There is a kind of narrativium on Roundworld, if you really look.
On Discworld, the narrativium of a fish tells it that it is a fish, was a fish, and will continue to be a fish. On Roundworld, something inside a fish tells it that it is a fish, was a fish ... and might eventually be something else ...
... perhaps.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS
IT WAS RAINING. THIS WOULD, of course, be good for the worms.
Through the trickles that coursed down the window Charles Darwin stared at the garden.
Worms, thousands of them, out there under the soft rain, turning the detritus of winter into loam, building the soil. How... convenient.
The ploughs of God, he thought, and winced. It was the harrows of God that plagued him now.
Strange how the rustle of the rain sounds very much like people whispering ...
At which point, he became aware of the beetle. It was climbing up the inside of the window, a green and blue tropical jewel.
There was another one, higher up, banging fruitlessly against the pane.
One landed on his head.
The air filled up with the rattle and slither of wings. Entranced, Darwin turned to look at the glowing cloud in the corner of the room. It was forming a shape ... It is always useful for a university to have a Very Big Thing. It occupies the younger members, to the relief of their elders (especially if the VBT is based at some distance from the seat of learning itself) and it uses up a lot of money which would otherwise only lie around causing trouble or be spent by the sociology department or, probably, both. It also helps in pushing back boundaries, and it doesn't much matter what boundaries these are, since as any researcher will tell you it's the pushing that matters, not the boundary.
It's a good idea, too, if it's a bigger VBT than anyone else's and, in particular, since this was Unseen University, the greatest magical university in the world, if it's a bigger one than the one those bastards are building at Braseneck College.