Re: (TFT) Apology and caverns

["Neil Gilmore" <raito@raito.com>]

> DMG2 said:
> >     I have never seen, heard, nor heard tell of anthing quite like this.
> >Very original.  But what prescious metal/gem are the dwarves mining for?
>
> Lucky this time. I'm not well-read enough, so I often just reinvent
> the wheel. err... Sapphires and Emeralds? Plain ol' Gold would work
> too. Or how about Molybdenum? I know that's found in the Rockies in
> Colorado, among other places. Any metallurgists listening? Would
> Molybdenum be useful in Cidri?

I'm pretty sure that sapphires and emeralds aren't found in the same sort of
places, but sapphires and rubies are (and other corumdums).

As for molybdenum, there goes that old industrial magic again. I always
figured that some clever wizard would come up with some spell (or set of
spells) to maintain a small vacuum, and to maintain a high heat, allowing an
industrial magic society to make all sorts of 'modern' alloys. For instance,
there's maraging steels, which have very high strength at lower hardness,
which means that it's durned tough to break a blade made from it, and it
doesn't fatigue as much. Sure, with a lower ultimate hardness it won't hold
an edge as well, and won't take quite as fine an edge, but that's just not
as important in a sword. It's 3 modern uses seem to be high-quality fencing
blades, nuclear containment vessels, and solid rocket motor casings. And the
stuff is dead-easy to heat treat. Don't even ask why I know all this (yes, I
went to college to be an engineer, but electrical, not mechanical or
materials)...

But back to molybdenum. It's used to make some similar high-strength alloys,
and high-temperature lubricants.
http://www.molybdenum.com/molyinfo/molyinfo.html
It is used in certain nickel-based alloys, such as the "Hastelloys(R)" which
are heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant to chemical solutions. Molybdenum
oxidizes at elevated temperatures. The metal has found recent application as
electrodes for electrically heated glass furnaces and foreheaths. The metal
is also used in nuclear energy applications and for missile and aircraft
parts. Molybdenum is valuable as a catalyst in the refining of petroleum. It
has found applications as a filament material in electronic and electrical
applications. Molybdenum is an essential trace element in plant nutrition.
Some lands are barren for lack of this element in the soil. Molybdenum
sulfide is useful as a lubricant, especially at high temperatures where oils
would decompose. Almost all ultra-high strength steels with minimum yield
points up to 300,000 psi(lb/in.2) contain molybdenum in amounts from 0.25 to
8%.

Also, in my campaign, there is adamantium, which can only be refined by
magic, because the metal's processing requires some very exact conditions,
which really can't be met technologically. One adamantium coin is worth one
million iron coins. At 200 coins/kg, that means that 5 grams of adamantium
is worth 5000kg of iron.

(My campaign uses 13 metals as the basis for exchange, adamantium is the
most expensive, plain iron the least. It does use aluminum, but with magic
it's fairly easy to extract. Industrial magic with metals is fairly common,
Gate trickery very rare, and Mending is really useful for jewelers [under
the right conditions, it can be used to weld, or repair flaws in gems] )

Hmm. Say that the Dwarves are mining various metal ores, and smelting them
in furnaces with the ice chimneys used to get water. Any troubles with water
contamination from the fumes?

Neil Gilmore
raito@raito.com
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