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- "'You go in, come out alive. You lie your way through the paperwork, go home, and try to forget about what you saw. Trust me kid, it's the only way you stay sane."
- ―Blackwood
John Blackwood, also known as Subject Delta, is a male Barabel serving as an operative of Clan Odan-Urr. Found as an infant amid the wreckage of a freak starship crash on the outskirts of Coronet City, Blackwood was taken by a Human couple and raised as their child. Although beset by strange occurrences and freak incidents throughout his childhood, Blackwood would join the Corellian Security Force, serving as a detective and investor. Naturally skilled and observant, Blackwood would serve the organisation well, but would find himself embroiled with occult crimes and strange murders, earning him an ill reputation.
Late into his career, Blackwood would uncover the truth of his origins when facing a spectral entity of a long dead Sith Lord; learning that he had been originally biochemically forged by the Sith to serve it as a bringer of destruction. Although Blackwood was successful in defeating the spirit and the horrifying experiments it had influenced, a growing disgust with CorSec's upper management would lead him to quit the force. Swiftly recruited by Essik Lyccane, Blackwood would join Clan Odan-Urr as a field agent and expert on the Dark Side.
Character History
CorSec Days (9 ABY - 42 ABY)
Trainwreck Beginning
The exact origins and genetic history of John Blackwood were a mystery at the time of his discovery around 11 ABY. A freighter, either due to accident or sabotage, had lost control and crashed while trying to depart from Coronet city, and had crashed on the outskirts. Barely missing the outlying suburbs, the vessel had carved a deep scar into the earth and had been split apart upon impact. Although largely intact and failing to explode, what was found within was more horrifying to first responders than any mound of corpses. The vessel's hold was filled with genetic analysis and experimental equipment, transformed into an extensive lab worthy of any biological research station, and with horrors worthy of an Imperial Dungeon ship. Gene-spliced creations were found amid the wreckage, still hooked to wrecked monitoring equipment or barely alive. Some had been forcibly implanted with symbiotic creatures, while others had been seemingly cloned from multiple sources in an effort to splice a new species entirely. Most were dead, and the few left besides swiftly begged for a merciful end.
As the responders explored the freighter they found darker things; data from the Emperor's Deep Core stronghold, passages from the time of the Sith Empire, and texts apparently crafted outlining cruel means of altering another's biological form. This would soon lead to the involvement of Professor Casath Blackwood, a teacher at Corellia University who had knowledge of Sith sorcery. Casath was at a loss for how someone had so easily come into possession of so much illicit data, but soon concluded that the creator at the heart of such work was not among the bodies, and had likely been helping guide it remotely. When investigating a symbol escribed chamber at the heart of the vessel, Casath found the infant Barabel. Unharmed by the wreckage but terrified, his lack of mutations was a sign of suspicion but his lack of hostility or tell-tale signs of experimentation spared him from the fate of other victims of experiments.
Casath quickly came to the conclusion that the Barabel child had likely been abducted from another world. Trying to find his family first through genetic links, and then the freighter's flight path, she was unable to find any possible home he might have been taken from. Even a handful of unusual markers within his genetics offered nothing more than a sign of potentially being tested for DNA harvesting, but nothing more. Wanting to both keep an eye on the child for any risk he might pose and also spare him the hardship of growing up without parents, Casath adopted the Barabel into her family, naming him John after her father.
The Normal Years
The Black Dossier
- "'You can hear them, but you don't really believe they're there. They can't be. You've never seen anything with skin that colour before. That particular texture and sheen. You think you've smelled their breath, but you can't be right. The smell of hospital burn wards, of speeder crashes. The smell of cooked human meat on their breath. That's what you're thinking, isn't it. There are things moving in that building which should not even be alive. Unfortunately, while you might have forgotten about them, they've definitely not forgotten about us."
- ―Blackwood
Dangerous Habits
The Conqueror Worm
Jedi Business (42 ABY - Present)
Physical Description
Personality
Uncomplicated and with a layman's view of the world, Blackwood is a normal man trying to deal with a deeply abnormal life. More concerned usually with just doing his job, getting paid, and going home for the day, any casual conversation could allow for a passer by to mistake him for any blue collar worker. It's only when Blackwood gets into the specifics of his work that this illusion is broken. Blackwood will speak of horrifying rituals, serial killings, and macabre with the same nonchalant ease as a construction worker outlining fitting a roof into place. Although far from amoral or uncaring, decades of dealing with the more esoteric aspects of the Force has left Blackwood with a near unshakable disposition which is rarely surprised or horrified anymore. Short of bursts of rage when he is truly infuriated or in the heat of battle, Blackwood is more prone to dry humour or resigned irritation when dealing with matters of the Force.
Although typically laconic unless forced to get a serious point across, Blackwood could be highly personable and sociable with those he was able to rely upon. A few too many betrayals left him with severe trust issues, and as such such a circle was small indeed; a problem only further exaggerated by how few friends and allies he was able to retain in CorSec thanks to his poor reputation for heralding disaster and general weirdness. A former partner once commented that "You know things have gone to kark when Blackwood is given the case. It could be a Rodian taking the credit chit from someone's old granny, and two days later we'll find it's all part of some elaborate neo-Krath doomsday ceremony." It was a point that Blackwood could hardly deny.
Both his method of creation and many cases left him with little to no respect for practitioners of the Dark Side, and distrust for those who favoured its means. Even after long accepting that Nikora Rhan, Ka Tarvitz, and members of the Templar Jensaarai were as far from the Sith who created him s possible, he still never fully accepted them. Although open minded enough to accept and respect the Jedi, even following attempts on his life following misunderstandings due to his knowledge and relationship with the Dark Side, some histories simply ran too deep to fully bury.
Yet perhaps what people most commonly forget is that Blackwood considers himself human in all the ways that matter. Raised by humans, growing up among humans, and working with humans, he did not even meet another Barabel until well into adulthood. Going so far as to take classes to overcome the typical cadence and speech impediments of his kind when speaking Basic, he would only opt to learn his species' language after being prompted by members of his family.
Equipment
Often working more with anything that Nikora Rhan, Clan Odan-Urr, or the Free Droid Enclave can supply over his own materials, Blackwood has relatively few items to his name. Relying much more upon his wits than gadgetry, he typically operates with little more than the clothes on his back and a gun in his holster. Both are among the few items he kept with him after moving to Clan Odan-Urr, with a BR-5010 slugthrower pistol being the most valuable item still to his name.
Powers and Abilities
Combat
Although experienced in a variety of weapon types, ranging from Slugthrowers to blades, Blackwood lacks any noted talent. Passable at best in these fields and with only somewhat better capability when it comes to a wider variety of disabling weapons such net guns, even his experience with explosives is born more from the use of flash grenades and being talked through disabling bombs over real training.
Instead Blackwood's talent lies far more in his physicality, utilising his sheer strength and stamina to overcome opponents. This is paired with his expertise in both Mandalorian Core and the Imperial Martial Arts System, to overcome, disarm, and then disable enemies. Although much of his experience stems from training, this has been further enhanced through harsh combat, with Blackwood learning how to turn effectively any discarded item into an ad hoc weapon; something he actively pursued after being forced to disable and then kill a mutated Rancor with a sharpened length of rebar. When paired with his natural analytical skills, this allows Blackwood to quickly identify a likely weakness in his opponent and exploit it, relying upon little more than anything he can pick up during the fight.
Detective