So much poison and so little antivenom

[CameoAppearance]

My first death was to poison; I killed the snake that bit me and it dropped a venom gland, but I sailed everywhere I possibly could (even made pierogies to buy time, since I already had an egg and monster meat and was able to grab a mushroom for the vegetable component) and found no coral. Even in my next game I didn't see any reefs before dying to Charlie on day 8 thanks to a torch mishap, and finding them was probably my third highest not-immediate-survival priority after getting gold for a science machine and charcoal for a crockpot.

 

Apparently Spider Warriors are also venomous now, in addition to the poison snakes, and there are poison mosquitoes in later seasons. That's a lot of ways to get poisoned, and a real shortage of ways to fix the problem when you can't guarantee you'll get a venom gland from killing a poison animal and coral reefs might not be anywhere near you. (I was told they're common, but if that's true I've been pretty unlucky in finding them.) If there's gonna be this many opportunities to get poisoned, venom glands should have a higher chance of dropping, and coral should be more common or more likely to spawn close to the starting island or something. It was dumb luck that I got a venom gland on the first try, and it didn't even help me in the end. I heard from another player -- can't remember which thread this was in -- who got poisoned so many times by the mosquitoes that despite having antivenom they ran out of it too quickly to keep up.

[UnderwearApp]

Seashell armour and gas mask are good deterrents to poison. The key to the mosquitoes is to attack them before they attack you. After dying to it once, I have been poisoned many times in my current 60ish day run, with little issue.

 

Worst case when poisoned go find some stink rays and kill them, you will almost always get one or two venom sacks.

[TemporaryMan]

Mosquitoes aren't even venomous anyway.  Some species can carry malaria, but that's different and cured in a different way.  And it's much less deadly than DSS's venom: untreated Malaria has ~25% mortality rate, iirc.

 

But fine, I'll accept disease = venom for simplicity.  How about some mosquito netting to keep them at bay?  Also, real snakes can be caught safely with a snake hook or a net and then milked for venom.  Anti-venom is produced by collecting antibodies from the blood of poisoned animals.  Maybe there should be another, cheaper recipe for anti-venom that requires access to boars or yaks but no coral?  Or that produces two doses of anti-venom from one gland?  Some method that's cheaper for mass production but requires more preparation.  Actually, is there a way to ferry yaks from one island to another?  Telelocator focus is probably all there is, but stuffing a yak onto a cargo ship would be highly amusing.  Just don't leave it alone with the hound or sweet potatoes.