This was u/JesterMasquerade’s first playthrough with Rim of Madness - Cults and Hospitality, which they decided to also make a Sanguophage run and do it on the Forsaken Crags, where darkness is eternal because it is a perfect place for a vampire to start their colony.
This story begins like many others: A deal was struck, a gift was given…and a thirst for more was created. Lexi “Pratt” Ortiz was born in an advanced world…but one ravaged by war and its fallout, the consequences of which made themselves felt later in her life, creating a very real biological clock ticking down the seconds of her existence…until THEY arrived. Their offer seemed ridiculous: immortality, immunity to disease, to the frailty of old age…all in exchange for a thirst for blood. She accepted, thinking it a joke, only to be surprised when she was bitten. She awakened days later, spry, strong and healthy…and immediately decided to liquidate her assets. This changed things you see. Eternity is a long time, a long enough time to enact change, to build a world anew… She gathered resources, equipment, and even bough herself a servant, paying for top of the line genetic work to convert them into being able to produce milk, jelly, devilstrand and even eggs. A docile servant able to feed on anything without complaining…a Human Honeypot.
The planet was selected, a location chosen, far from influence, far from the burning gaze of the nearby star, perfect for a brand new start, perfect for the First Seed.
Work was slow to start, but steady, the first waves of looters quelled by a flick of her wrist and the tip of her sword. The rumour of lodging and safety soon attracting travellers, which were welcomed with open arms to free, warm and dry beds and free food. This of course led to permanent members…but also to more daring raids.
Steel gave way to plasteel and uranium. Cloth gave way to devilstrand…but that was not enough. Every battle Pratt began to lose flesh and bone, the colony’s protecting angel paying her pound of flesh to save them. They would be replaced of course, the finest of bionics they could acquire would go to her unless someone else was missing a piece…But even that was not enough.
It was clear to see she could not hold the line forever, not by herself, and as such others joined her. Her husband, a dirtmole was the first to pick up a shield to guard her back, and soon others followed, their bravery rewarded with the promise that when old age came for them, she would share with them the bounty of immortality.
And thus they fought. They fought for a dream, a dream of an utopian oasis in the middle of strife…but each battle fought grew harder and harder…and strangely the colony began to focus on dreams themselves. You see, someone was watching them. Listening to them. That someone, or something, showed them a perfect city, one of bliss and content, where death and pain would never reach them…All it demanded in return, was that every one pay a price of entry.
The colony had taken prisoners from the start, bloodbags harvested from the midst of those that would destroy them and refused to change their ways…as such sacrifices were in hefty supply. The alters were built. The candles were lit. The litanies, chanted…and the blade held high. As the last breath of the last sacrificial lamb left their body, the First Seed dreamed, a dream they would never need to awaken from again,