Also known as the Lesser Darkness.
It began when Yelm was killed, and left the world of the living to follow Grandfather Mortal into the land of Death. Other gods of light also failed: Dayzatar the Sky God drew further away, Lodril was first buried and then imprisoned by a god of Darkness, and lesser gods (like Yelmalio) were wounded or hid themselves away.
More than Darkness spread across the age, for life followed the light into the Lands of the Dead. Spirits of plants, animals, and minerals took the path of the dead and were lost to the world. Without light the Earth soon slept, and the world seemed barren when compared to the Golden Age. The gods fought when they wished. The Storm Gods dominated, but the Darkness pantheon and Sea deities also fielded powerful forces. Glorantha became a broad, barren land swept by angry storms, crushing ice, brutal volcanoes, and pieces of the sky tumbling dead to the Earth.
During this time, new races of humans were born in the world, and sometimes the old ones adapted or survived as slaves. Despite the hardships, cultures throve, and grandly barbaric societies gladly and grimly fought for existence.
Unchanged in all this was the Celestial Court. They had held aloof from the petty squabbles changing the face of their world and lent themselves impartially to anyone capable of wielding their powers, even remaining unattached when their powers were used in new ways by exploitive intelligences. As the crisis grew, the Court could not act to halt their own abuse. Instead they engaged in “immortal discourse, celestial debate, and the scribbling of scrolls.” The world disintegrated around them, at last straining the immortal strength of the Court beyond endurance. Tremors shook the immobile Spike, and the cosmos weakened.
The final struggle unbound anxious energies which had been bent and twisted by eons of divine misuse. A cosmic explosion freed the pressure, vaporizing the Spike and its inhabitants. A great vacuum opened in the center of the world, from which stepped the gods of Chaos. This began the Great Darkness.