What WOULD you find in a dwarven mine?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

I think the issue is the motor, not the valving etc.

Using magic for that seems plausible.

On the subject of food, it seems hard to believe that there's a market for enough exported metalwork to enable large communities of dwarves to import all their food. When I dug into this a bit, I concluded that dwarves do farm, but take care to conceal it. The main ways to do this I came up with were (a) doing it in inaccessible high valleys and (b) underground greenhouses with semitransparent windows in the rock that aren't obvious from a distance.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Why are pumps TL5 minimum?

Because historically speaking, deep mining pumps are about then; most pump types simply won't lift water all that far (low-tech water pumps are usually designed for a lift of a few meters). Some sort of bucket wheel (similar to a Persian Wheel) is probably the best option, and I don't think medieval gearing was up to more than 50m or so even there.

Note that giving dwarves the equivalent of TL 5 metalworking (particularly, the ability to make metal objects in strange shapes to tight tolerances with high strengths) hardly seems unreasonable, and is most of what you need to allow steam engines. If this is some sort of talent rather than mundane tech, it means that dwarven devices won't spread, simply because a regular metalworker will not be able to replicate them.

[adm]

Note that you cam have some advanced tech without all of it, i.e. they may be advanced in metal working but not in.... say agronomy. Their average may be TL 3/4.

[rust]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Some sort of bucket wheel (similar to a Persian Wheel) is probably the best option, and I don't think medieval gearing was up to more than 50m or so even there.

In 1540 Heinrich Eschenbach introduced his "Kunst der Krummen Zapfen" *,
a system of pumps driven by a water wheel which made it possible to remo-
ve the water from mine shafts with a depth of up to about 500 meters. In
the GURPS technology system this would be TL 4.

* I have only German sources, including a Wikipedia article, and do not know
the English mining terminology well enough to find an English source.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

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

Try this. High mountains with a rain shadow, the Dwarfs channel water from the rainy side of the mountains down to waterwheels. The waterwheels lift water out of the lower mines. All of that water, both the mine drainage the the stuff that turns the mills has to be gotten rid of. The Dwarfs offer it to farmers living in the Rain Shadow of the mountains in exchange for food supplies.

Reactions?

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

The idea is excellent. The following suggested applications into a campaign are novel, but are extraneous to my setting requirements. But this does then imply that there will be dwarven shipwrights, shipyards, slipways and the like. Ta muchly.

If the mine is near the sea, the Dwarfs might have hidden coves where fishing boats dock. Non-dwarfs might be hired as fishermen or dwarfs could do the work.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Try this. High mountains with a rain shadow, the Dwarfs channel water from the rainy side of the mountains down to waterwheels. The waterwheels lift water out of the lower mines. All of that water, both the mine drainage the the stuff that turns the mills has to be gotten rid of. The Dwarfs offer it to farmers living in the Rain Shadow of the mountains in exchange for food supplies.

Reactions?

I like this a lot. It turns a problem too much water, into a solution, facilitating food supply for the settlement, as well as generating a client human population directly outside. These humans could provide auxiliaries in times of conflict with goblins, other dwarves etc.

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by johndallman

Using magic for that seems plausible.

On the subject of food, it seems hard to believe that there's a market for enough exported metalwork to enable large communities of dwarves to import all their food. When I dug into this a bit, I concluded that dwarves do farm, but take care to conceal it. The main ways to do this I came up with were (a) doing it in inaccessible high valleys and (b) underground greenhouses with semitransparent windows in the rock that aren't obvious from a distance.

Crystal/glass/mirror faced lightwells are also a possibility. These can be combined with the ventilation system.

[Hans Rancke-Madsen]

The AD&D Mystara module The Dwarves of Rockhome has a lot of good material about a dwarven society and a dwarf city. I remember stealing a lot for my own campaign's dwarves.

One thing I remember was that one of the seven clans were food growers and they were at the bottom of the pile because their creations were so impermanent; they got no respect from the other dwarves because they didn't leave behind any trace of their existence.


Hans

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by Hans Rancke-Madsen

One thing I remember was that one of the seven clans were food growers and they were at the bottom of the pile because their creations were so impermanent; they got no respect from the other dwarves because they didn't leave behind any trace of their existence.

That works for me. Ta muchly. And it's a nice extension of the tannery and abattoir worker underclass idea I'm borrowing from medieval Japan.