What is the Fifth Age? What is the Age of Mortals?
There are two answers to these questions. In-world, the terms are synonymous. The Age of Mortals IS the Fifth Age. The Fourth Age, the Age of Despair, began with the Cataclysm and ended in the Second Cataclysm at the end of the Chaos War. The Fifth Age, therefore, encompasses everything that has transpired since then. In terms of branding and casual discussion, the two terms are sometimes used to differentiate two periods, where the Fifth Age refers to the early part including the Dragon Purge and the War of Souls (the time setting for the SAGA game system), and the Age of Mortals is the latter part, starting after the War of Souls and continuing through current products such as Dark Disciple (the time setting for the Third Edition Dragonlance line). Since the affect of the War of Souls is so major, some fans even stubbornly refer to the current post-War of Souls era as a “Sixth Age,” despite the fact that official products try to downplay such a division.
