Dwarven Radios and Elven Light Blubs

Geoff Manaugh from BLDG BLOG posted an interesting article about the artistic endevours of Ryan Jordan and Caleb Charland called Alternative Inputs. Essentially, Ryan Jordan is an artist who led a workshop about constructing crude amplifiers out minerals like pyrite and crystals based on the Adam's crystal amplifier.

(From Jordon's Derelict Electronics)

Caleb Charland is an artist that makes installations focused on biological batteries creating light in some way, particularly by powering lamps. 

(From Charland's website)

This sort of primitive take on technology got me thinking. They seemed to fit well with the sort of technology that dwarves and elves might develop. 

I can see dwarves using these pyrite-and-crystal-based radios in their caverns. With a little tweaking these simple amplifiers could be used as microphones. So only could they be used for communication, they could also be used as surveillance. By setting these devices up they could keep tabs on outer parts of their territory for intruders. 

In another article called, Electric Landscapes, Manaugh talks about how if we used landscape to create electricity it would probably be in marsh environments, but this are elves and fantasy we're talking about so whatever. The elves have bred special trees that contain bacterial strains that are especially adept at generating electricity. They have these trees growing at the centers of their cities. Power lines stretch out and criss-cross through the trees giving elves electric starlight even on the cloudiest of nights.