| “ | There's some who say my form has been reduced to that of sluggery (Were I not a Christian, I'd accuse them all of buggery) But still, with cryptids airborne, terrestrial, and aquarian I am the very model of an explorer and gentleman! |
” |
–The final verse of Blackwood's edition of "I Am the Very Model", I Am the Very Model | ||
Lord Theodore Thomas Blackwood, CBE, 7th Viscount of Westminister, is a British explorer and naturalist who was heavily active during the 19th Century. At some point shortly after the turn of the 20th Century (circa 1910), Blackwood was changed from a human into a member of the Nembrotha kubaryana species of sea slug.
Description[]
As a human, Theodore Thomas Blackwood appeared no older than forty to the entity known as Mr. Deeds in 1837, but equally appeared of a similar age just after the turn of the 20th Century.[4]
A caracature of Lord Blackwood's visage as a human.
According to SCP-1867's description of himself, he is fit, barrel-chested man as tall Abraham Lincoln (1.93 meters). His eyes are blue, a feature which his brown-eyed siblings constantly teased him for as a child, alleging that Theodore was a bastard or a Mongoloid. Left-handedness is another "Mongolian" attribute he expressed during various activities throughout his life. His face and hands are devoid of scarring, in contrast to his arms and torso which have been "crisscrossed every which way with a lifetime's worth of scars, every one of them proudly earned in battle or in exploration." Avoidant of casually speaking about his sexual organs due to his modesty, Blackwood has claimed that "the reputation of the Blackwood family of being possessed heartily of stamina and virility is not one ill-assigned."
As a member of Nembrotha kubaryana, SCP-1867 is physically un-anomalous, measuring 11.7 cm (4.6 inches) in length with black skin, green stripes and an orange foot and antenna. He possesses the ability to communicate telepathically with anyone within five meters.[2]
The style of SCP-1867's speech and the terminology he uses remains appropriate to the late 19th Century even decades later in the 20th Century while he is in Foundation captivity. He is generally friendly and cooperative with Foundation researchers, but refuses to acknowledge that he is a sea slug, sending those who asked him about it away.[2]
History[]
Early life and the 1830s[]
According to his own claims, Lord Theodore Thomas Blackwood was raised in the West Counties of England and attended Eton College.[4] During his education, Blackwood became acquainted with his classmate Harris, whom he considered to a dishonorable and contemptuous person. [5] He remembered his boyhood home as a cold and dreary place, even in summer, that was surrounded by woods.[6] He inherited the title of viscount from his family.[4] As a young man he would often enjoy riding out with his hounds on fox hunts.[6]
At some point, one of Blackwood's cousins was turned into an eel by a cursed object.[7]
In 1833, Blackwood led the Great Warlock Hunt in Austria.[7]
On June 28th, 1837, Blackwood was in attendance of Alexandrina Victoria's coronation as the Queen of England. After watching the festivities, Blackwood returned to his London estate, wherein he found a short well-dressed man in the midst of pressing and starching his shirts. Upon question of the man – Mr. Deeds – neither could explain how the latter had gotten in the estate, nor who had tasked Deeds with Blackwood's laundry.[3] Recognizing his capabilities, Lord Blackwood hired Mr. Deeds for work as his valet, managing his estate and various serving staff. Deeds would serve this position intermittently across the next six decades, finding other employers when Blackwood was out of the countries for periods of time, as his services were not required.[4]
1840s[]
In the 1840s, Blackwood encountered the Frenchman Patrice de Mac-Mahon for the first time while in Algeria where Mac-Mahon was commanding the French Foreign Legion.[7]
In 1841, Blackwood accompanied some of his fellow veterans from the Great Warlock Hunt in a visit to Berlin. During his time in the German city, Blackwood found the young composer Franz Liszt, overwhelmed by fanatical ladies. After distancing Liszt from the women and assisting the younger man to the safety of his hotel, Blackwood fared a brief moment of Lisztomania that left him questioning his sexuality and identity as a man.[3]
In 1843, Blackwood traveled to the planet Mars with the astronomer Dr. Hightower.[8]
In 1846, Blackwood had Deeds accompany him in secret trip to Japan, posing as Dutch tradesmen in order to retrieve some documents for the Duke of Edinburgh. While in the isolated island nation, Blackwood and Deeds came across and individual known by the moniker of "Darkblade", whom despite his claims of grandeur, Blackwood found to be arrogant, aggrandizing, incapable in combat, and possibly a closeted homosexual. [3]
1850s[]
Blackwood versus the Thaumaturge[]
| “ | Oh, Yuri Dreshnik's command baton! Haven't seen it in years. Interesting story behind that one. | ” |
–Blackwood begins to regale Dr. Adam Bernstein with the story behind the command baton, Lord Blackwood and the Thaumaturge | ||
During the Crimean War in July of the year 1855, Blackwood was in London meeting with a friend to discuss an expedition to the East Indies when he was visited by a messenger from Lord Palmerston, current Prime Minister of England. The explorer immediately made his way to Palmerston's office at 10 Downing Street, where the prime minister explained that his services were needed fighting against the Russians. Plans were being made with the French for an attack on the city of Sevastopol in August or September, as they had besieged it for close to a year; however, the Russian forces in the city included the powerful Thaumaturge Yuri Dreshnik and Palmerston was unwilling to let an attack go ahead while the Russians had Dreshnik's magic on their side.[7]
Agreeing to deal with Dreshnik, Blackwood boarded the HMS Gallant the next day and set sail for Istanbul. After repelling a pirate raid near the shores of Libya, the Gallant completed what was otherwise an uneventful trip and dropped Blackwood at Istanbul, where he swapped to a smaller vessel to finish his journey. He arrived aboard the command vessel of his old acquaintance General Patrice de Mac-Mahon on the last day of August and was informed that Dreshnik was hiding out in the Malakoff tower overlooking the port and preparing some kind of ritual.[7]
Blackwood then put together a team of the finest soldiers the allied armies had to offer and mounted a night raid on the Malakoff. Halfway to the port the team's boat sank, and before they could reach the tower their sniper slipped on wet stones and broke his ankle. Half the team were then gunned down after being discovered by the enemy, but those that remained managed to chase Dreshnik and corner him in his ritual room.[7]
Unwilling to surrender, Dreshnik pointed his command baton at Sargent Monroe, one of Blackwood's men, and killed him by turning his skin inside out. He then killed Corporal Turner in the same way before Blackwood shot the rod from his hand, blowing off several of the thaumaturge's fingers in the process. Dreshnik then howled and sprayed the blood form his fingers onto Monroe and Turner, who rose from the dead and attacked their former allies, killing Durand and Roux. Blackwood killed the pair before braining Dreshnik with his own command rod, leaving the thaumaturge's ritual incomplete. Blackwood burned down the ritual room before escaping, but kept the command rod as a souvenir, storing it at his cottage. Mac-Mahon's forces attacked Sevastopol a week later, and without support from Dreshnik the Russians were quickly defeated.[7]
At some point in the same year, Blackwood was in Egypt, wherein he encountered his old classmate and rival, Harris, and the two naturalists matched wits with each other on the banks of the Nile river. [5]
Journey to the asteroid Victoria[]
For a year Blackwood remained in London fulfilling his duty as a member of the House of Lords to help Palmerston's government bring the Crimean War to an end. On April 3rd, 1856, he returned to his London estate as the war was over and learned from Mr. Deeds that he had missed a visit from Dr. Hightower, who requested his presence in Greenwich on the 5th.[8]
Blackwood claimed to have fought in the Second Opium War,[2] which lasted from 1856 to 1860.
Search for Big-Foot[]
| “ | I spent the morning in solemn prayer and reflection, and for the first time in my life I understood the sorrow of a condemned man awaiting the hangman's noose. I felt I had lived a good life, and I was prepared to do what any good Englishman would, and meet my Maker with a stiff upper lip and a clean conscience. | ” |
–Blackwood recounts the fear he felt waiting to be sacrificed to the sasquatch, From the Diaries of Lord Blackwood | ||
On July 3rd, 1857 however, he landed in Seattle, Oregon in the United States of America, having left England over half a year earlier. He had traveled to America based on a rumor he had heard in a gentleman's club on Broad Street, London, which spoke of a mysterious race known as the sasquatch native to America. Blackwood hoped to capture, or if necessary kill, a sasquatch so that he could bring it back to England.[6]
After hiring porters, a white man and a Native American as guides, Blackwood set out for Mount Rainer, known at the time as Tahoma, where the native claimed he had once seen a sasquatch. Over the next four days the group made steady progress through the forests toward the mountain, and on July 7th Blackwood caught his first glimpse of Mt. Rainer. Soon after he came upon a young fox trapped by local native hunters and freed it out of pity.[6]
The following day, on July 8th, Blackwood and his group met with a native hunting party on the banks of the river Nisqually and after the explorer's native guide greeted the hunters' leader as his cousin the two groups shared a meal of salmon and traded goods, allowing Blackwood to learn a few words of their language and causing him to plan to someday return to the region to learn more about them.[6]
On the 11th of July, a tribe of Native Americans who worshiped the sasquatch ambushed Blackwood's retinue while he slept and killed all but the explorer, the Native American guide and a single porter. The survivors were knocked out and then tied to poles so that their captors could carry them through the woods. On the 13th, Blackwood managed to write a journal entry recounting the attack, as the tribe had not discovered his journal.[6]
The tribe reached their home camp in the foothills of Mt. Rainer on July 15th, and at midday escorted the prisoners to a snowy clearing. There, the porter was singled out and moved to the center of the clearing where he was attacked and killed and eaten by the sasquatch that the tribe worshiped. Blackwood and the guide were returned to their tents afterwards, but on the 17th they were once again taken to the clearing and the guide was offered up as a sacrifice to the sasquatch and killed as the porter had been before.[6]
On the 18th the tribe began preparing Blackwood to be sacrificed, and he spent the morning in solemn prayer and reflection upon his life. Once he was at the clearing however the ritual sacrifice was interrupted by the arrival of a large number of woodland animals led by the fox king Alaric the Fifth, whose relative Blackwood had earlier saved from the trap. The animals set upon the tribe and the sasquatch while Blackwood used the chaos to flee, traveling for ten miles by his estimation before having to settle down for the night due to exhaustion and injuries.[6]
Upon awaking the next day, Blackwood discovered himself surrounded by six deer and two raccoons. He at first was shocked and made for his weapon, but stopped after seeing that the animals had brought him what remained of his possessions from his camp. The deer carrying the bundle shrugged it onto the ground, allowing the explorer to find within his rifle, his pistol, his tent, medicinal alcohol and enough dried rations to last two weeks. Alaric himself then stepped forward and barked for one of the raccoons to deliver a missive to Blackwood that it carried upon its back. The message thanked the explorer for rescuing the cub and bestowed upon him the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the Thistle, asking that he spread word of their kingdom to the lands of Christendom and bring back ambassadors.[6]
After the fox king then crossed himself and Blackwood did the same, Alaric was satisfied that their exchange was complete and left. The explorer wandered through the woods for five days before chancing upon the friendly tribe of locals who he had earlier traded with. After trying to convey to them what had happened to him, Blackwood was escorted back to Seattle, where he rested and healed his wounds for a month. By September 7th he had learned it was too late in the year for another expedition to be sent into the woods, and sent a letter to San Francisco to be telegraphed to the Royal Society in London for funding to either relocate the sasquatch or set up an embassy with Alaric's kingdom. He did not expect to be granted anything as he assumed nobody would believe him, and began planning to set out in May 1858 to Boreno where the White Raja had acquired a machine that fell from the sky.[6]
During battle in 1858, Blackwood met Oberon, the King of the Fairies. While in the land of the Fae, Blackwood accepted an offer of a drink from a lady, unaware of the marital connotations. The bachelor Blackwood survived the woman scorned, and left Oberon's land with the knowledge that that the sidhe do not look kindly upon broken engagements. At some point else in the year, Blackwood attended a demonstration where the polymath Charles Babbage showcased a difference engine. [3]
1860s[]
In 1863, Blackwood met the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. Upon viewing Lincoln in person, the Englishman found himself as the same height as the American.[3]
In 1867, Blackwood visited Israel, where he came across a tour group of Americans that included the Missourian writer Samuel Clemens. Recognizing the esteemed Mark Twain, Blackwood provided the touring author with anecdotes from his travels. While he got the impression that Clemens was unimpressed with his tales, Blackwood was reassured when the writer promised not to describe the viscount unflatteringly in his current work, The Innocents Abroad.[3]
1870s[]
In 1872, Blackwood had at least two expeditions throughout Oceania. In Australia, the naturalist rounded up a herd of stampeding bunyips, a feat he considered his biggest catch, even decades later.[9] While on the French Polynesian island of Bora-Bora, Blackwood was accompanied by ones Baron von Almsbach and Jekeled in hunt of a manticore. The three men were able to survive the deadly encounter with the chimera mainly due to the use of a future-seeing pince-nez that Jekeled had purchased from Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd.[3]
In 1874, Blackwood met during his travels in Africa a man by the name of Bright.[3]
In the Land of the Unclean[]
| “ | Many times in my life I have encountered savage tribes that never before have seen the wonders of civilization. At this moment, I felt the savage myself, beholding wonders he has no hope of contemplating. | ” |
–Blackwood marvels at the advanced technology in the world through the mirror, Blackwood and the Land of the Unclean | ||
On December 23rd, 1875, Blackwood attended a Christmas party at his regular gentleman's club where he learned from the evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace that one of his associates had recently returned from the Levant with a small red disc capable of turning mirrors into a portal to another world. He was told that two months earlier a man calling himself Izikaiah Belson had fallen through a mirror effected by the disc, after which Belson had been committed to Bedlam Asylum.
On Christmas day, 1875, Blackwood ate an early meal with his staff and then gave them the rest of the day off, spending the evening contemplating and planning a new expedition to the land beyond the mirror. On January 3rd, 1876, the explorer traveled to Bedlam and met with Belson and found the man praying in his cell in a dialect of English the explorer barely understood. Once Blackwood recognized the prayer he joined Belson in English, causing the prisoner to declare that Blackwood was a sinner or a witch as he spoke "the speech of the old elders".
Once Blackwood had reassured Belson that he was only a naturalist and not a sinner, the two spent several hours hashing out a form of pigdin English so Belson could describe his world to Blackwood. After Blackwood was eventually told he must leave for the night he convinced a nurse into letting him see Belson's file and discovered that the acquaintance of Wallace's whose home Belson had fallen into was named Weathers. Keen to explore this new world, Blackwood then traveled to Weathers's home and purchased the disc from him, discovering that it turned green whilst he was holding it.
Placing the disc upon a mirror in his home, Blackwood discovered the portal now led to a farm land and observed the world through the mirror for several days. On several occasions the farmer and his workers came close enough to the mirror for the explorer to hear them speak, although again he had trouble understanding their dialect. After purchasing Belson's clothes from the Metropolitan Police with a sizable donation, Blackwood had Deeds tailor them to fit him so that he would not stand out after passing through the mirror. He then packed lightly to prepare and dressed himself in a farmer's outfit for the first leg of the journey, planning to change upon reaching a city.
On the 10th of January, Blackwood entered the mirror at just passed midnight and once through judged himself to be in California based on the position of the stars. Drawn by loud noises he then approached a highway and discovered it brightly lit and busy with motor and hover vehicles. Blackwood was so overwhelmed with the advanced technology that for a while he simply sat by the road and tried to take in what he was seeing; however, eventually he began walking along the side of the road judging it was thirty miles to the nearest city and would take him till midday to reach it.
Part way through his journey along the road, Blackwood was offered a lift by the passing motorist Ben O'Kazzem and accepted in order to see the inside of his vehicle. Within fifteen minutes the pair had reached the city while Blackwood gave a cover story to O'Kazzem that he was a farm hand looking to research his family history in one of the city's great libraries. He then attempted to pay the driver a gold slug for the trip, but O'Kazzem refused such a large amount, instead accepting a silver slug and giving Blackwood a handful of paper currency as change.
After learning that the city was called the City of Angelic Glory,
Blackwood's illustration of the Amazonian Hind.
In 1877, Lord Blackwood was invited by a small group of explorers – including his fellow lord and close friend, Henry Flashman – to participate in a hunt for the Amazonian Hind. After extensive search through the depths of the Amazonian rainforest, Blackwood found the elusive nature spirit, but abandoned his rifle as he found himself enraptured by its beauty. Beckoning the others to his find, Blackwood immediately convinced the others to lay down their weapons as well. Unable to bear the guilt of harming such a creature, the expedition left their former quarry be. Returning to civilization with "an admittedly poor illustration" of the Hind, Blackwood permitted use of the drawing for naturalist publications available in the Wanderer's Library.[10]
1880s[]
On the 18th of April, 1880, Blackwood penned a song entitled "I Am the Very Model" which inspired the similar work by playwright W.S Gilbert. On October 17th, 1882, Sullivan wrote to Blackwood and thanked him for his "lyrical tribute", inviting the explorer to attend the premiere of the comical opera Iolanthe. Blackwood filed the original handwritten song and the letter from Gilbert together in his cottage. At some point following his transformation into a sea slug, Blackwood had Mr. Deeds add an additional verse onto the end of the song mentioning the explorer's current non-human status.[11]
In January of 1883, Blackwood attempted to become the first man to summit the foreboding and deadly Mount Everest. Blackwood's endeavor was a failure which nearly cost him his life at the gaze of SCP-1529, and the viscount was forced to return to England and recover from his injuries.[5]
The Great Tarasque Hunt[]
On May 14th, 1883, four months after his return home, Blackwood received an invitation from Colonel Joseph d'Enfante of the French Army; the American naturalist was invited to an expedition to claim a five million pound bounty on "the Tarasque", a cryptid that was ravaging towns in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of France. After researching folk tales regarding St. Martha of Bethany placating the vicious chimera, Blackwood accepted the offer under the pretense that even in the most preposterous of myths, there lies a kernel of truth.[5]
That Wednesday, on May 16th, Lord Blackwood arrived to the meeting place in the Knightsbridge district of London — a club owned by Marshall, Carter, & Dark — despite his distaste for the organization's practices and membership. Attending d'Enfante's debriefing on the Tarasque and its rampage through the Provence countryside, Blackwood found he was accompanied by his rival Harris, along with two other huntsmen he heard reputations of; Dukov and Roosevelt. Returning back to his cottage with a heft of paperwork gifted from the French Army, Blackwood had Deeds prepare for his travel to France.
On May 20th, Blackwood crossed the English Channel to Calais and embarked with his hunting party to Avignon in southeastern France, currently evacuated of citizens and occupied by the French Army. The viscount harbored his suspicions regarding Harris and the huge, strange crate that he had brought with him, and intentionally distanced himself from his rival and his "secret weapon". Blackwood found difficulty conversing with Mr. Dukov, but discovered that the Russian was proud to showcase the arsenal he had manufactured. During the cross-country travel, Blackwood found companionship in Roosevelt, and the two Theodores regaled each other with accounts of their prior expeditions. It wasn't until the third day of their expedition that Blackwood and his company found the Tarasque sleeping outside of Belleville, Rhône. Blackwood was the first to fire upon the resting beast, firing a shot from one of Dr. Moth's Particle Destabilizers through its cranial cavity. The naturalists quickly discovered the now-awakened beast's regenerative abilities, and that their rifles did effectively nothing. As him and his party fled on horseback, Blackwood fired another shot, severing one of the Tarasque's forelegs and giving the group the opportunity to lose the hindered behemoth.
After another unproductive attempt on the Tarasque's life the next day, Blackwood's group retired to their hotel in Avignon to contemplate how to kill such an undying creature, when the viscount was approached by one of d'Enfante's men, a veteran who fought Viet-Namh rebels back in '68. The Frenchman explained how he had seen the rebels make use of "punji pits", a spike trap that amazed Blackwood with its elegance, discretion, and effectivity. The newly-inspired Blackwood spend the night of May 24th with Roosevelt, planning out a spike trap large enough to ensnare the Tarasque. Commissioning a team of infantrymen from d'Enfante, Blackwood led over the period of four days the construction of the giant spike trap outside the village of Graveson, Bouches-du-Rhône, even lacing the sharpened steel spike with a noxious poison he had acquired during his prior travels in the Orient. The day after the pit was completed, Blackwood joined Harris and Dukov in wait as Roosevelt baited the Tarasque over the disguised pit. After the supports for the foliage cover collapsed, Blackwood emerged from hiding and followed Roosevelt's lead in unloading everything they had into the the reptilian monster now impaled upon the many steel spikes. As the Tarasque hellish roars and the nuclear flames of Dukov's pitchblende rifle died out, Blackwood rejoiced with his companions over the unmoving, charred bones laid in the pit. After removing the blackened and perforated skull from the rest of the skeleton, Blackwood's team was approached by French infantry men sent in to investigate the mushroom cloud produced from Dukov's rifle. Spending the rest of the afternoon filling in the pit, the Tarasque hunters waited for morning to claim the bounty.
In the morning sunrise, Blackwood's group returned to Avignon with the skull of the Tarasque, where the four men were hailed as heroes by the French Army. Blackwood noted that the skull seemed less charred and had more flesh stuck to it than it was the night before, but Blackwood dismissed this as little more than an illusion in the morning's light. While posing for a commemorative photograph with his teammates and the massive trophy, Blackwood was as horrified as everyone else attending when the skull jaws closed around Dukov's head, and yelled in disgust at the crowd, "Vous me rendez malade!"
As the French Army scrambled to fire upon the Tarasque's mostly reassembled body as it rampaged through Avignon in search of its head, Blackwood caught in his peripheral vision the sight of Harris retreating from the chaos in the direction of the bank that stored his giant "secret weapon" crate. Blackwood chased after his shady colleague, with Roosevelt following after the two Englishmen. Reaching the bank lobby, Blackwood and Roosevelt found the vault and its crate opened, watching with a distinct sense of wrongness as Harris unsealed an ancient Mesopotamian sarcophagus. Blackwood begged with Harris to stop so the three of them could flee while they had a chance, but his pleads were disregarded by Harris' insistence that once the stone box was opened, their victory would be secured. Blackwood was stunned when the sarcophagus' occupant, who appeared more savage and beastly than any man the viscount had seen in his many years of travel, struck out with a sword and cleanly severed Harris' head.
As Roosevelt used his rifle to shield himself from Able's blade, Blackwood eschewed his impartial dueling ethics to save Roosevelt, emptying his pistol into the assailant. The alarmed Blackwood found that the five rounds to the head only drew the savage god-man's attention unto him, and was further surprised when Able threw a pair of bolas at him, ensnaring his torso and legs, and tripping him. Watching the savage man's blade as it readied for the killing strike, the prone Blackwood was spared when the roaring Tarasque burst through the bank wall, drawing the attention of the viscount's would-be killer. As the two unkillable titans ensued in a spectacular fight that would take Blackwood a hundred pages or more to describe in detail, Roosevelt freed Blackwood from his binding and the two retreated into the bank vault, where Harris' corpse laid. As the two Theodores began to close the vault door behind them, Blackwood caught a glimpse of Able disassembling Dukov's pitchblende rifle, extracting its volatile uraninite core. The makeshift nuclear grenade detonated, trapping Blackwood and Roosevelt in the vault room by burying it in rubble. Separated from the pandemonium outside, Blackwood assessed the situation with Roosevelt; with no water or rations in the vault nor on their persons, the two Christianly gentlemen vowed to only cannibalize Harris' body as a last resort in their wait for rescue. With his twenty-third journal and an artificial light source procured from his pockets, Blackwood spent their wait describing the turn of events, amending the optimistic entry from the night prior.[4]
Blackwood never reached such a last resort of survival, as he and his friend were freed from the vault by remnants of French Army on the morning of June 1st. Brought to the closest intact hospital for "pitchblende fever" (radiation poisoning), Blackwood requested the service of a physician from Marseille, one whom he was acquainted with through Henry Flashman. While the physician treated Blackwood for his exposure, Blackwood was thoroughly questioned on the decimation of Avignon by French soldiers, constables, and politicians; which Blackwood noticed was all transcribed by a note-taking Englishman staying to the side lines. After recovering from his uraninite exposure and swearing secrecy on the incident, Blackwood parted ways with Roosevelt in Calais, wishing his new friend well in his political career off in New York.
On June 13th, Blackwood returned to his cottage, where he was approached by Mr. Deeds with another letter; addressed from the Royal Foundation for the Security, Containment, and Protection of Anomalous Objects and Phantasmagoria, the letter offered audience with a "Doctor Thursday" to discuss employment by the Foundation. Unfamiliar with the mysterious organization and recognizing his itinerancy and need for adventure, Blackwood saved the letter for future consideration.[5]
At some point in the remaining half of the year, alongside the aspiring gun collector "Banzai" Bill, Blackwood discovered a magma rifle which had the peculiarity of automatically replenished its ammunition.[3]
A Circus in Connecticut[]
In Autumn of 1888, Blackwood traveled to the United States to visit his old friend Theodore Roosevelt. Taking the first ship available, Blackwood arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, deciding to travel by land to reach New York City. Whilst trekking through Connecticut, Blackwood found posters advertising Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting; usually intolerant of circuses, Blackwood was compelled by the posters' hypnotic properties and decided to attend the spectacle.[12]
Arriving at the vibrant fairgrounds, Blackwood paid admission of a dollar, and found himself impressed by the enormous striped tents, flames of every color in the rainbow, and the most enchanting music that seem to be everywhere and yet come from nowhere. The veteran naturalist was amazed by the attractions, moved by the heart-wrenching arias of a man with a thousand voices, and bewildered by a superficial hoax of a mummified mermaid that swam of its own accord. Eventually, Blackwood entered the Big Top to watch the spectacles introduced by the ringleader himself, Herman Fuller.
For either the fourth or fifth act, Blackwood watched as a massive bear nearly the size of an elephant was brought out. The viscount doubted the pompous ringmaster's "cockamamie" backstory that the bear was found frozen in an iceberg from an age long past, and could barely see from his seat the tricycle it was meant to ride. As Fuller attempted to force the giant ursine onto the impossibly small contraption, Blackwood and the audience were aghast when the bear broke free from its iron leash. Stifling his pity for the abused look he caught in the bear's eyes, Blackwood recognized the danger the audience was in; jumping from his seat, Blackwood called the beast's attention unto him as he drew his particle destabilizing pistol. With his impeccable aim, the one-shot weapon blew a borehole straight through the bear's brain, avoiding a calamity.
Blackwood was quickly confronted for his heroism by Fuller, who attested that it had all been part of the act, and that the viscount was a "damnable fool" who had ruined his show and murdered one of his star attractions. The gentleman refused to recompense the ringmaster for the slain bear, attesting that his actions were just as there was not a single doubt in his mind that the creature would have killed. With a distance between himself and the enraged Fuller kept by his drained Moth pistol Blackwood was approached with a competition by the sly ringmaster. The two men settled on the terms for a shooting contest where two acrobats juggled a bullseye from their trapezes: should Blackwood miss or refuse the challenge, he would become indentured to Fuller in servitude; should Blackwood win, Fuller pays out of his pocket to have the bear taxidermized and delivered to Blackwood's cottage.
Fuller handed Blackwood a rifle, which the gentleman thoroughly inspected before deeming the supplied weapon suitable, and began readying his aim on the moving target. Just as he was about to fire, Blackwood heard the click of a second gun's hammer; he turned to find that Fuller had his empty Moth pistol aimed to the back of his head. With a punch to the jaw, Blackwood knocked the ringmaster to the dirt floor of the ring, much to the audience’s delight. Aiming the rifle at the downed man, Blackwood condemned Fuller as a despicable dastard, one who was more than willing to go against his word and kill a man with his own gun, much less in front of an audience with women and children. Turning away from the vile knave of a ringmaster, Blackwood fired the rifle one-handed into his peripheral vision, leaving a smoking hole clear through the bullseye's center.
The victorious Blackwood received an crescendo of cheers and applause from the audience, followed by calls for Fuller to be tarred and feathered for the injustice against the British marksman. Fuller, making comment that he had no shortage of feathers, took off his hat, releasing thousands and thousands of white doves. The flurry of the giant flock blinded Blackwood, and he could only follow the cries of the crowd as everyone attempted to flee the vortex of birds. Blackwood and the panicked audience evacuated the pandemonium as all the circus paraphernalia disappeared with a twinkling flash, the patrons by in an empty Connecticut field littered with white feathers.[12]
In 1889, Blackwood read Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge to pass the time on the Orient Express. Immediately upon having finished the novel, the humbled Blackwood offered Deeds an annual ₤1.00 increase to his salary, an offer his valet graciously declined.
1890s[]
Blackwood was involved in "some nastiness" in Patagonia in 1893, during which Mr. Deeds was led to believe he had perished. The servant however worked with Blackwood again for the last time following the turn of the century, although he maintained the belief that Blackwood had perished in 1893.[4]
In 1897, Blackwood met a contemplative teenager by the name of Albert Einstein. Impressed by the promising young man's interest in physics, the viscount lent Einstein six shillings for carriage fare, to which the German-born Swiss promised to pay back once he won Alfred Nobel's endowment. That same year, Blackwood had a sitting in order for a daguerreotype to be taken of his person.[3]
Containment procedures[]
SCP-1867 is kept in a 40x70x30 cm aquatic specimen tank with an environment and care identical to what would be required of a non-anomalous member of the Nembrotha kubaryana species. No additional security measures are seen as necessary, although permission from a member of staff with Level 2 clearance or higher is necessary for access to SCP-1867 or any of the material recovered from his home, which is now housed in Secure Storage Vault 16.[2]
Appearances[]
- A Gentleman
- A Most Unfortunate Reunion
- Anachronisms
- Ask Lord Blackwood
- Found in a dusty corner of the Library
- From the Diaries of Lord Blackwood
- Gold Prelude: Lord Blackwood in the City of Amon Iram!
- Habil and Qabil
- Histories
- I Am the Very Model
- Lord Blackwood and the Big-Foot
- Lord Blackwood and the Great Tarasque Hunt of '83
- Lord Blackwood and the Thaumaturge
- Lord Blackwood in the Land of the Unclean
- Lord Blackwood, Astro-Naut
- Lord Blackwood In the Land of Wonder
- Recollections of a Gentleman's Gentleman
- The Amazonian Hind
- Lord Blackwood and the True Account of 1666
- A Keter Kinda Christmas
- Lord Blackwood's Revenge
- Nx-03
- ROUNDERHOUSE's Gold Proposal
- ROUNDERHOUSE's Jade Proposal
- Scylla and Charybdis
- Starch and Cream
- "Strike"
- The Real Adventures in Capitalism
- The Seaslug and the Showman
- Uncle Teddy
- Unclogging the Multiverse's Trash
- When One Reaches the End
- Zetetic Bulletin: The Myth of the Wu Xing Iris
- Silent Lamentations of a Clockwork Goddess
- A Curious Device
- The Land Before Time, For All of Time
- A Discerning Gentleman
- Pantopicon IV: The Search for Pantopticon III (sic)
- The Eyes Beneath the Ice
- Inevitable
- Los Niños que Comieron Maíz Crudo
- Phantom Airship
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Silent Lamentations of a Clockwork Goddess
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 A Gentleman
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 3.17 3.18 3.19 Ask Lord Blackwood
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Recollections of a Gentleman's Gentleman
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Lord Blackwood and the Great Tarasque Hunt of '83
- ↑ 6.00 6.01 6.02 6.03 6.04 6.05 6.06 6.07 6.08 6.09 From the Diaries of Lord Blackwood
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 Lord Blackwood and the Thaumaturge
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Lord Blackwood the Astro-Naut
- ↑ Lord Blackwood's Revenge
- ↑ The Amazonian Hind
- ↑ I Am the Very Model
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 The Sea Slug and the Showman