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[Maloy]

I'm approaching this subject a bit with learning from classes I had years ago, but also largely from personal travels to isolated parts of the real world

To give context for the first Idea: If I go to a part of the world where they still worship ancestor spirits and they learn I am from any western nation. Many of them believe that western nations and everyone in them worships the western God (Christianity) obviously that doesn't reflect reality, but for them that is regional. The Christian God only rules in western nations and that is where his power exists, but here in, wherever we are, the ancestors hold power over this region and so we worship them

In older days that would often lead to groups converting to the local religion when they would immigrate there

1a. Upon embarking on a fort if the area has a local religion such as worshipping a forest titan some dwarves may decide to convert to that religion, and may even pick up relevant values if they are different enough

1b. This can lead to religious confrontation if certain requirements are met; such as their being local organized religious groups with leaders. These leaders may react negatively to the conversion outside the pantheon or the local religion might react negatively to the invasion of these new religious beliefs and can lead to conflicts and rivalries

2. A civilization during world gen has it's default gods based around the race and sometimes the primary religion of a civilization changes with recent updates, but now a civilization officially picks approved and accepted religions. This is because in most non-western nations one's religious belief is directly tied to one's national identity. You may be seen as a national traitor by converting out(even if it is to convert to nothing at all). In practice this would just make the possibility of rivalries higher. I think a religious persecution system might be a downer


3. Deification that already exists in game. Titan rampages? Now he is god of murder. It already exists, but I see it only exists for immortal mega-beasts

what about Urist? He successfully defeated the invasion of the HFS when the dwarves dug too deep and lived to a ripe old age. Realistically he would probably be the source of worship if people are willing to worship a giant monster with animal level intellect

Now Urist who defeated the end of everything is the god of bravery, determination, etc

[Azerty]

Titular deities are indeed a good idea to implement.

We could see a river deity asking for worship in exchange for not flooding its valley, or an ocean god protecting its worshippers from any storm.

Some might even be created in the course of the game: if a site is built then a tutelar deity might be created. You mentioned hero worship: we should expend this.

We could associate this notion with the one of avatar, with, for exemple, a river deity whose one of his aspects would be to be a tutelary deity for the local river.

[NW_Kohaku]

What's just as interesting is that local deities in these forms of animist deities tended to be based upon specific villages and cities.  When tribes of multiple villages sprang up, polytheism occurred as a way to explain that actually, your local deity is a brother or sister of our local deity.  Oh, but we conquered your village with our mighty city, so obviously, your village's god is a child compared to our daddy god.

For example, when there was a rivalry between Sparta and Athens, it was reflected in the conflict between their deities, Ares and Athena both contesting for the title of god(ess) of war, with both deities personifying the two cultures different view on how war should be enacted.

The Babylonian pantheon was even more strange, as Marduk was made the highest god of the pantheon in spite of not really being god of anything in the way that Zeus was god of the skies, but Marduk was god of Babylon (the city, not the empire), so therefore, he was top god. 

Greco-Roman Gods would rise and fall out of the pantheon's top 12 based in large part upon which cities were the most economically powerful.

In fact, if you look at early Judaism, it is largely distinguished by being a local religion (YHWH was "god of the mountain") that had a strict "no other gods before me" clause that only eventually developed into monotheism.