Lord Horrar Ad'be'werde was a Human male originally born on Socorro. His story began approximately twenty five years prior to the battle of Exegol, in another far off sector of the galaxy. Lord Horrar was a young, up and coming bounty hunter, whose last name translated literally to son of shadows in the Mandalorian language Mando'a, and when he had come of age he completed a series of hunts that had become local legends for some and nightmarish bedtime stories for others.
Biography[]
In the Beginning[]
The foundling, Lord Horrar was born on the Outer Rim planet of Socorro in the Gold system approximately 9 ABY. His parents were opportunists who looked for somewhere safe and ripe to eke out a lucrative, but meager existence. They weren't originally farmers by trade, but hovered in between farmers and scavengers, and had made a vain attempt at moisture farming in the deserts of Socorro. Lord Horrar's father was a welder by trade, who had gone AWOL from his military ship building position on Rothana after he decided it wasn't in his family's best interest for him to build Imperial warships any longer. His mother had a diverse plethora of marketable skills, which included electronics, robotics, and some basic farming techniques that she had previously taught at the Lorrd University before taking a sabbatical to travel.
Early Life[]
After they had spent several uneventful years in the desert, a medium sized freighter had crash landed not far from their homestead. Smoke had billowed up from just over a nearby rise in the terrain, and Lord Horrar's father went to investigate. Before he had reached the ridgeline, a group of five figures had crested the ridgeline and walked in his father's direction. When they were in blaster range the lead figure, with no hesitation at all, aimed and fired his blaster at Lord Horrar's father, which hit him in the left hip and spun him to the ground. The five beings pointed toward the homestead and helped Lord Horrar's father limp back toward the house, where everyone had entered. The leader demanded food and whatever trinkets of value the family had, along with a demand for assistance to fix their ship on pain of death if he refused. Lord Horrar's father refused, and the leader shot him dead and aimed his blaster on the mother.
It was at this time, as the boy had watched in horror as his family were being murdered in front of him, that the unlikely happened, one of the five beings, a human male, had drawn his blaster with lightning speed, and shot all four of his companions, ending the hostile situation. Lord Horrar and his mother were standing in shock unable to speak, the man had identified himself as Parria and calmly explained that he had not come to harm either of them. Out of complete fear and shock, the middle aged woman collapsed and died, likely from a heart attack and the attempts at reviving her failed. A long period of awkward time and silence went by. Parria repaired the ship he arrived in, and he had convinced Lord Horrar that he would take responsibility for and train him if he went with him. Over the following years Lord Horrar had come to know the Mandalorian Parria, and he trained and became a Mandalorian himself under the orthodox religion of the Way of the Mandalore, as one of the Children of the Watch, and the rest slowly became legend.
Coming of Age[]
The first bounty Lord Horrar had been awarded, was just after he turned nineteen years old, after he had been under the tutelage of Parria for nearly twelve years. After more than a decade of training on stalking, weapons marksmanship, a type of hand-to-hand combat known as Teräs Käsi, which Lord Horrar loved and excelled at, starship piloting, and a host of other skills, it had come time for the boy to take on his first bounty contract. Parria had assisted in setting up Lord Horrar's first network connection. He introduced him to his contractor and long time friend, who went by the name of Dha Prudii or "Dark Shadow." After some laughs and catching up, Dha Prudii claimed he had just the thing to get the boy warmed up for his admission into the guild.
The target Dha Prudii selected was a rogue former Republic commando, who had gone AWOL not long after boot camp, just as the Galactic Empire had been formed, and had been rumored to be causing havoc in the Outer Rim, despite the earlier rumors that he had died. The bounty puck was an older one, and had hung around still open for various reasons. Some said it wasn't worth the money to track the bounty, others had thought it might be a bit too dangerous, and other had thought themselves above the job and thought the commando wasn't a challenge. Either way, Dha Prudii had offered the bounty and Lord Horrar had taken the puck without hesitation. Bringing the mark in warm or cold had never been specified in the contract, nor was preference given.
In order to go after the bounty, on Lord Horrar's sixteenth birthday, a few years prior, Parria had secured a small ship as a birthday gift. It was an older slightly modified SS-54 light assault ship that had many limitations that started with range due to the lack of a serviceable hyperdrive, that had been constantly under repair. The ship also had limited cargo capacity, but accommodated a bounty or two which had depended on the method of transport and size of the being that was hunted and captured. This small craft had served him well until he acquired his YT-1975 model.
Lord Horrar had tracked his mark to a small settlement on Pastoria, where he pinpointed the exact location to a seedy little backwoods drinking hole. Lord Horrar had entered the bar in his matte black and red trimmed Mandalorian armor that looked like he threw together out of spare parts. He set the bounty puck on the bar and activated it so it displayed the commando's image. The commando wasted no time, he stood, drew, and fired his blaster with blinding speed. Lord Horrar avoided the blaster bolt, spun around in a 360 degree turn, squatted down, took up a modified kneeling position, and loosed two hand-made daggers that found their target in the commando's throat just above the neckline of his worn chest plate armor. The commando gasped one final breath before he died on the floor of the bar. Lord Horrar wasted no time, he had attached a miniature custom made repulsorlift disc to the commando's armor to assist him as he lifted, and carryed the body back to his ship. Once on board his ship, and in orbit, Lord Horrar had encased the body in a rudimentary carbonite encasement for shipping, and headed back home to receive his payment. The payment was an important one which had helped him gain the necessary recognition from the local hunter's guild, but Lord Horrar seemed more pleased with the new trophy he had acquired, which became one of his signature weapons as time went on, the dead commando's Z-6 rotary blaster cannon.
A Legend is Made[]
The title of Lord was originally bestowed upon this Mandolorian by a local tribe on Krayiss II when he was marooned there during one of his hunts for a renegade, self proclaimed Sith apprentice, that had become his twenty-fifth confirmed bounty. The local tribe had witnessed the hand-to-hand fight between Horrar and the upstart Sith who called himself Ascension, from their hiding spot in the wood line nearby. Having prepared for this particular hunt, Horrar had tamed, and brought with him his new pet ysalimir, which he had appropriately named Grunt from the sounds it often made, which nullified the Sith apprentice's fledgling Force powers. The hand-to-hand fight lasted for almost fifteen minutes before Lord Horrar had strategically stabbed Ascension under one armpit with his litch-knife, which had caused the Sith to bleed out. Ascension slumped against a nearby tree and died.
One of the local leaders of the tribe had exited his hiding place, approached Lord Horrar, and thanked him. They had invited Lord Horrar to their camp and offered food and drink as they explained to Lord Horrar that Ascension had terrorized the camp, and demanded artifacts that the Sith could not find himself. After the fight, it took nearly two months before Lord Horrar made rudimentary repairs to his ship named Annihilator, a modified YT-1975. He had packed up the body of the Sith and departed to acquire his payment for the bounty. As Lord Horrar departed the tribe's people had referred to him as "Lord Horrar", and the title stuck after word of his fight had already spread quickly throughout the sector. Since the title had stuck, Lord Horrar adopted the title as his first name and became known as Lord Horrar, and introduced himself as Lord, or Lord Horrar.
When Lord Horrar turned in the body of Ascension and received payment, which marked his forty-second confirmed kill, Lord Horrar had earned the reputation of being offered, taking, and returning his bounties cold, sometimes in carbonite when the resources were available, and other times tightly wrapped in whatever fabric was available. Lord Horrar had never brought in a warm bounty but refused to refer to himself as an assassin, and latched on to the excuse that he took the hard bounties that no one else wanted and cleaned up the sector of unwanted vermin.
Powers, Abilities, and Equipment[]
Lord Horrar had fought in a kit of modified Mandalorian armor, painted in a matte black with red trim, and was geared out somewhere between what most light to heavy Infantry Soldiers would be geared out with. Lord Horrar and Grunt had frequented the Outer Rim Territories, and had ventured into parts of the Unknown Regions, where his reputation had preceded him there as well, for the weaponry he collected and carried on his hunts. As most Mandalorians did, Lord Horrar had been known to use a plethora of weaponry. His preferred weapon is a modified Z-6 rotary blaster cannon, with his blaster as a back-up or hold-out. He also possessed a set of modified vambraces, both with whistling bird launchers affixed along with missile attachments on the outside edges of the vambraces. Lord Horrar had been known to use a multitude of bladed weapons, and whatever type of explosives he acquired. Lord Horrar had resorted to modified rocket boots which doubled as leg armor, not so much for flight but for temporary bursts to get to elevated heights or over obstacles, it also had freed up his back from the bulky jetpack that most Mandalorians used, so that he could react better in hand-to-hand combat which he had resorted to in order to conceal his position, approach to the target, and initial attacks, which had frightened his query. He had often been referred to by many other names such as shadow ghost, or wraith killer, and a few others that meant the same thing. The point had always been that his targets usually never saw him coming, and if they had, it was either too late anyway, or they were used as bait for different targets.
Personal Transportation[]
After his thirtieth confirmed kill or bounty, Lord Horrar had earned enough credits and purchased a new ship which he dubbed Annihilator, which had started off as a modified YT-1300 series light freighter. Lord Horrar had the ship modified heavily and incorporated a center mounted cockpit for better observation of the ship's surface and fields of fire but not in the YT-2000 configuration, this modification was more sleek and streamlined. This modified cockpit gave the ship the capability of rotating on the ship's axis, like the Republic's B-wing fighter crafts. In addition to this upgrade the engine compartment was modified to incorporate two heavy hauler long distance engine nacelles, which did not add to the power to weight ratios, but allowed the modification of a larger than normal cargo compartment in the rear of the ship. The cargo bay was modified to house a BARC speeder, and a portable carbonite freezing chamber, with the room to store up to thirty frozen bounties of varied size and shape. The cargo compartment was also equipped with an elevator style ramp system that lowered to the ground when docked for easy access to the equipment stored in the rear of the ship. The ship was painted a matte black with a red skull painted over the front section of the ship's hull.
Aside from Lord Horrar, the ship's crew included his ysalimir companion Grunt who had no direct responsibility, his R2 unit designated R2-S7 nicknamed Sarge, who had a multitude of functions on the ship, and three M7 Combat Protocol Droids that were programmed to defend the ship during docking and combat. In flight the M7s manned the belly and dorsal gun wells, and the third droid manned the torpedo and missile launchers, as well as the maintenance and repair systems array. The three M7s did not have names other than A1 through A3 that designated them Annihilator 1 through 3 respectively, and were painted the same frightening color scheme as the ship itself. Due to the attention to detail on his ship's security features, no one had ever attempted to mess with his ship.
In addition to Annihilator, Lord Horrar was rumored to have found a derelict Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, that was kept hidden. Rumor had it that he had worked and acquired the parts and material to rebuild the ship which he had used as a mobile base and residence. The only known reference to the ship was the name Pillager that was intercepted from a coded message from Annihilator to one of Horror's guild contacts in an old communication log. The source responsible for intercepting the message disappeared.
Behind the Scenes[]
Lord Horrar Ad'be'werde, R2-S7 Sarge, Grunt, and Annihilator were designed and created by Ken Austin for use as his personal character and kit for the Mandalorian Mercs costume club where he is currently an official member.