Stings and Bites

Overview

Stings and bites are the small change of venom: the bee in the orchard, the wasp at the jam, the hornet's nest under the eaves, the spider in the boot, the jellyfish on the ebb. Nearly everyone is stung in childhood and thinks little of it. What the peoples fear is the rare stung person who swells and cannot breathe, and the swarm that does not stop.

Cause

Each creature carries its own venom. Bees defend the hive with stings that tear out and kill the bee; wasps and hornets sting again and again. A few biting spiders of woodpiles, outhouses, and old cellars (Glove Spiders), and the scorpions of the dry country, carry stronger venoms. On far-side shores, jellyfish trail stinging threads, and small spined sting-fish lie buried in sand at the tide's edge. The deadliest harm is often not the venom: in a few people the body answers a sting with a sudden, spreading swelling.

Who It Strikes

Beekeepers, orchard and field workers, children at play, shore gatherers barefoot on the sand, and anyone who disturbs a nest. Small bodies take a dose hardest: a Kobold, Halfling, Gnome, or Goblin child feels a hornet as a Human feels several. The Wrought are not stung.

Signs and Course

A sting burns sharply, then reddens, swells, and itches for a day or two. A hornet or scorpion brings a deeper, throbbing pain, sweating, and sickness for a night. A biting spider's wound may blister and open into a slow sore, or bring cramping of the belly and limbs. A jellyfish leaves raised red welts in lines; a sting-fish an agony in the foot that climbs the leg for hours.

The swelling is different and fast. Within minutes of a sting the lips, eyes, and throat puff up, hives spread, the voice thickens, and breathing fails. The turning point comes within the hour: one who keeps breathing usually recovers by the next day, and is stung worse the next time.

Contagion

It does not pass from person to person.

Treatment and Its Limits

Households scrape out a bee's sting with a blade or nail rather than squeeze it, dab wasp stings with vinegar, and lay cold mud or a crushed leaf on the welt. A sting-fish's foot goes into water as hot as can be borne, which eases it as nothing else does. Nerve Quiet dulls the pain, and Toxin Draw pulls venom into a poultice. Against the swelling, venom-drawing does little; a healer must hold the breath open with Breath Recall until it passes, and there is seldom a healer near an orchard.

Mortality

Ordinary stings almost never kill. A swarm can kill a child, an old person, or a small body, and so can a scorpion. The swelling kills perhaps half of those it takes where no healer is near, and those who live learn to fear every summer.

Lore and Belief

Beekeepers tell the bees of every death and marriage in the house, so the hive does not leave in offence. A person who swells at a sting is said to be marked by the bees, and some believe a sting cures stiff joints. Shore children say the sting-fish bites only liars.

Halfling tales tell of the fold that threw its bee-skeps over the wall onto a band of raiders, and of the raiders who ran back the way they came, swelling.

In the Medieval Era

Stings are a nuisance of every summer, met in the orchards of the folds, the fields of the basins, and on every beach. Bee-yards are worked at dusk with smoke and veils, and swarms are followed and taken, not fled. Folk healers treat stings as a matter of course; a swelling case lives or dies before anyone more can be fetched.

Where It Appears

• Insects and Bees
• Vital Magic: Nerve Quiet