Ulgumgi Shaman

Greetings!

This month is labelled Magic in the Tales of Instahammer 2019 project; anything or anyone with any connection to magic should be brought up to join the army at this point. I picked up a Necromancer kit, cracked open my bitz box and set to work...

...and ended up with an Ulgumgi Shaman!

Shaman Ronga is an old and disrespected spellcaster in the Ulgumgi society. He summons aethyric energies to aid the hirds in battle, but all he gets in return are wary gazes and muttered insults. Only selected few know of his origins, which are said to be wreathed in darkness and misery: his back is hunched, his eyes have been covered with bands of rusty iron and he carries an ancient grimoire on his belt that he's unable to read anymore.

There are many rumours circulating in between the Ulgumgi settlements about Ronga. Some say he used to be a magnificent battlemage who succumbed to his greed long ago, and that his current name might give hint of his former one. Others tell stories of betrayal and vengeance: stories of a wizard who led his loyal troops directly to their doom, for which the survivors forged a band hot red-hot iron directly into his scalp. Some even say the snake-staff acting as a bannerpole atop the Myrkrvollr Holdfast originally belonged to Ronga.

None can say for sure which of the rumours are true and which are false, but all Ulgumgi know one thing for granted: the shaman has a dark past which somehow links to the birth of the Ulgumgi, and his sins have earned him any and all insults and slights many times over.

I used the body of the Necromancer as a basis for the conversion, with minor additions from my Free Peoples bits: I gave him a decorated scythe from the Battlemage kit, as well as an iron-banded head from the Flagellants kit. The rest was just tying him into the rest of my Ulgumgi army with his base and paint scheme!

Some of you might recognize his colours and his name; especially those of you who know of the recent Twlight Prince campaign that was brought to its conclusion just before the year went out. If you're not familiar with it, give the campaign's overview-page a quick scroll-through and see if anything catches your eye!