Ok, I've seen this fallacy repeated in a number of threads. Firefighting individual instances doesn't seem to be working, so I'd like to set the record streight and discuss this out in the opne, rather than as an off-topic discussion all over the forum.
Glorantha has never been described as a 'Bronze Age' world in any official publication. This falacy has arrisen from the fact that Bronze (or the Glroanthan equivalent of it) is the the most common metal, but that has nothing to do with technology or cultural development. It's purely a matter of access to resources.
I've seent he 'Bronze Age' fallacy many times over the years, even in profesional magazine reviews of Gloranthan products. It's a prenicious meme that has proved to be very hard to eradicate.
Many Gloranthan civilizations are far more advanced than any historical Bronze Age society. They are perfectly capable of smelting iron when they have access to it. The west of Glorantha (incidentaly, the west is actualy the setting for Greg Staffords earliest stories set in Glorantha from the 1960s) has advanced metalworking techniques capable of creating articulated iron plate armour. Crossbows, ballistae and even more advanced other mechanical aparatus are within the capability of a number of civilizations going back at least to the 2nd Age.
Yet some backwaters of Glorantha are still stuck in the neolithic. The Balazarings are a stone age hunter-gatherer society. Bear in mind that on earth there were stone age societies as recently as the last few centuries. Take the Americas untill smelting was introduced by Europeans. Many pockets of Africa and South-East Asia had no indigenous knowledge of metal working either. Also many stone age cultures such as the hsunchen in Glorantha have powerful magico-religious reasons that exclude some social and technological changes.
Glorantha has never been described as a 'Bronze Age' world in any official publication. This falacy has arrisen from the fact that Bronze (or the Glroanthan equivalent of it) is the the most common metal, but that has nothing to do with technology or cultural development. It's purely a matter of access to resources.
I've seent he 'Bronze Age' fallacy many times over the years, even in profesional magazine reviews of Gloranthan products. It's a prenicious meme that has proved to be very hard to eradicate.
Many Gloranthan civilizations are far more advanced than any historical Bronze Age society. They are perfectly capable of smelting iron when they have access to it. The west of Glorantha (incidentaly, the west is actualy the setting for Greg Staffords earliest stories set in Glorantha from the 1960s) has advanced metalworking techniques capable of creating articulated iron plate armour. Crossbows, ballistae and even more advanced other mechanical aparatus are within the capability of a number of civilizations going back at least to the 2nd Age.
Yet some backwaters of Glorantha are still stuck in the neolithic. The Balazarings are a stone age hunter-gatherer society. Bear in mind that on earth there were stone age societies as recently as the last few centuries. Take the Americas untill smelting was introduced by Europeans. Many pockets of Africa and South-East Asia had no indigenous knowledge of metal working either. Also many stone age cultures such as the hsunchen in Glorantha have powerful magico-religious reasons that exclude some social and technological changes.
