> > > > The Black Age is pure in itself : a remnant of pure pre-Blue Age
> > > > Glorantha, lnked to Ultimate Being, uncorrupted by subsequent
> > > > upheavals (but not previous ones) ;
> > >
> > > This sounds to me to be _in effect_ an analogue of the Green Age, then.
> >
> > Well, yes and no. The Black Age and the Blue Age are fundamentally
> > different to the subsequent Ages, although the Green Age togetherness
> > of all things also existed in the previous Ages, but in different ways.
> > Discrete entities exist in the Green Age, which is how and why that
> > togetherness can be destroyed. Blue Age "essences" flow into and out of
> > each other, so that there's no precise boundary or exact difference
> > between them (but there is movement and separation). Black Age
> > creature(s) simply exist as an undistinguishable, yet ordered, mass of
> > protoplasm(s).
>
> Hum. And the mythic precedent for any of the above is... what? It
> reminds me largely of the cycles of Malkioni myth, which uses entirely
> different terminology...
That and the infamous CoT monomyth as well as some of the draft/WiP merpeople material and unpublished stuff, all of these sources subject to shift, change, and retcon as duly noted.
Oh, and the Subere write-ups etc, especially the lovely one in UZ, for the crunchiest sources of all.
> Or possibly at a stretch of distinct "phases"
> in the Creation Age of the east. As actual myth goes though, it strikes
> me at first wink as being some place between mono- and non-...
I'm not sure that actual myths-as-stories are possible * per se * for pre- Age Glorantha, except as weird cosmogony and/or meditation practices.
Nevertheless, the GL beliefs about the cosmogony of Glorantha were basically correct. These Ages did (and in some sense still do) actually exist. Not that I'd wish to go there - unless I was an Outer Atomic Explorer : VERY dangerous even then ... ;-)
> > So, the Green Age upheavals that led to the creation of
> > the Golden Age are impossible in Black Age and Blue Age Glorantha :
> > people simply weren't distinct enough from each other to be so
> > disrupted.
>
> The Green Age upheavals that led to the creation of the Golden Age are
> impossible in the Green Age, also. (Think about it...)
They actually occur(red) at the core of the Green Age, and le(a)d to its destruction. Greg has tried to explain this several times (but it's a difficult subject) : the Golden Age is a consequence of the upheavals, which means that they exist as causes in the Green Age. Similarly, the Death of Yelm happens in the Golden Age, not the Storm Age.
The upheaval that destroys an Age actually occurs at the apex/apogee of that Age : so the Birth of Umath at the very heart of the Golden Age, causing a process of degeneration (from a Solar POV) known as "Late Golden Age", leading to the Death of Yelm as the End of the Era (similarly in Arthurian mythology, the death of the King).
So in the Green Age : the Early Green Age is a period of Growth, leading to a time of Harmony, Togetherness, Song, Oneness. And the Supreme Moment of the Green Age is the birth of Individual Consciousness and the Evils it causes that eventually destroy that perfection, as explained by Greg several times (basically the Gloranthan Garden of Eden myth). Whether this is the earliest actual Myth or not is one for the God Learners, but the core of the Green Age is the First Story, whatever it is, and it has a bad end. Togetherness then gradually (or quickly ?) vanished, to eventually be replaced with perfect Solar Order.
> > > In any event, it sounds far from "pure", since by your construction,
> > > it's a Hero Plane ("Mythic Age" type...), and thus mixed; and as (one
> > > of) the very earliest one(s), it "predates" the 4-fold separation,
> > > and is thus by that logic also "mixed"...
> >
> > No, because the Black Age predates the 4-folded brokenness, which
> > from this POV was the event that created the Blue Age, but in its
> > deepest innermost reaches the Black Age was unaffected by the split
>
> But that is a) true of the Green Age, and b) pretty much what I just said.
Oh sorry : I meant to say that the Hero Planes _postdate_ the brokenness, whereas early Black Age Glorantha doesn't, because the first ever destruction was that of the Black Age. I think.
Also, I fumbled my GL Terminology : the Black Age isn't a _mixed_ Plane, but a _defiant_ one IMO.
> > > > in its deepest place, this is Glorantha
> > > > at the exact moment that it came into existance, and is thus
> > > > "transcendental" Reality, in all senses of the t-word.
> > >
> > > I can see why you'd say this, because there's nothing "before" the Black
> > > Age (let's dodge the issue of there being things "before" the Green
> > > Age as such...). But things like the Wonderhome myth are obviously
> > > very "late" after First Creation,
> >
> > The Wonderhome myth is set in the Golden Age (Lead Age ?) and early
> > Storm Age.
>
> So it's not clear to me that there's any place or "time" or "thing" in
> Uz mythology that would be identified with this Black Age, given that
> evidently we agree (yay)
Yay !
> that's it's not Wonderhome. I'm not saying
> there won't be "deep mythology" or "mysticism" relating to this "period",
> but I see no real evidence of distinct "phases" in Uz mythology after
> creation and prior to Wonderhome (and the subsequence booting out
> therefrom). (i.e. in effect think low-light Green Age...)
:-) Low-light Green Age is about as far back as most Uz can think. That's when the Seven Sacred Ancestors were born, although Uz itself as a meta-concept came into being in the Blue Age when KL coalesced from the formless Darkness that preceded Her, viz. the GL version : "Dame Darkness [Nakala] took the Man [actually Person] Rune and stirred the sweet secret essence of Kyger Litor, who afterwards bore Korasting, the Mother of Many." 3 verbs, 3 created entities, 3 Mythic Ages ... :-)
> > The important thing is that the Black Age contains a link to the Infinite
> > and Eternal Well of Creation, similarly to many RW mythic
> > cosmologies.
>
> Well, that would be Important. But what on earth is the indication
> that it's in any way True?
>
What, the Black Age ? 25+ years of Gloranthan cosmology allude to it, to start with, not to mention various Nakala and Subere myths, look at p. 40 of Wyrm's Footprints for a starter.
As for it being a Hero Plane or quasi-O/W or whatever, again I don't know, but it'd be a damn weird one in any case.
We also don't really "know" (and probably can't) whether any previous Philosophical, non-material Ages of Glorantha existed.
What we _do_ know is that Nakala is basically Glorantha's Womb (where She gives Birth to Herself) from the cosmogonic POV, whence my Well of Creation and Link with Ultimate Reality suggestions.
> I raised a question earlier about the relationship between the otherworlds
> and the heroplanes that I'm still no clear in my own mind on,
I think most of us are still confused ; and also, "waiting for printed info in HQ before committing ourselves one way or the other" ... ;-)
> that may
> be related to the above, at least sketchily. Let's consider "places"
> in the God Plane, like Stormstead. Mythically, these don't exist "before"
> the Storm Age.
Right.
> But does that imply a change in the nature of the GP itself?
IIRC, the corresponding Hero Planes are actually districts of the God Plane, not the Hero Plane per se, although "borderland" may (or may not) be a better description.
Tell the truth, I don't know.
> Or is such a question unanswerable, since one can also "perceive"
> the GP (etc) via the Heroplanes?
OTOH, the question probably does have a simple answer ... ;-)
> (i.e. if you go to the Golden Age, and
> try to reach Stormstead, then either you simply won't be able to find
> it at all, or by doing so you'll precipitate yourself into the Storm
> Age (in effect "bringing it about"), then thence into the appropriate
> part of the God Plane.
Oh, I see why you think the questions are related.
Obviously, you could do this _independently_, but it strikes me that it'd be about as difficult as doing the LBQ.
Hmmm, if you're at Stormstead and proceed from there to the Golden Age, you'll usually find yourself in Umath's Camp. In effect helping "bring about" the Birth of Umath, and the End of the Golden Age.
If you're in the Golden Age and want to go to Stormstead ? Go to Umath's Camp and join Orlanth's warband. Not Umath's, Orlanth's ... ;-)
Yeah, basically you're right about this Stormstead thing.
Julian Lord
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