Green and Gold

From: Julian Lord <julian.lord_at_wanadoo.fr>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:45:52 +0200

I'll probably make another long-winded post on this subject within, say, 36 hours (Greg, and also Alex, despite previous too-much-insomnia- and-coffee-induced heated comments |for which I apologise|, helped me see things more clearly), but a quickie :

Greg 'n' Mike :

> > If you retain your individual human consciousness, then you ave changed it
> > from the Green Age to the Golden Age.
>
> This is a more stringent explanation of the effect of the Green Age than I
> realized. I thought individual experience was possible, but any "modern"
> type of action changed it from green to gold.

In my own (current) understanding, you can't normally enter the Green Age without (temporarily or permanently) abandoning your power of individual human consciousness (if you have one). That is, giving up your personality, and all of your personal powers (although you can, in HeroQuest terms, probably keep your biggest TN, as a general "Person" ability).

Retaining it but not using it means * IMO * that you are actually in a very Green-Age-like (ie very "early") part of the Golden Age.

This probably means that it's much easier for aldryami to go to the Green Age than humans (in the Song of Aldrya), although humans * are * capable of the shift of consciousness that's needed. I believe, in a similar vein, that at least some aldryami (especially Murthoi) are capable of the shift of consciousness needed to enter the "blue age", something almost completely impossible for a human.

YGMV, especially from the POV of : which aspect of the "Green Age" is visited ? Is this a Primaeval Elf Forest, a remnant of Genert's Garden, a "deep" HeroQuest of the Ernalda cult, a Valare Addi type T&J, weird Pavis cult stuff, a Murthdrya HeroQuest, or what ? The basic "no individual consciousness" rule can vary quite extensively from game to game, depending both on the "brand" of consciousness normally available to your character race, and on whether or not those parts of the "Green Age" aren't already undergoing a process of disintegration, antecedant to any actual player action (if you do one of the Escape from Genert's Garden HQs, for example, the first stage may be in a part of the "green age" where individual consciousness has already begun to appear, and you may therefore be able to keep (at least partially) your own).

Julian Lord

--__--__--