Quote:
Originally Posted by (E)
This one got away from me a bit, crunch will follow.
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Been looking forward to this, and the wait was worthwhile.
A few idle questions:
Heat exchangers: Would piped hot air do the same trick? There's more thermal mass in water, of course, but building hot air flues might be easier to do across a large area, and could be retrofitted inside existing tunnels.
Sheep and wheat: I was expecting to see goats. Why are sheep preferable here? And likewise, that article on Tibetan agriculture suggested barley is best at higher altitudes. Not that I've read any further than that, but is it because barley is more suited to wide-open plateau growth? Barley, of course, lends itself to "dwarven" products such as ales and hard breads.
Caterpillar fungus: From the Wikipedia article you linked- "The fungus germinates in the living larva, kills and mummifies it, and then a dark brown stalk-like fruiting body which is a few centimeters long emerges from the corpse and stands upright." This suggests to me an interesting new macabre form of dwarven burial. Perhaps the burial cavern is where the corpses are naturally mummified by the fungus, which is then harvested for its medicinal uses. Fungal infection into live dwarves is something to be strongly avoided and protected against though.
One other thing-
Bats: Can they possibly be bred large enough to be milked?
ETA:
Reading further on the caterpillar fungi, two interesting points came up. It's the main source of income in rural Tibet and is 40% of income for rural local households. This could be an unexpected mainstay of dwarven exports. Also, the NZ version is used by Maoris to make tattoo ink, leading toward the Warhammer-like image of heavily tattooed dwarves.