The Bronze age, and its end...

[styopa]

Stumbled on this relatively short (8 min) video (there are 2 more parts, each also about 8min) broadly discussing the mysteries of the collapse of the Bronze Age IRL.

If we regard the God Learner era as a peak of civilization, is RQG set essentially in a post-collapse era, or more specifically the climb back out of this collapse?

 

[Sumath]

Interesting, but taking the Sartarites as an example, none of these issues really apply to them. They don't have a centralised economy or agriculture, being a tribal society. This makes them less efficient but more resilient. There is no apparent shortage of Bronze (or Copper or Tin), and soil degradation is not an issue in Glorantha, since crops grow by the grace of Ernalda, rather than through nutrients in need or replenishment.

Also, Glorantha has magic, which makes up for most deficits that might be faced by a Bronze Age society. Now, if magic were suddenly to become scarce then I think a collapse would be imminent...

[Joerg]

The Closing is basically the magical end to sea traffic that kept the Middle Sea Empire civilization alive and wealthy - never mind the failure of conquest of Jolar or the failed Zistor experiment. So yes, the Opening is re-igniting the supra-regional exchange, and we are really more in the Phoenician and Greek expansion theme of the earliest Iron Age and beginning of the Classic period compared to the eve of the naval Bronze Age that created the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean cultures, while those heroic models never were removed from Theyalan society.

Which is why I am very convinced that the Nordic Bronze Age and the continued bronze production in and distribution from the Carpathian basin which was rather unaffected by the collapse of the cultures to the southwest are a lot closer to what we find in central Genertela.

The Carmanians escaped that collapse, too, and managed to hamper the EWF expansion spreading thin in Peloria, and a similar thing happened in Ralios, but it took the Mass Utuma of 1042 to end that experiment more or less from the inside. But here, too, we find a sudden loss of communication as wyrm riders who had taken over from the Nardain society to bear messages across vast distances failed to work.

The recovery of Gloranthan isolated cultures took only about 200 years from the cataclysmic end of the Age, except for the depopulated (and/or drowned) centers of civilization like Dragon Pass or Old Seshnela. The magical nature of the Closing delayed the return to sea trade by almost four more centuries.

Unlike the Bronze Age Collapse, there was no loss of literacy anywhere, possibly owed to the premature dominance of alphabetic scripts rather than syllabaries (as e.g. the Japanese katakana present). But then, this is a known (magical) outcome for the coming Hero Wars, at least in northern Dragon Pass.

@Sumath:

Soil degradation isn't exactly outside of Glorantha. The recent spurt of growth in the Lunar Empire was possible due to the introduction of maize, a form of agriculture that drains the magic of the land unless sufficient bloody sacrifices are offered in return, and from what I have glimpsed of future major players in the Empire, the amount of sacrifice required to keep the current amount of productivity going may be on the rise. The Dara Happan tripolis might be less affected, but Glamour is more or less dependent on imported food, and the grown urban mobs are, too.

Your points about the Sartarites are on spot, except for the detail that they are recent immigrants to the country - a country depopulated by the collapse of the EWF in 1042 (with draconicized crops and herds failing big way, in addition to vengeful Carmanians, Sairdites and Dara Happans plundering the Pass, sending tens of thousands of refugees down to the Kingdom of Night), their repeat visit and the total (human) depopulation of Dragon Pass by the Dragons and their kin and allies in 1120 (sending another wave of refugees south at least as large as the army sent north).

There was a centralized kingdom of the Orlanthi south of the Crossline which even conquered more than half of Esrolia in the Adjustment Wars which were ended in a Sword-and-Helm Saga way, collapsing the kingdom about a century before Belintar's arrival. The Adjustment Wars were a way to re-distribute the second- to fifth-generation Dragon Pass refugees to the rich lands of Esrolia, forcibly returning a more Heortling outlook to vast parts of that country.

Belintar's Holy Country was an anomaly without direct parallel in real world history.