[13lackGu4rd]

from all your guides this is 1 of my favorite. turning such an obvious fire nation into a blood+astral powerhouse instead. using expensive, non sacred cap only Warlocks as "mere" blood hunters, when each of them is just so much more efficient than those H1B1 Mictlan/Lanka hunters. same thing you did in your Niefelheim guide with the Skratti, just that the Warlocks are cap only while the Skratti aren't.

so in that regard, you're mentioned the Fountain of Blood as a solid choice, but not you're preferred 1. I have to wonder, do you think Abysia really needs the awake Vampire Queen for SC duties? because other than that, and maybe starting soul contracts on year1(assuming you manage to get the research, with most of your cap mages going blood hunting) I really don't see the benefit of the Vampire Queen over the much cheap Fountain of Blood, and also the benefit of having your pretender awake instead of dormant. so I was wondering, what about something like a Dom8(to spread your wonderful yet hot dominion around and into your enemies) B6A4E3F2 dormant Blood Fountain with O3P0H3G1L1M1? here are my reasons for suggesting this pretender:
1. you get luck1 instead of misfortune, which saves you from some but obviously not all lab accidents and other annoying events.
2. you get growth1 to help negate the population loss from blood hunting. fits perfectly into this more gardening blood hunting than Mictlan's or Lanka's scorched earth blood hunting. also helps your old mages survive the winters.
3. you get a superb blood hunter cloud trapeze capable so you don't need to hunt in your capital.
4. with A4 you can forge both air boosters(if you want to empower a warlock or 2 to start pumping out storm demons).
5. a single air booster(only bag of winds fits on the Fountain of Blood) brings you to B6A5, which is enough to forge the Robe of the Magi. this by itself seems to be worth the A4 investment... especially when the only thing you're doing with air gems is empowering Warlocks...
6. with the E4 you also get easy access to Demon Knights, Father Illwinter, Troll King, Hammers and other earth goodies. also, if you're desperate for an Earth combat caster and you didn't find enough air gems to summon a troll king or use hidden in sand, than you can always cloud trapeze your Fountain of Blood to drop Army of Gold(or Lead with a Ring of Wizardy, forgable by some of your Warlocks), Weapons of Sharpness and whatever else you'd want from the Earth line.
7. you still get your soul contracts, and it's not like you could afford a hammer for your Vampire Queen to use, even if you did get E2 you'll need const4 to forge the earth boots, and than use your pretender to search for earth sites. so the loss of the hand slots isn't even costing you.

so unless I'm missing some obvious advantages to the immortal Vampire Queen, or overestimating the Abysian line up than I don't see why the Vampire Queen is such a good choice for Abysia, and why it overshadows the Fountain of Blood, either with my setup or something else, lots of options here...