Overview
Bat Men are the folded-wing kin of the dark. They hunt by sonar, they consider the echo the only honest voice, and they remember every sound they have ever made.
Habitat
Bat-men live in the cavern dark — their home is Nocturne Caverns, a cavern city lit only by sonar and pale lichens, its roosts in layers, its hunt in the dark. They need three things: a dark that is deep enough to map, an echo that is close enough to read, and a roost that is high enough to drop. They are settled in the caverns, with hunting-lines in the deep dark; a bat-man who has not mapped a new echo in a season is called "the one who forgot the voice."
Appearance
A bat-man silhouette is the lean, long, low shape with the wings — narrow-waisted, long-limbed, with the head that sits a little too low on the body, like a word that is waiting to be spoken, and the wings that are a separate sentence from the body. Males stand 1.52 m, 54 kg–73 kg, heavy through the shoulder, with folded wings and glassy pale eyes; females 1.52 m, 50 kg–68 kg, leaner and quicker, with a thinner wing and a longer memory. Skin is a deep, warm umber to a soft, muddy brown, with a faint, almost imperceptible warmth to the cheekbones and a network of fine, pale veins at the temples that show when a bat-man is roused. The fur is the crown: a thick, soft, rough coat in a range from deep grey-brown to a true, quiet black, with the fur-tips a clean, deliberate bone-white that is the bat line's most persistent claim, and the fur is the bat-man's most persistent identifier at any distance. The wings are the tell: a pair of true, folded wings, in a range from deep umber to a true, quiet black, with the wing-tips a clean, deliberate bone-white that is the bat line's most persistent claim, and the wings are always folded, and the folding is the point. The ears are the crown: a pair of true, large, folded ears, set high on the skull, in the same grey-brown as the fur, with a fine, clean white at the inner edge, and the ears are the bat-man's most persistent claim — they turn, always, toward the sound that is not a sound. The eyes are small and a pale, glassy amber, with a slow, deliberate blink and a depth that makes them look like they are looking at something behind the person they are talking to — and in most cases, they are, and what they are looking at is the echo, and the echo is the point. The head is the tell: the ear is the bat-man, not the face — a pair of true, large, folded ears, and the ear is the bat-man's most persistent identifier. Males carry the bat line in the jaw and the shoulders; females in the neck and the wings. Elders are marked by a full silver-grey fur and a back that has stopped trying to be straight — an old bat-man moves with a slow, deliberate economy, like a cavern that has decided to stay. Everyday wear: a simple, clean tunic in a muted umber or soft black, a thin leather belt, and no boots, because a bat-man does not announce their arrival and does not touch the ground more than they have to.
Behavior
Disposition: solitary, territorial, cunning, patient. In peace, bat-men are quiet, watchful, and absolutely incapable of being rushed — they have the dark, and they let you know it. In war they do not fight; they map. Strangers are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the echo remembers. The social unit is the roost, 20–60 strong, led by the Echo-Keeper, rank decided by the echo — whose voice is most true. Two signature quirks: a bat-man who is being lied to will not call it out — they will simply ask a follow-up question that the liar cannot answer, and let the silence do the work. And they keep their echo for a lifetime, and they remember who broke it, and the remembering is a form of patience that mortal races find unsettling.
Warfare & Markings
Tactics: ambush and precision — the bat-man does not fight in the open; they fight in the dark, where the echo is the ground. Armor: light leather, worn under the tunic so the line stays clean. Weapons: the short knife, the dropped wing, and the echo that is not a weapon but is used like one. War markings: the Echo-Knot, a single knot in the braid worn over the right shoulder for every echo kept, in deep grey-brown; the Cavern-Notch, a single deliberate chip in the left claw for every year spent in the dark, worn as a record of the long watch; and the Voice-Brand, a small, deliberate mark on the inner wrist — the first word the wearer ever echoed, worn as a mark of the beginning. Post-battle: the dead are carried back, their names echoed in the cavern, and their knives laid across the threshold — a bat-man buried without their knife is buried as a stranger.
Magic Alignment
Primary domain: shadow — bat-man magic is the echo, the patient, precise holding of the dark across the roost. Secondaries: divination and illusion. Named inborns: Sonar-Sense (a bat-man can map the dark the way a sailor maps the sea, and the mapping is not a choice), Echo-Read (a bat-man can read an echo the way a sailor reads the wind, and the reading is not a choice), Folded-Wing (a bat-man can fold their wings to a single, clean line, and the folding is not a choice). Signature power: the Dark Word — a bat-man can speak a word in the bat tongue and let it land across a lifetime, and the word will keep the echo's faith. Limitation: bat-man magic is spent on the dark; a bat-man who has spent their dark word must sit still for one day, and the day is the worst one of the caverns.
Religion
Bat-men keep Vessurax, the Veiled Eye as their primary god — the shadow, the secret, the dark that is the echo's own law. The dark is Vessurax's, and the bat-man is the dark's mapper. Omnath, the Last Memory is honored at the roost-rites; the record is Omnath's, and the bat-man is the record's echo. Priestly class: the Echo-Keeper, who keeps the cavern-temple and speaks the dark word at every rite. Heresy is not blasphemy — it is a word spoken in the light, and there is no rite for that one; the roost simply stops remembering the speaker.
Society
Roosts of 20–60, led by the Echo-Keeper, rank decided by the echo — whose voice is most true. No roost follows a face, it follows the voice; the Echo-Keeper leads not because the voice is loudest but because the voice has never once been wrong, and the roost measures truth in echoes, not in years. Outsiders are either a meal or a mistake, and the mistake is the one the echo remembers; a stranger who makes a sound in the dark is not a guest, it is a map, and the roost maps around it. Young are raised in the drop-layer, the lowest roost where the echo is short and the drop is the first lesson; a young bat-man who has not read a full echo in the dark is not given a line of the roost. The one fact the surface keeps wrong: the roost does not hoard the dark — it maps it, and the map is the whole of the cavern, and a stranger who is mapped is a stranger who is safe, and the safe is the only kind the echo keeps.
Home
They live in Nocturne Caverns, a cavern city lit only by sonar and pale lichens, its roosts in layers, its hunt in the dark.
Relations
The Rat Men of The Underwarrens are the kin below — the rat folk keep the tunnels and the bat-men keep the dark above them, and the two share the echo the way the ground shares the root: the rat folk read the sound of the hunt, the bat-men read the shape of it, and neither corrects the other, because a correction in the dark is a sound and a sound is a map. The Shadow Goblins are the neighbors the roost does not map — they move without a sound, and the roost has learned that an unmapped sound is a goblin, and a goblin is a debt the dark does not pay. The Mole Men of The Underbrow are the ones who do not need the echo, because they read the stone with the hand, and the bat-men have decided that a hand on the stone is not a sound and a not-sound is not a map. Below, the ground-folk of The Forgotten pass the cavern mouth without a word, and the roost has mapped them, and the mapping is the whole of the safety.
In the Story
In the current story, the bat-men are the dark below the camp — the echo Uaellaen writes about when the ground is not enough to hear. The Forgotten pass the cavern mouth without a sound, and the roost has mapped the passage, and the mapping has held for two seasons. This season the echo came back wrong — a sound that does not map, a shape the roost cannot read, and the not-reading is the whole of the warning. The Echo-Keeper Vex has not spoken the dark word in a season, and the not-speaking is the map the roost is keeping, and the map is the one the camp has not been shown.
You stand in our dark and you make a sound. Good. Now we know where you are, and you have made our echo's choice for us. The price is a secret. You have one to give, or you are already silent. — Echo-Keeper Vex the Grey