DH>> In Orlanthi society there is increasingly less need for a link to DH>> nature, to man's hidden perceptions, to the beast within.
>Actually, this is a very recent development (brought about by Sartar and
>his heirs, or in Tarsh by Phoronestes and his heirs). The Orlanthi are
>still _much_ closer to nature than they were in the times of Harmast and
>Alakoring, IMO. The late Second Council era, and the EWF/counter-EWF era
>both were born by an urban Orlanthi society as "civilised" as Otkorion
>in Ralios, or southern Heortland. The kind of society urban Jrusteli
>scholars took root in in the early Second Age...
I think Joerg is confusing the experiences of the people who live in the cities and the people who live in the rural areas (the overwhelming majority). Furthermore in the great days of the Second Council, Lokaymadon and other Orlanthi were walking around with tattoos which bespeaks a heavy doses of ecstasy in their daily religious life. The only example of facial tattoos you have in Present Day Sartar is Kallyr Starbrow.
As for the EWF, Joerg apparently forgets that its philosophy was an attempt to embrace the beast within. Look at the Elves of Rist (Hellwood is Rist with Chaos instead of Dragons) and the Dara Happan experiences of the EWF ('Monsters Are Good for Us'). This is not what I would call being divorced from the beasts within.
In both these cases, the plight of the rural Orlanthi probably changed little. I would place the evolution of the more modern Orlanthi (ie cults evolve to the more theistic cults as depicted in Gods of Glorantha) with the Orlanth Rex subcult. Clan surpluses were redistributed to within the clan itself instead of the folk in the cities. The material life of the Orlanthi improves notably with the increasing gulf from the 'Old Ways'.
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