A-to-Z Challenge, V: Vulbat (New Oe/BX/1E Monster)

Today's A-to-Z monster was a staple of monster comics of the 50s and 60s. Each issue would usually feature a vampire story and a wolfman story. Then every second issue or so they would have a mummy story (starting to sound "Universally" familiar?), and there would be some witch and voodoo stories thrown in every once in a while. And there would be the occasional mad scientist story, like the one that today's monster comes from. I don't imagine it would take too long before young readers would get sick of the stories, seeing as after about 6 issues they pretty much feel the same. I also imagine this is why, after about a year of publication, many of the pubs would start re-running older stories mixed with new ones. By the end of the run of a couple of the titles, the entire issue were only anthologies of stories recombined from earlier issues.

Vulbat

Oe/1E STATS FREQUENCY: Uncommon NO. APPEARING: 2-12 ARMOR CLASS: 6 MOVE: 3”/9” HIT DICE: 2 % IN LAIR: 10% TREASURE TYPE: Nil NO. OF ATTACKS: 5 DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-16/3-18 SPECIAL ATTACKS: Blood drain, disease SPECIAL DEFENSES: Immune to disease MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard INTELLIGENCE: Animal ALIGNMENT: Neutral SIZE: M PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil Attack/Defense Modes: Nil

BX STATS HIT DICE: 2 MOVE: 30’/90’ ATTACKS: 5 claws/1 bite DAMAGE: 1-2/1-2/1-2/1-2/1-4 NO. APPEARING: 2-12 SAVE AS: Fighter: 1 MORALE: 7 TREASURE TYPE: Nil ALIGNMENT: Neutral

DESCRIPTION

Vulbats are a cross between a vulture and a vampire bat. They are clumsy and oafish, moving slowly and attacking as a 1 HD creature. On any successful bite, there is a 50% chance that a vulbat will infect a victim with a mild disease that, if uncured, will cause minor cramping and discomfort, causing afflicted creatures to attack with a -1 "to hit" penalty until cured. Additionally, on any natural “to hit” roll of 20, a vulbat will continue to drain blood from a victim at a rate of 1-2 points per melee round until the victim is dead or the vulbat is killed. Vulbats are immune to disease of all types.