“ Somewhere along the line, someone very powerful lost their marbles. Literally. Possessing a marble allows incredible clarity of thought about a particular related subject.”
“ What if the sources of precious metal in the realm all failed, so that the only sources for gold and other precious metal were hostile foreign lands? Gold coinage might become increasingly rare, resulting in hoarding. Player characters that appear with masses of treasure might be suspected of being in the pay of foreign powers.”
“ The old pantheon is dead, starved to death from lack of worship. If a powerful mortal can create a cycle of Faith, he can become a New God, to some limiting point.”