[quote=Dead Cruiser]
Are the planes as old as the mortal world? Perhaps creatures that no longer live in the mortal world still cast their shadow in the Verdant plane.
[/quote]

Flagg and I in our discussions have agreed that this Planar Conflux is likely not the first one to have occurred - that they come and go on a cyclical basis, separated by tens of thousands of years. So the planes and Mortal Realm could conceivably be of the same age, part of the same cosmic superstructure in a manner of speaking.