Look, I buy a lot of Walrock products on sight these days, but there's good reason for that. Plus I have a love of xenobiology, so this one really hits me where I live.

But still, bias admitted: the two races included here are excellent. They stand on their own, both lore-wise and mechanically. Their attributes aren't just mismashes of other traits you've seen in various official Wizards races, slightly tweaked or copied wholesale--they have personality, and were clearly written with an eye to the 'source material' of real-world bat physiology. Take, for instance, the trait designed to mimic the quadrupedal (pterosaur-like) walking gaits of real bats, and note that it's designed not to get in the player's way, not to unbalance the power level, but in a way that merges the race's unique flavour with a sense of 'realism' (at least in the relative sense of what a bat-person would hypothetically look like). The rules aren't just a set of semi-appropriate bonuses--they help both the Nycter and Desmodu leap off the page, as real creatures with real cultures behind them.

That gets me to the other thing: cultures. It's not unheard-of for homebrew races to also include information on their lives and societies--but doing it at all is a bit rare, and doing it this well is rarer still. It is truly effortless to use the included cultural descriptions to slot both races right into a setting of your choice. Those descriptions are detailed enough to feel immediately well-rounded and realistic, and yet they simultaneously limit their detail to the new races themselves, meaning you can use the generalistic framing narrative to slot both races into any tabletop setting with an Underdark-like area, and it'll take you ten minutes if that. You've got stats and rules for the new concepts these new societies contain, and for NPC members of both races; everything you need to use them without hours of prep work folding the new into the existing. And yet, the racial abilities are built off of physiology rather than society--meaning if you don't like any of that included cultural detail, or just want to do something else, you can throw it out without compromising the mechanics or scrambling for a different explanation.

None of this consideration and attention to detail is unusual for a Walrock product, by the way. I'm just happy The Walrock [him/her/them]self has wised up and started grabbing some pocket change off the obvious skill involved.

Yet another excellent product from Walrock Homebrew, this time updating some old denizens of the Underdark from 3rd edition. The lore for the two races is interesting and flavorful, mostly due to the new lore created by Walrock since their old official lore was sparse and often contradictory. The mechanics are also very creative and well-balanced, allowing the races to feel distinct, and the same being true of the feats made for nycter and/or desmodu PCs. As for the other goodies, the Notbora is an extremely cool weapon that helps the Desmodu feel more unique even in their equipment and the other items are also good. The statblocks are all well-made, providing stats for several varieties of more battle-ready nycter and desmodu, as well as commoners for each of the two races and a few different types of unintelligent giant bat.

All in all, this product is generally fantastic and perfect for if you want to add some much-needed variety to the Underdark or if you just want to play as a humanoid bat or add them to your world.