- kinda like the "Christ" part when people say "Jesus Christ.")  By the time I started working on The K'hyurbhi Lands in late 2010 or early 2011, I had begun to expand even further and even came up with random details like what the inside of a Blurby temple was like (not heavily decorated at all unlike most human religions' temples or equivalent -- simple stone walls, dirt floors, just open holes with no windowpanes, some tables and a kitchen for feeding hungry travelers, maybe a few relevant items to the Great Blurby it's honoring hung on the walls, a single statue and usually just a small one.)

Around the same time, I began to sloooowly come up with details of an ancient K'hyurbhi religion, no longer believed in by the vast majority of the K'hyurbhis but still sort of influencing the Khurbyish language and other such things.  Kinda like how the Greek and Roman gods are to English -- we have days, months, and other words named after them, and some of their stories are still pretty well known, but few people actually believe they exist anymore or follow the religion that was built up around them back in the day.  After a while I even came up with the idea of one group that still does follow the old K'hyurbhi religion... sort of -- the Hamhu, being racist as all hell and believing K'hyurbhis are some sort of "superior beings," have twisted things around to support their view of things.  I've gradually built up more and more details on the K'hyurbhis' old religion (both original and Hamhu versions), but not quite enough to fill a "this is actually complete" post on here for it just yet I don't think.  Still, I'm getting there.  The most recent development was that some Numnums probably followed the old K'hyurbhi religion in the past -- probably not many Blurbys as they have their own religion that probably goes back at least as far as the K'hyurbhis' one (if not longer.)  But then again, considering the way the Blurby religion is as far as the God/gods question goes (it doesn't claim to have the answer to that question but leaves the possibility open), it's entirely possible that some oddball Blurby might follow the Blurbian religion but also believe in the K'hyurbhi gods (or some of them, at least) at the same time.

Looking back at Uggy Barfoo (part 16 of 16)

Yep... we've made it to the end.  Last time we left off with the final city in Robert's solo segment of the game...

 ...Regeek, where the citizens have been bullied into destroying their ancestors' temples and also giving up the vast majority of their food supply to an endless stream of daily feasts for Obesius, who's been claiming that he's the "God of Obesity" (on top of his usual claims of being a dragon.)

 

 Robert and Fredd confront Obesius... and Fredd's scanners are apparently calibrated to confirm claims of godhood.  Wonder how that works.

 

 

 And of course, they can also detect if something is actually a dragon or not, which makes a bit more sense considering that actual dragons made an appearance earlier in the game (and they were not far from the place where the airship landed.)  There were also Cheese Dragons on the moon where the airship was originally built, though I never encountered one in this playthrough.

Also, for some odd reason Obesius' go-to insult (basically the only one he seems to know) is "dumb frogs."  I'm not sure why, since even a dumb frog would almost certainly be smarter than Obesius.

 

 He might actually be right about this particular claim -- the typical dragon certainly can't launch dozens of meteors from the moon to Earth with enough precision to shoot down an airship in mid-flight even when trying evasive maneuvers.

(Still doesn't change the fact that he's not really a dragon, of course. XD)

 But apparently the thing that really pisses him off is not denying his godhood or his dragoniness, but calling him "fatass."  Even though his name is basically a pseudo-Greek/Latin version of "Fatass." XD

 Under normal circumstances, Obesius has the potential to be a ridiculous hard boss.  He's got a truly absurd amount of HP (twice as much as Yenrab Nebozu, if I'm remembering right) and massive attack power, and he's able to go berserk as well as launching powerful fire and earth-elemental attacks.

Like most bosses in the second half of the game, however, he's foiled by the use of barriers -- though he does have some single-target attacks that can hit un-barriered characters, and if I hadn't poisoned him with a booger attack early on he probably would've berserked and done a lot more damage.  Unlike some of the 2nd-half bosses (like Goatsu), he isn't harmed by his own attacks, so you still have to do most of the damage yourself even with a barrier up.

 Thankfully, the combination of Berserk Fredd, Robert's booger-based super moves, and Crunk's psychic and cheese attacks manage to do plenty of damage, and eventually Obesius is defeated.

 

 Obesius isn't done for just yet, though.  He's weakened but not mortally wounded, and immediately starts shaking the temple, bringing down rocks and slamming them down on Robert and company.  After knocking Robert back onto the stairs, though...

 ...Fredd steps forward to defend Robert (and Crunk, I guess, but he only seems to be really concerned with protecting Robert.  Probably because Crunk is optional, of course.)

 

 

 Fredd somehow manages to summon up enough strength to plow through Obesius' attacks, and after a while, he gets right up next to the raised platform where the self-proclaimed God of Obesity is hanging out.

 

 

 

 Obesius might be weakened, but he's still too much for the also-weakened Robert and company to handle, especially in the enraged state he's currently in.  So Fredd goes for the last-ditch plan: self-destruct and take Obesius down with him.

 

 Unfortunately, the explosion graphic somehow ends up weirdly off-center, even though I'm pretty sure I made several attempts to edit it so that it would show up perfectly lined up with Fredd and Obesius rather than being off to the side like that.

Lots of screen-flashing and shaking and kaboom sounds follow, but...

 ...it's not quite enough to kill Obesius...

 ...but fortunately, it is enough to cause him to run away in a blind panic, meaning that Fredd has succeeded in defeating Obesius (for now) and also in saving Robert.  And Crunk, I guess.

 

 Random priest girl then shows up, causing the town's usual music to start up again (the temple was left in total silence after Obesius fled the scene and the "Fredd sacrifices his robot life to blow up Obesius" theme song ended.)  She has no idea there's been an epic battle going on in here just before she arrived -- which is odd considering that Obesius was bringing down the temple's roof and spitting meteors around, both of which should've made tons of noise -- so she's confused and panicked that Obesius seems to be late for his own daily feast.

 Robert explains what happened, and she's (understandably) a bit freaked out.

 

At first Robert just mentioned that Obesius wasn't really a god.  She immediately thought that meant that he was an actual dragon... but Robert has to correct her on that front, too. XD

 She runs off to inform the whole town, which leads to a fade-out, followed by...

...a scene from later that night, where the feast is being held not for Obesius, but in Robert's honor for freeing their city from Obesius' flabby iron fist.

 

 Two thoughts on what Obesius actually is -- either he's just a mutated Yenrab who's grown to unusual size (and strength), or he's a "Moronism dragon," basically a being spawned from humans' superstitious ideas of what dragons are like (the whole "huuuuuge spiky evil lizardmonsters that do nothing but eat and hoard shiny things" deal.)

I'm leaning toward "delusional mutant Yenrab" at the moment.

 

 Robert tells the story of how Obesius was defeated, and mentions at the end that as awful as Obesius was, he thinks he's met someone worse -- none other than the Lord of Moronism, Ma-Du Nebozu.  But fortunately he's dead now..

 

 ...or is he?

 

 Yep... the "Nebozu running for president in the US-equivalent country" plot comes up again here.  Even all the way across the world, people have heard the name "Nebozu."

 

 And here's where Robert figures out what the Yenrab back at Estan Unin were talking about when they said that there'd been an imposter Nebozu going around.

 Yep.  A fake Nebozu with the power to transform into Barney.  After this, Robert gets pretty urgent about continuing his journey and asks if anybody's seen the airship around....

 ...and it turns out that people in Regeek saw the crash happen, over in the east in Urket.  That's basically "Turkey" rearranged and with the Y removed (the city is actually present on the world map, part on the Europe-like continent and part on the Asia-like one, separated by a bridge), but I actually really like how the name sounds so I might reuse it at some point.

 

 

Robert's about to rush off to Urket first thing, but then he remembers he's actually pretty hungry.  Bring on the food!

 

 I don't think Obesius ever mentioned being a member of the Arkolo in Robert's segment of the game, but he was shown in the Arkolo's introduction scene back at the end of Part 1 so I guess these narration segments are from the player's perspective more than from the characters'.

 

 

Apparently the Hudawuda tribes are not just an American thing, but a group that can be found spread out all across the world, even as far as Australia.  These Australian Hudawudas seem pretty far removed from their American equivalents, though -- no orbs or ancient super-technology, just... regular ol' desert town with wooden houses and twitchy old people.

 The elder here literally JUMPED backward two steps when Joguo suddenly appeared in front of him.  See? Twitchy old people.

 And apparently the town is called Wakamomo...

 ...and the Australia-equivalent continent is called Kangaroo Island.  No actual kangaroos can be found, however.  There's even an NPC who tells you that you probably won't see any because they usually avoid humans.

 Here's the world map around Wakamomo.  There's... not much to see, besides desert and mountains

 And then there's Kabutt, which is further south a bit and apparently located in the Outback...

 ...and everyone here pretty much just talks about how disappointed they are that some rich guy who had promised them an Outback Steakhouse never actually held up his end of the deal.

 Yep... drunken kangaroos.

 Of course, there's a reference to soccer being called football in... basically everywhere except the United States.  That and drunken kangaroos are both things that came up in my high school physics class, where my teacher was a guy who'd lived in Australia for a period of time and had picked up a lot of lingering Australian-ness from it.

 Some newish enemies.  For some bizarre reason, one of them is Orange Chicken -- yes, like the Chinese food.  I'm assuming they would've also shown up in the China-equivalent area, if I had ever gotten as far as making that part of the map.  They self-destruct on you, for some odd reason.

And there's the world map on the lower-right corner.  That town, cave, and island jungle village visible on the map are all inaccessible, unfortunately... though I did start working on the mapping of the town (called Schned) before abandoning the game.

Yep... Joguo's solo chapter is pretty incomplete.  Basically nothing story-relevant happens, just random encounters and wandering through random towns where nothing really significant is going on.  I can't remember exactly how things were going to go from there, but I do remember one thing for sure...

Remember the nameless narrator girl from the "choose a character" parts?  If not, here's her status screen:

That's right -- she's not just a placeholder and narrator, she has actual stats, and even starting equipment.  And she just happens to be just above the "high 50s, low 60s" range of levels that everyone in these solo segments (well, except Nancos who started out way up at level 85) happens to be at.  Just like how every character back in the early game was randomly around 5-10 levels higher than anyone else when they first joined the team.

Yep, nameless narrator girl was actually going to join the party at some point.  She had an actual name, too -- Anrijue -- and even her own set of special attacks... all of which hint at her true nature long before the game would've revealed it up front.  Oh, and "at some point" was going to be during Joguo's segment, by the way; she would have met him... somewhere (my guess is either in the town of Schned or in that mountain cave that I never even started working on, though Schned doesn't have any NPCs in the most recent version of the game file so it's hard to say) and provided him with a means of transport to the mainland.  Probably by way of another ancient Hudawuda teleporter device hidden in that mountain cave, which she would be able to energize using her powers.

Which would make sense, considering that her actual identity was eventually going to be revealed as the power of the shattered Ajrien Crystal that has taken on a humanoid form.

(If you didn't shatter the Ajrien Crystal by giving it to the Kuarudo queen and then defeating her while she was drawing power from it, it would've been explained that it was broken during the meteor swarm that smashed up the airship, which also conveniently explains why all of your items except the ones you had equipped at the time vanish from one half of the game to the next.)

Here's a random drawing of Anrijue from the 2006-2007 time period.
I actually still really like her design, even though this picture is so old...
Maybe it's something about the way I drew her eyes?

Like Fredd, however, Anrijue wasn't going to be a permanent member of the party.  She and Joguo would've come across Deathio at some point (presumably in the China-equivalent area, considering that I was already thinking up Chinese-food-themed enemies), and rather than stopping after summoning some random monster, he was actually going to step in and fight them personally.  With Joguo already weakened from fighting off the summoned monster, Deathio himself was going to prove to be too much for him, and this would've been one of those "you can't really win" battles where it's not a "Game Over" even if you lose, and winning is near-impossible.  Afterward, Anrijue reveals who/what she actually is to Joguo, and decides to unleash the full power of the Ajrien Crystal all at once to take out Deathio.  Unlike Fredd blowing up on Obesius, I think this one actually was going to work -- at least, I don't remember having any further plans for Deathio after this point in the game, and he was always kinda the forgotten member of the Arkolo in my drawings and such around the time (well, not as forgotten as the Demon-Baby, but the Demon-Baby was just a generic three-eyed baby with devil horns whose only line in the whole game was something along the lines of "GYYYAAAAAAH!" so that's understandable.)

All I remember of the plan for Jakarjo's solo segment -- which I never even actually started working on in anything other than the vague ideas in my head back in 2005 or so -- was that he would've started out in the Japan-equivalent area, and rather than a lot of traveling his story revolved around a lingering mental issue that had developed as a result of the battle with Tuham Yigro way back in Part 1.  Tuham Yigro wasn't just vaguely Cthulhu-esque -- it actually did have that whole "can drive people insane" thing going on about it, and Jakarjo was the unlucky one among the orb carriers who clashed with the big tentacle-worm-thing in the city of Bubarubas.  I'm thinking that a big part of his story would've been going through a hallucination caused by Tuham Yigro's lingering presence, then coming out of it in an insane asylum, which of course he would've broken out of.  The world map of the Japan-like place is pretty small, so I'm guessing he would've sailed off to someplace else not long after escaping.

And with the end of Jakarjo's solo segment, the groups would've started to come together -- obviously there were Enduo's and Mejuai's groups both ending up at Swont-Ghina just in time to interrupt Nebozu's evil plans to rig the election and become President (the Nebozu battle looks like it would've been pretty easy by 2nd-half standards, as his stats are barely any better than the imposter Nebozu's were in the "Nebozu and not-really-hypnotized Mejuai" battle), but Joguo and Jakarjo would've also met shortly after the endings of their respective segments of the game.  Robert would've continued his solo (or "with random allied Yenrab" if you happened to get Crunk to join) adventure a bit longer, reaching Urket and finding the robots in the process of repairing the airship.  I'm guessing there might've been a "find some missing airship parts" quest at some point around here but I'm really not sure as I don't clearly remember my plans for this bit.  The one thing I do remember, though, is that Joguo and Jakarjo's journey after meeting up in China would've led to them reaching the airship as well, and the two of them plus Robert would've flown off to track down Enduo and Mejuai's groups after that.  Not sure if Crunk would've stuck around, though I do know that Junk and Gunk would have been very much temporary party members if you convinced them to join and would've chosen to stay behind in a bar somewhere rather than tagging along as permanent characters.

As the White Orb's presence suggested, there was another character hidden in the game just like Julia with the Red Orb in the first half.  This was Sarah the psychic cat, though I can't remember where the heck she was going to be hidden.  I'm guessing Robert could've found her in Urket or somewhere else on the European-equivalent continent, since he's the one who had the ability to find her orb.

Speaking of hidden things on the European continent, there was actually an entire optional dungeon built into the game that's impossible to access currently since only Robert and Fredd (and Crunk) can reach Naldrie.  If you came back with someone class-changed into a Psychic (which means Enduo or Julia... or Sarah the cat, of course), there's a hidden stairway in the basement of the Kartol church, which leads down into the sunken Gehhkeh swamp palace.  It's populated by random encounters and also the wandering souls of dead Gehhkeh, who tell you about all kinds of random things.  Some random details include the fact that the Gehhkeh pretty much stopped being bad guys after Karptic defeated them, but the humans kept killing them afterward anyway, partly (but not entirely) due to the influence of Buhtt McPharten.  Speaking of Buhtt McPharten, the Gehhkeh name for him was "Butmekkhf'ton," and he was apparently a demon unleashed upon the world by Nebozu (during his original time on Earth, I assume, since he'd been active longer than Nebozu had been released from the crystal prison that had been holding him on the moon.)  Reaching the bottom of the Swamp Palace would reward you with one of the game's hidden legendary weapons, the Moojwhammer, which was a giant golden hammer that was the only way in the game to inflict "Holy" damage (which heavily damaged evil beings of all types.)  It's also the only hammer in the game, oddly enough, and due to its oddball category it could only be equipped by the Warrior and Summoner classes... meaning that Enduo and Mejuai (and Bob, and Sarah, and all of the non-orb-using optional characters) would never be able to equip the thing.

This was only one of many secret weapons I had planned for the game.  One of the others, the Excalibooger, could be earned by defeating King Ratpoo (it turned out that the "source of the chaos" puzzle I couldn't figure out before was absurdly simple -- there was exactly one rock in the room that wasn't symmetrical with the rocks on the other side.)  I made an attempt at this during my Robert playthrough...

 

 

 

 ...but as you can see from these screenshots, I did not succeed. XD

The unique thing about the Excalibooger is that it counts as both a sword and an axe for the purposes of Robert's super moves, allowing him to use both Booger Ray and Boogery Ooze without switching equipment.  It's also the third-strongest weapon in the game (Moojwhammer mentioned above is the fifth-strongest) and has a chance of poisoning enemies hit by it.

The other super-weapons? Well... there was the Noop Knife for Joguo, which had a 1-in-3 chance of instantly destroying any enemy it touched (making it a lot more effective than its low attack power -- in the range of Kirbium equipment, rather than being Snozzorium-level or above like most of the other ultimate weapons -- would suggest.)  It's basically the only way for Joguo to ever use his "Death Cut" super move, since after the very beginning of the game every other knife-type weapon would be ridiculously weak.

Mejuai's exclusive weapon was the Yagyurang, a boomerang that damaged all enemies at once and (for some bizarre reason) was programmed to count as a knife-type weapon rather than a boomerang... I'm guessing that was the result of copying the Noop Knife's item slot, not an intentional decision, as the knife-type designation would prevent Mejuai from using her boomerang-exclusive super move Thunder Slash.

Enduo's super-weapon was, of course, the Numnum Sword -- which was the strongest weapon in the game by a good margin with an attack power of 200 (a standard Kirbium Sword was only 90, and even a Snozzorium one only had an attack power of 130.)  Aside from boosting all of his other stats slightly, the Numnum Sword had no special attributes aside from insanely high attack power.  I can't remember where the Noop Knife, Yagyurang, or Numnum Sword would've been hidden, though I assume Yagyuoo were involved with the Yagyurang just going by the name.

Jakarjo's weapon was simply named "Tentacle" -- and it actually was not connected to Tuham Yigro at all, but to another tentacle monster known as the "Eye of Fnrrf" which would have been an optional boss at the bottom of a dungeon beneath Antarctica.  In addition to having the second-highest attack power in the game, the Tentacle could also induce poison, stun, or insanity in enemies struck by it.  Finally, Julia and Sarah share two claw-type superweapons, the Dragon Claws and Demon Claws.  The Demon Claws are a bit stronger, stun enemies about a third of the time, and have a higher critical-hit chance... but they lower the wielder's defense, have lower accuracy, and are cursed.  The Dragon Claws, on the other hand, provide a boost to defense (and also a higher speed boost than the Demon Claws), in exchange for no stun and lower attack power and critical hit chance.  Julia always gets critical hits anyway, so it seems like the Dragon Claws' defense/speed boost and not-being-cursed-ness make them the better option for her.  Oddly enough, Sarah (yes, the cat) actually has higher attack power than Julia, but without the automatic critical hits she might need more of an attack-power boost to do a lot of damage anyway.

Finally, there were a few other super-weapons not exclusive to any one character, in addition to Moojwhammer.  There was the Lightning Spear (originating in The Story of Supernum as Jade's strongest weapon), which combined the attack power of a Snozzorium Spear with a speed boost, lightning-elemental damage, near-perfect accuracy and a chance of paralyzing enemies on contact.  Weirdly, it seems that it was exclusively equippable by the Trainer and Warp Mage classes, meaning Robert and Julia could never equip it.  There was also the Staff of Parupoo, originating in the never-finished OHRRPGCE game of the same name, which was both the 4th-strongest weapon in the game and provided a huge boost to the wielder's magical powers.  Last (and least) of the superweapons is the Plunkodon Club, an ice-elemental spiked club that had a chance of stunning enemies and boasted a relatively puny attack power of 92.  Like the Lightning Spear it had an odd array of classes able to equip it -- Warriors (okay, that one makes sense, heavy-armor/heavy-weapon guys using a giant spiked club), Summoners (...eh?) and Foodfighters (...WHUT!?)  This, of course, meant that Enduo and Mejuai could never equip it... and that chances are good that nobody else would either, unless Robert (or Bob) was a Foodfighter and you didn't have the Excalibooger for Robert yet.  I'm guessing this one would've been fairly easy to find in comparison to the rest.

...okay, got a bit side-tracked with the talk of Uggy Barfoo's lost super-weapons.  Anyway...

Once the team was  reunited, I can't really remember my full plans for the rest of the second half of the game.  I do remember that another character, named Bob, was going to be introduced -- at first as a sort of "third party" opposing both the heroes and the Arkolo, but later joining up with the heroes.  Bob was a hobo who carried the Brown Orb and had a limited selection of classes (just Foodfighter, Ninja, and... something else I can't remember, maybe Summoner?) rather than the full list that the other major characters got.  It was at this point that the Uggy Barfoo -- as in the title -- would have actually become involved; Bob was going to steal it at some point, while the Arkolo are trying to track it down so that Burije can absorb its power into her spaceship and use that to conquer the world unopposed.

Once the orb holders are reunited, of course, that means Nancos wants another fight with the combined group -- and at that point she would've revealed that she actually did absorb the Black Orb, contrary to her claims to Enduo that she had abandoned it entirely.  Before she could actually attack, however, Burije appears unexpectedly, distracting Nancos and actually making her seem a bit worried for the first time in the entire game.  Burije proceeds to extract a lingering fragment of Tuham Yigro from Jakarjo's mind, then fuses it together with Nancos, creating a freakish monster that basically looks like a Tuham Yigro mermaid with a naked (aside from weird buggy-parts and growths covering her boobs) Nancos as the upper body.  Oh, and Tuham Yigro heads instead of arms, of course.  My sister and I both drew versions of this fusion at some point, but unfortunately I can't find any of them anymore -- if I could I'd post one here.  Maybe I'll go back and do that if I ever stumble across one and scan it in.  The game already has a boss battle theme set aside for the Tuham Yigro/Nancos fusion, but of course it went unused because that fight never happened in the parts of the game I got finished.

Speaking of unused themes, there's also one that was planned to be used for Burije's Barfoo-infused ship, which would've been the final dungeon.  Probably including rematch battles with Goatsu and Obesius before the final battle with Burije herself, ending up with her fusing with the Barfoo and her ship to become this freaky-looking thing with a giant Burije head with tentacle-hair and glowing eyes, and also two giant floating claws and lots of tentacles sprouting out from all over the walls.

Oh, and it turned out that the "Guard Donut" item was the secret to surviving the fight(s) with Burije, as it provided resistance to claw-based attacks.  She would've used the same Death Claw move as Julia, of course (as well as probably some others), which would do pretty heavy damage and cause some nasty status effects such as paralysis and insta-death, so having a way to resist this would've been pretty vital.  I sort of repeated this in Okédoké, with the Guardian Donut providing resistance to physical attacks that made it the only way to survive Bridget's Death Claw (which caused 999 damage if you had no resistance to it, but only around 100 if you were resistant to it... and the only way to resist it was with the Guardian Donut.)

And now, I'll end off with a random funny thing I discovered when poking around in the game's programming... if you try to use Frog Juice while Nancos is with you, she refuses, saying the following: "No way am I drinking hallucinogenic frog slime."