Re: Re: The BatBlat

From: Roderick and Ellen Robertson <rjremr_at_...>
Date: Wed, 31 Mar 2004 09:56:58 -0800


> Rod:
> Oh, you *wanted* me to work them over?
> - oh dear, here it comes :) but yes I did!

Geeze, now I gotta go back & re-read it?

:-P

> Well, you don't seem to accept "because it's magic". "Because it's a
> god" also doesn't seem to fly (as it were). Wadda you want? Repulsor
> Rays? Radium Engines? The Seventeenth Element?
>
> - You got it.... cop-outs (not gay admissions from american police!) are
> right out!
>
> - If we're talking about what *I* want....
>
> I want a good myth as to why it flies, not a physics theory or a
> technological conundrum.
>
> I thought that my:
> "The air keeps the sky and the earth apart from each other. Chaos is an
> afront to all three; air daimones from miles around flock to repel the
> hideous creature and it uses their attempts at repulsion by sort of
> slithering over the top of them. Irony then because this is the only
> reason it can fly at all. I was about to give explanation as to how it
> works in Lunar lands but, then, they don't let it go there, do they?"
>
> was a good first attempt and had hoped for competing (and better
> written) passages.

Well, my contention is that it doesn't need a "reason" to be able to fly other than "it's a bat". Many thing in Glorantha fly without the proper physics:
Wind Children
Giant Wasps
Sylphs and other "Wind Elementals"
Dragons
Human worshippers of various gods
Bat-winged trolls from the Blue Moon Plateau (allegedly) Gryphons
Wyrms
Hippgrioffs
Sky Bulls
...

Bats are flying creatures. Any god taking on the physical form of a bat should (by various rules of magical congruence) also fly, just like a god in the form of a bird should be able to fly.

"The Bat flies on the etheric winds of the Otherworld, held aloft by an unholy mix of the Essential, Spiritual, Godly and Chaotic. The physical form of the bat is only what we can see and comprehend in the Middle world; but it it is multi-dimensional, and exists on all planes. "

Better?

RR
It is by my order and for the good of the state that the bearer of this has done what he has done.
- Richelieu

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