fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3060 ]

[ SECRET POST #3060 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3060 ⌋

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My RP group is on a summer break, and it's my task to haul their asses from point A to point B for next fall. This includes characters spending about a month underground. I've read about the Chilean miners that got stuck in that mine, but that's about the only useful stuff I've found.

They of course move about, and they do fight. There's food, though it's not diverse (looking like some meat and mushrooms atm) and water is okay for the most part. Light source is available also, and two characters can see in the dark.

So I'm trying to figure out what are the long-term effects of a long stay underground? D-vitamin deficiency is of course one, but how bad does it get in a month? How would their diet affect them? How would their eyes react to being in the dark for long? What other sort of stuff should I take into account?

Also if anyone does know anything about water formation in caves, that would be cool. Can they have access to water? Also if the cave goes under (a pretty shallow) sea at some point would the cave have salty water or fresh water?

Educated guesses are more than welcome.

There are psychological effects of lack of sunlight that show up most often as seasonal affective disorder -- they have special full-spectrum lamps on submarines to stave that off.

AYRT
Oh that's good, I'm writing that down. Do you think having a magical light around most of the time could help lessen the symptoms?

Depends on the light! It has to hit certain wavelengths, I'm not even sure what they are. If it's a magic light that's like sunlight, it'd help; like candle/fire/lamp/normal lightbulb light, not so much.

What kind of light is available? Is there a lot of ambient noise? How keep underground are they? How built up is the area (are there room with furniture or just an empty cave)?

They'd probably suffer from depression. Maybe look up symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder. Their sleep patterns would become a mess.

We have one mage who can magic up some fire that can be spread around into torches if necessary, so nothing very big.
I'd imagine there are more densely populated areas and then some quieter places, but in general loads of small noises.
They start of relatively close to the surface, then go deeper in the beginning and start coming back up (my sense of how deep things are is really poor).
There are roads down there and some built-up areas, which are abandoned (except for things that want to eat your face, obviously). They'll try to keep to the roads, but will have to go off-road occasionally.

And yes, that is a good point. Will have to take that into account.

Yeah, light from a fire would not be very useful. Hell, I bet it would help drive you a bit mad. Constantly moving and throwing shadows.

You're right. That's settled then, I'm writing in at least one hysterical breakdown.

Other vitamin deficiencies could come into question (scurvy?) and mild food poisoning and other gastric problems, depending on the food sources.

It's quite possible to have water in the caves, such as underground streams or condensed water. It wouldn't necessarily have to be salty water, if the source of the stream is running from the land (think rivers running into the ocean).

Yes, their diet consists of underground creatures and mushrooms, so it's not really filling up the food pyramid. I'll take all of those into account.

Ah, thank you for answering the water question. I'm not good with caves. I'm glad to hear I can write in water sources, so that part will be easy at least.

Oh yeah, and if the water has been stagnant, it may be infested with bacteria or mold. So in that case, and probably otherwise as well, you'd have to purify the water first somehow.

Good point, additional question: How would medieval fantasy people go about purifying water? Other than magic, though magic is always an option I suppose.

You could filter the water first through sand and charcoal, if they are available, and then boil it for a few minutes.

DA

Brew alcohol.

Beer for everyone.

AYRT
I guess that would make things more fun I suppose. A bit harder to arrange, though, don't you think?

AYRT

They can harvest yeast from the air, and ferment the fungus. Medieval times, everyone drank beer/mead/ale because that was the only way to stay hydrated and not die, from contaminated water.

AYRT
Huh, well actually, when you put it like that it does sound possible and would be healthy. But idk if A) anyone of them knows how to do that, they don't seem the sort B) they would have time to do that what with being chased by things that like to eat faces. I'll look into it.

Vitamin D deficiency. As an 'indoor girl', I'm well acquainted with that one.

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[ SECRET POST #3060 ]

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