(TFT) RE: Dwarven Mines --> Harn Kiraz the Lost City: a review and call for help.

["rsmith" <rsmith@lightspeed.ca>]

Hi Everyone,
	I bought a copy of Kiraz on ebay and
just finished reading it.  First of all, I
would like to say that $20.00 US funds is 
way too much to pay for this supplement.
It is 24 pages long (not counting covers &
a one sided map in center of the booklet).
Despite the small size of the book there 
is a fair amount of white space.  A couple
maps are duplicated, so you pay twice for
the same material.

	The maps are filled with special 
symbols which there is no key for.  (One 
reason why I find the white space so 
aggravating.)  Does anyone know what is 
the little sword symbol with two numbers 
near the hilt?  It always points north but
I have not been able to figure out what
the numbers are.  There is a symbol all
over which is a circle with the left 
side white, and the right side black, 
does anyone know what this is?

	
	The maps are nicely done.  Someone
said that the Harn maps were done by a real 
cartographer and it shows.  Lots of fine 
detail is given on the maps.
	
	There still are problems.  In the 
Ushet mine opening map, they give us an
outside map with contours.  However these
contours show that most of the under
ground mine complex is about 10 meters 
above the forest & steam.

	Mr. Robin Crosby also has no idea
how ore is turned into metal, and then 
how the metal is worked.  He has the ore
storage, milling, concentrating, smelting,
liquidation furnaces, drying furnaces, 
cupellation furnaces, leading, drying,
and refining of metals all in one room!

	His ore cart system of rails would 
work well if the mine has exactly one ore 
cart.

	There are some good ideas.  For 
example, he measures the height of various 
levels from the water table which seems 
very sensible to me.  (I would put the zero
contour at the lowest point waste water can
leave the mountain, as the water table will
vary from location to location.  However on
such a small map, his system works fine.)

	The biggest problem for someone who 
wants to run an adventure in a Moria like
adventure is how tiny the 'city' is.  For
the richest dwarven city in the world which
had a 7000 year history, it feels like a
smallish village.  For example the area
mapped is 47 meters across.  By shouting 
down the main shaft, you could be heard by
everyone in the city.

	(Admittedly he says there are unmapped
residential areas north of the map and 
encourages the GM to do a bunch of work
mapping out more areas.)

	The story of how the dwarven city was
destroyed is fairly interesting.  But (like
many would be Tolkiens) he throws around 
a 1000 years here and a 1000 years there 
like confetti.  Most fantasy writers have
no conception of how much history happens 
in 1000 years.  If you replaced a 7000 year
history with a 700 year history you would
get something that would sit better with
me.


	All in all, I found the supplement to
be too small and too expensive.  It feels 
like something that was banged out quick to
meet a deadline.  There are a few good ideas, 
but anyone who wants Moria should sit down 
for a weekend with some graph paper.  I bet 
that you would come up with something more 
interesting.

	Rick	
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"