What would a horrid wilting victim look like?

[Yqatuba]

I imagine like a mass of beef jerk roughly the same size and shape as the creature affected.

[avr]

Dessicated. Mummified. It might be hard to tell how long ago the victim died.

[Slim Jim]

<must resist compulsion to link pictures of currently barely-alive federal employees on the high court>

[Pizza Lord]

Horribly... wilted... ?

[Wheldrake]

Horrid Wilting wrote:

This spell evaporates moisture from the body of each subject living creature, causing flesh to wither and crack and crumble to dust.

Isn't the end result of this spell specifically called out as a pile of dust? I would think once the victim is dead, the "crumble to dust" clause would be fully implemented.

[Kimera757]

Realistically (for something magical) they wouldn't entirely turn to dust. Any part of the body with a high water content would turn to dust.

Quote:

Up to 60% of the human adult body is water. According to H.H. Mitchell, Journal of Biological Chemistry 158, the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%.

Link: https://water.usgs.gov/edu/propertyyou.html

The amount varies for a number of reasons, such as obesity, and gender.

The outermost layer of skin consists of dead cells filled with keratin, so that would stay, although it would be ... horribly wilted. Bones are living organs, but the hard parts don't have much water in them, so they'd stay. They might get brittle, but they shouldn't turn to dust.

Blood would turn into an ugly sludge. I don't know what a blood sausage looks like, but I gather you have the same effect (remove water from blood, get something semi-solid out of it).

Fat cells might not shrink as much as most other cells. Muscle cells contain lots of water, but also lots of muscle fibers that would not vanish, so I figure muscle would wast more than fat but less than some other tissues.

[Loren Pechtel]

I would figure it would be an instant mummy, except without the wraps.

[Yqatuba]

What if you used it on a vermin or other creature with exoskeleton? I imagine they would look fine on the outside but if you did an autopsy you would find all their insides to be shriviled up.

[Natan Linggod 327]

Ysma. They look like Ysma.

[Jeven]

Google "Sicilian Mummies".

They probably look that -- recently desiccated dead (within the last century or three) as opposed to ancient dead like Egyptian mummies.

[Kayerloth]

I always pictured what happened to the bad guy in Raiders of the Lost Ark.