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09-07-2017, 04:01 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
Alright, this is going to be a bit of a weird one (in case the title didn't clue you in). So, a flesh pocket is a useful way to smuggle objects, keep your cash where it's pretty much impossible to pickpocket, and so forth. It's also, by its very nature, a dark, warm area that may be prone to getting damp - in other words, a prime breeding ground for bacteria. Now, in ultratech settings, this is likely to be an inserted pouch (rather than a literal pocket of flesh), meaning it's probably made of materials with antimicrobial properties.
The issue I'm having is that I've imported this concept into a ~TL4 setting, where a race of minor shapeshifters* finds growing such to be useful. Such pockets also likely don't seal as well as UT examples, making them more prone to getting damp. A wealthy - or at least settled - individual may have sufficient access to bathing facilities to keep the flesh pocket clean and dry, but an adventurer on the road is unlikely to. This is likely to take the form of a stench on anything they opt to store in the flesh pocket, as well as increased potential for infections and otherwise getting sick. Complicating things further is the fact that petroleum doesn't exist (or at least isn't available) in the setting in question, meaning sword oils and the like are made from biological** sources, which are a potential food source for such flesh-pocket-bacteria, and one of the characters I'm designing keeps an unsheathed sword hidden in a dedicated flesh pocket in his arm (think Baraka, from MKII). One thing that could work, although this may be reaching, is to keep some copper and/or silver coins in the flesh pocket, to take advantage of the antimicrobial properties of those metals. If this would work, it would probably be done as a semi-superstitious "good luck charm." In the case of the sword, making it out of bronze rather than steel might work, but I'd rather have other options. Perhaps some sort of stable antimicrobial/poison could be diluted into the sword oil? How likely is the copper/silver coin trick (and/or the bronze sword) to work? What are some other options? *They shapeshift rather slowly compared to what one would expect, essentially slowly reprogramming their bodies. **I consider petroleum to be sufficiently removed from the organisms it was produced from to not count as "biological."
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09-07-2017, 04:08 PM | #2 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
Boiled linseed oil has antibacterial and and antifungal properties and is a pretty traditional sword oil
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09-07-2017, 05:17 PM | #3 | |||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
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Despite the magic in their origins, I don't want a magic-based solution - most Feuyaner aren't mages, and permanent magic items in the setting are addictive if one is overly exposed to them (and keeping a Gem of Minty Freshness in one's flesh pocket all the time would certainly qualify). Quote:
The "flesh sheath" for the sword is more problematic, as that is likely to get biological fluids like blood in it, but I intend the character to not make heavy use of that (it's a backup weapon), and to do his best to give it a thorough cleaning anytime he does spill blood with it.
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09-08-2017, 03:58 AM | #4 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: Brighton
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
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09-08-2017, 06:53 AM | #5 | ||
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
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09-08-2017, 09:03 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
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09-08-2017, 04:56 AM | #7 |
Join Date: May 2013
Location: Ellicott City, MD
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
They can have a hydrophobic pocket. That would keep water out just fine.
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09-07-2017, 04:10 PM | #8 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
Generally speaking, things that are bad for bacteria are also not great for skin. If the shapeshifters form pockets like this naturally, they probably have a biological means of keeping them clean that gradually pushes contaminants out (assuming they're dry enough that a sword won't rust, it's probably oil or wax).
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09-07-2017, 04:31 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: Flesh Pocket (UT211) Hygiene
I'm really not sure this is an issue.
Marsupials not only have the archetypical flesh pockets, they keep babies in them (notorious germ magnets), and the babies poop in the pockets. They have to clean them out by licking, the poor things. Despite this, marsupial pouches aren't a hive of scum and villainy. They're not even sweaty smelling, because they don't have sweat glands in the pouch (not really big on sweat glands in general, those marsupials). The key factor is that they're not wet. A flesh pouch, such as a marsupium (the marsupial pouch) is not a mucus-membrane lined cavity, like the mouth or various other body parts I won't mention. There's no pools of saliva, mucus, food debris, or body waste, just skin. The baby is a bit messy, but the saliva from washing does dry up pretty promptly, after which the pouch can be kept more carefully closed when necessary. I don't know about you, but my various sphincters are pretty darn good at keeping things out of my mouth when I want them to, and letting air into or out of my mouth when I want them to. Now, if you have someone keeping a sandwich in there, all bets are off. EDIT: I presume, as a shapeshifter-made pouch for keeping stuff in, they're not optimized for keeping a baby in them, and therefore don't have to be designed to always let enough air in for the baby to breathe. Another comparison is a baboons cheek pouches, which are drier than you think and fairly immunologically active. As long as they aren't keeping human garbage food in them they're generally fine.
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