(As an aside, I've read it that when you take an occupational key word other than god talker along with being a devotee, essentially you are saying either that you'd reached that level of ability before becoming a devotee, or else claiming that the occupation is a big part of what you do as a devotee.)
Anyway, the problem with being a devotee and god talker is that often you end up lacking core skills. Some cults provide most of the core skills, but others don't. For example, if you are a devotee of any of the allfather cults, but don't have a relevant occupational key word, you are probably short on relevant skills, which seems bizarre— devotees should be the more likely to have the "right" skills for their cult, not less.
One solution is to say you can take god talker and another occupation key word. But if anything your time spent as a devotee should limit how many other skills you have, not increase it—i.e. it seems to favor being a devotee a bit too much.
Now, in the HQ preview, they mention that your pick-up skills (from list or 100 words), can be included in a key word at the narrators whim. In other words, if they seem to fit into one of your key words, you can start it at 17 instead of 13. So if you are a warrior and take the "skirmish tactics" skill, the narrator could say put it in the warrior key word, and start it at 17 (ditto for new skills taken during play). So I suddenly realized this could be a perfect solution to the devotee god talker problem. You have to use your list or 100 words to make sure you have the relevant abilities, but you can add them to your devotee of X (or maybe god talker of X) key word, so start them at 17 instead of 13. This will mean that you probably have a narrower overall selection of skills, which feels right, but that you are at least as good at the relevant mundane abilities as a non-devoted person performing similar tasks.
Of course, you don't have to take the god-talker key word in most cases. Not everyone who is a devotee is a god-talker. If you were to pick up some of the usual god-talker skills, it would seem reasonable to allow them to go under the devotee of X key word, and start at 17. In other words, if you are a devotee of Odayla, and a hunter, but in your background you take "pray to Odayla" and "initiate to Odayla" it would be fair to allow those in the devotee key word, starting at 17 instead of 13.
Sorry for the rather long and rambling thoughts about a fairly minor point, it is just something that has been nagging at me ever since I first read through Thunder Rebels.
--Bryan
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