From the deep dark caves comes a swarm of flying creatures with jagged wings and pointed ears, glowing eyes and piercing screams that seem to penetrate one's very being. Bats are strange night dwellers that hunt when the sun is down and most creatures retreat to their dens.
Written by Paige, Illustrated by Lux.
(WIP) Posted 9-18-2020
(WIP) Updated 9-19-2020 - Some adjustments to text and added more elaboration to Bat takeoff rules.
Bats rarely concern themselves with the affairs of mice and other ground dwellers. Their communal clans control large caves and hunt at night in vast swarms. Sometimes circumstances cause these enigmatic creatures to befriend mice.
Your bat has 3 attributes. These measure their basic strength and weaknesses.
For each of the bat's attributes, roll 3d6. Keep the two highest dice results for a value between 2-12.
Bats are similar to mice, but on the ground, they are slower and clumsy, otherwise they are fast and acrobatic in the air. They are very nocturnal and often groggy during the daytime and suffer disadvantages to any combat actions in bright daylight.
Echolocation - Bats use this ability to hunt insects in the night. They emit a shriek that can reach out to 120 feet in a cone allowing them to detect small prey or get a layout of the area ahead of them. Their large ears are adapted to this ability also giving them excellent hearing.
Mostly blind - Bats have poor vision and rely on echolocation for seeing at distance.
Flight - Bats can fly at double normal speed. They cannot take off from the ground, and must climb to a high place and drop into flight.
Slow on ground - Bats are awkward on the ground and can only move at half speed. For this reason when working with mice, the prefer to fly ahead to scout and wait for mice to catch up.
Roll 1d6 for your bats's starting pips. Also, roll a d6 for your HP. Match your HP result to the table below to find out how your bat came to leave their cave clan and live among mice.
1hp - Test subject - Your bat was a test subject in a human lab and somehow manage to escape or was set free. Their memory is hazy about what happened and a strange antenna sticks out the side of their head. Sometimes the bat will hear radio signals and in rare cases, unwillingly obeys remote control transmissions. 1 electric lamp, 2 button batteries
2hp - Pacifist - Your bat never liked the taste of moths or other insects and one day when their parents tried to force them to eat a helpless moth, they just couldn't do it. That night the bat befriended the little moth and kept it as a pet. This angered the bat clan elder who forced the bat to leave the cave and hunt for themselves. They wandered for a time until meeting mice who offered other forms of food including fruit which your bat found very agreeable. 1 bag of berries, 1 moth pet
3hp - Vampire Bat - Your bat hails from a clan of bats that drinks blood to sustain themselves. They can eat normal food but it is not as filling because they can barely stomach it. Vampire bats will seek a mouse that will allow them to drink their blood, up to 3 STR for a full meal. Up to 3 STR can be transferred to a bat in this way if they are down on their own hp. Because they do not want to kill the mouse that allows them to drink, they carry a healing spell to replenish their lost hp. 1 spell of heal
4hp - Crash Landed - Your bat was always afraid to fly and one day when they were forced to leave the cave to hunt, they plummeted to the ground and had a crash landing. They were unconscious for several days with an injury to their head, but a friendly family of mice took them in and nursed them back to health. A smart mouse offered the bat a "magic" feather and promised it would help them fly, which it did, but your bat feels in debt to mice for their kindness. 1 "magic" feather necklace
5hp - Cave Hermit - Your bat never got out very much and lived off insects that dwelled in their small cave which they lived in alone and away from other bats. One day a storm brought a flood into their cave and they were forced to leave. While they never liked their own kind, they found themselves washed up among mice that lived in a small underground dwelling and got along well with them. Even if the mouse thought that this bat was a little weird. 1 oil lantern
6hp - Exile - Your bat has always been strong and never let any other bats push them around. When the cruel cave elder sent other bats to bully some of the clan, the bat thought it was time to do something about it and maybe do a better job than the bully that ran the cave. After a fierce air battle in the middle of the night, your bat was bested and forced to leave the cave forever. It was not fair, having been ganged up on, but that is how things played out. Hungry and injured with nothing but their bruises hide, the bat lands in a tree lived in by mice. Owns nothing
Your bat starts with:
Torches
Rations
Items from your background
a weapon of your choice.
Roll on the tables in the core rule book for your Birthsign, coat and physical detail. Bats are almost quirky. You can optionally roll for a quirk or two on my Mouse Quirks table for fun.
Bats cannot carry as much as mice because of both the shape of their body and the need to be able to flap their wings and fly.
A bat with all of its inventory slots full, or with conditions filling all of their slots cannot fly unless their STR is 10 or better.
