Chard

Master Chard, known in Japan as Lubu Sorakyu, is a recurring boss character in Magical Starsign. He is the leader of the pirate otters, subordinate to Master Kale, and a wielder of dark magic.

Personality
Chard is very arrogant and uses strange similes to belittle his foes. The only person he does not talk down to is his superior, Master Kale.

Appearance
Chard has curly white hair with pink tips, and the rest of his head is mostly obscured by a mask. This mask is oddly bird-shaped with a red beak, colorful sphere-shaped lenses, four symmetrical tusks, blue eyelash pieces, several yellow arrows, and five triangular parts around the base. The only distinguishable part of Chard's face is his fair-skinned jaw and pink lips.

For clothing, he wears a green sleeveless vest with a big collar and yellow fabric lined around every opening. His torso consists of a purple shirt wrapped in red cloth which loops over his shoulders, and a second purple cloth is tied over his abdomen. Below the purple cloth is eight long strips of green fabric made from the same material as his vest. The fabric strips are topped with purple triangles, and below his abdomen is a yellow straw-like covering. His pants are purple like his shirt, and he wears green boots with red frills on the insteps. Finally, he is equipped with green gloves that have red cuffs.

Boss
Chard is fought three times during the course of Magical Starsign. He wields dark affinity, gaining his aura during the night. In each of his encounters, he possesses the skill finger-pointer, allowing him to interact with environmental elements to deal large amounts of damage to the party. He is also the first enemy encountered to possess the neutral spell celestial swap, allowing him to adjust the position of planets to his advantage by moving certain planets out of alignment.

190
The first iteration of Chard encountered is number 190, which serves as the boss of the Great Dragon Road on Cassia. In this battle, he uses the spell shadow die and the physical skill slice kick as his primary means of attack, each dealing damage to one member of the party. When using finger-pointer in this encounter, Chard will use icicle fall in the following turn, knocking a large icicle down that deals a significant amount of damage to every member of the party.

Bestiary entry
The leader of the pirate otters suffers from a superiority complex, which isn't helped by his mastery of dark magic. He fought Miss Madeleine at some point...

196
The second iteration of Chard encountered is number 196, which serves as the boss of Nata de Coco on Cassia. In this battle, he retains the same set of spells from the first encounter, but lacks the physical skill slice kick, as he is now in the back row of a group of three pirate otters (number 192). This prevents Chard from being vulnerable to the party's physical attacks as he was in the first fight. Despite being in the back row, Chard's shadow die is still only a single-target attack. Instead of locking on to an icicle above the battle like in the first encounter, finger-pointer now acts as a targeting skill, allowing Chard to perform the powerful sky-high kick in the following turn to strike a single member of the party.

Bestiary entry
The leader of the pirate otters suffers from delusions of grandeur. He claims he held his punches last time. This time, he means business!

220
The third and final iteration of Chard encountered is number 220, which serves as the boss of Cocoabutter Valley on Shadra. In this battle, his dark spells are updated, giving him blood money and dazzle darts, instead of shadow die like in the previous two encounters. Much like in the second battle, finger-pointer is used as a targeting attack, although kick of darkness is the skill used in the following turn as opposed to sky-high kick.

Bestiary entry
You've beaten him twice, but now the dark planet is feeding his power. Is this the last stand of a man obsessed with the dark teachings of Master Kale?

Frozen Cassia
Chard is introduced shortly after the protagonist and Lassi sail Neumann through the frigid waters of Cassia, as he and a handful of pirate otters operate a strange machine within a cave glazed in ice. Another otter runs in to alert his master of the magic rocket's arrival, assuming it may cause trouble for them. The masked wizard asks if it is a Space Police rocket, but the otter tells him that it does not look like one of their units. Believing the rocket may just be carrying mere tourists, Chard turns back to the machine as the students of Will-o'-Wisp exit Neumann, struggling to stay warm on the Water Planet's bitter cold surface.

When the kids arrive in the town of Pescato, most of the residents seem to blame the abrupt drop in temperature on a shelled dog named Hermit lab, who apparently works with an ice monster in Lover's Cove. They continuously ask Detective Beignet to deal with Hermit lab, but the Space Policeman says his responsibility is dealing with monsters on Mandarin Beach. The protagonist and Lassi go to investigate the supposed ice monster, hoping it may bring them one step closer to repairing Mokka, whose head was stolen to power a heat generator. This is because the owner of the generator could not find the key to unlock his toolbox, which contains a battery for it. Luckily, the pair of students find out that the ice monster is really a tree veiled in thick fog.

The Hermit lab drops the toolbox key, and the otter who took Mokka's head gives it back. The kids return to the headless body of Mokka and put him back together, successfully bringing their mechanical friend back to life. They introduce him to the Neumann ship, but the ancient robot finds out it lacks a proper navicontrol system, meaning space travel will be significantly harder. Lassi recalls seeing dwarven engineers in Pescato, believing they may be able to help upgrade the ship so it can fly straight to Puffoon.

Outside of the port town, the trio of students cross paths with Caldarroste, who reveals that the Astro Pirates are why Cassia is frozen over. According to the shady otter, the pirates constructed a freezing machine in the depths of Dragon God Cave, and destroying it may restore Cassia to its liquid state.

The entrance to Dragon God Cave is sealed shut with ice; however, Mokka is able to shake it open with his Earth Wild Magic. The students enter and fend off against hordes of pirate otters in Great Dragon Road, eventually arriving in the chamber where Chard and his freezing machine are located. When they see him perched atop the machine, he claims to sense great magical energy within them before dramatically leaping into battle.

Once Chard is defeated, Caldarroste proudly enters the scene and asks if he can join the pirates' ranks, as he tricked the kids into infiltrating Dragon God Cave back in Pescato. Before the masked wizard can utter a word, he collapses from a sharp pain in his chest. It turns out that before the students arrived, Chard clashed with Madeleine in a magic duel and lost. He commands the otters to flee the cave, leaving Caldarroste with the protagonist, Mokka, and Lassi.

Suddenly, the freezing machine begins to blow dangerous amounts of snow, so Mokka steps in and furiously rams himself into it after typing several incorrect passwords. A remote control falls onto the ground, and the ancient robot accidentally breaks it, causing the freezing machine to break down. Every jet on the planet that was installed by the Astro Pirates is rid of ice, and Cassia's waters are liquid once more. The protagonist, Mokka, and Lassi are found washed up on Mandarin Beach, to which Beignet flies in and brings them to Pescato.

Search for the sacred water
Later on Gren, the party confronts more of Chard's Astro Pirates in Assam, this time with Chai and Pico on the team. Just as the otters and Lord Persimmon are about to fly off with Semolina (disguised as Farina), Sorbet jumps on board and joins them on a one-way flight to Razen. Unfortunately, Neumann is not equipped to enter the Fire Planet's scorching atmosphere, meaning the group must find a way to pass through it without burning the ship. They fly over to Cassia and ask a nearby dwarf if he can make Neumann resistant to fire, to which he answers by saying they need aquarino. This special water will always stay liquid regardless of temperature, and if it were applied to Neumann, they could fly through Razen's atmosphere.

The students are told that the aquarino is somewhere in Pescato, but all entrances to the town are blocked off by Space Police. Beignet, unaware of why the troops are suddenly so strict, lets the kids through and talks with them in a house. According to him, the pirates have migrated to the rock gate of Nata de Coco and should be investigated. Detective Beignet distracts the other Space Police while the students deal with the otters at Nata de Coco.

Arriving at the rock gate, the group finds a trio of otters slashing at thick strands of seaweed blocking the cave's entrance. Chard is there too, once again making a grand entrance by jumping down, then tells his enemies of how Kale predicted they would also be after the aquarino. He challenges them to battle once again, though he is still not strong enough to defeat Will-o'-Wisp's students.

After fighting the masked wizard for a second time, Beignet returns with a few Space Police troops. One of them suspiciously calls him "Master Chard", which the others play off by also referring to him as such. He is taken away by an armored cruiser and everyone else leaves, allowing Pico to burn the seaweed blocking Nata de Coco's entrance. The kids finally get a hold of the legendary aquarino, beginning the next step of their quest to find Madeleine and Sorbet.

Chard's devotion
The final encounter with Chard takes place on Shadra, where he and Caldarroste wait for the kids in front of Chromagar Cave’s entrance. Chard introduces himself yet again as the Pirate King and Kale’s second-in-command, burning with power through his magical alignment with the Dark Planet. He challenges the six students to one last duel, but like the two previous times, he does not win.

Chard collapses to the ground, proclaiming his loyalty to Master Kale and his goals, then tells the kids how Kale’s predictions are all coming true; their arrival, his defeat, and the imminent intervention of General Knucklestorm. Before Knucklestorm flies in, Chard ends his own life by blowing himself up, nearly knocking the group and Caldarroste unconscious.

Trivia

 * His name comes from 'chard', a type of vegetable with a large stem that can be reddish in color.
 * His Japanese name, 'Leub Sorakyu', is an anagram of the Japanese phonetic spelling for 'blue curaçao', citrus-flavored liqueur that is commonly dyed blue.