You could relabel deities as conduits to Haemothurge, as a connection to Haemothurge is infeasible due to the sheer thaumic energy the Haemothurge possessess would fry the mortals who try to glean from the Haemothurge. What thaumic knowledge they could siphon from the Haemothurge would be too advanced, and would be like giving the blueprints of a steel mill to civilization that has not progressed past the stone age. Each conduit could embody a different facet of the Haemothurge. Some deities I see repeating in the worlds I generate are like 'the dead' or 'the general.' You could even tie into your quote about how "Saints/Haemomagi are humans who have reached the peak of power that also allows them to keep their humanity," with reaching the position of a conduit being a step further beyond, transcending humanity and become closer with the Haemothurge. Although I guess this explanation won't explain why some gods are portrayed as beakrats, animals, and things that the lore states are detestable.
Beyond my mad and more likely than not idiotic ramblings about deities, why do some human civilizations not respect or hold in low regard power and martial prowesses? I know that human civilizations in The Red Age are varied but the heroic archetype has both pride and wrath.
Edit:
Is the gorgon secret supposed to lower your stats in exchange for the powers? When I became a part of the choir my strength, agility, toughness, and endurance plummeted.
Also, before becoming a choir priest myself I fought some in a multitude of populated fortresses. The fight would go like this, I engage them in mortal combat, they scream and summon a gorgon spawn who would kill somebody who the choir priest would reanimate. This becomes a problem because three of their four reanimations bring the dead back to life with intelligence, who would then attack the choir priest as they retained their loyalty due to their intelligence. This became especially egregious if they reanimate somebody as a blooming one. The reanimated blooming one would summon a gorgon spawn, who would attack everybody else due to being opposed to life, leading to the blooming one attacking everybody including the choir priest who reanimated them. During this combat, the fortress inhabitants would fight the gorgon spawn and due to that being allied with the choir priest, would end up fighting the choir priest itself. While enacting mob rule several of the citizens of the fort would end up biting and sucking the ichor out of the summoned gorgon spawn, joining the choir. If they did join the choir, it didn't show up on their names that they were choir priests. A fun anecdote I wished to share with the class.
