Supplement Four said:
Jotenbjorn said:
Considering their mountainous homeland and the fact that most mines are in mountainous regions I'd say they mine their own.
Cimmerian miners, though?
Doesn't seem to "fit" (especially if you read the Cimmerian supplement).
Why not?
I would not take the Mongoose "Cimmeria" supplement as the most accurate Hyborean age source....
Dou you really think "mining" is not a "barbarian" or "warrior" thing to do?
I personally have no problem with Cimmerian miners.
If you want a people to have skilfull ironsmiths you need to have mines to get the iron ore (or to trade for it).
What is more "Barbarian" to trade or to mine for the iron ore?
A simplistic answer could be "mining" but I have no problem in any of the two actions as particularly "un-barbarian.
However, Cimmeria is an isolated country and we do not like to have many Cimmerian traders...
...And no, "looting" is not a meaningful activity in terms of getting iron ore: you'll never get enough ore to make all those weapons...unless you want them to directly steal the weapons.
..and I think you like to think about Cimmerain weaponsmiths (e.g. Conan's father, but I'm not sure that it is canon REH material).
In any case, if we like to have Cimmerian ironsmiths, given the isolation in which Cimmeria lives (and which probably makes high-scale trade impossible), we need them to have Cimmerian miners.
Think about Europe during the Iron Age: Celts and Ancient Germans used to both trade and mine a lot, certainly not at the industrial level that later Imperial Roman did, but they certainly had mines to get precious Iron ore.
Nevertheless, even if they used to mine, they still remained Ferocius Barbarians for the "civilized" Greeks and Romans.