Suppose I'm a priestess. I'm not, but bear with me: Suppose I'm a priestess of Mityara who's reached ninth level, gained the honourable title of 'Matriarch,' claimed a few hexes of territory, built a cloister, and started collecting taxes. Suppose that every month, I dutifully count out one-tenth of my combined income from taxes, land revenue, and services, pack it into chests and bags, and pay it as a tithe. Where does this money go? As far as I can tell, it just vanishes into thin air.
It doesn't go to training new priestesses; I've been doing that myself as per the rules on page 37 of the Player's Companion, and have never recieved any payment for it.
It doesn't go to building new cloisters; When pressed, the matriarch of my former cloister referred me back to page 37 again, and said she paid for my cloister out of her own pocket.
It doesn't seem to go into sacrifices to Mityara - or at least, no-one seems to be recieving reserve XP for making sacrifices to Her.
It doesn't seem to go into charitable works, either; I've seen no evidence that any particular realm is gathering vast amounts of congregants by throwing tithe money around - though I admit I've never been to visit holy Aura in person, so maybe it's being spent there?
I just can't imagine what all that money is for. Almost every domain in the empire is paying a full tenth of its income in tithes to some faith or other; Surely it's not just being lumped into piles and ignored! As a priestess, who am I paying my tithe to, and what are they doing with the money?
(Also, is there any way to become the person who recieves all those tithes? I keep thinking of all the longevity potions good works I could spend that gold on...)