Bogskin Fever

Bogskin Fever is contracted by consuming improperly prepared Virelfish, a pale, translucent fish native to the pitch-black pools of the Kargathian Wetlands . The Virelfish feeds on decaying matter in the bogs and hosts a parasitic organism known as Mycosarc cryptovora, a hybridized fungal-sporozoan entity.   The parasite lies dormant in the fish’s gelatinous flesh and is highly resistant to casual cooking. Only thorough brining, followed by smoking or prolonged heat drying, neutralizes the organism. Simply roasting or boiling the fish, especially in low-oxygen swamp conditions, is insufficient.     Symptoms   The incubation period ranges from 3 to 6 days after ingestion. Early signs are deceptively mild:

• Persistent damp sensation on the skin
• Cold sweats that smell faintly of sulfur and rot
• Irregular fever patterns (fever by night, chills by day)

  After a week, symptoms escalate dramatically:

• Skin begins to soften and blister, developing a sheen like wet peat or swamp water
• Victims feel as though their body is “sinking” or “loosening” from within
• Flesh sloughs off in patches when touched or pressed, though with little pain
• Eyes turn a glassy gray, and pupils constrict to needle points in dim light

  Eventually, the afflicted can no longer regulate body temperature, become catatonic, and fall into a fugue-like state. In advanced stages, a fungal sheen develops across the tongue and inner mouth, and the voice takes on a faint echo, as if speaking from deep underwater.     Prognosis   If untreated, Bogskin Fever is fatal within 2–3 weeks, though the victim’s descent is slow and agonizing. In rare cases, infected individuals are found wandering the bogs, alive but in a vegetative, trance-like state, sometimes mistaken for will-less husks, their minds long eroded by the infection.     Treatment  

• Bogmoss tea, boiled with ashbark and black salt, slows the progression if administered early.
• Complete excision of infected skin, followed by anointment with fire-marrow salve, has saved a handful of victims, but often leaves them severely disfigured.
• Imperial apothecaries have developed an experimental tincture using @Caelum's Gullet, a deep-sea kelp rarely found outside the drowned trenches, but it's costly and tightly rationed.

  Superstition and Folklore   Locals believe Bogskin Fever is not a disease, but a punishment from the wetlands themselves. They say the Virelfish carries the “memory of the drowned” in its meat, and to eat it carelessly is to invite the hunger of the bog into your own flesh.   Some wetland shamans insist that if the fever reaches the eyes, the victim no longer sees the waking world but instead gazes into the "Murk Beneath", a realm of eternal decay and slow, thinking rot.