RE: (TFT) Forge of Fury. --> Ricks comments.

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

Hi Mark,
	Sorry it has so long to reply to this,
I've been very busy.

	This is exactly the sorts of things 
that I am fascinated about.  I suspect that
most of the habitable parts of the dwarven
palace will be reasonably close to the 
surface (simplifies the light, air and water 
problems...)

	I am uneasy about having the chimney
coming out under the glacier.  A huge amount
of glacial till (crushed rock and soil) is
under the glacier.  This icy mud and boulders
would plug up any chimney in short order.
Also, the glacier would rip open any small
holes in short order.  (The moving ice, if
it can get a grip, can move huge rocks.  The
red rock in Australia was moved by a glacier
for example.)  Rocks would get wedged into 
the hole, and as they are dragged away, they
would pull away the sides of the chimney.
Now bigger rocks can be forced in etc.

	If you heat the bottom of a glacier,
it melts a bit and starts flowing quicker.


	However, one thing I know is that 
weird ideas like this one are the breeding
ground of fantasy.  I know the science so
I can say what would work in the real world
but too much science poisons fantasy.

	Smelting ore, refining metals, leading
etc. would fill the water up with poisonous
chemicals.  However, such water could be
directed for 'grey water' uses.

	Sedimentary mountains can be very 
high.  (Everest and the Canadian Rockies
spring to mind.)  So there is no reason
why the dwarves could not pick a mountain
with coal.  However, most of the cool 
metals that they would want to mine are
in igneous or metamorphic rock, so you are
kind of screwed either way.

	Mushrooms are a vastly overrated 
source of food.  Yes they can grow under-
ground, but there just is not enough 
energy to support a large population.  
But they might be magic mushrooms....

	No reason hunters can't shoot some
mountain goats, meat is inefficient, using
plant food you can support ten times the
population.  So I suspect that the dwarves
would grow plant crops as their staple
diet, and any animals the hunters gather 
would add some welcome variety to their 
diet.

	The thing about mines is that they
are WET.  When you have a lot of fires, 
the air can absorb more moisture, which 
will turn to fog as soon as it reaches the
cold air outside.  Thus ANY dwarven palace
will have clouds of steam and mist over it
from a hundred small chimneys or a handful
of large ones.

	I suspect that dwarves will use
pneumatics and heat gradients very carefully
to force air flows.  Usually prevailing
winds will cause one side of a mountain to
have higher air pressure than the other and
this must be carefully exploited.

	The way I see the engineering of a 
dwarven palace working, it requires a 
significant amount of maintenance.  When 
the orks move in (like they always do...)
most of this will go to hell.  The ork 
population in the deeper levels will 
crash (they will die or flee).  Getting 
things going again after the orks are 
cleaned out, will be quite an adventure.

	If I had way more time, I would like
to write up my own palace.  But I'm having
a hard time finishing undead.  (80 pages &
counting...)

	<sigh>

	Rick
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