I just felt like writing a little blurb about the Old Blood general I run in some games. So, tell me what you think. Balak- The Harbinger of Ruin Balak is a Saurus of great age, and combat skill. Balak is marked as not a favored son of the Old Ones, but in fact seen as a cursed one, for his entire body is the color of Charcoal. For the Skinks and Saurus who believe the albino to be blessed, it only stands within reason that the opposite would hold true. As it turns out Balak has been present to the destruction of 3 Temple Cities, and it is difficult to dispute. He now spends most of his time at Tlax, the city of Ghosts. When not called to war, he meditates. For this was the first city he lost, and stands as the sole survivor still alive to this day. He ponders on his failures to save the city from the deamons. The great lizards walks the streets watching the ghosts fight with dim awareness these are the spirits of his spawn kin. After the death of Tlax, he migrated to Chupayotl, where he remained for a period of time, until the ocean swallowed the city. Even though the waves devoured him, he emerged from the ocean a day later, to migrate again. This time he chose the city of Quetza. Here too, he was present for the emergence of the Skaven, and many of the children of the rat were slaughtered as he fought his way out of the city. Proving immune to the plagues, he led several armies against the rat men, killing thousands in the hundred year war, causing some Skinks to believe that if he was at the head of an army, the other army was cursed to a worse fate than he. Once the Skaven were banished, he posed a self imposed exile upon himself, returning to the city of Tlax, to wait for years, only summoned to war by the Slann when the need is great.
I like anything that doesn't depict Saurus as mindless. A compelling tragic figure. Do you have a figure for him by any chance?
I like your fluff and it's really nice to see people putting some thoughts into their characters =) Beeing black or charcoal colored doesn't make him cursed though. It's true that albinos are said to be favoured by all the old ones but different colours are seen as blessings from different old ones. Some of the older army books describe which colour comes from which old ones blessing and I'm pretty sure that being black is actually a bad thing! Your oldblood has had some bad luck though, can't deny that
I believe according to the 5th ed book, black meant "blessed with great stealth" (this was before Chameleon Skinks). Under the fifth ther are pretty much no colors except blue and green that don't mean anything good. The bad luck still applies, 100 times over.
I didn't see you guys had replied until now, thanks a bunch, fellas. I haven't painted a model for him, and I thought of using the multi-part plastic kit for the old bloods. For my own conversion, I'll probably just kit bash Temple guard and Cold ones. Maybe some Kroot bits, to give him the look of a wanderer, while being up-armored, and some of the cool cold blood weaponry. Their leather pouches with the bone knives work well, I've put together kroot and lizardmen before, and they look fairly well if you armor their arms up.
I had 5 lizardmen with kroot guns, I wanted to run them in 40k, but the book it'd have worked as would have probably been orks, and it's way too much work to build 20238123 lizardkrootorkmen
Made him, I thought being a black saurus and "the harbinger of ruin" would make him seem kind of like the grim reaper. So, the sickle is a good weapon fluff wise. Just a little kit bash, not a full blown conversion, but yeah.
Are you thinking dusty charcoal like black or shiny obsidian like black? Or a mix? I'd make his metal armor pieces and weapon tarnished bronze for a bit of contrast either way.
Probably dusty black, not shiny. I didn't think of bronze for the armor, but I like that haha, so thanks