I'm not surprised. Most of the newer religions have more priests than Daishi does.
It goes with the territory. Daishi has been around so long and has been so stable that the need to actually preach ended long ago. It just sorta spreads by osmosis everywhere across the continent.
Which made the religion game here on Beluaterra rather boring for the priests, so they often went off and did other things. Many warriors of Daishi used to be priests over the years. And will probably become priests again now that real contenders in the religion game are starting to step up again.
One of the big reasons I haven't declared other religions evil in general is because I as a player want to give them a chance to get a foothold. With the reach that Daishi has, I could easily curbstomp any religion I wanted to the moment I see it go up. When Daishi is the majority religion in the majority of regions across the continent, it gives me an insane amount of latent power to use if I want to. I don't want to. I want the religion game to have more contenders and be more interesting.
So while Yao Ling grouses about the other religions in public, and questions their goodness, I as a player don't pull the trigger and start holy wars with them.
Mordok is the exception. They went full on Daimon worship. Yao Ling could not allow that to hold, so...boom...she declared them evil. At which time other members of Daishi that were obviously gearing up for an attack, went hog wild and blew Wudenkin to dust bunnies. I figure they figured if they could get Yao Ling to pull the trigger, they could pull the trigger. So I figure they held onto some knowledge until the last minute, then handed it off to me and just hoped I reacted the way they wanted. If I figure right, I got played a bit.
Which I absolutely love by the way. The idea that there are players out there that have figured out what Yao Ling's buttons are to the point that I as a player don't even realize I'm being played until afterwards makes me chuckle with amusement. And now Yao Ling is on the warpath. Or at least the skirmish path.
