> I think the demon mounts are so cool I don't want to trivialize them
> any. So they _are_ huge meat eating demons made flesh. Keeping
>around the 600 or so of my calculations is a big effort, but they
>are worth it.
However since they're otherworldly beings their metabolisms don't have to be anything like RW creatures (or even other Gloranthan critters for that matter). You can easily hypothesize that the demon steeds only need to eat once a year. Of course that once a year feeding has to be a live sentient being. Once the corpse is eaten the demon spends the rest of the year chewing on the soul/spirit/whatever like a cow chewing its cud. Until the mount's finished the soul doesn't get to go to wherever it goes after death normally. Of course all that being chewed on doesn't help the soul, etc. much.
Of course feeding several thousands?/hundreds of these critters still takes a lot of captives/slaves. Good thing Sir Ethilrist charges a lot for his services so he can afford to buy lots of slaves. Captives last longer as a meal, the tougher the better but slaves will do in a pinch. No one but Lunars or morocanths would sell slaves to Black Horse County because of what happens to them.
All the morocanth remember what happened to the tribe that tried to pass off herdmen as humans to Sir Ethilrist. Since the whole lot had had their tongues removed-supposedly the result of captives being tortured no one was the wiser until mealtime. The demon steeds weren't at all happy at their bland meal-not until they got their tasty morocanth meal later anyway.
Oliver
PS I always find the novel Nift the Lean by Michael Shea as a good inspiration for demonic critters/places.
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