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[Eagleon]

Asbestos mining. Humans would jump all over the stuff, but dwarves would hate working with it - given their long lifespan, they'd know it was harmful. It would also, of course, provide a certain amount of resistance to heat if you made clothing with it. Rooms with asbestos in the walls would be less desireable, and miners digging through it often would get pissed.

[Mechanoid]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos

Just for informational purposes.

Heh, Asbestos cloak > fire breath, at the expense of becoming irritated (continual 'Pain') and lung damage from prolonged use.

[Abyssal Squid]

Oh man, I'd meant to suggest this earlier, although I don't think it should have any downsides other than being uncommon to rare.  Just make it a tough and valuable cloth mined from certain rocks with heat-resistant properties, and you're all set.  Think of it as a poor-man's adamantine cloth, if the poor man could afford gold.

And yes, asbestos is irritating to the lungs, but it was used in great quantaties until only a couple of decades ago.  Given that knowledge of asbestos' dangers is very recent compared to knowledge and use of the mineral itself, including them [edit: them being the dangers] in a medieval game would be anachronistic.

[ December 21, 2006: Message edited by: Abyssal Squid ]

[FFT]

 Asbestos has been used since 2,500 BC.  

[ December 21, 2006: Message edited by: FFT ]

[Disruptive Idiot]

Considering there is no scientific method or medical knowledge attributable to dwarves, they wouldn't know that asbestos caused sickness. Besides, there's lots of nasty stuff in the mountain that would cause disease to, so I don't think asbestos should be singled out of it's added. Besides, the amount used in the fortress probably wouldn't have strong effects for a very long time.

Even more simply, we could just say Dwarves' lungs are better at expelling asbestos fibres than human lungs, and be done with it.

[Eagleon]

I just think it could add a certain additional element of strategy. As it is, miners rarely get upset because they're so satisfied by digging. It seems rather pointless if you were just to add it in with no penalty - why not have a moss or something that grows near the magma that does the same, in that case?

[Disruptive Idiot]

Should carpenters get life-threatening splinters from working? Should furnace operators catch on fire?

Adding it without penalty just gives the game more depth.

[Mechanoid]

quote:Originally posted by FFT:
  Asbestos has been used since 2,500 BC.  

 The estimated life span of a human without knowledge of hazardous living conditions is 30 years.

We may not know how the dwarven biology works, but we do know that the asbestos fibres are NANOMETERS small. Not only that, but they lodge themselves into the lining of the lung. This makes them IMPOSSIBLE to exhale.

[Disruptive Idiot]

Enter Dwarven enzyme found in lungs: Asbestase. =p

[Gauteamus]

Kind of off Topic: how long is a typical dwarven lifespan anyway?

More on-topic:
Enter another silly explanation as to how dwarves avoid asbestosis/silicosis diseases: The dangers of asbestos relate to its crystalline properties, it cleaves easily along two axis, but hardly along the third, resulting in the above mentioned needles - human miners with dynamite and pressure drills will often make alot of asbestos dust, while dwarven miners with their natural affinity for minerals, will mine with more love and passion, thus not producing the dangerous needle-dust.

[fmunoz]

Dwarven lifespan:
[MAXAGE:150:170]