Given what Greg wrote, I think that a clan's wealth and population on one hand, and its number of shrines and temples on the other, will not be at all closely related.
For example, the Silver Cow clan holds a generous swath of land in a broad and fertile river valley. They are numerous and wealthy.However, not much of note happened there in the god age. There is a ridge along the river that they call a hill and hold their services to Orlanth at, but it provides only small bonuses. There is a place where Esra the Barley mother danced, and it provides a decent shrine to Ernalda. Finally Harst built one of his store houses there, so there is a good shrine to him.
In the same tribe there is the Black Flint clan. They live a hard scrabble existence in unforgiving hills. They plough the few pockets of decent soil, herd mostly sheep on the severe hills, and hunt small game in hopes of filling the cooking pot. However the chieftan's hall lies beside the hill where Orlanth marshaled his people before Tribini of the shores, and it a great temple. Hedkoranth gathered sling stones from one of the hillsides, and pilgrims come from all over Sartar to start the quest of the beating stone there. Ernalda filled one of the valleys with flowers to seduce Orlanth in before one of his battles, and it is a treat to be there on holy days ceremonies. Odayla shot the Two-Way Fox in those hills, splitting its halves into the foxes we know today, and devotees seeking the spirit shot feat come here where it happened first to learn it. Maran Gor buried a foe under one of the hills, and you can still feel it trembling every earth day.
The Silver Cow clan may bring many worshippers and great sacrifices to their ceremonies, but they'll need them just to make up for the weak holy sites. On the other hand the Black Flint may only have an elderly god talker with a couple of kids helping him or her at some of the sites, but they have tremendous bonuses using their main sites, and should they ever need Maran's help they are in better shape than most to get it, etc.
The Black Flint doesn't actually put very much into the shrines to Maran or Odayla, in fact worshippers of those gods may actually pay the Black Flint at least some token to use the sites. In fact, I'm sure as part of their tribal agreement the other clans of the tribe have access to the sites, but pay some token towards the support of the godi for them. In essence, the Black Flint may not bring much wealth or as many warriors to the tribe, but they do bring access to powerful magic to make up for it.
All just my thoughts on the matter of course. I could be way off base (but I hope not, because I put some of these assumptions into parts of my contributions to the gazeteer....)
Powered by hypermail