You're doing a great job then.
I'll always appreciate any advice, critique, or other player input.
I think if that's a thing, it contributes only marginally to most players not being religious. I know my character on Dwi have wanted to join a religion since day one. But I don't want to join a dead religion, why would I?
I have mixed views on this. Most religions are dead. Just as some realms are dead. The way to get them not-dead is to join them and try to shake them up into doing something, not by continuing to pretend they do not exist. Or to destroy them so they are one less option for folks to waste time on. At the same time, especially with my EC character, I have joined and left plenty of religions that refused to do anything.
And as to contributional significance of modern views, as someone who has tried to share religion, I cannot count the number of times I have been rebuffed for simply 'I do not do religion'. And those times I tried to ask why, in a fictional game in a medieval setting, they refuse to even consider their noble being religious, it comes down to them playing as an agnostic or atheist or that 'religions are just scams', 'religions are the opiate of the masses' etc. Hey, aren't we the nobles controlling those masses, at least? Sometimes, its just a private religious roleplayed background, which is at least entirely credible for the medieval noble milieu, if not still frustrating that they've chosen to not consider working with others over IC flavor text, when they could've used the opportunity to spread their IC flavor text to others via the religion.
We have a VE priest and he spends exactly zero time preaching or doing anything linked to religion. More active religion tend to stay with the realms where they are already established and make zero effort to spread abroad. I do not say this to somehow blame the religious leaders for not going out of their way to proselytize and bring more people and realms into the fold. Just explaining why in my opinion religious life is non-existant in many realms.
VE is one of those religions that only cares about their roleplays theological flavor text, but never actually does anything. At least SA does something and communicates, even if it might not be the best something (alliance/political-power) imo.
As someone who *has* tried to actively proselytize, its has felt quite sisyphean, resulting in myself putting less and less effort into converting others as time passed, furthering the cycle. Especially when it takes so little effort to wash out the effort put into converting. Such as temples destroyed in Fissoa, Morek, and Swordfell with little to no roleplay behind it or even against standing roleplay, which are important for being able to attract nobles in different realms by giving them a place to register at. So I can see how some get burnt out on trying to make efforts that do not pay off. Religious frustration was actually the final straw/cause of my pausing my characters. I also see some do not try, like the VE priest you mention. And, I'm not trying to single anyone out, as each realm has different folks in in, times change, and they are hardly the single instance, but in my experience, Madina is extremely isolationist and suspicious/paranoid about anything outside their realm.
Imagine a realm where religious life is dead and some active character decides to liven it up. He has had precisely zero interaction with priests of existing faiths. There is no way for him to learn anything about other religions except reading the wiki. I tried to read about old religions btw and it just left me confounded. There is no surprise said player will just simply start a new religion because there is no benefit for him in doing otherwise, rather lots of trouble and inconveniences.
Fair enough point upon old info. I wouldn't stress theological details early on, myself, for the same reason I wouldn't recommend a large number of roleplays about a realm. I did like that astroism has a catechism of simple beliefs. I would say that starting a religion is just as much trouble and inconvenience as joining one, just a different sort of trouble and inconvenience.
I understand that for the game in general it would be better to have less religions with more members in each. But we must also realize that players need to be incentivised. There needs to be a reason to become a proselyte of some established faith when you can just become a high priest of your own tiny sect instead. Right now there is none. See my point?
Well, my opinion is that you should not be allowed to create a new religion if there are at least 4 religions. One of those four dies? Open game for a new religion! My opinion is not likely to happen anytime soon. I'd also like to see the religious famepoint changed from the founder, to be available to any priest-elder who has enlarged a temple over a certain very-expensive size. This has already been discussed and approved.
And again, I would say the ultimate reason is communication. Unless you have a decent base of support you've built up first, being a priest of your own tiny sect will consist of having 2-10 members of your own realm, who never talk to each other in the religion because they are already members of the same realm and have no incentive to talk to each other in the religion, and many hours, days, weeks, and months figuring out how to expand religion on your own without any other priests, elders, ex-priests, or ex-elders to get advice from. And again, if religious membership is as default as realm membership, its not about incentive, its just 'normal'. Incentive is in choosing which one, just like choosing a realm. I am suddenly reminded of parenting - asking whether a child wants to wear the green shirt or the orange shirt instead of whether they want to wear a shirt in the first place that will likely get a 'no'.
