GIANT VAMPIRE BAT

Adventurers have cause to be weary at the sound of "Fweep! Fweep! Fweep!" For it is the cry of the giant vampire bat, which is quite a nuisance to adventurers. Found in several caverns in the Eastlands, these large monsters seem to amuse themselves chiefly by grabbing a person, flying away, and depositing them elsewhere, thoroughly lost. The normal vampire bat is large enough to easily lift one adventurer in each claw.

While most of these bats operate in the aforementioned manner, others have the strange desire to acquire new companions, and thus some adventurers have found themselves adopted into the bat's family. The bat frequently pets them in an almost motherly fashion, but expects them to be responsible in the completion of house chores. If the nest is cleaned well, the bat is faithful to reward the helpers with some mice or other vermin for dinner. Surviving adventurers have reported that being a member of the bat famliy is a tough life, shoveling bat guano all day and dining on dead rodents. But when a particularly good job of scrubbing the nest has been done, the gentle bat is graceful enough to bring extra rewards, such as a yummy snake egg, which makes the efforts all seem worthwhile.

It has been rumored that most vampire bats have been imported from WUMPUS, when the Implementors of that universe found them to be too deranged to be of proper use. The Implementors of Zork adopted these rejects for their own, and prehaps this accounts for the instinctive nature of some of the bats to adopt humans.

The vampire bat nests, usually perched high enough to prevent both easy access and easy escape,  may be lined with baubles and other shiny treasures that these bats seem to have an affinity for (as well as caked with layer upon layer of dried guano). While these nests are huge, they usually do not rest in them, but climb onto a perch and sleep hanging upside down above the nest.

Like normal vampires, these deranged bats abhor garlic, holding their noses to prevent breathing even even the slightest scent. Thus it is recommended that any adventurer venturing into a vampire bat's lair to fill their inventory with garlic.

During the Great Monster Uprising of the Second Age of Magic, these giant bats were reported in the following regions: Flathead Mountains, Flathead Fjord, Antharian Caves, Granola Mines, Mines of Mendon, Pheebor, Egreth Castle, Bozbarland, The Lonely Mountain, The Old Lingolf House, Largoneth Castle, and the G.U.E. Tech Training Grounds in the Ethereal Plane of Atrii.

The list price for a pair of bat wings in 957 GUE was Zm4.