Just a quick question for the more enlightened of us (yes AH, I'm looking at you), what happened during each of the ages? I'm reading through AH's immortal scorecard and was wondering which ages where the "Age of Dragons" and the "Age of Legends" etc.
Any help would be appreciated.
Full Version: The Ages
Aha. Well, the exact timing of the ages vs. the upcycles and downcycles is a bit iffy, but I can give it another shot.
**|* The First World, the Age of Night
**)* The Second World, the Age of Dragons
*(** The Third World, a downcycle
**)* The Fourth World, the Age of Legend, Earthdawn
*(** The Fifth World, modern history
**)* The Sixth World, Shadowrun
Way, way back, there was a time when the Horrors ruled the world. It might have been an upcycle, it might have been before there were upcycles and downcycles. It was the Age of Night, and Verjigorm ruled the world entire. The Age ended with the coming of the first dragons, who banished the Horrors.
After the Age of Night came the Age of Dragons, when Dragon civilization came together under Logolas, the Law-giver. For the first time, the Great Dragons of the world could come together and use Draconic Ritual Magic; and interact socially. The dragons enslaved the lesser intelligent species, setting up a group of elven dragonkin go-betweens to administer their rule through the coming downcycle.
The downcycle that followed is sketchy, but the Immortals Elves that the dragons created turned around and assumed power for themselves.
The next upcycle, the Age of Legend, was marked by the movements of these Immortal Elves and the Great Dragons: the court of Wyrm Wood (which became Blood Wood); the formation of the Theran Empire; the creation of Drakes with the Dance of Blue Spirits.
The following downcycle is modern human history; and the upcycle after that is SHadowrun.
Now, note that no-one is sure about the "1st world"...it's not clear exactly how dragons or others count these things, or if they meant to start on a down-cycle or not. Other races count the Age of Obsidimen and Age of Dreams too, which would have come between the Age of Night and the Age of Dragons (the exact length of an Age has also been debated. Generally, it's agreed that an age is an entire upcycle.)
**|* The First World, the Age of Night
**)* The Second World, the Age of Dragons
*(** The Third World, a downcycle
**)* The Fourth World, the Age of Legend, Earthdawn
*(** The Fifth World, modern history
**)* The Sixth World, Shadowrun
Way, way back, there was a time when the Horrors ruled the world. It might have been an upcycle, it might have been before there were upcycles and downcycles. It was the Age of Night, and Verjigorm ruled the world entire. The Age ended with the coming of the first dragons, who banished the Horrors.
After the Age of Night came the Age of Dragons, when Dragon civilization came together under Logolas, the Law-giver. For the first time, the Great Dragons of the world could come together and use Draconic Ritual Magic; and interact socially. The dragons enslaved the lesser intelligent species, setting up a group of elven dragonkin go-betweens to administer their rule through the coming downcycle.
The downcycle that followed is sketchy, but the Immortals Elves that the dragons created turned around and assumed power for themselves.
The next upcycle, the Age of Legend, was marked by the movements of these Immortal Elves and the Great Dragons: the court of Wyrm Wood (which became Blood Wood); the formation of the Theran Empire; the creation of Drakes with the Dance of Blue Spirits.
The following downcycle is modern human history; and the upcycle after that is SHadowrun.
Now, note that no-one is sure about the "1st world"...it's not clear exactly how dragons or others count these things, or if they meant to start on a down-cycle or not. Other races count the Age of Obsidimen and Age of Dreams too, which would have come between the Age of Night and the Age of Dragons (the exact length of an Age has also been debated. Generally, it's agreed that an age is an entire upcycle.)
And an entire upcycle is ....how long?
centry?
2,000 years?
1 billion years?
500 billion years?
centry?
2,000 years?
1 billion years?
500 billion years?
Roughly 5,200 years or so. The Scourge in each upcycle is an 800-year period falling in the middle of the upcycle.
so...all 6 ages are only 31,200 years old?
huh....Egypt is past 10,000 years old from the 5th age.
That would place them at least right at the beginning of the Age of Legend.
China is 5,000+ years old just in some of it's games and traditional social events.
That seems awfully short to me for some reason.
huh....Egypt is past 10,000 years old from the 5th age.
That would place them at least right at the beginning of the Age of Legend.
China is 5,000+ years old just in some of it's games and traditional social events.
That seems awfully short to me for some reason.
Well, it's an approximate range.
A lot of very old civilizations have 4th-age precursors (Egypt == Creana; China == Cathay), which might give at least a partial explanation...written materials don't last exceedingly long in some cases, and generally speaking the earlier you go, the more references to magic and/or mythology can be found.
Also keep in mind that Earthdawn is currently located only at about year 2,900 or so of the upcycle, which might have been artificially extended. So you've got at least 7,000 years worth of space to squeeze in recorded history (as opposed to prehistory).
And, like I said, this timeline is based on the concept of six "Worlds" (upcycle/downcycles). There may have been eight or more, which would push the timeline back at least to 50,000 years.
It's not perfect. I accept that. We've argued over it for about forever.
A lot of very old civilizations have 4th-age precursors (Egypt == Creana; China == Cathay), which might give at least a partial explanation...written materials don't last exceedingly long in some cases, and generally speaking the earlier you go, the more references to magic and/or mythology can be found.
Also keep in mind that Earthdawn is currently located only at about year 2,900 or so of the upcycle, which might have been artificially extended. So you've got at least 7,000 years worth of space to squeeze in recorded history (as opposed to prehistory).
And, like I said, this timeline is based on the concept of six "Worlds" (upcycle/downcycles). There may have been eight or more, which would push the timeline back at least to 50,000 years.
It's not perfect. I accept that. We've argued over it for about forever.
| QUOTE (Ancient History @ Dec 5 2004, 11:51 PM) |
| Also keep in mind that Earthdawn is currently located only at about year 2,900 or so of the upcycle, which might have been artificially extended. |
Did we ever get any official confirmation on this? I recall the Therans building three massive fuck off pillars of Orichalcum and something going exceeding fucky-fucky with the magic level metres used to measure time in the kaers- couple globes of elemental earth and water or something similar that one dropped towards the other as the mana level dropped.
| QUOTE (Ancient History) |
| A lot of very old civilizations have 4th-age precursors (Egypt == Creana; China == Cathay) |
Ugh, lets not go there please. Someone might have to bring up places like Talea and nobody wants that.
Although the idea of Mole Skin lurking somewhere under current day Uomonza in the 2060's and that Prima business of his could be... amusing.
| QUOTE (flakjacket) | ||
Did we ever get any official confirmation on this? I recall the Therans building three massive fuck off pillars of Orichalcum and something going exceeding fucky-fucky with the magic level metres used to measure time in the kaers- couple globes of elemental earth and water or something similar that one dropped towards the other as the mana level dropped. |
Well, we know the approximate length of a cycle (5,200 years); and we know that the Scourge is generally an 800 year period near the top of the cycle (that is, starting at about year 2,200 and ending about year 3,000).
Now, the mana level leveled off and stopped dropping at about year 700 in the Scourge, and has remained there ever since. The assumption, natch, is that the gigantic orichalcum pillars on Thera have something to do with that (it's been hinted as much in the Theran Sourcebook).
But no, they haven't come out and said it yet.
| QUOTE ("Flakjacket") | ||
Ugh, lets not go there please. Someone might have to bring up places like Talea and nobody wants that. Although the idea of Mole Skin lurking somewhere under current day Uomonza in the 2060's and that Prima business of his could be... amusing. |
Hey, I didn't want to mention it, but it is there! Frankly, the entire Talea section could've been done better with a different name and without Prima.
Anyways. It goes back to the conversation on proto-civilizations in Aztlan, and the 10,000-year old cybermancy techniques in Cybertechnology.
Ancient, I'm sure you hear this a bit, but mate you are a legend, thanks for the help.
Thanks. I never get tired of compliments.
*throws a dart at AH to deflate his ego*
Thank god AH has Missile Parry!
It might just be me, but i having issues on getting on to AH's site. got the front page but can't get any of the links...
I just checked and got a rather serious error before the first page. A server appears to be down, maybe your access was timed so that you got half the page data before it dropped.
Yeah, something hinky appears to be going on. Oh well.
If this little technical nutroll is worked out in time, I'll have an update up (through SOTA 64) this weekend.
If this little technical nutroll is worked out in time, I'll have an update up (through SOTA 64) this weekend.
Seems to works fine for me.
Apparently it's back now. Not a long downtime.
| QUOTE (BitBasher) |
| Thank god AH has Missile Parry! |
Doesn't really matter. Its impossible to get all the monkeys and thier typwritters.
| QUOTE (kevyn668 @ Dec 7 2004, 02:09 PM) |
| Doesn't really matter. Its impossible to get all the monkeys and thier typwritters. |
Metalstorm might be a good start.
Or Thor-shot. 
(er, no offense AH. )
(er, no offense AH. )
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