Julian Lord:
> 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 draft/WiP merpeople material and unpublished stuff, all of these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.
CoT is one source at least I have to hand, and I see the term "Black Age" in it not. (Unlike "later" ages, which appear explicitly.) Nor do I see how it in any way implies such a thing.
> Oh, and the Subere write-ups etc, especially the lovely one in UZ, for
> the crunchiest sources of all.
Is that "crunchy" in the Lawsian sense?
> > 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-
> Green Age Glorantha, except as weird cosmogony and/or meditation
> practices.
Then the term "Age" seems at best over-engineered, does 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.
Greg has put this in pretty plain terms: if you've just killed someone, you're not in the Golden Age any more. (Admittedly Greg isn't 100% above putting contradictory things in plain terms, in alternation or in parallel...) Of course, this doesn't mean it can't be at the "apex", if you don't mind a funny-looking "waveform"...
> 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.
I think I see what you're saying here: we have "middle world" type phenomenon, which results from interaction between things from different otherworlds; and we have an "undifferentiated world", in which the otherworlds don't exist/are mutually identified.
I agree, but I think calling the one "heroplanes" is confusing (bad Greg) and that calling the other "the Black Age" is v. v. confusing (badder Jules). I note that Greg has hedged his bets on when the "separation" happens, and indeed when the "re-mixing" happens, so good luck trying to make this distinction in any way systematic. I think it's at least as plausible to place at "the end of" the Green Age as at some "earlier" point. (I'm using up my quota of caveat-quote-marks rapidly today.) So I want to hereby dig my heels in all the harder against being tied to identifying the pre-differentiated cosmos with "Blackageness".
What you're so-calling I'd guess corresponds to what the East would call Atrilith. But we're getting into equation in two unknowns territory...
> Also, I fumbled my GL Terminology : the Black Age isn't a _mixed_
> Plane, but a _defiant_ one IMO.
OK, that would be more Greg-compliant, perhaps. (Sounds to me like Same Difference, but...)
> We also don't really "know" (and probably can't) whether any previous
> Philosophical, non-material Ages of Glorantha existed.
I have no idea what you mean by a "Philosophical Age" -- which is, I half-suspect, why you use the term. But then again, apparently "Mythic Age" is on thin ice (or none), so maybe I shouldn't cast up...
Several cultures "know" about the existance of a Golden Age, or a Green Age, etc, by one or other name. (Whether the different notions exactly correspond doesn't really matter here.) They have myths of these "times"; they can experience them, in manners congruent to the appropriate myths; they regard them as being sufficiently distinct to so-distinguish them. No culture that springs to mind (and I'm open to correction here, of course) makes such a construction of, or regards in this way the "Black Age".
I do fully acknowledge that this is to an extent abitrary. Is there a single "Storm Age" plane, or are there separate Early, Middle and Late Storm Ages, each with a somewhat different geology (glorology, topology, whichever). Indeed, in principle you could do this indefinitely, or at least until you had a separate "map" for each myth, though of course each such would be very partial, and of course, it's been proven that connections exist (or can be made).
So it's not impossible that things lumped in as "Creation Age" or "Early Green Age" in different mythology/cosmogenies are what Julian insists on distinguishing as "Black Age". (In some cases you may say that some cultures are simply ignorant of "earlier events.) But I'm reluctant to impose these "univerally true, nowhere known" external understandings on unsuspecting mythologies. (Not necessarily "innocent", mind you...)
> > 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" ... ;-)
Hey, if I knew, in my own mind, I'd be happy enough (and HW/HQ can and doubtless will go please itself).
> > 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.
Well, Stormstead exists in both the GP, and the HP (or in several of the HPs, to be more precise), with reduced/no barriers in between, effectively. I'm tempted to regard this along the lines of, the GP Stormstead is that part of it which is eternal and unchanging, and the HP Stormstead("s") is that part which changes according to different myths.
> > (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.
Good, I was beginning to forget why I originally thought so, myself...
> Obviously, you could do this _independently_, but it strikes me that it'd
> be about as difficult as doing the LBQ.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by doing so independently -- so I don't know that it's obvious you can...
> 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 ... ;-)
That sounds like a good method, yes. Mind you, maybe this will involve explaining to the big O. why he would need a warband...
Cheers,
Alex.
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