Occurred to me today that the comment about the subjugglators being an “obscure cult” could be read not necessarily as an inconsistency but as deliberate disinformation.
Trolls as a whole seem to be largely areligious, and mandatory areligion is a common trait among authoritarian personality cults like the Alternian empire is. One could take this as indicating that the subjugglators are on the surface level secretive about their religiosity so as to fly under the radar of imperial anti-religion laws. It could also operate on a more public level in the sense that it’s probably easier to do your job as a government-puppeting secret society if everybody thinks you’re just a bunch of harmless wacky cultists from the neighbourhood next over.