>>31448785>my idea is that cities, towns and villages form around a shrine or holy site for a Kami or near to itYes, this is often how towns in Japan formed. I don't know how closely you plan to follow Shintoism -- will you be adapting many of its practices, or do you only plan to use it as a foundation to create your own religion wholesale? If you're adapting it more closely, look into the concept of shintai. These are physical objects within which a part of the kami's spirit -- known as the mitama -- is believed to dwell. Much like chuubanite is the bridge between Vitubia's Heavenly Realm and the Earthly, shintai are believed to be the bridge between kami and the physical world. Now, to tie this into the development of your religion, consider the concept of yorishiro -- that is, objects naturally capable of attracting kami. IRL many shintai are manmade -- mirrors, swords, etc -- but some are formed from kami choosing to dwell in a yorishiro.
Shintoism is a religion heavily rooted in the Japanese ideal of nature, which differs from the Western ideals quite a bit, and the yorishiro are derived from those ideals. The word which is translated as "nature," shizen, actually used to mean "all things between heaven and earth," and it wasn't until around the time of the Meiji and Japan's westernization that it began to be associated with "nature" as we tend to think of it. It's a somewhat vague concept, but this is a decent look at the subject:
https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-aesthetic-harmony-of-japanese-nature/But the tl;dr is that a thing's natural beauty is closely tied to its spirituality. Kami are the spirits that dwell in nature and are the cause of all natural phenomena. Yorishiro are things like century old trees, crashing waterfalls and so on. To return to the idea of shintai -- in Vitubia, I think it'd be quite natural for shintai to be chuubanite objects, with many of them being naturally occuring objects as suits the liver. A shrine for Mito, for example, may be built around a moonlit pond which seems to glow in the night. The water contained in the pond is actually Mito-chuubanite, but in-universe, this is considered a sacred spring said to house a piece of Mito's mitama. If people wish to build a new shrine to Mito, they would take some of this water to "split" the mitama and enshrine it in the new location. Please look into "kanjo" for more information on this process. The locations of your towns will therefore be heavily influenced by your landscape.
>>31448918>I think some of the bigger chuubas likely have shared shrinesWhether a shrine is shared should be based more on unit/group dynamics than the size of the chuuba's fanbase. But indeed, the concept of shared shrines is common in IRL Shinto. Take the Susa Shrine for example, where Susanoo is worshipped as the primary deity, but his lover Kushinadahime and her parents are worshipped as well. Wavemates, collab units, etc -- these likely all have shrines dedicated to them, because people who are fans of one chuuba in the group are often fans of the others too. Most posters who like Akina also like Fuwa, for example, so many shrines dedicated to Akina will also worship Fuwa as an auxiliary deity and vice versa.
Again,, I strongly encourage looking into IRL Shintoism and taking a look at how shrines (Shinto) and temples (Buddhist) are set up in Japan. The suggestion for /2434/ to practice a religion based on Shinto wasn't simply done on a whim or because "Japanese!"
>>31450272It should be perfectly fine, desu. Locations sharing the same overall culture doesn't mean they're homogenous. Look at IRL countries -- often if you move far enough north/south, or east/west the local culture becomes completely unrecognizable from its most distant neighbor.