A Question about Metaphysics and The Hero Wars

[Charles]

King of Sartar is great for me exactly because it give insights, not answers. The different parts of it are written as if each part had a different author. These authors have many different backgrounds, at least one of whom is deliberately bending the truth as much as they can get away with.
My own opinion is that the post Hero Wars sections give very parochial viewpoints and there is quite a lot of magic around. However the homeland(s) of the author(s) have very little contact with other areas of Glorantha.

[Charles]

Also, after the Hero Wars, the memories are of a extraordinary number of extraordinary Heroes (i.e. even more than a ‘normal’ Hero). It’s no surprise that some think that the magic has gone away if they compare the abilities of themselves as individuals and as communities with the stories of the Hero Wars.

[Martin Helsdon]

Personally, I suspect that for the ‘far future’ King of Sartar is subject to several unreliable narrators; given that their knowledge of the past is highly circumscribed, it is also feasible that their understanding of their present is decidedly parochial and localised.

Whilst its source is severely suspect, the description of the future Ages in Lords of Terror is interesting, not least because it embodies the aspects of cyclic time apparent in the earlier Ages where God Time events seem to resonate.

The First Age is the Age of Darkness
The Second Age is the Age of Water
Our age is the Age of Earth
The Fourth Age is the Age of Fire
The Fifth Age, the Age of Storm
The Sixth Age – an age of healing
The End of Time and the rebirth of the world

Krarshtite dogma or actual insight?

[Jeff Richard]

Eschatological categorizations always have some insight, but like all attempts to logical synthesize myths, they also mislead. Although the God Learner system of Green Age, Golden Age, Storm Age (or Lesser Darkness), and Darkness (plus Dawn Age and Imperial Age) are the most common, they are hardly the only. Frex, in Dara Happa, the Ten Ages were popularized by Plentonius, and have been revived by the Lunars as the Eleven Ages (prophecizing a 10,000 year rule for the Red Goddess). The Orlanthi tend to borrow from other systematizers and the Lhankor Mhy cult has widely adopted the God Learner system (although in some places local versions are known). Also popular is the Golden Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Silver Age (known by many Theyalans at the Dawn).

[Author]

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