Bonebat [Bat]

Bonebats are undead giant bats: bare skeletons with dark, hollow eye sockets that fly and fight without a sound. Evil priests and wizards, and vampires, liches, archliches and other mighty undead keep them as couriers, sentries and battle companions. Some, called battlebats, carry extra grafted bones.

They have 120-foot infravision, see invisible things within 60 feet, cannot be surprised and do not sleep. The chilling bite does 2d4 to living targets but only its 1d3 physical damage to undead, and anything alive except an elf must save vs. paralyzation or be paralyzed for 1d6+2 rounds. Bonebats cannot themselves be paralyzed.

They attack without fear and retreat only at 3 hit points or fewer, or fight to destruction if ordered. Sleep, charm and hold do not affect them. Only their maker or a powerful undead can control one, and once controlled it can never serve another, even after its master dies or departs. Orders are simple (attack a target, cease, come, stay, wait somewhere, fetch something) but obeyed absolutely.

Blunt weapons and fire harm them fully, while edged or piercing weapons do half damage. Holy water has no effect. They turn as ghouls.

Most guard their masters' tombs, ruins, caves or dark temples, preferring darkness though light does not hurt them. Needing neither food nor water, they are often sealed in chests, coffins or closets to ambush thieves. They can carry one easily gripped object of up to three pounds, often keys or wands, but cannot activate magic. Some masters wire protective devices onto them.

Bonebats do not arise naturally, but their making has been known for ages, and many have gone feral. They kill living bats on sight, never fight each other, and seem to relish slaughter: uncontrolled ones go on killing flights, attacking creatures their size or smaller until they have slain at least twice.

Typically an evil priest and wizard work together. They need a whole giant bat skeleton or one pieced together from several bats, then cast a bone-knitting spell that also spans the wings with invisible force membranes for flight, followed by fly, infravision, detect invisibility and finally animate dead. All five must follow in that exact order, no more than two rounds apart, or the work fails; further spells may be needed to train the result.

A battlebat is a bonebat with grafted claws, talons, stings or spurs. It has one more Hit Die, AC 8 and two or three extra attacks, usually claw rakes for 1d2 or sting jabs for 1d4+1, which its master may tip with poison. It flies at 15 (Class D) and turns as a wight.