Another idea that struck me while writing an AAR.

[Ballbarian]

A pretender should have an effect on the unrest of a province. I'm not saying it should be a large effect, but it only makes sense that when the pretender is walking among his people, their morale would increase. Even if it's a god who is evil and has turmoil scales, he is still among his fanatical worshippers, and he has the power to break their wills better than a mortal army could.

I like this idea. I don't see it as unbalancing or messing up scales since it can only ever affect a single province, not the god's entire dominion. A subtle shift of focus giving pretender gods slightly more influence by their mere presence in a province. On the other hand, what a dilemma. Do I stay safely in my fortress leveraging my god's research points, or move him to the province next door where a bad event has caused incredibly high unrest. Sure, I could send my death squads in and slaughter the unruly populace, but that hurts my income in the long run...