Having grown up in a land where water is usually a solid, IMO the "reason" the ice rune is around is simple: that's what Valind, Himile & Co. say the rune for _water_ is. This weird spikey thing that them fishy gods banter about is some bizarre perversion the Soft Water types of the south came up with -- us uzhim, hollri and other right-thinking entities know that _ice_ is not, as Simon Phipp puts it "a liquid transmuted into a part of Valind's Realm:" liquid water is _ice_ transmuted into part of Yelm's realm. Natural state is in the eye of the beholder.
The ice rune derives from a Hard Water position that water is naturally a solid -- the water rune derives from a Soft Water position that water is naturally a liquid. As such, the Ice rune is of pretty darn limited use in the south, because the God Learners et al are trying to figure out how it is _added_ on top of water -- to us northerners, it replaces the "water rune" lock, stock, and barrel, so there's no conflict. Only when you try and reconcile the existence of both does it become a problem, as some have noted.
<Shrug> Explains it for me. Although who'd have the vapor rune? <g>
James Frusetta
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