There’s nothing resembling a consensus definition of religion out there, but I tend to favor socio-anthropological ones (Durkheim, Geertz), under which the Hitler cult counts. It was pseudo-everything – science, Christian, pagan – but its system of symbols, roles, and rituals filled a religious role socially.
@Golgot, yes, Hera was the first, conquering Thaumatarch who brought the four provinces under her control and defeated the forces of Xaos from the West. She was assassinated by an unnamed servant of Xaos, after which her successor put the Great Wards up. We will get quite a lot more of her story in later games, including speaking to the man who sent the assassin.
The share of the world she conquered was similar to Halassur, so the dynamics aren’t quite the same as with Alexander. However, she did introduce some “anachronistic-seeming” ideas around gender, with rather more success than Alexandrian globalization.
@idnlun, I like your clear vision for your MC’s future state – but I didn’t mean to give any impression that “the world apparently was already up to approximately sixteenth century standards, before Hera and her Hegemony caused traditional science and technology to take a back seat to Theurgy”. The conquests of Hera took place in a medieval world, while the gameworld today is hitting an industrial revolution quite a bit earlier than ours did (as I’ve mentioned in this thread, though you’ve not yet been to the bits of the world where that’s obvious). Anything in the world that is up to 16th century+ tech levels has got there on the back of careful Theurgic research. It’s not anti-intellectual.
@MSox99, before George RR Martin finishes Winds of Winter.