theme for a fantasy campaign

[Anders]

Metabolic rate scales as mass to the power of 3/4, for reasons not quite understood.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Metabolic rate scales as mass to the power of 3/4, for reasons not quite understood.

Yes, it does. But within a humanoid size range, the error in using ST^2 is small enough to be disregarded, I think.

Bill Stoddard

[Anders]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Yes, it does. But within a humanoid size range, the error in using ST^2 is small enough to be disregarded, I think.

Bill Stoddard

For mammals, the constant varies between 0.51 and 0.91. Humans scale as mass to the power of 0.6, so the difference would be small.

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by Brett

Elves I think make wine, cider, and perry where they can, fermenting other fruit juices where they don't have grapes and pomes. Could they make beer out of some low-fat nut such as a chestnut, and what on Earth would it be like?

Some nuts are a source for beverages now; the most common, from what I can tell, is the cashew. Urrac ("oorak", apparently) and feni are distillations of the cashew apple; single-distilled urrac is about 15%, and double-distilled feni is about 40%. In South America, they make soft drinks from the cashew fruit. The cashew apple travels really poorly, so such drinks tend to be limited to places that grow cashews.

Other tree-borne sources for beverages are maple sap (the last sap of the spring is quite dark and not usually used commercially; but it can make a really rich ale); birchbark (either alcoholic or not); spruce buds (spruce tea is an excellent cure for scurvy, as it contains up to 50mg of vitamin C per 100g). And, of course, coffee and chocolate.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Tuk the Weekah

Other tree-borne sources for beverages are maple sap (the last sap of the spring is quite dark and not usually used commercially; but it can make a really rich ale); birchbark (either alcoholic or not); spruce buds (spruce tea is an excellent cure for scurvy, as it contains up to 50mg of vitamin C per 100g). And, of course, coffee and chocolate.

Apples and pears are made into cider and perry, then Calvados. Plums are made into jerkum then slivovitz. There are 'wines' made of elderflowers and elderberries, also sloes and mulberries, dates and plum-dates, peaches, cherries and lychees. (Some of them commercially). Toddy is made from palm sap and I think coconut water. I mentioned tuak and arrack before.

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Checking an online Anglo-Saxon lexicon, I find that the most straightforward word for "boat" seems to be bát. Combining that with bytla, "builder," and wearing it down phonologically seems likely to give "babbit." Sinclair Lewis, call your office.

Bill Stoddard

Depends on the type of boat. I'm envisioning your halflings living much like Kenneth Grahame's Ratty & Mole; as such, I see the boats they use being less ship-like and more punt-like (itself a good A/S word). "Flýte" or "fleóte" could be an appropriate name-root, as it's literal meaning is "something that floats" and is used as a kenning for the more prosaic "punt".

Of course, if you're using the idea of halflings using dams, etc. to create lakes, lagoons, etc., then you have "díc". But that might create a misunderstanding...

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Tuk the Weekah

Of course, if you're using the idea of halflings using dams, etc. to create lakes, lagoons, etc., then you have "díc". But that might create a misunderstanding...

After thinking about dæl, mere, sœ, ēa, strēam, and riþ, I settled on brōc above.

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

It's by swatting fish out of the rivers, for the Kodiaks. Plus eating berries.

A kodiak will eat 20-30 salmon's skins per day. Generally, they don't bother with the actual meat, just the fatty skin. Less efficient fishing bears will clean up the leftovers, as will ravens. They will also hijack wolf and lynx kills, if they can. If they happen to have an easy swat at a squirrel, I've seen Alaskan brown and black bears do so and gulp them down.

Oh, and raiding trash cans is another favorite food source for them.

Polars are solitary hunters... but HIGHLY effective.

Mature polar bears do much the same as Kodiak bears, but with seals rather than salmon. The young bears eat the meat; the adults eat seal blubber.

Polar bears hunt in 3 patterns: staking out a seal's breathing hole and blitz attacking it; stalking a seal on the ice and, when close, blitz attacking it; and raiding a seal's birth lair & eating the offspring.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by Brett

Apples and pears are made into cider and perry, then Calvados. Plums are made into jerkum then slivovitz. There are 'wines' made of elderflowers and elderberries, also sloes and mulberries, dates and plum-dates, peaches, cherries and lychees. (Some of them commercially). Toddy is made from palm sap and I think coconut water. I mentioned tuak and arrack before.

Babycham!!!

[Bengt]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Checking Eugene Odum's Fundamentals of Ecology, I find the following:

Jungle and Woodland ecosystems: Mean net primary productivity ranges from 700 to 2200 grams of carbon per square meter per year
Grasslands: 600 to 900
Tundra and alpine: 140
Desert and semidesert shrub: 90
Lake and stream: 250/Swamp and marsh: 2000/Cultivated land: 650
Estuaries: 1500/Algal beds and reefs: 2500

Is this any carbon? Living of cellulose requires a specialized digestive system.