Question about the Black Court

[kbrizzle]

So the Whamps feed on emotion, Ramps feed on blood, Blamps feed on .... life force?

Do we know what the Black Court feeds on? Also blood? Life energy?

[Snark Knight]

Blood, but it might be as a medium for life itself. I don't think there have been any in-book instances of blamps cultivating a food human to feed on repeatedly like the Reds do. Plus the WOJ was that they grow in power basically through running up their kill count.

[exartiem]

I've tried to imagine how it would work.  The best thing I could come up with is similar to Omega Red in Marvel Comics.  He has a "death factor", to oppose Wolverine's healing factor.  How it works is his body creates a 'death spore'.  He must transfer this spore into other people or the spore feeds on him.  The more spores he infects people with, the better and stronger he gets.

I can see the BC having access to a source of power.  The amount of energy they can draw depends on how many 'batteries' they can put the power into.  They kill someone, then use them as a battery.  The more batteries, the more power.

Or they establish within the corpses a connection to the power source.  The more corpses, the more portals, the more power they can draw on.  The longer the corpse is in their thrall, the better attuned it becomes to the power and the more it can channel.  Sort of like the rules for necromancers and zombies.

[Mr. Death]

Definitely blood. We see them taking bites out of and lapping the blood from Lara's wounds in Blood Rites.

They probably don't "cultivate" because unlike the Ramps, they don't have fangs, but regular human teeth -- so instead of a couple little holes to suck from that can heal up with relatively little non-feeding blood loss, they bite out a chunk of your throat. Plus, no venom, so their victim isn't sedated and they either have to kill them to keep them still or just do it incidentally in the struggle.

Other than that, the death itself may well give them power, as a sort of human sacrifice to themselves.

[Snark Knight]

They probably don't "cultivate" because unlike the Ramps, they don't have fangs, but regular human teeth -- so instead of a couple little holes to suck from that can heal up with relatively little non-feeding blood loss, they bite out a chunk of your throat. Plus, no venom, so their victim isn't sedated and they either have to kill them to keep them still or just do it incidentally in the struggle.

Well, a Renfield would willingly cut their arm to feed their master and bandage it up after a sub-lethal feeding if a Blamp really wanted to order it. Don't need addictive venom when you can just obliterate the thralls' free will.

So I figure the actual death matters in some way to the Blamps' feeding.

[Mr. Death]

Well, a Renfield would willingly cut their arm to feed their master and bandage it up after a sub-lethal feeding if a Blamp really wanted to order it. Don't need addictive venom when you can just obliterate the thralls' free will.

So I figure the actual death matters in some way to the Blamps' feeding.

Honestly, the Black Court always struck me as not caring about mortals enough to want to keep any of them around to feed on. Even the thralls they make are kind of, "Let's just break this person to get some use out of him for a few days, then let him die."

[morriswalters]

So the Whamps feed on emotion, Ramps feed on blood, Blamps feed on .... life force?

Do we know what the Black Court feeds on? Also blood? Life energy?

It might make more sense if you focus on how they reproduce rather than what they feed on. 
Whites reproduce more or less normally. 
Reds appear to reproduce through selective infection of their victims.
Blacks seem to be a product of some type of Necromancy and reproduce by killing their victims.
 
Whites as have some type of energy reservoir. 
The Reds are described as having a physical blood reservoir. 
Whereas Blacks appear to be walking corpses. 

And if I read the Wiki right they always kill their victims. Thralls and Renfields are created by psychic attack.

[kbrizzle]

Yeah it certainly seems like the BCV & RCV use blood in different was.

@morriswalters

I actually go through this is in my other thread called "Some thoughts on the vampire courts". But you raise an important point - the BCV doesn't seem to carry a reservoir - I had postulated that the RCV use blood as fuel where as the BCV seem to draw life energy or something from it. In a weird way, the BCV is like an unholy melding of the WCV & RCV given that they (BCV) use psychic attacks (similar to Whamps) but drink blood (similar to Ramps).