Personally, I've always felt that we've had too many religions in the game. (And no, this is not a snarky comment, I'm serious.) IMO, in order to get true multi-realm religions going, that have the power to actually influence politics on anything other than a local, single realm nature, we need fewer religions overall. Too many localized, fringe religions end up just taking up space that could be more effectively used by a bigger religion with more ambition.
I'm not convinced the absence of small religinos will spurt the growth of large religions. Not at all.
Take Eretzism and Enweil, for example. Not too long ago, the faith died because all the priests had left/paused, turning all of Enweil pagan. Qyrvagg priests were in the meanwhile converting regions, though, and using RTOs (regardless of Eretzism or not). Will Enweil adopt Qyrvaggism because Eretzism died? Obviously not, they just had someone found the faith again.
I believe that the less faiths you have, the more atheist realms you will have, where all preaching is forbidden.
Because, after all, financial success has absolutely nothing to do with a religion being interesting or not. And it's easier to finance a single-realm religion than a multi-realm one, especially if they are going to be taxed. The strongest faiths will remain while others die out, but that doesn't mean they'll be stronger themselves. I predict they will be weaker, and their strength will only come from the lack of religions being able to label them as evil. Which, in itself, isn't that much considering it's not a requirement for arrests.
