Not really. In fact, they were quite manipulative, including a successful infiltration (but not subversion, unfortunately) of the Blood Cult and a couple other religions, guilds and secret societies. We didn't just have the obvious GM characters, there were quite a few players with otherwise inconspicious families who had dedicated their Beluaterra character to an NPC role. But as they all were being played by essentially players, it would've been dumb to assume they were any better at that game.
They did have the advantage of inert cooperation (NPCs just don't suffer from infighting) and considerable resources. And I think they did quite well.
Except that by the second half on the invasion, nobody other than myself really said anything in the Blood Cult, the notables mostly all being dead. It's hard to say the infiltrators managed to influence anyone when they didn't say a thing. And I did have a list in my mind of people who were obviously pro-daimon, they (or some of them) were rather easy to spot. Some characters and some families have overwhelming tendencies for such things, things I was not blind to.
I wasn't saying, nor will I say, that they were bad. I'm just not buying that they controlled the Blood Cult as some puppet as some statements suggest, as the leader of the said religion myself. By that time, the Cult's golden age was long gone anyways, its influence limited to a privileged channel of communication with the daimons in order to guide their action in return for various information or services, mostly to get them to sack all Daishi temples as payback for Daishi sacking many Blood Cult temples prior to the invasion, along with getting them to fight the monsters that plagued Enweil as often as possible.
