Whip It Good?
I have a character, who at the age of fourteen was given ten lashes with a single-flagellum whip. At the time, he was underweight and underfed, though not yet to the point of malnurishment. The person administering the whipping is as close to an officer of the law as you're going to get in that particular part of town, and has a great deal of
( Read more... )
It all depends on the whip, more than the strength of the one doing the whipping. If it is thin, like a wire or cord, it will draw blood; possibly even on the first stroke. If it is thicker it will give more "pang" than "whistle" and will smart and bruise, but only draw blood if the leather has sharp edges (either through tanning or through metal pieces embedded in it designed for drawing blood).
1) It will hurt a lot, but probably not at once. I haven't been whipped myself, but as long as he isn't bleeding and nothing is broken from too hard lashes, he should be ok with walking, but in pain. If he is wearing a shirt, that would have taken some of the edge of the lashes, possibly be torn and hurt a lot against his now glowing skin. If he is only bruised, the next day is probably going to be a lot worse than the first few hours.
2) As long as his skin isn't broken, he is probably be lying on his stomach, cursing his gods, or if the stream is cold, try to keep the swelling down either by bathing in it or having wet bandages on himself. If his skin is broken, he is almost definitively going to get an infection, considering how leather is terrible at cross contamination and probably not washed between lashings. If the cuts are deep, which they probably will be with a thin lash, the alcohol won't kill all the bacteria in the wounds. He might bleed them clean, but I don't think we have enough blood vessels for that to be likely over our ribs. Cleaning his back and bandaging it to keep anything else from getting into the wound will give him the best chances of avoiding infections. If they try to stitch up the cuts, they might trap infection in the wounds, which will lead to a whole new world of trouble. Lancing the infected areas might be necessary.
3) Depends both on the lash and how well he usually heals. My scars all disappear within a few years unless they are extremely deep wounds, someone else might struggle with keloids forming and get very visible scars from even small injuries. You can probably get away with anything from nothing or small, barely visible lines to serious crisscrossing like you see in some pictures of slaves.
Good things to google when it comes to whippings are the marine in the 16th and 17th century, slave keeping in the US (warning: pictures and stories that can turn your stommach) and BDSM + whipping (they focus very clearly on doing it safely, keeping one whip per slave and such, but you can learn a lot about what might happen to your character under less ideal circumstances by reading their how-to's).
Good Luck!
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment