[Lurker note: What do teens do for fun that adults don't approve of? I should add that.][/lurker note]
Noooooo, plaaaaay! Everybody needs to play.
What do teens do for fun that adults don't approve of?
tl;dr,
Question: What is the most popular form of entertainment in your setting? What are people just dying to do when then get off of work?
On the far-out steppes of the Kingdom of Mixúnith, the younger generation is doing something their elders find strange and alarming. They are converting to monotheism. Zelé, the southern faith, has been making coverts for years, predominantly among the urban classes and those who do business along the Salt Road. But the Three Tribes have resisted conversion, giving their devotion first to the ancestors, then to Mimau the Horse Goddess, then to the Old Gods, who are remote but still demand sacrifice. Sure, some of the clans have adopted Zelé trappings, and may even say prayers to the Lord of the Horizons when they've exhausted every other deity to turn to. But the tribes remain have they have always been; pragmatic and resistant to change.
But the new generation sees something in the southern faith their parents do not. Perhaps it is the urban sophistication they associated with the religion; the books and the brightly colored robes. Perhaps it is the promise of an afterlife, the Orchards of the Sun sound like a much better place to idle away eternity than a musty tomb, always being hounded by your descendants for advice (or a dark, nightmarish underworld if you are unlucky enough to have no descendants). And it would be impossible to ignore the fact that the faith gives young people an outlet from their families. Away from their clans, in gold leafed temples where their sweaty bodies are pressed all together with people from all the different tribes. Pretty fun, if your regular Saturday night is milking horses.
Or perhaps it is simply that the blood of the Old Gods is running thin in the veins of the Three Tribes. Traditions fade, and the steppe slowly becomes a pastureland for the Great South and the Chain of Cities.
The young understand faith in a way different from their parents, and that is what is most alarming. The Fire of the Sun is within them, they are made Calm. There is no room for the old ways, and some young converts reject their heritage in ways not even the Golden Book would ask them to. They lash out in fury and disavow their families, withdrawing the valuable support they can offer their tribe. There has been talk of young people desecrating tombs lately, which is the worst transgressions imaginable.
Among the more traditional tribes, the Xuhazno and the Naú on the Outer Steppe, people tell stories of youth being drawn in by the Zelé, idle and tempted by decadent southern ways. Perhaps even being enticed by something
evil. And they become more insular, more afraid of contamination. More protective of their young, and more distrustful of them.
For the first time, the concept of a 'pagan' exists, because the encroachment of the Zelé created it.
Mixúnith is a land built on traditions stretching back to the dawn of time, but as a nation it is only two generations old. Can it survive a war when the conflict is taking place within families?