The smell of blood and bile hung in the air of a moderately sized Anglish town. On every street lay the bodies and body parts of the adults who once called that town home. The whole of the city was burning as the accidental tipping of a single lamp had led to the creation of a town-wide firestorm. Inside the town there was a deathly quiet aside from the sounds of the fire, as all who were within that settlement were dead, be they man or woman, human or beast. There were survivors, although their fate did not seem all that great.
In a magically-made cave that hid the entire House from the sun, the children of the unnamed town were gathered together. Any normal human would assume that House Moreau was intending to feast upon what any other vampire would jokingly call ‘veal’, but this was both incorrect and a far better fate than what awaited them. House Moreau was not only twisted in form, but also in mind. They honestly cared for children, they really did, at least in their own way. It was a bit like a pack of wolves adopting a baby human, the end result was that the human child would become something inhuman, a fate far worse than simply being killed. The children who had survived that terrible and nightmarish attack on their home would be inducted into the ‘Pack’, whether they wanted to or not.
And so, the horrible process began.
Turning a human into a vampire is a dangerous procedure which can fail horribly, resulting in twisted mockeries both living and undead if the procedure is done under the wrong conditions. It involves, among other things, having the human imbibe a not insubstantial amount of the blood of the vampire turning them. Usually this is done by a vampire cutting themselves and letting the applicant drink the blood as it flows from their new ‘parent’, but House Moreau had a different and more twisted way of doing this.
All members of House Moreau aside from Grathe himself were equal to one another, all betas beneath the alpha, and so the ‘applicants’ were given a mixture of the blood of several dozen Moreau Vampires that had been mixed in a massive cauldron of bone. Mixed in with the blood of the elder members of the House was the shredded flesh from Grathe himself, which turned the macabre soup into a twisted concoction that no sane person would willingly indulge in.
Either due to fear or force the baleful brew was fed to the young survivors of the Wild Hunt, and within minutes they began to feel the changes. The process would last several days, several agonizing and mind shattering days as the very biology that made them who they were was broken down and remade by the occult madness that now surged through them. As they changed, they would be driven into a frenzy and attack their fellow ‘applicants’, and only a scant handful of the many tens of children would remain intact, with the rest being consumed by their insane former playmates.
Only after a week had passed and the final mutations had established themselves would the House finally return to reclaim their new ‘packmates’. It should be obvious what was the result of watching everyone they ever loved being torn apart and eaten, then having been force-fed the vile mixture of vampire blood and flesh and finally being driven insane and eating the mutated remains of your own fellows and seeing what you had become with your own eyes. The being that exited the cave was not the same being that entered it. No human could look so monstrous or so mad with power and confusion.
House Moreau had by far the most degrading procedure to induct new members, this was true, but it was truly a shame that they did not see it that way. In their clannish and bestial state, they saw this as a way to continue the growth of the ‘tribe’ by incorporating only those who could make it through the ‘Trial of Blood and Flesh’ intact. This way the House would have the best, and the weakest would be weeded out and feed the growth of the strong. For a whole month the Wild Hunt repeated this process, erasing entire towns from existence and turning the children of men into children of vampires. There was a reason that the other Houses only ever turned adults, they lacked the ‘gift’ that Alexis had bestowed upon House Moreau.
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House Moreau could grow. As their younger members aged, they grew in size and strength, in speed and cunning, and by the end of their growth they were apex predators. The younger the individual was when they were turned, the longer the growth period and thus the more potent the end result. It was therefore only a matter of time before the Founder decided to shift ‘recruitment’ away from the short-term growth of adults and towards the long-term growth of children.
His warped mind reasoned that this was better than letting the House eat them, or letting them become orphans, and thus the Wild Hunt had gained another, possibly more sinister goal. Yes, the Hunt was originally just to feed the blood-starved mouths of House Moreau, with the occasional madman picked up and made a new member, but now the Wild Hunt had a greater purpose than to simply feed the pack.
How the legend of praying the hunt away came about was anyone’s guess. Perhaps it was due to the innate human desire to find hope in a hopeless situation, or a way to escape the inescapable, but this little ritual was nothing that could stop the Monsters of Moreau. With each town that lay in ruins, another cave was made and more members of one of the most twisted Houses to exist were ‘born’. From the depths of insanity and savagery were birthed more twisted bodies and hungering mouths, which pushed the Hunt ever farther and ever harder.
By the end of what would come to be called ‘The Month of Long Fangs’, the House that seemed to be the closest to being rendered extinct was once again thriving. The madness of Grathe Moreau now was imbedded within the minds of hundreds of new vampires, and the animalistic tide of macabre tribal savagery was being prepped to rush over the Teutonians to the east.
…
A few humans were running through the forests outside their hometown. They could hear the howls and barks of the small versions of the monster men that had begun to destroy everything they ever knew. A woman pulled the 8-year-old child along as fast as was possible, but the little girl tripped over her own feet and the woman tried to stop and get he the girl to stand.
“Leave her! They’re on our heels!”
“No! I won’t leave her to them!”
The rustling of leaves and branches proceeded the arrival of the results of last week’s induction into House Moreau. Cackling like madmen, the smaller Moreau vampires fell upon the husband and wife and tore them apart. The poor little girl finally got to her feet and tried to run but was blocked by a massive figure. Grathe Moreau’s massive hand picked up the child and with a single breath he knocked the small child out cold. Placing the child into a cloth wrap, he sped through the forest and reached where his House had gathered the children. With a single gesture, the landscape shook, and a massive cave was created.
“Ru'haa hgih'ge! Alexis drahl Kain Br'raa k'kah dahtu'li! Chhrr rioioth irrorcckkiiii zahtousha malah kha! Gra'hragh foiruhm!”
The gutteral ‘words’ that came from the ‘alpha’ of the House caused the rest of his pack to howl in delight. They had averted the erasure of their tribe, and now was the time to rebuild that which once was. By the Divine Ancestors' own godly decree, they were to be given a portion of the Forest of Death (Gallows Woods) to rule over! This was a great day for the House that had long been seen as the ‘black sheep’ of the vampiric family, but what was even greater was the promise that they would be given even MORE territory once the large human tribe known as 'Teutonia' had been defeated.
More members had to be brought into the tribe, to save them from the fate of being without a tribe of their own. The Wild Hunt entered the newly made cave and the cycle of insanity began again.