The Sweats

Found in and around warm swamps, it us transmitted by female mosquitoes that feed on the victim. Passed through the bite of the mosquito, it enters the bloodstream.

The virus uses the bloodstream to reach the sweat glands in the victim's skin from where it uses the surrounding skin to reproduce creating damage to the skin and drawing water into the area making the skin feel hot and needing to cool down. An itchiness is caused that brings more blood to the region and irritation to the skin causes the release of excessive fluid in the sweat.

Itchy skin, excessive sweat and slight tightness in the skin, with the skin feeling hot. The temperature increases slightly becoming almost unbearable. General fever also comes about from this heat, and the inability to cool down naturally by sweating. Excessive fluid intake is caused by this.

With the effects of blood being drawn closer to the skin and the changes to this organ, red blotches appear, and quicker when scratched. Hair is sometimes lost from the scratching and can cause bleeding if an area is scratched too much or too hard.

The smell of sweat, especially in the armpits and groin, is , known to get to horrendous levels with this and off-putting. This happens surprisingly quick and no amount of washing & cleaning seems to help.

Only by placing the victim in a cool area, such as an icehouse, helps to cut down on most of the symptoms and can kill the worst of the viral load after seven days in this state. Pain & itch relief should be applied both internally and externally where the worst of it hits the skin. Regular cool & cold packs helps too when needed or the only treatment available.

Depending on the length of the infection affects the outcome. As long as the patient has had it a fortnight or less, then they can generally be cured. As long as the patient isn't doing any excessive physical labour or armour, or is in a hot environment, then they have a chance of surviving relatively unscathed with no or minimal damage to their skin, or getting secondary infections. It also stops heat exhaustion or worse, hyperthermia.

If left for over two weeks, and / or the patient is removed from external heat sources , then the chance of permanent injury or death can occur. If the patient's body isn't cooled down quickly, as in immediately, the patient is likely then to enter heat exhaustion that causes physical & psychological damage before going into a coma.

The most extreme case which leads to hyperthermia, is effectively a death sentence. This effectively needs the patient to be placed in sub-zero temperatures immediately and left for some time to drop the core temperature of the patient.

The infection starts when the victim of a mosquito bite. It starts to spread in the bloodstream, while the site of the mosquito bite starts to itch and warm up.

After a couple of days small rashes starts to appear on the skin and the patient feels their body starting to heat up. Sweating and thirst starts to increase and they feel a strange itching below the out layer of skin starts.

Wherever the person itches it draws further viral load to the area scratched. It also increases blood flow to the surrounding tissue and their body starts to heat up more.

Within a week full infection has started and the sweating has started in earnest. Extreme thirst usually shows up in many at this stage too.

Leaving it longer causes the symptoms getting fat worse and excessive sweating causing dehydration. In turn, the patient drinks far more.

After two weeks the body of the patient]s body starts to suffer from heat exhaustion, and not treated, coma and hyperthermia, with extreme damage to the body and mind. The skin becomes reddish overall, and itchiness increases over the whole body.

Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes and Halflings are regularly infected with The Sweats but any standard humanoid species can potentially be infected. Any person of any age, gender or profession can potentially become a victim.

Mosquitoes are both host and carrier. Not affected by the virus itself, mainly because of mosquitoes having carapace instead of skin, the mosquitoes usually pick up the virus from the female line where it waits in the digestive tract of the animal. Only when the mosquito feeds does the virus get injected with a painkiller to help the bite be missed.

Cooling off is the best way to stop the effects progressing if infected. This should start within the first week to bring the virus under control, and with it primarily lodging in the skin, will help to kill it.

Magic can be used but not every region has access to mages or clerics who know what to do in this situation.

The only safe method is to try to prevent or kill the mosquitoes in the first place. Draining any swampland nearby is the easiest way, or by not creating a settlement near it in the first place. Mosquito predators should be encouraged to grow in the region, and mosquito nets can help. Also, reducing the region's temperate by magic can help to control mosquito numbers too.

Certain plants can help by attracting other insects that take over the place of the mosquitoes have been used in places but the virus may mutate instead.

The disease is only passed to the victims through mosquito bites. Control of these mosquitoes is the key, and the sufficient control of their numbers help. Draining waterways where they breed, or keeping it cool enough is the safest. The hotter the environment the harder to control the numbers, and introduction of predators of mosquitoes can help further.

The sweats are known throughout many regions. Usually found in swampy areas, it is known for being linked to miasma coming from this naturally occurring water feature. Though thought of as such it is only transmissible from the local mosquitoes, of which serves as a naturally occurring well for it, and the vector from which it spreads.

Most peoples who inhabit areas near the swamps avoid going anywhere near them when the temperature is at it's warmest. Thus only a reckless few will get infected.

Still, when the mosquitoes breed the females will search a wide area around the swamps to find suitable victims to feed on sometimes bringing hamlets and villages to their knees. Such outbreaks don't spread much further but can easily damage travel when the authorities close all travel within the immediate vicinity. A number of times, travellers such as pilgrims and trade caravans get caught up in it with risking travelling through the affected areas, or skirting round near the swamps not realising that is where the virus spreads from.

Since it has been round for centuries in many of these regions, the risks are well known and local authorities have learned to deal with outbreaks or infected individuals. Usually on standby they have healers and militia on standby in the offchance of an outbreak when the weather gets warmer.

Feared by many, The Sweats is looked upon with trepidation every year as it is guaranteed to have at least some poor local to come down with it.

When someone does get infected the swamp & the victim is quickly quarantined and everyone but the healers are allowed near the victim. The swamps in many areas where it appears are quickly drained to be sure though in the wet seasons , these can easily refill, leading to problems the following year.