so idk about you guys but what i like to do with my spare time is research torture methods throughout history and i thought i’d compile a list of some of my favourites. big old trigger warning bc some of these (most of them) are pretty intense. (list under the cut) (it’s very long) (very very long)
strappado. one of my all time favs, i’ve talked abt it before but i don’t think many people read it. it’s a stress position in which the victim is suspended from a height by their wrists, which have been tied around their back. it super fucks up your shoulders and there’s a bunch of ways you can customise depending on your mood, you can add weights to really put some stress on those poor little shoulders, you can hang them from wayyyyy up high in a public place and have passersby gawk, whatever you want. go crazy
flaying. basically skinning someone. this ticks a few of my fav whump boxes, namely extreme gore, major what the fuck factor and permanent disfigurement
boiling. wherein you boil someone alive. insanely painful way to die (although you might wanna fish your whumpee out before it gets that bad). anyway once again whumpee will be permanently disfigured and everyone around them will be deeply disturbed
goats tongue. this one gets points for weirdness, it’s where the victims feet are drenched in saltwater then a goat comes out and licks the soles of them and peels off the skin. not very intense but very what the fuck so it gets a pass
combing. this is where you take an iron comb for wool which looks like this:
and scrape the shit out of the victim. like seriously fuck them up as much as possible. historically it has often been followed by beheading (the romans did this to a bunch of christian saints and one of them became the patron saint of wool combers which i find hilarious) (also this one lady called st. hilaria got combed, but she survived! yay! then she got dismembered beheaded and thrown into a fire. dare i say overkill) but you don’t have to behead anyone if you don’t want
pitchcapping. ho boy do i love this one. it’s where you pour hot tar or pitch (which is similar to tar) into a paper cap, put it on the victims head, wait for it to cool, and then rip it off. sort of a fun, creative way to scalp someone. also they didn’t do this but you could use a dunce cap for some cheeky humiliation if you want. that’s what i would do. people also tried pouring the hot tar/pitch into the victims orifices but that had the rather unfortunate side effect of killing them so you might not want go that direction. although you could do like a carewhumpee situation where the whump comes from watching their friend die in a really fucked up way. actually shit i kinda like that. anyway once again big points for fucked up-ness
gibbeting. this one appeals to my love of criminal whumpees, you’re definitely familiar with it, it’s that thing they used to do where they’d put a criminal in a tiny human shaped cage and hang them from some gallows until they died, then leave them there for a little longer. or a lot longer. anyway due to the drawn out method of death, you can easily swoop in at the last minute to save a very fucked up whumpee and nurse them back to health
necklacing. we’re getting a little more intense with this one, it’s where you soak a tire in petrol, shove it onto the victim so it’s around their chest and arms like a really fucked up bear hug or around their neck (hence the name) and set it on fire. if you want whumpee to live, rescue them quick. and then relish in the joy of having them suffer through an agonising recovery bc this will 100% fuck a person up. i think it’s also one of scarier methods on this list bc a) fire is scary when it’s that close and b) your trapped by a tire. you can’t move, you’re physically restrained by the thing that is killing you painfully, you just have to sit there and hope someone stops it. so bonus points for that
the tucker telephone. ok so this is gonna be a bit of a history lesson, bear with: there was this guy in the 1960s called a e rollins who worked as a physician at tucker state prison farm in arkansas who had the bright idea of wiring a crank telephone generator to a couple of big ol batteries in order to punish prisoners (another win for prison whump, my beloved). the prisoner would be taken to the hospital room and strapped to a table, then the ground wire would be attached to one big toe and the hot wire to the other. or, if they were feeling particularly evil, they’d hook it up to the genitals. someone would proceed to crank the phone, which would electrocute the prisoner. they even had a fun little nickname for doing this repeatedly until the prisoner was about to pass out: long distance calls. lmao that’s so silly of them, those cheeky little monsters (once again fuck the penal system, prisons are evil and need to go and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise). so besides the whole electrocution thing, this also had a tendency to really fuck up someone’s mental health so you also get emotional whump! man what a bargain
rat torture. pretty self explanatory, it’s where you get eaten by rats. there’s one particular variant of this that im a little obsessed with: this guy called diederik sonoy during the dutch revolution filled a pottery bowl up with rats, put it face down onto a naked prisoners body and put a bunch of piping hot charcoal on top. in order to not be cooked alive, the rats would then (and i quote) “gnaw into the very bowels of the victim” to escape. absolutely glorious, i love it when whumpees gets eaten, a million points and a cherry on top
lingchi/death by a thousand cuts. immediately im on board, that is an excellent name. it’s pretty simple, you just slowly slice off bits of the body over an extended period of time until they die. like gibbeting, this is perfect for swooping in and saving whumpee at the last minute, but it also has the added benefit of mutilation, which results in scars, and very fucked up scars at that. overall a great way to whump
swedish drink. ok this one is pretty nasty. its not gory but it might make you nauseous so proceed with caution. seriously. remember two girls one cup? it’s that but a million times worse. don’t say i didn’t warn you. ok let’s get into it - this is a translated quote from a german book published in 1668: “they laid the bound soldier on the ground, stuck a wooden wedge into his mouth, and poured into his belly a bucket full of disgusting liquid manure, which they called a Swedish Drink.” yucky i know but it gets worse. it didn’t have to be shit, it could also be piss or grey water (which is the run off water from things like washing machines, sinks, showers, basically anything except toilets. weird that that’s where they drew the line considering they also used just straight up piss and shit but whatever) or really any other filthy liquid you can think of. also sometimes they would boil the liquid. now. aside from all the gross illnesses and infections you would expect, it also caused intense (and i mean intense) tummy aches, bc the sheer volume of liquid forced the victims stomach and bowels to expand like crazy, which in turn hurt like crazy. it really fucking hurt. then, they’d either squeeze the victims belly with wooden boards, trample them (jesus dude), hit them with sticks or just stab their tummy with spears. fucking brutal. personally i would do this with grey water, bc even for me piss and shit is just. it’s too much. way too much. but other than that i love this, great concept
tiger bench. you tie the victim into a sitting position with their legs sticking out straight in front of them, then tie their knees to the titular tiger bench and pile bricks up under their feet until their knees are forced to bend backwards and snap. i love it when whumpees knees do that
catherine wheel. no, not the firework, this is much, much more fun. you tie your victim to the floor, take a big fuck off wheel with an iron rim (like you’d get on carts and carriages and shit) and drop it on their shinbones. then just work your way up through the joints and limb bones, finishing with the arms. if you wanna be extra brutal, pop some triangular prism shaped beams of wood (pointy side up) underneath their joints. just this alone is exactly my cup of tea but wait - there’s more! oh yes folks, that was just act 1. in act 2, you take another big wheel and (get this) weave the prisoners shattered limbs into the spokes then pop the wheel onto a tall pole for display. holy fuck. you gotta admire the creativity here man. anyway this (surprisingly) is not necessarily fatal. this one guy christman genipperteinga (what a fucking name goddamn) survived 9 days, having been kept alive purposely with “strong drink.” i mean he did still die at the end but he made it pretty far and not everyone died. wikipedia says there’s literature on how to treat catherine wheel injuries but i had a look at the source for that and it’s this german history book abt judicial punishment which is a problem bc a) it’s in german and i don’t speak german and b) it costs money and i don’t have money. if someone can find an english translation for free i will forever be in your debt. anyway this one gets massive points for extravagance, creativity, breaking bones really bad, permanent damage (no way youre limbs are working normally after that) and what the fuck factor
head crusher. first, that name is metal as fuck, points right off the bat. the head crusher was a medieval torture device (so you know it’s gonna be good) that consisted of a metal plate and head cap connected by a frame with a crank on top. the victims jaw rested on the metal plate with their head underneath the cap and you would slowly twist the crank, forcing the head cap down into their skull. here’s a quote from the Wikipedia page: “to aggravate the pain, the torture master would sometimes amuse himself by tapping on the metal cap with a small hammer.” oh man it just keeps getting better. (also side note: the source for that is a book called ‘the big book of pain’ which is 100% going on my xmas list this year). now. this was sometimes used as an execution (just keep crushing their skull until they die) but it didn’t have to be, and again, it was a very slow process. anyway even when you don’t kill them it causes permanent damage (yay!) to the facial muscles and bones and brain (even bigger yay!). here’s another quote “some […] had small containers in front of the eyes to receive them as they fell out of their sockets.” that one comes from this website and if you’re bored i highly recommend thumbing through all the medieval torture methods it tells you abt
jiagun. take three wooden boards, place them around the victims ankles (so it goes board-ankle-board-ankle-board), connect the boards with cord then pull the cord taught and hit it with a mallet. this forces the boards together and crushes the ankles. extremely painful and yk how much i love breaking bones so it’s a thumbs up from me
mancuerda. tie a cord around the victims arms nice and tight, then give it a massive yank (or get a lever to do it for you) and repeat on different parts of the arms. the cord cuts through the flesh directly to bone, it hurts like a bitch, nice and gory. not super flashy but hey, sometimes you just want smthn simple
pau de arara/bogers swing. another stress position. this time you take your victim, make them sorta curl up in a ball with their arms hugging their legs (yk the position i mean) and slip a bar under their knees and over the crooks of their elbows. oh and tie up their ankles and wrists, you don’t want them escaping. then, suspend the bar between 2 platforms so it looks a bit like a bird perch (pau de arara means macaws perch in portuguese). this will really fuck up their calves and knees, unless they transfer some do the weight to their forearms, in which case it fucks up their forearms. then their forearms can’t take the weight anymore so their knees and calves have to so their legs get fucked up anyway. also leads to headaches and psychological trauma which is fun
lead sprinkler. another medieval one where you take smthn that looks like a holy water sprinkler, fill it with molten metal and let the molten metal rain down on your victim. if they wanted to kill the person, they’d often pour molten silver onto their eyes. another win for the medieval period holy shit
whirligig. very whimsical name, and also pretty descriptive. this is a cylindrical cage big enough to fit a human with pivots at the top and bottom. stick someone inside and then spin it like mad. they’ll feel very sick and may well pass out. pretty tame, but i like the silliness. reminds me of those things you get in playgrounds that are just spinny poles with a little platform for you stand on
ok im gonna call it there, might do a sequel but idk. hopefully one or more of these has sparked some whumpy inspiration in you. i think these are great starting points for you to mess around with, tweak to fit your whump scenario, or just daydream about and with any luck so do you. i also want it known that the majority of these were used on prisoners/criminals, further bolstering my claim that prison/criminal whump is severely underrated
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