White court feedings

[Wolfwood2]

I'm thinking that honest emotions 'tastes' better than invoked ones.  No real game effects but something that the characters react to.

I'm basing this off Thomas and his salon.  Mechanically he was feeding his hunger but from a RP perspective he was going on bread and water while surrounded by a great feast that was his for the taking.

But arguably doesn't Thomas suggest the exact opposite?  He felt like he was on bread and water because he restricted himself to taking only the honest, already-there emotions of his clients.  If he had been willing to use his powers to drive them into a frenzy of lust, he could have fed all he wanted.

Also, I'd suggest that's why White Court vampires are as dangerous and destructive as blood-drinking vampires.  If all they did was wander around feeding of existant emotions, they wouldn't be as big a deal.  But a lust vampire goes in and uses his powers to excite people into a frenzy of lust they neither want nor can control.  A despair vampire can turn a mentally healthy individual into a depressive on the verge of suicide.  Can and does regularly, as part of his feeding, because it's more satisfying.

[Richard_Chilton]

But arguably doesn't Thomas suggest the exact opposite?  He felt like he was on bread and water because he restricted himself to taking only the honest, already-there emotions of his clients.  If he had been willing to use his powers to drive them into a frenzy of lust, he could have fed all he wanted.

Sorry, I should have been clearer.

I'm using Thomas as an example of how emotions can have different tastes, but it's not a true comparison because Thomas was only tasting the shadow of lust.

Now that I think of it, it's really a bad example to use sense it really just shows that a WCV can survive on something that's close to what the WCV needs.

But I still feel that there is a huge difference between invoked emotions and honest ones.  It might just be the difference between a hooker who can act and an enthusiastic one night stand.

Also, I'd suggest that's why White Court vampires are as dangerous and destructive as blood-drinking vampires.  If all they did was wander around feeding of existant emotions, they wouldn't be as big a deal.  But a lust vampire goes in and uses his powers to excite people into a frenzy of lust they neither want nor can control.  A despair vampire can turn a mentally healthy individual into a depressive on the verge of suicide.  Can and does regularly, as part of his feeding, because it's more satisfying.

We differ here.  I think that if there's at least a base of that emotion to build on the WCV will get more satisfaction.  That the truer the emotion the better the taste.

Richard

[Sitrein]

Buffet they may be but a cheap one that will leave you sick and wishing you hadn't touched that damn fish. Yeah, I lost my metaphor somewhere.

Only problem I see is that, from the sounds of it, Skavis wouldn't care for heard feeding like Malvora or Raith would. Despair seems like it would be much more intimate in a 1 on 1 sense. I mean, sure, there's always group suicides but those are rarely motivated by just despair and organizing one would seem to be more trouble than it's worth. I mean, if I were a Skavis I would probably just single someone out, be it an aging, well-to-do house wife who's kids don't need her anymore and who's husband is probably having an affair with his "Younger than me" secretary. Maybe one of the sods from my local comic book store. 20-30 and some older than that yet still living off their parents without decent jobs or girlfriends (or boyfriends for that matter. It is, after all, the 21st century) or anything too look forward to in life, other than their next superhero comic escape. Perhaps one of them would like to try flying. They have nothing to live for if it doesn't work but their only real chance for escape would be if it did. The despair right before they hit the ground would HAVE to be dizzyingly sweet.

Then again, perhaps I'm thinking too small. The older Skavis would probably take MUCH more pleasure out of destroying something beautiful. Finding something close to true happiness but not quite there yet. Someone very close to it and then destroying them. Breaking them apart slowly. Something like the Book of Job. Taking everything away from them, maybe even inciting despair in just the right ways to cause them to tear apart their own lives so that in the end, before I have them finish it, they can know that they had everything in the world before them and they destroyed it all. They have no one to blame but themselves. And then I take the last of them.

At least that's how I imagine a Skavis would like it. Much more personal. Hell, even the other houses seem to prefer 1 on 1 feeding than herd feeding. They still do the herd feeding but usually only as a means to another end.

[Wolfwood2]

I guess it also depends on how central producing tasty emotions is to a particular vampire's life.  All that stuff about carefully selecting the right target and carefully destroying them sounds awfully time-consuming.  Time spent doing that is time that can't be spend running businesses, watching football, getting drunk, betting on horses, reading comics, and any other thing that the vampire might find enjoyable in life.

Sure a particular White Court might act that way (selecting particular targets), but I don't think it should be taken as default behavior anymore than Red or Black Court spend all their time trying to find a particular person's blood to drink.

[Blackblade]

I've got a feeling that the Skaavis would have liked life in the Eastern Bloc. 

[devonapple]

Is any of this feeding preference already covered in the "Our World" description of the White Court?

[Paynesgrey]

Rehab facilities, halfway houses, methodone clinics, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, strip clubs, psych wards, VA hospitals, or any other hospital for that matter. 

[Lawgiver]

I've set my game where I live (Austin Texas) and our A.S.H (Austin State Hospital) is where people with serious mental problems get cached. People having nervous breakdowns, Down Syndrome cases with major violent tendencies, homeless vets havign frequent PTSD outbursts, people threatening/attempted suicide... basically anyone with mental issues short or long term. They generally get committed by a Judge and don't get out until someone (like said Judge) says so. Not a pretty place at all. A veritable smorgasbord for any White Court Vamp (or any vampire for that matter... after all, they're not running far).

[Paynesgrey]

What better job for one than as an orderly or other staff member, or even as a shrink.

[jadecourtflunky]

I've got a feeling that the Skaavis would have liked life in the Eastern Bloc. 

I've got a feeling that they did. And in the black plague. And in every major disaster known to man. These are immortal vampires man.

[Paynesgrey]

Things like the Plague would be a feast, but to the smart ones at least it's more like "The power's gone out and everything in the freezer will spoil if we don't eat it now... but later we might be getting pretty hungry."  Controlled, measured, institutionalized misery and despair would be what the smart ones shoot for.  Societies where they don't even need to rely on maskirovka because the socioeconomic conditions and even the government itself provide them with a 'target rich environment' while also ensuring that suicide, disappearances or just plain old low life expectancy numbers give there more camouflage. 

You can pretty much go around the world and all through history if you're looking for places to root this or that member of the Misery Nomming White Court.  The KGB and it's ancestors like the NKVD and Cheka would have provided a fine table, and if one doesn't mind the cold, a dacha from which they lived as overseer to a gulag would have been country dining house.  During the age of european colonialism, Africa, Asia, the subcontinent would have been another prime feeding ground, moreso anywhere there was an active slave trade.  Ireland under the rule of the English, England under the rule of the Normans, etc.  Feudal Japan and China.  Any place where the commoners had little or no recourse to having their food taken or their family members disappeared to "serve" in local lord's household.

[danthehut]

I still think large scale sporting events would be a great location for scale. While the emotion may not be as intimate or 1 on 1, the sheer scale of 46,000 people sharing in the defeat of a team (especially on large scale evens like world series, playoffs, super bowls, etc) would be a magnitude that would provide a decent feeding.

[Paynesgrey]

Possibly, but it would depend upon if they can feed off of multiple targets, or have to concentrate on one.  Given their malicious nature though, I think it for them it would be like licking the seasoning off of every item at the buffet, with a nibble here and there... compared to sitting down to a steak dinner and finishing it off.  With both Red and White courts, "just enough" isn't enough, there seems to be a psychological need to actually kill, to feed off of one victim until they die.  We've seen it with Bianca and the Reds who didn't bother taking just enough blood to meet their needs unless they had some other use for the cattle, we've seen it with Lara's crew as well.  Maybe the kill gives them a bigger juice, maybe they just get off on it, but I think they'll generally prefer to ride their victims all the way down when they can.

[Sitrein]

Possibly, but it would depend upon if they can feed off of multiple targets, or have to concentrate on one.  Given their malicious nature though, I think it for them it would be like licking the seasoning off of every item at the buffet, with a nibble here and there... compared to sitting down to a steak dinner and finishing it off.  With both Red and White courts, "just enough" isn't enough, there seems to be a psychological need to actually kill, to feed off of one victim until they die.  We've seen it with Bianca and the Reds who didn't bother taking just enough blood to meet their needs unless they had some other use for the cattle, we've seen it with Lara's crew as well.  Maybe the kill gives them a bigger juice, maybe they just get off on it, but I think they'll generally prefer to ride their victims all the way down when they can.

The kill does give bigger juice according to the novels. The whole "Drinking Deeply" thing. I mean, sure, no one's going to say that Skavis aren't going to like hanging around these places, they'd likely be very tasty, but while sating yourself or even filling up on hors d'oeuvres might be nice once in a while, I don't think anyone would want to live like that.
White Knight Spoiler:

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I mean, look at Thomas (Toe-Moss). Other Raiths think what he's doing is pathetic and hell, so does he. He does it only as sacrifice to allow him to get by without killing anyone or going insane.