At any rate, it's probably a moot point, since the staff have now weighed and substantiated that virtually all Allanaki are either sincere Tek-worshippers or insincere Tek-worshippers. The question isn't are you a Tek-worshipper or not, it's how much of a Tek-worshipper you are.
I would not say that the take-away was the Stephen Colbert interview reference.
In the end, play it yourself. Do not rely on numbers for this; instead, rely on solid reasoning for your PC doing whatever he or she decides to do. Most NPCs and vNPCs (if not in the armed forces of a city-state or otherwise working in a noble house) won't consider reverence, fear, or devotion to/for their leader "religion." I doubt the word has meaning in Zalanthas. Some will believe everything the Templarate says. Some will not (evidenced by riots in either city-state). Just use common sense to develop your character's roleplay and I think you'll be all right.
I appreciate and admire work put into documentation like this. I am a little concerned about a few things overstepping into the retcon of history to establish religious overtones in things that do not need the help. Given that we do not have official "religion" documentation but we do have official "superstitions" documentation, I think it would be preferred to see this sort of documentation in the same format as the superstitions page. At the top of the page, there's this note:
These are some of the common variants of superstitions that will often be heard in both Tuluk and Allanak. Use your discretion on whether your character would have heard of these if you're from a different locale. Players are welcome to create their own variations using this as inspiration, or create new ones.
And one of those superstitions:
Kiss the ground for the Highlord before bed, and He will protect you from magickers robbing your breath.
Just throwing in two sids about it. The longer and in-depth player-submitted documentation is good in many cases, but in this case, it might be better to use smaller snippets. Common Allanaki superstitions, for instance, rather than paragraphs about Allanaki religious beliefs (couched in more modern terms)...listing different possibilities, rather than a baseline to which the majority adheres. I think this looks as though it is a completely clinical document written as though it were in study of Zalanthans, rather than something that Zalanthans might grasp (terms like agnostic, religion, afterlife, etc. really seem absent from any existing Zalanthan lexicon).
I do not think it is important to signify dedication to the leaders of either city-state as a "state religion" and explain it in those terms. I also think that there is a lot more evidence to support cults of personality and politics rather than religious worship, as the only evidence of the latter exists in
one history document (with cult of personality and political power as an implied component of the rest of historical documentation). That is not to say that the white-robed templarate is not a real aspect of Allanaki society, but I do not think I'd call them proselytizing evangelicals. They built a temple, they serve there for the most part, and that's all that PCs would know. Branching out into what else these templars do can be guessed at (even in-game) but probably shouldn't be in documentation unless it is meant to be public knowledge (which isn't the case). This is a world where the powers that be tend to rule with totalitarian practices, never brooking rivals. Purely religious overtones weaken that totalitarian structure. Brainwashing of this magnitude is not unique to the world of Zalanthas; it's quite Orwellian in origin (1984 is a good book to read if you want to understand Tuluk--Allanak covers it in a lesser but equally effective manner). See also: North Korea (though Orwell is a better applicable example--oddly enough--it is pure craziness to see how brainwashing can affect the populace of an entire country in the real world).
My final end-point suggestion for these docs: it's too religious and unbelievable for me, at least. It religious-izes everything in the docs. I don't think the other docs need that.
