There are earlier incarnations of the bat, that were around in the first age and earlier, the Scarlet Bat and the Not Black bat. Information about these bats can be found in the digest V6 #605 (aside to David Dunham - - nothing like having the digest archives sherlocked, hey?).
The original form of the Bat was the Not-Black Bat, the death god
of Rinliddi - to quote from Eric Rowe (passing on Greggly revelations) in
the above mentioned digest
>The Not-Black Bat is the terror of the Darkness, representing Death
>to the peoples of Rinliddi. When the world was destroyed the
>Not-Black Bat ate Rinliddi. Shargash then defeated and skinned
>the Not-Black Bat as part of the process of restoring the world.
>After this the Not-Black Bat was known as the Scarlet Bat, for it
>had no skin.
The Second Council magicians under Nysalor magically empowered it and somewhat changed its nature, and used it as a weapon. Arkat fought it, and wiped out the Scarlet Bat cult that controlled it.
The Red Goddess is responsible for its current form, as she created its skin, including its blood spurting eyes. The current bat cult is to a large extent a recreation of the original Scarlet Bat cult from the first age, apparently.
It is not known at which point it became chaotic - I would personally vote for when the Red Goddess changed its form for the main chaotic influence, but its just as plausible that Nysalors magicians made it chaotic. I would think that the original Not-Black bat was not chaotic, but merely Death, even though it was a Great Darkness horror. It could be worse than Death, and more like Kajabor, though. I welcome discussion on the issue from fellow students of Pelorian myth.
Note that even if you could cast Counter Chaos on the bat to remove its chaotic features, you end up not with a harmless rat sized bat, but with an equally huge ancient death god bat, probably nearly as dangerous. The only possibility that might help, is the Not-Black bat and the original Scarlet Bat (without the support of Nysalors bat cult), had no power outside Rinliddi. I suspect that this is only useful if you are able to destroy the bat cult, though, and the Red Emperor certainly has the ability to recreate it.
Regards David ------------------------------
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