> Everything is a consequence (direct or indirect) of a magical action.
> Which probably means we are not talking about genes guiding bodily
> growth, or variation in offspring.
Unless Glorantha's Gregor Mendel was actually a great God Learner heroquester, who established a node on the saint plane from which interested parties can learn how to modify the essences of living beings so that they and their descendants actually do use genes, unlike everyone else...
> Children are probably still a mix of influences from mother and father,
> but perhaps its a matter of what the gods, spirits and logic (and
> perhaps even the parents directly) choose from what is within
Certainly heroquesting parents' choice of whether to re-enact "How Ernalda gave birth to Barntar" or "How Velhara gave birth to Odayla" should have at least some effect.
> Do even the laws of evolution work in Glorantha - probably ...
> But mutation of DNA as a mechanism for variation? I doubt it.
If by DNA you mean a particular set of chemical molecules, I agree, probably not. But all that evolution needs is that there be some mechanism by which life is copied to make more life, and that said mechanism doesn't always make identical copies. Who cares if the partly predestined height and hair color of an unborn child is recorded chemically in its cells or magically in its soul? It makes no difference, so long as there is a plan, which life attempts to copy, and gets mostly right but sometimes wrong. Perhaps in Glorantha this plan is made by the gods and recorded on the tapestry of fate in their great hall in the other world, but it might still work pretty similarly in daily life. Certainly something like RW genetics should be a Mostali belief: back before the World Machine was broken, every thing properly obeyed the secret instructions issued to it at its creation, so things were good. Now, the orders are misspelled, misinterpreted, and misapplied, so things get steadily worse. Entropy is just another name for Eurmal, eh?
> Or go down another rabbit hole - what is the smallest organism?
> ... Which to my mind suggests there's probably nothing living
> smaller than what is visible to the naked eye
To whose naked eye? Surely Gorakiki worshippers can ask tiny insects what they see, which should be far smaller than that. And in your Glorantha, what do whales eat? Are they all hunters, or do some of them graze on vast herds of really tiny things? If the latter (as I think there should be, at least so there can be both "cows" and "wolves" of the seas), then what do those things eat? Just because typical Man Rune creatures can't easily perceive it doesn't mean Aldrya, Triolina and others didn't put non-Man Rune life there. In Glorantha, the plants and fish and birds and bugs can be magicians, too.
Ryan
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