Ancient Skaveling

Hideous necromantic rituals give rise to skavelings, or ghoul bats, monstrosities that are not true ghouls but instead are specifically crafted undead creatures. Their creators are the bloodsucking urdefhans of the Darklands, who create skavelings from giant bats specially raised on diets of toxic fungus and the flesh of ghouls-especially brains harvested from these undead. Upon reaching maturity, these giant bats are ritually slain via the use of cytillesh oil. While this poison simply rots away the flesh of most creatures, one of these specially prepared bats will immediately rise from death as a skaveling after succumbing to its effects.

Despite its tattered wings and sagging skin, a skaveling is more than capable of flight, even when carrying a creature mounted on its back-urdefhans often use skavelings as mounts in this way. Their intelligence is more advanced than that of the typical giant bat, and in combat they function more as allies than as mere mounts, capable of making their own tactical decisions. Yet even though they can reason and think, skavelings remain loyal to the urdefhans who created them, and they never take actions in a fight that would knowingly put their masters in harm's way.