Our world started with the Celestial Age and continued in the eras that followed it: the Imperial Age, Gods War, Storm Age, and Chaos Age.
Complete Myth[]
Gods do not exist in time or even recognize its power. But their actions do occur in a hazy, overlapping, sometimes contradictory sequence. When mortals try to understand their sacred stories, we inevitaby place them in a single line of events. This is how the story goes:
Our world, Glorantha, began with the Celestial Age. Distant gods, embodying great, cosmic principles, created existence. Then they dwelled together in the Celestial Court, where everything was perfect and balanced but nothing changed.
That went on until forever ended. New forms yearned to be born, and were. The original gods gave way to those we recognize today. Our Rider friends call this period the Golden Age, describing it as one of order and abundance. We Rams remember it as the Imperial Age, of tyranny and unshared abundance. From his golden throne, the Sun Emperor ruled everything and everyone, including his wife Ernalda Earth Mother. Her yearning for freedom set the rest of the story in motion.
Hence came the Gods War, which is both a time, and a divine place you can visit to find anger and transformation. Vowing to rescue Ernalda, the storm gods staged an uprising against the gods of sky and fire.
Finally, the power of Death manifested, in the form of a sword. Eurmal the Trickster picked it up first. He used it to commit the first slaying, of Grandfather Mortal. Humakt protected everyone by taking it away from Eurmal, and aided his former brother Orlanth by lending it to him. Orlanth used Death to knock Yelm from his throne into the underworld.
Orlanth's victory ushered in the Storm Age. The sun folk used to call this the Darkness, because som fine and beautiful clouds appeared in the sky to shelter us from the hottest days and to add some variety to its implacable unity of blue. Their name showed they had no understanding of what darkness really was. It was in fact a time of shared abundance and fair leadership, especially here in Berenstead.
But then the creatures of Chaos, rare in previous times, grew in number and overwhelmed the world, killing and eating everything from people and animals to ideas and social arrangements. The beautiful clouds of Orlanth's son Voriof turned into the choking poison haze of Wakboth and his demented gods. Thus began our present, lamentable era: the Great Darkness, or as we call it, the Chaos Age.