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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tarchon" data-source="post: 426063" data-attributes="member: 5990">Well, before we decide who invented  the Golden Age, we need to figure out what it is in this context, if anything other than a good catch phrase, which it undoubtedly is.  You seem to interpret it as indicating high magic, and that's certainly a plausible interpretation.  That's definitely not the basic concept behind Exalted though, so I agree they didn't invent it in that sense <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> .  Exalted was clearly going for what might also be termed a "dawn age."  From the Exalted web page:"The fate of this new world is in your hands. The Second Age of Man. The Age of the Exalted."  (Though note that it is only the dawn of a Second age, not a First).  As I explained, this is clearly an important contrast from WW's point of view.  The comments of the authors of the submissions using the phrase seem to indicate that they see it largely in the more generic "dawn age" sense, but you are right that the high magic sense seems to be coupled to that.The phrase "Golden Age" itself is of Classical origin, clearly not invented by White Wolf, and it was part of a conceptual system describing the stages of degeneration, particularly moral degeneration, of the world through history, the Golden, Silver, Bronze, and (supposedly then current) Iron Ages.  It's a very prevalent idea in world literature/mythology, and the world has evidentally been going to hell in a handbasket like this for at least the last 3000 years.  The concept appears in Hindu mythology with nearly the same paradigm of ages, even.In current idiom, only the Golden and Silver Ages really show up much, aside from technical use of Bronze and Iron Age in archaeology, with Golden Age usually tending to denote a period of highest achievement, the Golden Age of comic books or the Golden Age of cinema, for example.  However, it does also tend to imply such a period to have ended in the past, essentially the time during which the impulse of initial efflorescence of the art had reached its climax."Morning Star: Now is the Golden Age: The great empires have not yet fallen. Humans have just come into their own...""The Sunset Kingdoms: [...] A vibrant, eclectic mix of cultures that are near the height of their ‘golden age’"and it's pretty obvious that DAWNFORGE is on the same lines, as Plane Sailing pointed out.These settings are all going for this sense of the initial efflorescence, not just of magic but of the world in general.  The problem with using this as a basic concept for a setting is that you have to have something to relate it to.  Golden Age relative to what?  I think they clearly in most cases mean "relative to the conventional high fantasy setting of D&D," but in fact we have no reason to think that the conventional D&D fantasy settings are more or less efflorescent than these settings.  Is Greyhawk in a Golden Age or not?  Well, we can't really tell until we know how the rest of its history unfolds.  Maybe stuff keeps getting better, maybe it doesn't.  Maybe some stuff gets better, some stuff gets worse.  Sure, it had great ancient empires that have fallen, but it's got great current empires too.  Maybe succeeding empires will be even greater?  Who knows? (OK, maybe Col. Playdoh does.)I just have yet to see a clear expression of what it is about the Golden Age concept itself that applies generally to the setting, and I think that's because the main D&D fantasy millieux/s just don't provide a meaningful context for the idea.  WW's World of Darkness does.  That's why it strikes me as perhaps reactive when I see great interest in this idea of using the ill-defined Golden Age concept to revitalize the RPG line at WotC while WW is cranking out their big new line based on what is for them a well-defined Golden Age concept.  I don't think it's a big secret that WW is shooting for more of the quasi-medieval fantasy market with new things like Exalted, Sorcerers Crusade, and the new rev of Vampire: Dark Ages.  WotC couldn't be blamed for reacting  to this.  Thrust, parry?  Makes sense.It's kind of like when you see two asteroid movies, two Robin Hood movies, or two volcano movies come out at about the same time, or when both Pepsi and Coke roll out some new transparent cola or such at the same time.  OK, maybe it is coincidence, but hmm...Let me reiterate that I strongly doubt any of the authors were explicitly thinking along these lines; it would be quite easy for dozens of people out of 11000 to hit on this particular expression just by chance.Of course, maybe people at WotC came to the same conclusion I did about it sounding better than it works, and that could be why the Golden Agers didn't make the final cut.  We the public won't know for a while.</blockquote>

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