What is the point of "Ascend Follower Ritual"?

[Russell]

Ascend Follower Ritual
Perform a Ritual at your temple in which you can ascend a Follower's spirit to a higher plane of existence. All Followers gain Loyalty.

It's a friendlier version of sacrifice? When is it useful?
I can only think that you use it on old followers to not get the debuff when they die (and not need a grave.) But if you have "believe if afterlife" then is this useless?

Also you have followers asking to marry you, asking to be sacrificed, but never this?
Are there no consequences for this down the line?
It feels underdeveloped.

[Anthracite]

If you choose The Good Die Young Trait it's very helpful to avoid negative faith from elders dying naturally, and it gives a lot of faith and loyalty. I usually ascend "special" followers and keep the rest for food or fertiliser.

[GeoB99]

Originally posted by Russell:

It's a friendlier version of sacrifice? When is it useful?
I can only think that you use it on old followers to not get the debuff when they die (and not need a grave.) But if you have "believe if afterlife" then is this useless?

Kind of, yeah. The "Ascend Follower" ritual is the opposite of "Sacrifice of the Flesh" in the spectrum. The difference is what kind of rewards you get, the latter gives you more XP and unlock new stuff (or so I've been told) whereas the former gains you a boost in faith and loyalty for all followers.

Both of them are useful, it just depends on how you set up your cult and what doctrines you chose. With Belief in Afterlife your followers won't be comfortable with you sacrificing a follower so make sure you have ways to replenish that lost of amount of faith, the Inspire ability can help on that.