What are some cool infections?

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• Treczoks@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Some tics infect people and animals with an allergy against red meat.

  The dog of our friends go this…

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• actionjbone@sh.itjust.works ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Lots of worms can live in a non-life-threatening wound for long periods of time. Some can’t reproduce in a wound because they require a gastrointestinal tract.

  So it could be a single, small worm that prevents the wound from healing, is only painful enough to be inconvenient, and can’t easily be removed without cutting off a large chunk of flesh.

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  • philpo@feddit.org ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah. Worms are what I wanted to write as well…the Guinea worm (Dracunculus medinensis),sometimes also called medina worm, is one of these and was once really common. The Asclepius rod is possibly coming from it.

    If your character has a backstory that brings him to southern Europe, Asia or Africa in these times it’s basically perfect.

    Another disease to look up: Larva migrans cutanea

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  • ace_garp@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Yeah, was thinking to make up a giant-ringworm.

    Rings of 5-10cm across.

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    • actionjbone@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Ringworm is, in fact, a fungus. Not an actual worm.

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• AA5B@lemmy.world ⁨9⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Can’t beat the classic

  • en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprosy

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• RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Balefire scarring.

  It’s a radiation burn but it sounds cooler.

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  • DomeGuy@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Honestly, WoT balefire scarring would be epic as fuck. You had a foot replaced when you were young by a wizard,.and in the future the jerk gets balefire’d so hard that his entire lifespan back to when you got your foot replaced is undone.

    The charactes’s foot appears as a ghostly flicking outline, like the false light if you stare at something too bright for too long. It can make a few marks, but is not solid enough to support the character.

    This could just be a clever detail, or it could be a setup for an epic campaign.

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• I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It’s not really an infection, but compartment syndrome is something that can happen in legs after an injury. Basically internal swelling of the muscles which starts to damage tissue once the pressure gets too high. It causes severe pain, and in some cases can eventually require amputation if left untreated.

  The treatment is… brutal. It’s called a fasciotomy and fits well with the setting of pre-modern medicine as it hasn’t really changed much since the 1800’s. Basically, a doctor makes a long, deep cut, almost down your entire leg, until your leg is basically filleted open. Sometimes, multiple of these cuts are needed all around the leg. The cuts must be kept open until pressure is relieved, which can take hours or days, at which point they are structured up. I would recommend avoiding pictures if you are squeamish.

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• sem@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Brown Recluse bite. It’s not the venom, it’s the subsequent bacterial infection, or so I’ve heard.

  Jeffrey Rowland has one.

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• Dalacos@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Not a real response to your question, but the first thing I thought of (it’s not an infection):

  The scarring from a lightning strike can, to me at least, look hauntingly beautiful.

  If you’re writing in any sort of fantastical setting you can just make up a non-life threatening infection that mimics it.

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• CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Personally I’d go with a large painful burn scar with an interesting story, or a battle wound that reopens from time to time or causes some other limitations. “It never fully healed” ala Frodo Baggins.

  A person walking around in premodern times with a semi permanent but nonlethal infection would strain believability for me.

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• HerbalGamer@sh.itjust.works ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Not an infection, but this guy I know had an accident and they had to graft a muscle from on side of his arm to the other and now his hand’s all twisted.

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• A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I once had something that would erupt whenever I had a small wound anywhere on my body. It was kinda living inside of me, clawing it’s way out.

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  • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Bleh. I once had a huge infected area (don’t ever do skin picking people) on my leg. Definitely sucked, though not something worth writing a chapter or two about.

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• over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Give the character a boil on their ass, and they can barely walk, until the core of the boil is removed plus some additional healing time.

  No I won’t be going into deep details, but I had boils around 2009 or so…

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• TRBoom@lemmy.zip ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  A cluster of human bot fly larva.

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• Proprietary_Blend@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Maybe sometime in the teeth? That’ll make me close one eye.

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  • hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    wound infection on his leg

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    • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world ⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Teratoma

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    • over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Teratoma

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