You speak of develooped lore as if it was a "disabler".
In some ways, it is. A highly developed lore can also be one in which the participants don't feel any particular need to make any contribution. It's all written already, so what reason do they have to try and contribute themselves? It's also extremely daunting to go to the wiki and see dozens of long, text-filled pages that are supposed to lay out what things your character believes, how your character should treat various situations, etc. And if you have characters in three or four realms/islands, belonging to three/four different religions, then you as a player will have to learn all of them in order to play your characters in that religion. Is it any wonder that they don't bother? Most of the probably "tl;dr" and ignore it all.
Torenism had a lot of stuff in it, and they had a lot of people commited to the religion.
Here's an interesting thing about Torenism, and it kind of illustrates my point rather well, I think. After Everguard fell I had the opportunity to talk with some former Everguardian players OOG about the events that lead to SA's crusades against them. The player claimed that most of the Torenist followers had absolutely no idea about the stuff that was on the wiki as relates to Torenism, or the manner in which Torenism was being portrayed there. So all that stuff that was written and posted, all that supposedly rich lore, was widely ignored and unused by the members of the religion. At least according the the player or two I talked with.
The Blood Cult had a lot of stuff too, and florished. Did it become the number 1 religion in follower count? No, but if you are accusing it on "too much lore", then you truly were blind to the fact that it preached, you know, sacrificing living beings to please the gods and had questionnable ties to the daimons? The Blood Cult was never meant to be mainstream. Did we have a lot of established lore? Yes. Did that stop people from adding more? No. We have players write up lore for it regardless. Per capita, a LOT more than SA ever did.
Yes, I know that the Blood Cult preached human sacrifice, and about their ties to the daimons, etc.
There are a billion things in life that can make religious people seek divine guidance. To not start up with a dozen answers is either sheer laziness or intentional vagueness to increase acceptability. Does SA debate these things more than Eretzism? Well, yes, but Eretzism has a fraction of the follower count, has a fraction of the activity rates from those present, isn't on a SMA continent, and is quite a bit older.
So, then equating Eretzism's blank spots to SA's blank spots is pretty pointless, if Eretzism doesn't actually use those blanks to good purpose.
In the Blood Cult, we used *lore* as an enabler, instead of blanks. With so much random lore, it's much easier to try to extrapolate by making a bunch of wild links between random existing bits.
For you, perhaps that's an easier way to go. But from what I have seen in the different religions I have had characters in, that's not the way it works for most people.
"Wide open spaces" are not very important. Who cares if you convert far-away rogue regions?
I'm not talking about far away regions. I'm talking about the regions right at home, within your own realm. When these other religions were formed, there was no real competition in the homelands from any other religion.
Morek imposed SA on its colonies and on neighbours
Incorrect on both accounts. SA was not imposed on Astrum. Astrum was formed by faithful followers of the Stars, who wanted to expand the influence of SA across the island. We didn't follow SA because it was the ticket to our own realm. We formed our own realm because we wanted to spread SA.
Also, Morek never imposed SA on any realm that did not first attack or otherwise antagonize Sanguis Astroism on purpose. In fact, it was quite a long time after SA's founding that any of that kind of thing happened at all.
Caerwyn did not.
That's Caerwyn's problem. Or, more probably, VE's problem. VE could have gotten together colony expeditions. Caerwyn had the nobility available to form Asylon. Why didn't the VE followers in Caerwyn get together and take Echiur for themselves? Or Itau? Or Via? These were great places for the VE followers to expand into, and set up shop for themselves. But they didn't. Why not? Didn't they care about expanding their faith? Maybe they just weren't invested in the faith enough to bother, or maybe the faith wasn't invested enough in expanding its power and influence to make the call to do this?
Why did the western religions fail? Well, for one, they *did* face more competition. The Seven were small, isolated, and died on their own.
The Seven was actually quite large in Springdale.
There were many realms in the North-East, but just one religion for almost all of its history. In contrast, there were few realms in the west, and they almost all had their own religion, if not two, plus the faith some of them imported from their original realms. Natural SA expansion competed with VE in Caerwyn.
Given that Caerwyn forbid preaching SA, and forbid all SA temples, even forcing one lord to tear down an SA temple, I find it hard to believe that there was ever much more than a token peasant following in any Caerwyn regions. There were almost always a majority of VE followers in all the northern regions of Caerwyn. At times Astrum's southern border regions had more VE followers than SA followers. After the war with Caerwyn started, in fact, several priests that came to Astrum to help in the war effort remarked on how many VE followers there were across Astrum's southern borders.
They did not have the "exact same opportunities", not by a longshot. SA was in one of the four founding realms.
So was the Seven, and the Order of St. Iestyn. And whatever that religion was in Madina, the one imported from Atamara. Estianism, maybe? I think it has since fallen apart on Dwilight, and I can't remember. So apparently being in a founding realm wasn't that much of a bonus.
The western colonies came in way, way later.
And when they were formed, SA really wasn't there in any strength at all. It still isn't in most of them.
As for "if x, then do y", SA has the lamest one of them all. "If (time of year), then (have this mood more)". Great theology to be proud of, there...
Makes for a great RP device. Need some inspiration on what your character could be doing right now? Pop open the phases of the Bloodstars, and see what they say. Is it a bit gimmicky? Sure. But it's also easy for players to grasp, and doesn't require a study of someone else's made-up theology to use.
Don't get me wrong, SA is a great model for a "successful" religion. I just don't consider it to be a "good" religion, because I don't believe any normal human could be even remotely spiritually satisfied by its teaching, or that such a religion could have the same scope of success had it happened in the real world in the middle ages.
Meh.... It would be absurd to think that any religion made up in BattleMaster could possibly be a real world religion. But that's not the key point. The key point is whether or not the religions are
fun for the players that have characters in them. Most religions in the game aren't fun. They just exist. And "just existing" isn't fun.
New religions sprung up, Eretzism re-emerged. The one that replaced the Old Gods tried to expand, but we'll see what that gives. Qyrvaggism and Alluran were preached in now-pagan Enweil lands to stir up trouble and help Rio in their war. Otherwise, not much as far as I know.
Back when Alluran was founded for the first time, and then again for the second time, it was always a hollow shell. It never had anything in it worth a damn. Even the founder said "I'm leaving all this empty. It's up to the people in it to develop all the content." And without even the most basic framework to go from, it never went anywhere at all. It was a big flop from the start. I'd imagine this third incarnation is probably the same.
Not having an "afterlife" in the end of it isn't the same as lacking theology on the afterlife: the theology just clearly says "there is no afterlife". No human being would seriously devote his life to a religion that says "Well, you know, maybe this, or maybe that, but really, we don't know what happens after death", especially in those days.
What makes for a good RL religion isn't necessarily what makes a good in-game religion. The two fulfill completely different needs.
