I've always been a kind of GM that just threw in a church or temple convenient to the PC's cleric, but I'm wondering how you all handle this. Do you have multiple gods in a single town and if so, do their shrines/worship spaces all reside in a unified church or temple, or do you give them their own?
Generally speaking, my thought is that any town large enough to have a church or temple will have one dedicated to that town's patron deity, with the possibility of lesser shrines to other gods or goddess who the patron deity is on good terms with. Let's say you've got a temple of Cayden Cailean, set up as a roadside inn. It's in the middle of beer brewing country, so he's a very important god for all the local farmers, but there are also beekeepers and musicians in the area too, and since Cayden Cailean is on good terms with both Calistria and Shelyn, the innkeep has set up two side rooms off the main bar, one with a fresco of Cayden courting bad girl Calistria, the other with him courting good girl Shelyn. There is no shrine to Abadar because Abadar is the god of cities, and the inn is out in the country, and while it is a business, it isn't being run till every penny squeaks and does tricks.
Look at what makes sense for the area and put that there. The chances are that, outside of a major city, the party cleric is going to be the highest ranking member of his faith in any town they step into--and that's fine.
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Depends on the size of the town. A hamlet of 50 people is going to be lucky to have even one cleric - if there's a local holy person, it's probably an adept.
In a town sizable enough to have two or three clerics, I usually assume that these clerics serve different deities. I'd usually give them their own temple, or else give one a temple and the others shrines.
If the town has a large number of clerics I usually assume that one or two are dominant religions with several clerics and their own temples, and the others are smaller religions with individual shrines. For example, I built a large city with 29 clerics. 21 of these belonged to the dominant church (Abadar), 4 belonged to the secondary church of a homebrew god, and Pharasma, Cayden Cailean, and Iomedae had one cleric each. Abadar had a cathedral, the homebrew god had a small church, and the rest had small shrines. There was also a druidic shrine in the area.
Allied deities could easily share shrines within a single building, though I haven't done this in the past.
Almost all towns in my games have a temple devoted to the High Gods (three of them) which technically have their own religions, but they have the same origin and only differ on philosophical things (such as "which is more important: feeding the poor or preserving the landscape?), but there are a number of lesser deities that might be worshipped in a given area. They could be included in the same temple if they are associated with a higher god, or have their own shrine/temple.
Details: I've got a town of 3750 which is considered a Large Town by core book settlement standards. I'm using the core gods for their portfolios but since its not Golarion they don't have to be cannon. Anyway, the town is situated on a low hill along the bank of a river and overlooking a nearby "haunted bog".
For flavor I've already described a holy site - there was a battle against undead minions from the bogs a few decades ago which brought Pharasmin here and after the battle they marked one particular mound with a monument topped with a cold iron rod with the goddess' holy symbol.
Obviously Pharasma will be a thing, what w/the undead past and a big graveyard contained w/in the town but 1. should I have a single church or a couple and 2. should I put other deities in that church?
In the settlement stat block I also gave them the qualities Academic and Insular. This means that the spellcasting (already 5th level due to town size) got bumped to 8th level! There's no really remarkable industry or profession in the area. Essentially the town exists as a bulwark against the evils of the Beldam Bogs.
In some cases I use an oracle, rather than a cleric, as oracles tend to worship/acknowledge all the deities within a localized pantheon, or all the deities in a region, so that the oracles place of worship covers more than one god.
In some cases, like for my Kaidan (Japanese horror) setting, most people have altars in their own homes serving ancestral spirits and specific deities they serve that might be different than the local shrine or temple. So you don't need a divine class to represent every worshiped local deity.
Also, especially for smaller communities I use traveling clerics that serve multiple communities, and it may be true there are multiple traveling clerics so that services to different deities can be performed in the same community and not require a temple for each.
These all seem viable work-arounds for your consideration.
Contributor
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For a RW example of a polytheistic society:
In India, there is usually one shrine in a village, presided over by the village deity, a very specific emanation of a particular god (though in a fantasy setting, these gods or goddesses may be in fact be local fey). The shrine might also have small altars for associated gods or goddesses.
The towns will have temples to each of the gods, and the biggest temples are those founded by local rulers and rich families. But, as a bunch of the posts have indicated, a shrine or altar can be in a private home or just be a rock or a tree outside the settlement.
The impression I get is that Celtic polytheism was very similar.
In my campaigns, gods tend be called by their "right names" in the larger towns and cities and in the villages and hamlets have local versions, with different names and somewhat different emphases. That is, in some places they have a different consort or family than they usually do, and different associated animals, even a different domain.
I think if it's just the one god the town focuses on, at that size they only need one chourch.the town wjere I grew up was about that size, and though technically there were 4 on 1 street (all different Xhristian denominations) there was no need to have churches at a different location due to the town's size. The center of town was close enough for everyone.
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Jeff Erwin, interesting stuff.
It sounds like the town is inherently dominated by worship of Pharasma, so I'd give her clerics one main church, probably with more than one cleric with that level of spellcasting available. If you want you could add a cleric or two of other deities to the town (Nethys might fit), but they would have at best small shrines, and I think it's perfectly reasonable for this to be a one-god town, at least in terms of religious leaders.
A single church...center of town...with potentially one major deity and shrines to others. That idea seems to resonate with me personally, so that's what I'll do.
The town of Inderwick has a holy site and has its gradual settling around the creation of a monastery of the life-death philosophy of Pharasma. It makes sense that this plus the recurrence of a potential outbreak of undeath drew a Pharasmin cleric with some channeling to the site and that this priest decided to stay. This explains how not only Pharasma became the main patron but also how a tradition of teaching (monastery is like the old euro, not eastern, so monastery = education) led to the foundation of a university here.
Now to generate a mini-pantheon. Who would be allied with a death cycle goddess? Any gods from PF that strike you as particularly goth?
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Well, Pharasma doesn't really have any allies. I think Nethys or Irori both sound appropriate as secondary deities in a town with a university, depending on the bent of that university. Irori might be very monk-flavored, but he's also about enlightenment and self-improvement - you can re-name him and make it some sort of sect that splintered off if you want to tone down the monk associations. Or maybe add a deity appropriate to the town's history before Pharasma arrived and dominated the religious landscape. I also highly recommend making your own minor local deities - maybe a powerful hero died in battle with the undead and became a saint with his own following and a shrine at his grave.
I like Nethys in this scenario. The shrine will be nothing more than a lectern with an open book in a barred alcove surrounded with appropriate statuary. Irori though I'm not really feeling.
I do like the idea of some local demi-god or aspect of another god/goddess. There can be a sepulcher in the church, a knightly/paladin order and the fallen hero can be the original Pharasmin crusader who came to the region and first fought the undead and evil from the nearby bogs.
So if a player wants to be a cleric they can choose from Nethys or Pharasma. If they want to be a paladin however they can choose to be of the Order of Saint Blah Blah Blah. Services are on set days of the year significant to the saint, but otherwise there's no formalized religion around him so no cleric on hand to train others.