I saw the brief bit on X and Y chromosomes in an earlier Digest and it prompted me into thinking about the way glorantha physics would work, here are some suggestions I would like to open to debate.
Unlike 'real' physics Glorantha should not have particles, quanta, a
unified field theory and all that stuff, instead I propose that the most
basic 'particles' be the runic elements, thus for the earth rune the
most basic thing would be dust, which is as finely divided as earth can
be. Similarly the most basic part of the man rune would be what we call
a cell.
Water and air could not be so easily ground down into small amounts so
we might want to think of them and similar elements as a medium in which
other runic elements are positioned.
Thus the world is made up of elements each with their own distinctive features that interact in ways that seem to be the same as our world but occur for greatly different reasons.
A thing will be made up of many different particles of runic elements
which will have slightly different purposes and interactions.
For example a mountain is obviously made of earth but within it there
will be a number of different earth elements such as metals, stones,
dirt, clay, etc as well as a number of other elements, such as air in
caves, water, plants, dwarves, etc.
Similarly a human is made up of lots of different man rune elements such
as bone, blood, skin, eyes, etc.
Associating runes with each other gives rise to interesting things such as trolls deriving from the association of the man and darkness runes.
We might want to divide elements up into groups depending upon their general effects.
Earth, Man, Plant - these are runes which have physical substance
Water, Air, Darkness - these are runes which aremore ephemaeral
substances
Fire, Cold, Harmony, Chaos - these are runes which represent forces
Spirit, Magic - these are runes for magical substances
etc...
This interpretation is of course open to discussion, any suggestions would be welcome.
Robin Brown.
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