Bat Folk

Chiropteran (or Bat Folk) are small, mostly nocturnal folk that live in family based communes throughout the dark places of the world. Most often living in deep forests and cavernous caves where they can hide themselves away from prying eyes and threats but allowing them free reign to fly at night.

Blind and Hidden

Chiropteran do their best to ensure their communes go unnoticed and are well hidden due to the fact that they’re almost entirely blind outside of the distance their echolocation can reach. Their echolocation functions passively at all times when they’re awake via a sonar emitting organ embedded deep in their skulls and magnified by their enormous ears. Their tiny eyes are really only of use for close focus activities like reading and interacting with objects in arms reach.

This means that by the time a potential threat has approached their sleeping location, the only option they have is to flee immediately. Their best defense is their ability to hide, clinging to shadowy cave ceilings and dense branches through the day as they sleep, numb to the world around them.

Content Isolationists

Bat Folk are most active between sunset and sunrise meaning they don’t often encounter other cultures. Towns that have a nearby chiropteran commune will receive chiropteran traders every week or two who seek to trade for some few needed items they can’t make themselves. This is the most common form of interaction chiropterans have with the greater world, being a mostly reclusive and self-sufficient race that tend to avoid the bright, loud areas of the world such as cities.

Chiropteran adventurers are quite rare, as the most common thing that drives a chiropteran to leave their commune is tragedy and being that they put so much effort into being unnoticed, these tragedies themselves are rare. Even the most aggressive marauding mob may pass beneath a chiropteran commune, simply never realising their presence. Chiropterans are so effective at hiding their homes that many people think the entire race is a tale told to scare children.

For the chiropteran that does leave their commune, they are quick to form strong attachments with the next group of non-threatening people they encounter. This has led travelling chiropteran to find themselves falling into crime, working on farms, becoming assistants to researchers, joining armies, and cults. Anything that gives them a sense of belonging and purpose. Once they’ve settled, it’s very difficult to get a chiropteran to see the flaws of their new attachments as they will make all kinds of excuses to justify their group.