From time to time, I find this old chart of mine useful for getting perspective on the passage of Time in Glorantha:
- Present year 1627
- 10 years ago – Lunar Empire invades Hendrikiland
- 25 years ago – Boldhome falls to the Lunar Empire
- 50 years ago – Battle of Grizzly Peak
- 100 years ago – Apotheosis of Sartar
- 300 years ago – Belintar unites Holy Country
- 500 years ago – the Dragonkill War (1120)
- 1000 years ago- the Kingdom of Dragon Pass. After this came the EWF.
- 1500 years ago – the Second Council. The Theyalans dominate Genertela and war with the Pelorian horse people.
- 2000 years ago – I Fought, We Won, and the Unity Battle. After this, came the Heortling kingdom, which lasted about 800 years (until Gbaji destroyed it).
- 2500 years ago – The Chaos Age, which lasted until the Unity Battle.
- 3000 years ago – the Ice Age (when Valind’s Glacier conquered much of the world.)
- 5000 years ago – the Vingkotlings
- 10,000 years ago – Orlanth kills Yelm
I then compare this to a Greek at the time of Alexander
- 10 years ago – Philip founds Philippopolis (330 BC)
- 25 years ago – the Sacred War
- 50 years ago – Battle of Leuctra (371 BC)
- 100 years ago – start of the Peloponnesian War
- 300 years ago – fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire
- 500 years ago – the neo-Assyrian Empire
- 1000 years ago – the Trojan War
- 1500 years ago – height of Babylon
- 2000 years ago – Sargon and the Akkadian Empire
- 2500 years ago – Gilgamesh is king of Uruk
- 3000 years ago – Menes units Egypt (first dynasty)
- 5000 years ago – Neolithic cities like Catal Huyuk and Jericho
- 10,000 years ago – beginning of Neolithic age
This goes to one of my big bugaboos in materials that get submitted to me – small details from a fifteen hundred years before the book’s present are described at length, while more pertinent things from the last generation or two are ignored. I consider that part of the legacy of Tolkien, where Aragorn can show up a thousand years after the line of Isildur ended and be recognised as the legitimate king based on that distant ancestry.
I use an ancient world example because we belong to a literate society with a long tradition of extensive record-keeping. We know far more about Sargon than Alexander ever could have.