Batlins Can't Drink Blood

Though the floors are slick with refuse and guano, the stalactites above sparkle and flit with dark shapes among them. There is a symphony in the quiet of the dark: Dripping water, quiet breeze , a chorus of clicks and dry whispers.

What Clicks in the Caves?

Goblins. Or, things that were once goblins. Some unknown goblin generations ago, a vampire’s venom twisted their form and cursed them with the Hunger. Their teeth grew to fangs, the fingers stretched and folded to feeble wings, and their eyes dimmed in the dark. And now, instead of the incessant chatter of Goblins, they only whisper and click their tongues, seeing dimly. Lets call them Batlins.

It wasn’t only the forms of the batlins that changed. The curse in their blood couldn’t help but twist their already feeble minds. Every batlin, against their goblin ancestry, shares a compulsion for the cleanliness. They’ll only steal what shines, and they won’t aloe even a speck of dirt in their lofty warrens in the caves. In many ways, this shared obsession greatly increases the living conditions of the batlins. In one way, it has made things difficult for them. In a twist of leftover goblinoid psychology, they consider blood unclean. And yet they Hunger.

How do Batlins Sate Their Hunger?

Batlins hunger for blood, but their obsession with cleanliness prevents them from spilling it themselves. To this end, they’ve developed several workarounds.

1. Mosquitos. These batlins have learned to make fires in their caves to draw in insects and their collected blood for feeding. When feeling threatened, they will pelt aggressors with coals and light dungeon camps on fire. 
2. Leeches. Somewhere in the depths of their warren, these batlins cultivate a pond writhing with leeches. They will regularly hunt creatures to throw to the leeches, feeding from the blood-stocked pond at their leisure. They may try to trick you into a swim with a valuable item at the bottom. 
3. Traps. With beartraps, dangling hooks, and more, these batlins aren’t picky with what it takes to make unfortunates bleed. On a successful trap, the whole goblin warren will swarm the injured party. 
4. Spiders. These batlins collect spiders great and small in their caves, and they rely on their trapping as a means for blood collection. 
5. Bartering. Blood is a resource for which these batlins will pay richly. They will draw upon collections of rare mushrooms, ores, and treasures in exchange for spilled blood. 
6. Demons. Through infernal pacts, these batlins pact with demons in exchange for payment in blood. 

How Do They Keep Clean?

Because batlins can’t abide any sort of mess, they tend to house themselves near sources of water, periodically cleansing themselves and whatever they collect. Paradoxically, if they find something they truly value, they will clean it thoroughly before casting it into their guano pits. They assume that the dirtiness of the pit will deter any who would take it from them. They don't like to process the fact that they themselves can't really retrieve it due to the filth.

What Other Neurosis do these goblins have?

1.       Counting. In whispered voice, batlin colonies must tabulate the total populations of their warren and their cavesite domain. Should they discover visitors, or lose one of their numbers, at least one batlin must flutter away to report the change in number to the warren.

2.       Ownership. Ownership is indisputable in the batlin mind. Anything held by a person is and must be theirs by quasi-divine right. As a result, these batlins are cognitively incapable of stealing something you hold. Anything else is up for grabs.

3.       Hospitality. Wether a guest speaks or not, Batlins will guide them to the nearest source of clean water and offer them a morsel of food. This nicety extends to everything from ants to Ogres, with a variety of success. However, once the guest has drank the ritual is ended, and the batlins are no longer bound as hosts.

4.       Flight. Batlins are somewhat embarrassed by their unwieldy flight. In the presence of non-batlins, they will refuse to do anything but hop and crawl unless threatened.

Mechanics

Batlins should probably share the stats of normal goblins in your setting, but with the following changes.

-          With hands twisted into wings, batlins will have a difficult time wielding any form of weapons

-          While uninjured, batlins can fly. Assume a single hit is enough to cripple their flight for a time and drive them to a crawling retreat.

-          If an encountered batlin is feral/withough blood, double all combat stats.

Closing Thoughts

In a completely foreseeable turn of events, life things came up this weekend that have left me already a day behind on GLoGtober. This day 2 of GLoGtober now comes to you fashionably late, on the 3rd of the month. So it goes. I’ll see what I can do to catch up over the week. As it stands, this post is only a fragment of what I hoped for it to be. I want to the expand the implications of the vampiric neuroses the batlins might inherit as well as the overall psychology of a batlin warren. What do they want? How does that play out? I’m leaning towards aiming their wants towards either the quest for serving a vampire or alchemically/sorcerously transmuting other things directly in to blood. Maybe some particularly cerebral batlins might philosophize about a cure for their blood malady? This post also doesn’t yet communicate fully the feel of batlins that I would want communicated at the table. I think the idea of vampiric bat-goblins that are freaked out by spilled blood is hilarious, but the above doesn’t quite capture that.

 My end goal for this post is setting up a scenario where villages tell disbelieving PC’s tales of pigs that fly, only for them to catch swarms of local batlins steal piglets and flutter away in the night. Or bite pigs and infect them to become some vampiric hog-terror.

Also, shout out to fantastic and well realized Gobling GLoGtober post by Robin Gibson over at their Ko Fi page. The tables for Goblin generation totally encapsulate the gonzo spirit and humor of great goblindom, and I look forward to introducing my players to Potato Goblins who have only a shared pot of bubbling stew and a half baked plan for world domination to their name. 

Thanks all! Day three coming... someday soon?