Chaps,
I can certainly see the case for people believing in a decline from a Golden Age of Perfection. However I would venture to sugest that it was also part of Glorantha back in RQ II (in the late 1970s) that there is a strand of thinking in many human cultures when they look at non-human races that is a bit more Darwinian.This is the idea that the other Elder Races (Uz, Aldryami, Mostali, Dragonewts and even Broo (though I doubt if they Broo are afforded the dignity of being an Elder Race)) are not as well-adapted to the here and now as humans are.
Has this idea dropped out of canonical thinking? (The decline of the Trolls and the Dragonewts has not dropped out of canon, though in contrast to the passage from old RQ II cited above, Hero Wars suggested that the Aldryami were readying themselves for reforestation by the end of the Third Age)
Glorantha certainly has had extinctions since Time began -- e.g.
The Lost Tribes of Prax
The Lascerdans
The Bearded Trolls (and other Troll species)
The White Elves (although I think they may have died out in the Godtime)
Are there still Dinosaurs in the Third Age-- if so, what are their numbers like compared to the Second age? (FWIW in my Glorantha there are, but there are less of them)
The MRQ book about Duck suggested that there were Geese too (bigger, more primitive and aggressive Durulz). If these creatures ever existed in canon, have they survived into the Third Age?
Are the Centaurs of Beast Valley still an extinct race recreated by EWF magic (as in King of Sartar), or is it now canon that they never went away? (Maybe the Centaurs in the Castle Coast never went away, but Beast Valley is different?)
Finally where did the Gold Wheel Dancers go?
I expect some Hsunchen tribes have become extinct too-- how many of the smaller tribes referred to in the MRQ II guide to Fronela (Mammoth Hsunchen, Wolverine Hsunchen, etc.) are still alive by 1600 ST? However some Hsunchen may have been assimilated into other human cultures rather than annihilated. Didn't this happen to the Galanini in Ralios? Also aren't at least some of the inhabitants of Wenelia people that once were Hsunchen but who adopted other ways?
Does no Gloranthan see anything analogous to natural selection in these extinctions? If they do, I would expect it to be a very Gloranthan form of natural selection-- races and species which fail and become extinct are poorly adapted to the world of Myth as well as to the Material Plane.
Richard Hayes
On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 8:04 PM, Keith <keith.nellist_at_bClZqdX9Nctf6Dtj19vwJd-NayOQ7T2TBJmpabo8x4q9ugfnm237LFdhHZCz7NN8Z-CXoCEe9DNm-7d--crJ.yahoo.invalid> wrote:
>
>
> One might argue that the great power was not really gained so much as
> revealed, and Gloranthan evolution could therefore be considered more
> Darwinian. I think that a couple of philosophical Lunars might take this
> view, although of course most Gloranthans would consider things to be
> getting worse, devolving from Golden Age perfection, rather than any sort of
> survival of the fittest adaptions for change.
>
> Keith
>
> --- In WorldofGlorantha_at_yahoogroups.com<WorldofGlorantha%40yahoogroups.com>,
> "differentcomputers" <mdawson_at_...> wrote:
> >
> > Please don't take me as a source, but I *THINK* I recall sitting talking
> to Greg/listening to him at some panel where he mentioned that Lamarckian
> evolution worked in Glorantha.
> >
> > Surely, it is documentably true even if Greg didn't say it. Heroes can
> gain great powers during their lives, and pass some portion of that power on
> to their progeny.
> >
> > Mike Dawson
> >
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