Razorbat
GM's Eyes Only
Spoilers. This page is written for the GM, and players who read on will learn things their characters don't know.
A taloned, barb-tailed bat that kills in shrieking swarms. Source: Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon, p. 60.
What it is. A heavily muscled bat with talons on its wings and a barbed tail. On the ground it moves in quick bounding leaps, but it would rather fly. A colony's combined shriek cracks lantern glass, bursts eardrums, and leaves prey reeling.
Colonies. Roosts sit in dead tree trunks, caves, and ruins, and a colony can number in the thousands. Swarms favor large animals and mounted riders, cut them down with countless slashes, and feed on a big carcass for days, coming back each night. Scavengers at a kill tend to become the next meal. When a colony outgrows its ground, usually in late autumn, swarms spread out to found new roosts. Coal tar keeps the smaller kinds away, and farmers treat their walls with it.
The razorbat king. A much larger, solitary, furred kind, found in frozen caves and southern jungles alike. Its saliva stops blood from clotting, and it coats its tail barb with it, then strikes and flies off to let the wound bleed its prey out.
In Tir Hathar. Kept as is.
Stats¶
First draft, built from WWN's baseline stat lines.
| HD | AC | Atk | Dmg | Shock | Move | ML | Inst | Skill | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Razorbat swarm | 3 | 13 | +4 x2 | 1d4 | 1/- | 30' fly | 8 | 6 | +1 | 14+ |
| Razorbat King | 3 | 13 | +4 | 1d8 | 1/13 | 50' fly | 8 | 5 | +1 | 14+ |
- Swarm. Hundreds of bats as one creature. Weapons that hit a single target do half damage to it; area effects do full damage. At 0 hit points it scatters.
- Screech. The swarm, once per scene, as its Main Action: everyone within 30 feet makes a Physical save or loses their next Move action, reeling and deafened.
- Riders first. A swarm goes for mounts and large animals before anything else.
- Bleeding barb. The king's tail. A creature it damages loses 1 more hit point at the end of each of its turns until someone spends a Main Action binding the wound, with or without a Heal check.
- Fly-by. The king can move, attack, and keep moving in the same turn, splitting its movement around the attack.
Still open: playtesting the numbers, and where they live.