Humans require vitamin D too, the recommended daily requirement is about 10 mins of sunlight I believe. With a Khuzdul not necessarily seeing daylight at all this indicates to me that Khuzdul do not require the same vitamins and minerals as humans or they do not require them in the same amounts.



Again what constitutes beer for a dwarf might be unpallatable to humans. Beer might be the nearest human word for what this drink represents. It could be made with a variety different ingredients that give the same affect. Imagine the first contact between a human and dwarf as they chat (through broken Harnic or broken Khudzul) about what they are drinking as each in turn describes the effects of their drink as the human comes to a realisation that although what the Khuzdul is drinking tastes like goat urine mixed with whey and sand it has similar affects to the beer he is drinking and so calls it beer too.

I also like the idea that the Khudzul while away gathering were not necessarily on the surface. Perhaps it might have been a combination with some on the surface seeking out delicacies while others where under the surface gathering the staple food sources.

I have looked up a website that reports that on 18 acres they produce 2 tonnes of mushrooms per day. Would this be considered a staple food source for the Khuzdul? Perhaps serving as the grain component for a human's diet on the surface. A variety of mushrooms constituting the various grains in the human diet, I am not saying that they could simply be replaced ie. a mushroom used to turn into bread but instead but mushrooms consumed instead of grain.

Not being a Khuzdul it is hard to know

There are other sources of vitamin D other than sunlight, though the Khusdhul also may not require as much.

But it still does not solve the photosynthesis issue. A little brief info on caves:





So the problem for below the ground food is their must be a source of nutrition, organic material from the outside, as it states either dead or alive.

Which would indicate a few things - First, there is not much food in a cave complex. Secondly, the effects of any sizeable population of large animals (such as Khusdhul) would quickly deplete the meager food production a cave complex is capable of.

Which really only lends a few solutions -
1) The Khuszdhul do most of their foraging/growing outside
2) They practice husbandry, which also means they must import food from outside to feed their foodstuffs. Could be as simple as a some rotting logs for fungi to grow on.
3) They practice husbandry, but the food source feeds itself from the outside. Could be fish that live outside but return to an indoor cave pool that connects to the outside - or something similar
4) Khuzdhul have a slow metabolism like other cave dwellers

Not one of these situations above probably totally fix the requirment for food - my guess it is a combination of a few of the factors.



Well, it would require fermented something . There are a large variety of things that can be fermented, but it requires organic material that will decompose. So some organic material needs to be harvested for this.



Mushrooms are of course an option in some ways, but natural mushrooms would soon be harvested and depleted due to the lack of material for them to grow on. Growing mushrooms is an option, but then they do need to spend time foraging for materials to bring into the cave for mushrooms to grow on.

Mushrooms are not a a bad supplement of the diet - they provide carbs, protein, sugars.

But a cup of mushrooms provides only 70 calories - to meet the caloric requirments of a Khuzdhul, if they have a similar caloric requirement of humans the same size, it would take 30 cups of mushrooms a day per Khuzdhul.



I don't know the reference for this, but it's modern farming I would think, in which you see about 10x the production of middle ages farming. And this is outdoors - the mushrooms need organic matter to decompose in order to grow, and organic matter has photosynthesis as it's building blocks. Sure, cows and cats don't gorw their own food, but they are part of a food chain supported at the bottom by photosynthesis, which requires sunlight. The 2 tonnes you speak of are likley grown outdoors with plenty of material to decompose.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

I have just been reading Herblore; and it says that:

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

and..:



It is clear Fungi feature heavily in the Khuzan diet according to Canon.

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Interesting, Peter, for both Gargun and Khuzdhul.

The fact that they are "grown" as opposed to foraged for makes sense.

Any type of a fungus needs something to feed on though, whether it be rotting animal or plant as a food source for the mushroom.

Caves are just to sterile to provide food for any amount of a population on it's own.

One thought - I wonder is mushrooms can use feces as a food source? Would make mushroom farming a rather smelly job though . But I would think the fact that gargun and Khuzdhul "grow them" would mean work on their part to make sure the mushrooms would have matter to feed upon, particularily if it's any decent portion of their diet.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Aargh. I should just post the stuff from the last time this topic came up, as it addresses all of these issues. I'll try to get it up here this afternoon.

There are large areas of coniferous forest surrounding Azadmere. Maybe the dwarves are using it as feed for the fungi?

Certainly could be a source. I don't know much about mushroom farming, other than they need an organic food source. I'd think almost anything could work.

But they are to an extent replacing one form of foraging (foraging for food matter they themselves can eat) with another, foraging for mushroom food.

Though I would think foraging for mushroom feed could be far more efficient, as mushrooms "eat" things most other forms of life would not, such as rotting logs.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

From Wikepedia, good food sources for growing mushrooms:




Some methods of growing them:



Looks like the caves can provide a similar habitat as indoor trays - only thing that would be needed would that it be in a moist/humid area, perhaps around underground pools or streams.

ETA - From other info on that page, it looks like a mushroom crop needs 3-4 months per harvest, so as long as food for mushrooms is kept around you could harvest 3 crops per year.

A little info on yields -



I'd guess at best the mushroom yield would be sub-optimal. Modern farming yields close to 10x that of middle ages farming - I would expect mushrooms to follow this, though the Khuszdhul might be much better at mushroom farming than middel ages humans were at standard farming.

Seems like much of the work for mushrooms farming is establishing the compost they grow in. Manure is used (chicken is some of the best due to chemical content), and other organic material, which is turned every so often and kept moist during the process.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

JUst did some quick calculations (I'll spare everyone the details ), but assuming a Dwarf needs similar calories to a human of the same weight, and assuming dawrves get 1/2 the yield of modern mushroom farming (this is giving them a superior farming ability to humans of the middle ages), it would take about 140 acres of mushrooms farmed indoor to constitute 1/10th of their dietary needs for a Dwarven population of 5,000.

This 140 acres could be less though, if there was a two or 3 tiered area where they are farmed (hanging boxes, shelves, etc. etc., which I would think the Khuzdhul would be quite good at making, so maybe 70 or so acres would be needed.

And as to how much compost would be needed, somewhere in the realm of 7920 tons to 19,800 tons of compost per year.

And with Mushrooms as 10% of the diet, the average dwarf would eat 2.2 pounds of mushrooms per day

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

I always did wonder what went on in all of them thar caverns.

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"You're gonna cut off the Dragon's what?"

Ah, now I understand. Okay, this is me extemporaneously pulling stuff out of my butt...

First and foremost, I make the assumption that Khuzdul have a significantly slower metabolism than humans, and have commensurately smaller dietary intake requirements. I haven't really quantified how much smaller this requirement is, but long-lived organisms tend to have slower metabolisms than short-lived organisms. Given that dwarves life-spans are so long, it seemed natural to me that their metabolisms would be somewhat slower than that of humans.

So, on to feeding Azadmere.

To start with, I assume that some portion of the Jarin population of the city of Azadmere (or its nearby surroundings) is engaged in the shepherding of hardy mountain goats (much like the bighorn sheep of the American Rockies or the moutain goats of the Himalayas). These creatures are hardy, sure-footed, and can graze areas that other animals are usually unable to reach, areas that require no cultivation. They eat low-lying needleleaf scrub, grazing at higher altitudes during the summer and lower altitudes during the winter. In this way, terrain that might otherwise be considered as "waste" becomes productive. These animals provide meat, milk, cheese, wool, and hides.

At slightly lower altitudes in the valley, Highland cattle are herded as well. These animals are typically smaller than "normal" cattle, but are possessed of very long hair which helps them weather the harsher mountain winters. Subsisting primarily on grasses, the highland cattle are kept predominantly to alpine meadows. Like the mountain goats, these animals also provide meat, milk, cheese, and hides, and their long, coarse hair is used to make rope and cordage.

Herding either of these creatures is not terribly labor intensive, though the spring shearing is probably a major undertaking. In some areas, the animals are left to roam more or less freely, though shepherds must be on constant vigilance that the herd does not wander too far from settled areas and become a temptation to Gargun.

But the true measure of the Khuzan diet comes not above but from below. Within the mountain, there are numerous traditional Khuzan food sources:

Khuzan subterranean agriculture differs greatly from what humans are used to. These operations are feats of engineering and technical achievement that require very little in the way of manpower to maintain. Masters of masonry, Khuzan engineers long ago learned how to design sewer systems and running water to carry waste away from living areas. This waste is passed through a series of rough-walled, stepped, inverted conical cisterns. Once a cistern is full, grated drains in the floor allow the liquid to be removed and the cistern is left to dry for a season. After the waste dries, the cistern is seeded with mushroom caps (more on varieties later), and in a short time the stepped surface is covered with mushrooms. Once mature, they are harvested and the cistern is seeded again. Every three "seasons," clean water is diverted to the cistern and it is washed with lime, whereupon the process of filling it with waste begins again. Due to the sophisticated engineering of the drains and sewers, filling, emptying, seeding, and cleaning each cistern is as easy as opening or closing a valve and dumping buckets of mushroom caps or lime as appropriate through a covering in the ceiling of the cistern.

As for the varieties of mushroom harvested in this way, there are several. Muhlel is a short, round, grey-capped mushroom found in cool, damp caves. Small quantities of fresh water are allowed to seep into cisterns growing this type of mushroom. It is used primarily in stews and stuffings.

Kharvot is a tall, skinny, woody, white-stalked mushroom with dark green caps. It grows best in warmer, drier conditions, and cisterns used to grow this variety of mushroom are typically those near sources of mild geothermal heat. Kharvot is quite often served pickled in brine.

In addition to the cistern systems, there are chambers where wood is sawn into planks, brought into damp caves and left to sit. Akhulal is a variety of lichen that growns on these timbers. Each "season," the timbers are scraped and the lichen pulp dried in kilns. It is then ground in mills and used to make Khuzlem, a variety of somewhat bland bread. Its greyish color doesn't seem to bother the Khuzdul, but human guests liken it to consuming bread made from ash.

Growing "wild" in various caves and passages, Dhuleth is a variety of fast-growing slime mold that is found in places where the calcite rock is damp from downward-seeping groundwater. Tannins and other dissolved bio-matter from decomposing needleleaf scrub on the mountain's surface percolate down through the rock carried on groundwater. The mold subsists on this biomatter, growing in layers that are scraped from the rock, dried, powdered, seasoned, and made into a sort of pudding that is a unique treat of the Khuzan diet. The mold comes in two varieties, a reddish mold that is somewhat nutty tasting and a rarer gray-black mold that has an extremely bitter flavor. It is considered a delicacy amongst the Khuzdul and largely unpalatable by the human inhabitants of the city.

In areas where tunnels have reached near the surface, Hakkut are harvested. Hakkut are the young taproot shoots of evergreen trees. Care must be taken not to prune them back too far lest it kill the tree above. Careful yearly management, however, will keep the trees healthy and productive. Hakkut are typically served raw and thinly sliced.

Additionally Hakkut-Mulkh are small grubs that occasionally infest the roots. When found, these grubs are harvested assiduously to ensure the health of the trees. They are then baked and used a garnish. They are nutty both in flavor and consistency, and once baked are difficult to identify. More than one visitor to the city has praised the taste of Hakkut-Mulkh only to become ill upon learning what they truly are.

In addition to agriculture, the Khuzdul also practice aquaculture. In areas where there are significant underground streams, shallow pools and silt-pans are built. These shallow pools play host to Keppie, which are a variety of blind, subterranean smelt. The silt-pans are host to Hukhash, a nearly translucent subterranean crawfish. Both Keppie and Hukhash subsist on thermo-synthetic phyto-plankton, who in turn subsist on dissolved organic matter brought into the caves by groundwater.

Some portion of the Keppie catch is in turn fed to Agashval, a completely eyeless subterranean eel, kept in larger ponds.

The rarest of Khuzan aquatic delicacies, however, is the common salmon, some of which make their spawning runs far up subterranean rivers and streams. Great care is taken to protect this resource from overfishing, but during the yearly salmon run significant stocks of fish are laid in and packed in salt to last the rest of the year.

In order to aid in the fertility of many of their agricultural or aquacultural endeavors, the Khuzdul long ago discovered the utility of bat guano, which is used as a fertilizer in a number of applications. In addition to bat guano, many Khuzan cities maintain rookeries, as ravens and crows are often kept as pets. These rookeries are another source of rich fertilizer, though more limited in scope. When not simply allowed to come and go as they please, the corvids are often fed table scraps as carrion.

A note on seasonings: Khuzan cooks make use of all manner of mountainous surface dwelling herbs to season their food, as well as a few rare, subterranean mosses or lichens as well. Thyme, juniper, mint, and dandelion (in season) are used to bring a wider variety of flavors to the repast. Additionally, small quantites of rock-salt and even calcite talc are sometimes sprinkled over the food. This may be the source of the myths that the Khuzdul subsist by eating stone.

Plausible to a point. Only thing here if I remember my Biology classes , metabolism is the conversion of food to energy, and by having a slower metabolism, would not one have less energy? For example sleeping longer, being less active, etc., etc.

I'm not sure this is the case but I think so. I wonder if there are examples of animals with slow metabolisms that also are very active in comparison to animals with nigher metabolisms.

I've thought along the same lines at times but low-energy/effort to me does not fit the Khuzdhul who have a very high stamina.



The sheep and cattle make good sense to me.



I would say not terribly intensive, but likely higher in labor than herding similar animals on a manor, as this herding you describe is more along the lines of herding on unimproved pasture, which is a bit more labor intensive. And actually, goats would be better suited for the areas around Azadmere than most monarial grasslands, as they are really not grass grazers. Though you really do not get wool from goats - this is a sheep product.

Only thing about the mushrooms - waste might not be enough for them to grow on. They may well need additional nutirents to grow, though it is an interesting way of growing them and makes sense. The only thing is I would think there would be need for addional foraging to make a "compost" for the mushrooms to grow upon.



Actually many lichen plants are edible - Irish Moss and Iceland Moss being two of these. It seems the most common way of eating these are boiling them in stew, and also drying them and making a bread, though it's mixed with flour or cornmeal. They are rather bitter until boiled first, but the Khuzdhul may not have a problem with this bitterness. Animals feed off of this.

Problems with Lichen as a food source - they grow extremely slowly number one, so a very large area would be needed to produce any substantial food source. The other thing is they are photosynthetic - they require sunlight to live and grow. They are a two part "plant", one part is fungus, they other algae, and they live in symbiosis. But the Algae requires light to make food - while they can be dormant for long periods of time without light or moisture, they need both to grow.



Problem here and with any subterreanean food source - it needs nutrients to grow. The nutrients you mention above are very slight, and again it would be very difficult for much substantial food to be harvested.

That's the problem with any "cave food" - it needs energy to grow, which with most plant organisms come from photosynthesis and the sun. The only other way for a food source to grow is to get it's nutrients from sources outside of the subterreanean enviroment, in the form of plant or animal matter.

Caves while they have some life within, are either those that get their food from outside the cave, or live on biot matter brought into the cave. And biomatter naturally brought into a cave is very sparse.



What I would think might make most sense for Khuzdhul fisheries - A pool which is accesible both within the cave and outside the cave, the fish getting their nutirents from outside the cave but being harvested inside the cave. The exact details I don't have a good idea for though.

The Plankton you mention is interesting. The one thing though - for the amount of plankton needed to support enough fish to be a food source for the Khuzdhul, there would need to be a method of bringing in nutrients, above and beyond that capable by natural means, which again means foraging or farming on the surface to feed the plankton.

One thing you must realize - there is a reason why meat was rare in the diet of commoners of the middle ages. I forget the exact ratio, but something like a 7-1 ratio or greater of plant food is required to make the same caloric amoun of meat. And grain provided the most "bang for the buck" in relation to calories.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

Hello,

one possible source of energy for subterraneously grown food is sulfur and sulfate.
You will find these substances in hot springs and near volcanic vents, probably also in the subterranean realm of Azadmere.
Sulfur- or sulfate-reducing bacteria may use these substances to power their metabolism.
These bacteria finally may form the foundation of an entire food chain, like they do in the deep sea.

Regards

Xris

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Ich mag den kleinen blauen Elephanten!

Interesting. Would such an enviroment be able to produce much in the line of food through this method? It's a nice source of food producers I agree, but is there anyway it could produce anywhere near the amount of food produced in a surface enviroment?



I think this would require a body of water that is located by a geothermal vent?

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

It all boils down to a simple problem: life requires energy. Unfortunately, the actual energy density available in hydrothermal vents is extremely low. Fortunately, there really is absolutely no need to posit any sort of wild theories. A eutrophic lake could easily support the entire population of the region without any problem. And if salmon make it past Tuleme, then it is entirely a non-issue.

(Note that hypothetical. If salmon do make it past Tuleme, then the fishing value of Tuleme would be ginormous. For comparison, thousands of Native Americans gathered every year at Celilo Falls on the Columbia to harvest salmon.)

The "Primary Productity" of a eutrophic lake is roughly half that of a grassland. This productivity is easily harvested through fishing. In this sense, the Khuzan are the bison-hunters of Harn, with a prairie half the size of Lake Arain.

But that's the smaller part of the calorie harvest. The most productive type of ecosystem in the natural world is the freshwater wetlands such as you will find all around Lake Arain. On the fringes of the lake will be a plethora of edible plants as well as game to hunt. It is at least twice as productive in raw terms as a typical deciduous forest, and much more of that primary production can be exploited by man and dwarf (since none is wasted in making those inedible resource hogs, trees.).

(Most mountain lakes are not so productive. We must posit that the nutrient balance in Lake Arain is more stable than most. That's not a big stretch.)

Considering the entire region as a whole, my first estimate is that farming provides 30-50% of the region's caloric requirements. The general ecosystem provides 10-20%, mostly through hunting. Fishing provides 10-20%, and foraging the lake shore 10-20%. Imports are probably on the order of 10-20%, and are mostly luxury foods - wine, condiments and spices, fruits, sweets. If someone cares to, they can sit down with a map and calculate the area of each ecosystem and their caloric output and thereby refine the numbers further.

(If salmon are allowed, then they would add another 10-20%, making for some very chubby Khuzai.)

Millions of salmon in Kaldor's rivers (Kaldor p.9). Not sure how many make it up to Lake Arain.

I can easily see the many little streams (most too tiny to appear on our maps) feeding Lake Arain as being home to many millions of salmon fry. I can easily see Lake Arain as hosting very large seasonal salmon runs, as well as being home to freshwater-locked salmon cousins like steelhead and rainbows.

I don't buy the idea that the Khuzdul are self-sufficient for their food from underground growth. I think that is silly, but does fit a fanciful high fantasy Khuzdul model. Maybe they have magical underground lighting systems for hydroponics gardens.

IMPH, the Khuzdul of Azadmere are FAR more dependent on food imports than they let anyone know. Ever since there were Jarin that the Khuzdul of Azadmere could rope into farming for them, they've been dependent on human labor. It is precisely because they could import Jarin labor, which later became Jarin Baronies and neighboring Jarin Principates, that Azadmere was able to devote so much more of their Khuzdul workfore into highly skilled arts (metalsmithing, stonemasonry, physicary, and magic to name a few). In Kiraz, they weren't dependent on human labor but this also turned out to be a major handicap. Kiraz was overrun because the farmers, hunters, and gatherers were out at the fields.

I'm going with the Kiraz theory that the Khuzdul of Kiraz had grain fields, which they worked communally, and were caught unprepared when the majority of their workforce was out hand-harvesting grain (barley, for example) to save it from predicted rainy weather (its Harn, where rainy weather is predictable, so duh). Maybe they had a fortuitous sunny week near harvest time and chose to reap and grain quickly with a large workforce so that it could be stored immediately and not (as would usually be the case) have to dry the grain before storing it. Given the opportunity to "reap while the sun shineth", they chose to reap. And were reaped.

I apply the same "Khuzdul farmer" model to Azadmere, except that I posit that as soon as the Azadmerans had access to Jarin labor they outsourced their farming so that they could focus on specialized labor.

It has now been thousands of years since the Khuzdul of Azadmere have lifted a hoe or a scythe. More than just 2-3 generations. On the other hand, there are the Kiraz refugees around Azadmere. Some, most, or maybe even all of them (since presumably Kiraz's highly specialized workers would have all been killed in the defense and sack of Kiraz) came to Azadmere with outdoors/ranger/farming sorts of experiences under their belt.

IMPH, the Low Guard of Azadmere is where the Kiraz bloodlines end up. That and in Khuzdul companies called "Rangers". Khuzdul Woodsmen. Stealthy sneaky woodsman Khuzdul with small bows and throwing axes.

I agree; caverns and caverns of mushrooms is silly...as is the idea of air pressure tiggered luminescant mushrooms (seev Zahuruk funghi post earlier)..but could this be a Canon verified lighting system for Hydroponic Gardens??

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Plots and schemes are the same thing..

Of course I'd imagine that the highly ingenious Khuzdul would be quite good with mirrors. That is lots of carefully positioned polished steel reflectors in dedicated tubes used to light caverns.

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"You're gonna cut off the Dragon's what?"

That puts a hard cap on the height and form of Tuleme. It should also stimulate some thought into why the Kath and Pagaelin aren't swarming on Tuleme every Spring.



Why posit any special circumstance? At any harvest time, the whole damned village heads to the fields. That's just life on a farm.

This makes sense to me aty first glance. Although when listing "farming", do you mean above or below ground?

I am OK with some mushroom growing activities being carried on indoors. But no more than a few acres worth of mushrooms, constituting a very small portion of the diet, maybe 2-3% of the dietary needs from mushrooms.

The Lake seems the best bet for substantial non-farming food sources. However, this goes against the common thought (I think canon as well) of Dwarves having aquaphobia and hating to be on a boat. At least if the fishermen were dwarves.



I would actually think higher, at least if including animal husbandry. 50% minimum, maybe up to 70% if including husbandry and of course the calories from ale/beer, which is a grain based drink.

And when it come to husbandry, there is of course the fast reproducing pig, of which large numbers of lead to a heavily meat based diet, but do not require the grasslands and acreage that other animals such as cows and sheep need.

One thing too - I'd think the Khuzdhul, with their knowledge and technology, as well as the stability of Khuzan rule, would be able to easily give the equivalent of a high manor fief index for their lands. I can see terraced meadows on the hilly lands surrounding Azadmere. If equating to Harnmanor rules, perhaps due to their technology they only pay 1/2 costs in kind and labor for manor maintenance or fief improvement. An overall low quality area of land could be more productive than most manors due to this.

And we have to look at how the Khuzan subsisted prior to man - they needed some method of sustenance, and the most logical way is farming. maybe with technological advancements not used by the rest of Lythia, but still farming. They really need to have had a very efficient way of providing food, so they would have the time to practice their other crafts in which they excel.

I also like the idea of Fisheries, as this makes better use of the land than simply standard fishing, but this contradicts their aversion to water it would seem, unless there was a way for them to do this without going in boats or in water.



Exactly. It all boils down to a simple mathematical equation. One can be more efficient in how they gather or make food, but the energy is required, and the best source is the sun as it is the most abundant source.

There are classifications of animal, some are those that dwell in caves but get sustenance from the outside (like bats or the ice age cave bear) or those that get food from inside the cave. And the second of the two are generally small and have a low metabolism and are not particularily numerous to make up for the lack of energy they take in.

I think we have to look at Khuzdhul as the first of the two classes, those that live in caves but get sustenance from outside.

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Hmm Gurthang. What a nice name for a sword....

It's not my intension to present wild theories. It just came to my mind, that this possibility could somehow be exploited by the Khuzdul. I agree, that this - even after some millenia of development - would only be a minor contribution to their diet. But the Khuzdul seem to like to be independent, so if they should have learned about this, they might have learned to use it to their best.



But some "canon"-affixed guys will argue that there's no fishing harbour on any "canon" map of a khuzan settlement.



And there are some hunting lodges around Lake Arain, shown on the "canon" map. There have been even more, which had to be closed after the Gargun took over most of the mountains.



I'd bet, that there are some almost isolated valleys in the nearby mountains reached by tunnels and/or secret passes which are used for farming, hunting and foraging.



A plausible explanation. At least, Azadmere is active in trading and have their Jarin minions. But then, how do the Khuzdul of Kondasgel and Merdain (if still populated) sustain? They seem to be perfectly isolated (no imports, no outsourcing of farming the land to humans). It is quite improbable that they have just achieved to guard their secret crop fields and hunting lodges for hundreds of years (or even millenia) from human scouts. Though both cities may muster much smaller populations than Azadmere, they still must feed their citizens. So, perhaps a good blend of the collected ideas may form a solution?

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Ich mag den kleinen blauen Elephanten!

What does a fishing harbour look like? A lot of them look like a beach or shore.




The most obvious difference there is that those communities have no gargun to deal with. They can forage over a far, far larger area than Azadmere. I would expect that at any given time only a fraction of the population is the central city. The rest are scattered over some dozens of hunting lodges, fishing spots, and smaller mines.

Just as a sanity check, the range of the Nez Perce Indians is comparable to the mountains of these Khuzai cities. In 1800 there were about 6000 Indians spread over about 70,000 sq. km - or about 1/8 of Harn. Now, I don't mean to make any sort of comparison between the Nez Perce way of life and the Khuzai. I just offer this up as a way to bracket the parameters. If you can draw a circle around Kondasgel and Merdain and enclose roughly that much territory (that's a 150km radius) for their exploitation, then there is no need to come up with any big ideas. The smaller that circle is, the more creative you have to be.

Just eyeballing the Venarive map on my PC, Kuzjera is just a little on the small size. Merdain is not on the map. So only a modest bit of creativity is required here. A little agriculture, a little secret trade, a little magic . . .

Why would the Khuzdul have to use boats? The Native Americans did not fish for Salmon in boats, they fished from a natural choak point on a river. I can easily see many (most?) small streams feeding Lake Arain having a little re-engineering to provide such a choke point. Then the dwarves just wait for the "run" and net a thousand 10 pound salmon out of the several thousand fish in the run.

Figure perhaps two dozen the different streams with harvestable runs. It would be easy to envision the Khuzdul even setting up a hatchery if they overfished a particular stream, or just posting that run off limit for a decade or so. That would give you a catch of a quarter million fish a year, perhaps half of which is prime salmon fillets of 2-3 pounds each. The only problem might be that the Khuzdul become tired of eating salmon! I can hear the complaints at the dinner table, "Salmon AGAIN ... god it's the third time this week!!! Anyone know if the mushroom harvest has come in yet?"

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...and I'm not dead yet...