No system of magic will work mythically right if you start using modern ideas like "The map is not the Territory" or that the Sign (ie, rune) is an arbitrary marking with no inherent meaning or power, rather than being the thing signified. Thus the runes are directly an intimately associated with the POWer fields of Jungian architypes. These may require more than the GodLearnered set of eigenrunes that we typically use, though. I remember reading in a very old Digest or Daily that some Frenchman had created a (far more) complete set of original runes, including a large number not currently acknowledged. Alas, I forget who it was, or when it was written up.
> If everybody agrees that, say, the beast rune is connected with bestial
> anger, then someone who 'masters' their anger and can tap into the
> universal power of anger through myth (HeroQuesting) becomes associated
> with that anger and the power of that anger, which is in part represented
> by the rune. So, they have 'mastered' the rune, and gain it's power and a
> permanent mythical association with it.
OK, except that Beast implies more (even for male humans) than just the Bestial Anger ability that we normally call Berzerk. I have a feeling that hsunchen God Learners (assuming that this oxymoron could exist) would have had a lot more than just one rune for beast. At a minimum, predators and prey would require different ones.
> That wasn't explained very well. Did anybody understand that? I can try
> again if not, but I'm pretty keen on the idea.
It seemed clear enough to me, barring the minor quibbles above.
End of The Glorantha Digest V5 #28
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