how has anyone not thought of this yet
theres not a lot of ideas for this yet, but something something each village from the regions in the land of the old faiths have a tribute they offer for smth they call "the game of divinity" or the "the celestial games" where if said tribute win, the aforementioned cult gets rewards/advantages for the rest of the year. the bishops are the one hosting the games, but the old gods were the creators and shamura continued it for reasons unknown to the other bishops. narinder is not sent to the void/afterlife but instead heavily surpressed by the bishops and has his cult taken as punishment for trying to go against them- and the lamb genocide still happens, but only half the population is culled at this time
instead of being put to execution, the lamb gets put into the 49th celestial game with narinder as their mentor (the bishops put him in the games as punishment, 'mandatory' to make him watch his followers die again and again), and goat is their partner. ratau is the only tribute from narinder's dying cult to have won
enemies to lovers narilamb, ratau being tired, cotl bishops only following shamura's lead not to get punished like narinder but are still complicit in the awful system, whats happening with shamura ohhh we dont know :3