What WOULD you find in a dwarven mine?

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Brett

If you're going that way, add "coking ovens" to the list, and take extra precautions about ventilation.

Good points. And that will prevent the unnecessary upsetting of enviromentalist... err sorry, elves.

[David Johnston2]

Eating Hall.

[Anders]

Fungus farms?

Hair-and-beard-dressers?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Fungus farms?

The Gnomes in my Ärth setting, live off mushrooms that they feed with magic energy (they cast lots of Mushroom Growth spells at them) and waste. It's possible that the Gnomes have taught those spells to the Dwarves, and givem them the necessary mushroom spores and usage instructions. Not guaranteed, though.

[Astromancer]

Try this notion. The Dwarven mine/city would need regular food supplies and a way to move bulk goods and stores. A canal, with or without locks, that conected the mine/city to river transport would be highly logical. It would both allow the Dwarves to import their food and export their coal and refined products.

Such a canal could provide multiple motives an opportunities in Dungeon Fantasy.

Pirates could use the hidden canal as a base, so could Robin Hood style Bandit/revolutionaires.

The Dragon could use the canal to secretly enter and leave his lair.

Maybe there is a large and bulky treasure, which can only be practically moved by barge, that the PCs need to remove from the mine.

If you are useing and extraplanar threat, maybe they need the canal to steal water for their world.

A variation on the last one. What if a powerful Necromancer needs to raise vast crops in a desert. A portal could still use the dwarf canal to drain the river for the necromancer's benefit while causing a famine in the PCs homeland.

Reactions?

[robkelk]

Originally Posted by adm

<Smart Alec Hat on>
Dwarves?
<Smart Alec Hat off>

If there aren't any dwarves in a dwarven mine, I'd be wondering why...

[Anders]

Some kind of water pump, using a nearby former waterfall, to pump air through the community?

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

Originally Posted by robkelk

If there aren't any dwarves in a dwarven mine, I'd be wondering why...

A balrog chased them out.


Hans

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

A balrog chased them out.


Hans

He was mad that he failed at Worming Hall.
You know..... because he DID NOT PASS.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Cemetaries (Occasional statue, lots of plaques with runes, urns full of ashes)

As an aside, a concept I use for my reptilian race (which started as an idea for dwarves before I purged the Tolkienian races) was that the resting place of the body and the site at which the family mourns were separate, but both important, places. The body is treated with reverence. However, the family mausoleum is rarely visited, except to lay someone else in it. Mourning and the display of relics occurs in a private shrine.

Even more aside: my dwarves (now my reptiles) have many names. A birth name, a personal name, a professional name, a death name, etc. Calling someone by the wrong name in the wrong situation ranges from overly formal/familiar to horrible insult. This was somewhat inspired by Japanese, both the concept of posthumous imperial names and the complexity of personal/family names and honorifics (Haruhi-chan is very different in implied meaning from Suzumiya-san).