Cities are the centres of wealth, and will be even more so after the economy rebalance. No realm will accept that rural lords intentionally starve the cities.
Rurals as the centre of power is simply counter-nature. Rural realms are weak, and so are rural lords.
Well, this I agree with. I suppose you could think of this religion as mixing one part of excellent roleplaying template and another part of a sort of a farmer's union (or Grange!). Of course cities are strong, but it would seem too easy to go for them. I want to try something new here, like trying to find a niche and grow from there. If the faith truly managed to gain a significant portion of the rurals, it might begin to have some sway with the matters. The fact that the rural lords are weak is what interests me in this concept. Alone they are weak, but what if they could be united? What if, collectively, they could press for a higher share of the taxes in the cities, and would then be able to field decent units for themselves and their knights?
Make sure you have the judge on your side, or your attempts to control the food trade will result in quick fines/bans from the realm. Realms are touchy about their food supply (and rightly so).
Shouldn't you persecute the rural lords for causing the starvation? Seems to me that if you declare starvation to be the the wrath of your ancestors, then sitting on a pile of food while people starve would be the most dire of sins imaginable. Besides, refusing to sell the city food, and then declaring the margrave to be a sinner for letting his people starve? That's like holding some guy's head underwater, and then saying it's his own fault for drowning.
I am not much concerned with what is right and what is wrong. Religious dogma rarely makes sense to the outsiders while for those inside, all sorts of odd argumentative errors are graciously accepted. Circular logic only needs to make sense to the believers, and for the outsider to understand its implications. Besides, I do not think it would be anything too black and white, like trying to gain direct control of the food supplies. It would likely be much more subtle. Of course it would be in the best interest of the margrave to be a member to secure ample food of flow in good price, but amicable relations to the faith would probably suffice. Basically it could be something like "be nice to us and let us preach and convert the rurals, and all will be well with the food".
Or throwing a women in the fire, and claiming she's a witch if she survives.
In other words, perfectly SMA.
Exactly. It does not need to make sense. Someone letting his region or his realm starve has clearly not been respecting his ancestors, so the decision to not sell food to him was a right choice, because clearly he was unworthy. It's circular reasoning, thus a fail safe argument for a medieval religion.
Not fair, of course not, but all I am trying to do here is to add some interesting tensions and create potential for conflict. And to have some fun and share it with the rest of you.