Early Modern Monster Hunters: Ogana, Savanna Ranger (03926) and Tomb King

Rigel · October 31, 2019

Most of this Early Modern Monster Hunter/Classic Monsters series I've been doing is based on late-Renaissance and early-modern Europe, with notes of high moors shrouded in cold mists; filthy cities with crooked narrow cobblestoned alleyways; high castles on remote crags, etc. But the world's a big place, and it's good to remember that the pulp authors that popularized the monster hunter as recurring character (particularly R. E. Howard and Manly Wade Wellman) had a soft spot for Africa in their stories.
So here's Ogana, a hero straight out of a Charles Saunders story, with a great Don Cheadle profile. Another fun sculpt, easy to paint and embellish.

[Side note: if you need to make a Sword and Soul adventuring party, this guy plus Nehanda, Jaatu, Rhasia, and Jigeke would be pretty rad.]

Far to the north of the grassy fields of his home, the red desert whispers and calls. There, a traveler may sometimes find the great pillared houses and temples of the very old men from long ago who once lived there, in the times when the land there too was fertile. But the red desert spread and spread and swallowed the grass, leaving none for the cattle; and the old men could not move their houses to follow the grass, having built them of heavy stone, and so there the pillared houses stay, empty except for the sand and the wind.

Or perhaps not so empty, thought Ogana, hearing the grating sound of a large stone slab moving over stone, and then the pad of footfalls in the rapidly deepening dusk, footfalls so light on the sand, lighter than that of a man full of blood and water and meat. Ogana hastened to hide himself behind a column and watched.

It seemed not *all* of the very old men from long ago had left this place.