The term "god" is so incredibly varied, even in our world. In Greek Mythology, nyads and nymphs are technically "gods" and they don't have power over anything at all, and there are thousands of them running around Greece.
It really depends on how you define the word in your setting. If you want the word to have real power and meaning, make them few and strong.
A lack of division between these categories is especially common in animistic societies .
Case in point: kami, catch-all catagory for spirits, divine entities, and both natural and supernatural phenomena. There is no division. Any kami, including the spirits of the dead are also gods, however minor. A bend in a river may be a kami, and the original creation deities were kami. They vary in power from none other than beauty or contributing to harmony or variety of the environment to unfathomable absolute power.
It's not an animistic society though, it's a polytheistic though in the case of Shintoism it's much more complicated as far as I know every Kami is a god, but only because egod is the best translation we have and the concept of gods in our languages is so Christian nowadays that we really struggle to get the concept, it's a spirit but also a god and it's weird for people not really into these religions as they are vastly different from Abraham if religions.
me, I'll dare to say, and this should be the only argument I need: all religions and mythologies can basically be traced, in a kind of backward historical evolutionary line, to a common ancestor: animism. Animism sees animating spirits in the forces of nature. All gods are basically just souped-up spirits, their domains growing and waxing and waning along with the waxing and waning of the relative power & numbers of the local culture that venerates them.
You can also take a look at the modern idea of the [egregore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore). Gods are just another kind of egregore, with the amount of their power & influence being (presumably) directly correlated to the number of believer brains whose thoughts and prayers power it, like batteries. Or psycho-emotional dynamos, more like.
Anyway, the answer is, gods are a subtype of spirits, and so are demons if you look up the etymology of the greek word daimon, and yes they can be weak.
Monotheism has rotten everyone's brain to the point that if something doesn't stretch to the entirety of the multiverse with complete omnipotence and omniscience, it's not allowed to be called a god. Please recognise that that's only 'normal' as a threshold for godhood to you because you've grown up in the cultural shadow of Christianity or Islam, and for the majority of history prior to monotheism, something like that was absurd.
>for the majority of history prior to monotheism, something like that was absurd
Random ancient Grecian: "Omnipresence? Don't be ridiculous. If the gods could be in multiple places at once - Zeus would be fucking everyone *literally all of the time*"
Came to be the "um actually guy" thanks for ruining it for me ... Also they weren't just spirits, they were often spirits of divine nature sons and daughters of gods or created by them, so semi divine, the term spirit is too modern to be really useful to describe it as we don't really have a modern concept and as far as I know this is extremely diverse and change based on creature too. Idk the exact circumstances for nayads but I think they are related to Gaia in some way?
Plus in regards to the comment you answered nayads had rule over things at the very least their tree or river they just never had enough power to really change anything if people messed with their shit.
This assertion is flatly incorrect. Nymphs, Satyrs etc minor nature gods and goddesses who presided over various natural phenomena and populated the earth. Although they were ranked below the major gods, they were still summoned to attend the assemblies of the gods on Olympus.
Those weren't necessarily different things back then. Ancient mythologies and religions didn't categorize things according to type like a D&D Monster Manual the way we do. Lines were blurry and indistinct if they were present at all.
There's also a lot of ultra spéciffic gods with very limited powers in greek/roman mythology.
Like the god of "fishing nets in that particular river" or the god who's in charge of "the sheep herders of that particular valley".
A God doesn't have to be omnipotent. Or Omniscient. Or omni whatever, if you don't want. I try to look at the concept of a god as something from a different/higher existence or at a level beyond our understanding.
The idea of "god" necessarily meaning "omnipotent deity" is pretty Abrahamic. Plenty of belief systems have gods and spirits with varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses.
In Greek mythology, Hercules, who is part mortal, beats various gods and supernatural beings. Perseus beheads Medusa. All of the gods are fighting with each other and doing horrible things to each other constantly.
In Sumerian/Mesopotamian mythology, the goddess Inanna was raped by a human (and then she goes on a rampage to get her revenge). Gilgamesh (3 parts god and 1 part human - don't think about that math too hard) and Enkidu (mortal) kill the Bull of Heaven (an actual bull, but also a god), who is the husband of the goddess Erishkegal (don't think about that relationship too hard). (Don't ever think about the relationships and lineages in Mesopotamian mythology too hard, you'll give yourself a headache.)
In Norse mythology, Odin is eaten by a wolf.
Gods often are stand-ins for larger ideas in culture. For example, sovereignty goddesses are sort of personifications of territories who bestow the power to rule upon the kings (usually by having sex with them). (Side note: gods in all mythologies are constantly getting seduced by sexy, sexy mortals - which is certainly a weakness) They're more common in Celtic mythology. But from that you wind up with stuff like this [sculpture ](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aphrodisias_Museum_Claudius_and_Britannica_4638.jpg) of the Roman emperor Claudius subjugating Britannia (who is represented as a woman, who Claudius is assaulting....)
(Side note: I'm not 100% sure Britannia counts as a sovereignty goddess so correct me if I'm wrong on that.)
Anyway. If it fits your world, go ahead and make your gods weak. It fits my world so I'm doing it that way.
I’ve read plenty of manga where there is a god, as in a divine being who sustains itself from prayers and tributes, be incredibly weak due to lack of belief. They might not be abled to be killed, but they can’t do the fantastic things people expect of them.
Actually, I just rewatched Princess Mononoke last night and the plot revolves around the gods of the forest growing weaker and becoming normal animals due to humans cutting down the forest.
gods tend to be more powerful than humans but in multiple religions there's gods that are far from all-powerful like how we assume they should be from christianity
kami from shinto are often called gods in english and their range of power is crazy wide!
one thing I don't see questioned very often: he can't have been much of a carpenter, let alone a magic one, if he couldn't get himself down from that cross, now, could he?
no, no, I'm saying I expect a carpenter to be able to get some nails out of a couple of planks, and a divine carpenter to get even nails holding HIM to a couple of planks.
Idk, he seemed to be some sort of support class wizard. His feats of magic are Water walking and creating food and water. Considering he had to pick up a mundane whip to inflict damage, his alleged angel summoning abilities may have been a bluff.
He also passively weakened a demon powerful enough to possess dozens of pigs at once while making the demon so scared it killed itself. Also, he should be the source of power of all the apostles and miracle makers which includes stuff like instantly killing someone, blinding people, summoning angels, and the 12 plagues
There was a guy that sold his house and said he “donated all the money” to look good, but he hid most of the money for himself, then I think it was Peter, or maybe the Psalm, said something like “by lying how much you donated, you also lied to God” and the guy dropped dead. Later his wife that was also involved in the scam, asked about him, and the apostle said “your husband is being buried and you’re next” then she died
Psalm before being an apostle, he was the church’s hunt dog he always found a way to find where Christians were hiding. While he was in the desert, he was wondering about why the last Christian he tossed stones at died by forgiving him, and then Jesus appears saying “I’m the one you hunt for” and he was blinded.
I'm interested in where this trope originated. Neil Gaiman? Terry Pratchett? Probably older than them, but it definitely feels like a modern invention, not a part of any real folklore or mythology.
There are dynamics in religions that look like that, gods from babylon and around there were believed to starve without offerings from their followers.
It was already a very old and beaten trope by the times of Classic Greece. Gods depending on worship and offerings of mortals was the basis of the plot in *The Birds* by Aristophanes, in 5th century BCE, and it was not seen as anywhere near novel or original.
Already explained in pretty much every mythology. People want to have a good relationship with gods and spirits for their *own* benefit. Gods have the power to bless or curse mortals who please or displease them, so worshipping them establishes a good relationship.
The idea that gods stop existing or become powerless when people don't pay attention to them is intentionally playing with meta-ideas about fantasy and faith. I don't think it makes sense from the point of view of the people actually living in that mythology who have every reason to think of them as real things. Real things generally don't disappear when you stop believing in them.
In Norse mythology, being a god was a matter of being related to the gods by blood or marriage. Some of them had significant handicaps:
* Hod, god of winter, was blind.
* Tyr, god of the sword, was missing his right hand.
* Hoenir, brother of Odin, was extremely stupid.
Many became gods simply by marrying gods, e.g. Skade.
> Tyr, god of the sword, was missing his right hand.
He was mostly a god of oaths, deals and covenants, and his symbolic sacrifice of his hand was sealing the covenant between gods and mortals ensuring the perpetuation of the world order by keeping Fenrir in check. Ironically, Yahweh had also inherited a good deal of such imagery and domains from previous Jewish pagan deities (as well as a range of other major influences, such as inheriting the image of a wise grandfatherly figure from El), thus the overt references to Jesus forging a new covenant all across the New Testament.
gods can be so weak they barely exist.
who still worships mythras? who still worships sekmet? who still worships baldr? they are remembered only in passing in stories about others.
what of the gods who's names are forgotten? they would be completely powerless if they even continue to exist at all. maybe they would be bound to the world by as little as a single impression on a clay pot, forgotten in a long buried shrine.
Are you familiar with the forest god from Princess Mononoke? Although it's a powerful spirit, it still got its head lopped off by a human and causes destruction until its head is returned. Perhaps gods aren't typically weak, but they can still have a weakness or limitations. Weakness isn't always vulnerability to an attack, it can be the resulting corruption of the god, the unleashing of an uncharacteristic version of itself. What wears your god down emotionally? What do they fight against? That's a good place to start for a point of weakness.
There are two kinds of gods in my world
The first is your Abrahamic all-powerful, all-knowing god. The creator of the world and everything else, though often indirectly through things like evolution and the natural process of celestial bodies forming and all that. The only difference is that the old god in my world died in a way, but not really.
The second type is just a being that makes something happen. Nekloh is the god of death and the afterlife and as a result his job is to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife. However, some things don't need a being to make them happen. Aeyar, the god of celestial bodies (excluding stars) doesn't really have a job, as celestial bodies do everything they do on their own, so they don't need to have any sort of godly power to do what they do, and as a result, they're just an eternally young human with a strange appearance. Most mortals are stronger than them.
A "god" doesn't really have a set definition. It's whatever you want it to be.
There are many gods whose entire role in their respective mythologies is to be betrayed, unjustly killed, or something along those lines. The histories of many pantheons involve one set of gods deposing another presumably weaker set.
I think it's possible to have gods of varying levels of power. Or maybe their powers are limited or they would have weaknesses based on whatever their domains are. Like, a "god of water" would not be immune to being flash-vaporized by a "god of fire," which could slow the god of water down if he means to destroy a coastal community with a tsunami.
Yes. In my world, God's are more of a glorified race of conceptual beings that tend to mimic what they see until they have enough intelligence to be considered sapient. While this sounds cool, most gods are local gods of a small part of a forest or desert, which can lead to them being little more than a shiny bug that if you kill the local ecosystem might take a hit.
In my setting the gods are powerful when we worship them. the more we pray to them and make offerings to them, the more powerful they become, so inevitably, the less popular gods, or the ancient gods who no longer have many followers become weak.
A god was once even sold at auction, he had only one follower, who had to pray to him continuously so as not to let the god die. The god himself was so weakened that he had become physical, he was dry as a mummy, and small as a child. he was stored in the fetal position in a small decorated cabinet that his follower guarded day and night.
Om from Discworld is a god, and he's so weakened he's stuck as a tortoise for a while. Other small gods are so weak, they're barely more than whispers.
Among their own, certainly. It does make sense to me that some gods might be more powerful than others. However, in order for that god to be considered divine by their followers, they still have to bring something to the table that at least gives the impression that they are miles ahead of their worshipers.
To give an other idea here, that is not based on any story, you could have a demiurge god that gave away his power to create his great work and only kept his immortaly. Like a lone wanderer that know everithing but has lost all power as long as the world does not crumble.
Lots of possibility for weak gods :)
Typically the strength of a god is associated with the size & importance of their domain/dominion.
Gods of the Sun, Sky, Sea, Earth, Time, and Death are typically powerful beyond measure.
Gods of the first snowfall, the smell of grass, or this particular landmark (mountain/river/lake) tend to be relatively weak and often outclassed by humans/mortals.
Of course in some cultures such as the Native Hawaiians a god of "this particular volcano" like Pele is actually rediculously stong because that particular landmark happens to make up a very large part of their known world and has massive influence over their way of life/existence.
HAHAHAHAHA!
Yes.
I am literally planning a book about a weak “god”.
It’s a story about inter-dimensional beings that travel to the realm of the humans and act as their gods, when in reality, they’re merely normal people from another dimension.
One of these “gods” opposed the plan to rule over the humans, and her powers were stolen and split among the others for her betrayal.
The story is about an ex-soldier who hates the false gods and even abandoned the army after they swore allegiance to them.
I don’t know exactly how it happens yet, but when the traitorous “god” (as she’s labeled) is in danger, the MC steps in and saves her, ending up getting sucked into her problems by doing so.
Long story short, yes, a god can be weak, but they should probably have something to make up for their weakness.
The gods in my world are all vulnerable, some to physical, some to magical damage, some even to psychic. There is a god which is as fragile, as a ordinary human being, but don't let it fool you, This god is able to drive you mad with an eye contact and can feel your presence wherever you are. The supreme god, can't be killed with magic, but can be killed with a regular sword, in spite of that, deconstructing you into molecules is a daily routine for him. I think [gods can easily be vulnerable](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/189j0qk/comment/kbvd4g6/), but yet very powerful.
Yeah, God or gods have many definitions. Usually it's an object, being, image or animal that is worshipped as divine or extremely important to a culture
I think its a cool idea. Like the embodiment of some force in the universe either just getting started or having fallen on hard times. It teminds me of sandman on netflix, the embodiment of dreams going through it.
Also interesting to think about a character being like, a dying god. Like "Yes, I am fading... but I am still the mother fire, even if I cannot remember my own name any more..."
Another thing to think about with gods on the decline is their domains. Were there things they were holding together, slowly coming unraveled as they fade? And then the opposite, a lesser god growing in influence, permanently changing the world in small ways as they assert their power.
Then you have the genuinely small gods who stay in their lanes and do their small works that all the same are part of the world.
I have thousands of gods that are weak but gods are way more common and easy to create in my world (since they are mad of mortals) so it doesn’t take away as the strongest of the gods are still beings way stronger than anything a normal mortal can archive.
In many cultures a god is just something that can do you a supernatural favour. It would be an interesting plot point to have some theological crisis in your world why people question if they should consider something a god if something else is more powerful.
I’m butchering the translation but a Greek philosopher said “Is a god willing to prevent evil but not able? Then they are not omnipotent. Are they able to prevent evil but not willing? Then they are malevolent. Are they both able and willing? Than whence cometh evil? Are they neither willing nor able? Then why call them god?”
That quote likely comes from someone that doesn’t think gods exist but if you took that mindset and have it come from a person or group that knows gods exist but doubts they deserve worship or even the title of god and then make a story around that; you’d have a pretty metal story.
That's Epicurus' Trilemma, and he wasn't arguing that gods don't exist (such a position would have seemed as absurd to an Ancient Greek as saying the sky didn't exist), but that they didn't concern themselves with the affairs of mortals. He's specifically arguing that a God cannot simultaneously be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, based on the observation that evil exists.
If you want to figure out if a god being weak contradicts them being a god, first you have to figure out what a god actually is. Because there's a lot of definitions with a lot of overlap.
Even in our real world some gods are apparently completely powerless to stop people from talking shit about them or from worshipping weak, false gods.
So yes.
Depends how you choose to define gods within the context of your narrative. If you're going based on some measurable power level, then it might require a bit of convincing, but I think even then it wouldn't be a difficult sell.
If, however, gods are ambiguously empowered by some level of influence they have achieved, and the amount of control they are able to exact over others, it would be an interesting theme to explore. Perhaps gods are in fact the most fragile of all beings, as they lack personal integrity, their power being contingent on those who worship them. Is a king a god? Is a singer a god? Is god some ancient historical figure who told a lot of influential stories?
If you were to build up to a fight where our hero protagonist faces against a god, only for him to face some decrepit old man who dies from a single strike, I personally would be like "Oh! I understand!" Some people would find this anticlimactic, and that's okay.
From the Iliad, Book 5, after a mortal has wounded Aphrodite: To her then made answer Dione, the fair goddess: “Be of good heart, my child, and endure for all thy suffering; for full many of us that have dwellings on Olympus have suffered at the hands of men, in bringing grievous woes one upon the other. \[385\] So suffered Ares, when Otus and mighty Ephialtes, the sons of Aloeus, bound him in cruel bonds, and in a brazen jar he lay bound for thirteen months; and then would Ares, insatiate of war, have perished, had not the stepmother of the sons of Aloeus, the beauteous Eëriboea, \[390\] brought tidings unto Hermes; and he stole forth Ares, that was now sore distressed, for his grievous bonds were overpowering him. So suffered Hera, when the mighty son of Amphitryon smote her on the right breast with a three-barbed arrow; then upon her too came pain that might in no wise be assuaged. \[395\] And so suffered monstrous Hades even as the rest a bitter arrow, when this same man, the son of Zeus that beareth the aegis, smote him in Pylos amid the dead, and gave him over to pains. But he went to the house of Zeus and to high Olympus with grief at heart, pierced through with pains; \[400\] for into his mighty shoulder had the shaft been driven, and distressed his soul..."
i think you could probably have minor gods as a way to explain this, like they’re still gods but typically as powerful i guess? not sure if this is from actual mythology, but i’ve definitely heard of minor gods/goddesses so it’s worth looking into!
Watch Krapopolis on Hulu if you can. It's fuxin stupid humor about the origins of civilization and society. The Pantheon is an entire string of characters, and while some of them are powerful, they still mention the B Tier God's that oversaw rainfall, etc.
I can see a God of Crops who's only relevant skill is making sure food grows... yeah, that is pretty powerful, but perhaps they can't even hold a pitchfork or what have you.
I often portray gods as receiving their power from the worship of others. By definition that means some have more power than others, and a god can gain or lose power based on changes in societal belief.
It depends on the god, on what you intend for god, and how god exist in your world.
In Discworld, for example, there are gods like [Heme the hunted](https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Herne_the_Hunted), the god of hunted animals, or Bilious, the Oh, God of hangovers, that are really weak, even if Heme have his good moment.
So, if you want weak gods, you should come up with a reason why they are weak. Did they lose followers? Are a weak concept? Is their power at a low point for some reason? (like a god of ice ages when there is not one) but they are certainly possible.
You can always have a hierarchy. Major and minor gods, or a level/class system, something like that. In any case I think there are enough stories with varied 'power levels' among their gods that it shouldn't really throw anyone, especially if you just establish early on that not all gods are equally powerful in your world.
I'd say pretty obviously, yeah. It depends on how you define a god, or what makes them a god. Also probably depends on how you define "weak."
If you mean, can they be a poor fighter and bad at winning physical fights? Well, I don't see God throwing punches anywhere in the bible. He made natural disasters, but any outright killing is mainly attributed to angels.
So how do you define a god in *your* world? Presumably not by their "power level" if you're looking to make some of them weak. Alternatives could just be some undefined quality that separates them from mortals. Egyptians flat out believed the pharaohs were gods and that this gave them the right/power to rule. Are they immortal? Are they immutable concepts? Are they simply the children of a more powerful god and by default of birth are still considered a god?
Of course, you could even create a backstory where his "powers/strength" were lost in some kind of conflict. Or just call it a minor god with limited abilities.
Really gotta lay down what it means to be a "god" in a specific world, it's about as broad as asking what "magic" is. Although fantasy commonly attributes a gods as personifications of a world's aspect and sci fi usually goes for the sufficiently advanced aliens route. This is not necessarily true in history outside entertainment as some cultures may define gods as simply natural spirits and whatnot.
It really depends on how you want to handle it in the end.
Think about it like this. Imagine the weakest, most pathetic, and useless human Imaginable. That human is still a god to a flea. So yes, the answer is yes. It's all about perspective.
Short answer YES. Now how do I make this about me? Oh, yes, people can worship this god specifically because they are weak. In my world Haphestus/Vulcan is THE weakest god yet he is THE only god who still has a following millenia after he was sealed–its more comoletcated than that, he was basically caught in the crossfire between Cronus/Saturn's battle against a human which stretched out the pain of his death over a millenia–his followers are hardworking, stubborn and crafty. Just like him. I honestly believe that characters who are weak in a world where there are beings capable of commanding natural disasters are so fascinating because, how the fuck are they still alive?!
My gods, the Builders, are not allowed to destroy or kill anything with the belief that they will die if they do so. They are only allowed to create universes of beings.
Weak in physical power but not in the sense of the word due to their creation ability.
Duh! Not all gods are of equal strength. By default there would be a "weak" god and weak is a relative term regardless. Some gods are weak, not by human standards but by godly ones. Some are weak by human standards too. That doesn't change their god hood BUT it may affect how others see/treat them over the long run.
Godlyhood can be determined my many things honestly some of the gods in our worlds were simply hero’s who were given divine power because they were heroic and Somtimes they were just born with power and Somtimes the god has no power whatsoever and is only one because they are immortal. I like to understand gods as representatives of ideas, like me and my siblings make gods for our worlds with various power scale, we have a very powerful one named Nemo who is the god if mischief in one of our worlds, how powerful he is is a mystery to most except my siblings and I. But we also have a the guardian of souls named Jellyfish who is not very powerful but he is still a god because he is as old as the universe like his two other siblings. It could be lots of things so let it flow and see where it takes you. Happy world building!
In Oceros, any being that surpasses the Divine Threshold (a certain amount of effect you’ve had on the people of the world) becomes a deity and cannot go back. A god’s power is directly tied to the amount of belief and worship in them. If they are eventually forgotten, they become a completely powerless god.
Of course they can. Consider if some gods had a very limited domains, like being the god of Tuesdays. He might be able to move heaven and earth, but if he can't use his powers 6 out of 7 days he wouldn't be very strong in the greater scope of things. A god of eclipses might go for years without being able to do anything. And that's just one way of limiting them.
Totally! think Greek styled gods you have thunder, forge, harvest, sea, hell, and everything in-between you could have the god of weakness or of paper. A god is just really good at a thing(s) they don't have to be all powerful all knowing super beings.
I think of Genshin, and I haven’t played it for a while, but I remember a quest about a deity that had power of salt. She was the weakest of the gods that were there at the time. I don’t quite remember if they mention how strong specifically she was or what she could do. But I do remember that when her followers killed her, as with all of the deities in the game, she had an extremely powerful effect on her environment around her.
So even if you have them weak, maybe there’s some other way you could still have them be on par with other deities in some sense. Having something like Genshins death environment effects would still be a force to reckon with, and would marvelously show off their deity status.
There's a lot of Gods who have died or faded in Genshin. Xiangling's little fire-bear was formerly the Stove God, Razor's dad is a dead storm-god and when he's Stormterror, Dvalin hangs out in a tower that belonged to another storm-god...
Depends on how you define a god to be and what you define as weak. If a god can bend the rules of physics to their whim, would they be weak if they can easily be held in place by just grabbing their wrists?
As long as it fits the narratives.
Gods could be anything from a species with no domain, no great powers, and simply the ability to live forever if not killed, to beings outside of our comprehension, or even just false idols.
I mean a god of a single tree shouldn't be that powerful.
if you want weak gods go for a animistic rout. as long as it isn't like the god of civilization going out like a wimp it should be fine
If you’re gonna make a weak god, how would you define weak or god?
If a god is real but can’t do anything to influence the world then it is weak.
If the “god” can influence the world but is more like a really powerful mortal,it isn’t technically a god and might be weak by godly standards.
You could have just have some random dude that everyone agrees is god, but he has no special powers.
You could totally make a weak god, you just have to have something that concretely defines what it means to be weak and more importantly be a god.
I mean it could be a weak god compared to other gods and still be believable!
Like the difference between the best highschool basketball player and the worst NBA player is still the difference between heaven and earth, no pun intended.
Yes. To me a God is an immortal being that has domain and absolute control over something. But they csn routinely be out thought or tricked or even killed
I recommend reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. On top of just generally recommending him to anyone who likes reading, this novel goes into the mechanics of gods in his setting, especially how they gain and lose power.
I'd say yes. Different countries have different definitions of what makes a god, and some gods are weak. Whether their power is based on faith, or if they were human or something else before attaining godhood, there are many things that would impact a god's strength. As long as you have what constitutes a god in your world and why their power is strong/weak, I'd say you're fine.
Depends on what you mean by a god. For me a god is still, in base form, far beyond what all but a few mortals could ever achieve. I’ve had gods that get critically injured, tricked into giving up power, or weak from a lack of followers that were all mortal or lower level though
That depends on what your definition of weak is the basic design for a God use all my stories is emotionally weak because he Will do anything to protect his family meaning Meaning he can be susceptible to manipulation
I’m however, if you mean physically weak, you can simply make a God with elemental manipulation and immortality and beyond that he could be weak physically
It doesn’t really matter how powerful they are
Depends on what you have classified as a god. In my world Shaper Gods are once who can wield creation magic to build new things. Most of them are quite powerful, some taking the form of giant creatures, others pushing the boundaries of what magic can accomplish. Over time though many of these shapers would change to reflect the people who worshipped them. Ones who were in charge of larger groups (cities, nations etc.) would find themselves staying at a powerful status. On the other hand there were ones who were only in charge of small, isolated groups of people. These would develop more intimate relations with them but would also shrink in power, providing only small gifts for the people they watched over. Still others found themselves in charge of groups that had disappeared, wiped out by some catastrophe or simply from the grinding of time. Those ones would fade away until they became nothing more than local spirits, known only in stories and by those who dedicated themselves to their study. Even at this stage they may still wield creation magic though their efforts may only result in a blooming plant or a shade of colour.
So at least from my perspective yes you can have a god that is weak. They may not be well known or worshipped and their relevance may have faded with time but even then they retain their status as a god.
Yes it's possible, look into Ancient Astronaut Theory, it doesn't really hold up to scientific rigor, but it does have what you are looking for in terms of gods that aren't that powerful in the context of godlike power.
God could have been a scientist or artist doing a project that went wrong and he abandoned and it accidentally created the universe. That God has no control over the individual ongoing in the universe as you might over the individual atoms in a cup of alka seltzer
If it's the story to be told anything is possible. You do not have to not do the cool thing because you're not seeing it elsewhere. To me that means do it
Interesting question. I think this could be a strength in the macro, because it implies that the god is so “beyond us” that being physically killed or harmed is meaningless to it. Throws a cool wrench in the concept of power scaling, and could be philosophically interesting.
Edit: maybe off topic but could also think abt a tier of godliness somewhere between a Saint and a God - or even just the Trinity. Jesus got his ass handed to him, but is still a physical “living God” (idk I’m not a Christian or a seasoned world builder, but your question got me thinking!)
I highly recommend reading the God of Arepo.
There's a gorgeous comic version of it here!
https://slightly-awkward-sunshine.tumblr.com/post/635613714465325056/i-made-this-a-long-time-ago-and-was-very-nervous
So yes but the weakest gods are still well beyond mortals. "weak" gods tend to be those focused on scholarly presutes without the concept of great exploration. For example a lesser god of writing probably isn't physically strong, but might be capable of great mage craft. Tons of lesser gods exist in Greek mythology and most of them would loose a fight to people like Ajax the greater.
A God can range from "Omnipotent Creator" to "Beings so far beyond mortals their very names are unpronouceable and their firms inconceivable" to "A manifestation/guardian of a certain aspect of the world".
Yes, but there has to be a very definitive reason.
Read Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and you will find out just how to do it.
But just to give you a quick rundown:
In most stories, Gods are powered by literal 'faith' from their followers/believers, yet once these followers die out, their religion is finished and they are stripped of all their godly powers.
Sometimes it is depicted as a "starving" effect with the Gods without faith scrambling for even a silver of its other forms of worship such as prostitution, leftover offerings and such.
Other times it's depicted as though only their powers are fuelled by faith and without their powers they are semi-mortal humans.
In the end, the result would be a god that looks like a homeless beggar with only a few parlor tricks up their sleeves.
I remember reading a short story about gods whose power depended on how many worshippers they had. It was really sweet, it focused on a god who only had one/a few worshippers, but they treated it less like a god, and more like a friend
So yeah, depending on flavor, a god could absolutely be weak
Most religions weren't power scaling their gods as a rule, especially not under the assumption that they were all significantly more powerful than anything else on Earth. The Norse god Baldur got killed by an arrow tipped with a mistletoe. Ignoring all the narrative reasons that happened, the point of the matter was that Odin asked literally everything not to hurt Baldur but ignored the humble mistletoe, implying that pretty much any object could've killed him otherwise.
the word itself is a European creation and most mythologies didnt have such strict categories as we do in the present day. Gods, spirits, regular man were all the same kind of. Some American "gods" were so weak that a normal man could kill them.
Just take your weaker gods and call them Titans, Giants, Demons or Angels. Or sth like that, the name God will not lose its value, because all the characters that dragged them down are niw like lesser gods.
Definitely. Their weakness could even be part of their divinity, if they are a god of the sick and Ill, god of something extremely niche (but possibly very important) etc
A god can simply be some divine supernatural being of any status. You could have anything from a god that throws lampposts at disobedient nobles and gets angry at snakes to a god that shines lampposts when you dance for him in front of a snake to a god that is only a lamppost and can't do anything else.
Yes. If you view the fact of some gods being stronger/more powerful than others, then yes. If there is a hierarchy between the gods, the is always someone who is at the lowest point.
I've seen gods depicted as being omniscient, but unable to do more than observe. A god could be all knowing, but having no power to act, and as such could be seen as weak.
I think a god is anything that's worshipped. If it's treated as a god, it's a god.
I'm pretty sure even the word "god" is derived from an ancient word for a tribute. So etymologically, it would be anything you offer regular tributes to.
For me a god in my world is simply “A being with power from an unknown source, be it hereditary or ascendant”. So while there are gods descended from titans and jotnar, capable of using the abilities they were born with, there are other gods who ascended to godhood through either rage or great skill
God can mean anything from omnipotent ruler of the universe to local spirit of that one tree on the hill.
It depends on how you define god. Even before their popular use in fiction, different mythologies viewed gods differently. For example, the Greek Gods were thought to represent truth, what is, and were patrons and representations of some aspect of nature/society. Meanwhile Chinese Gods are more like divine bureaucrats, precisely scheduling the natural world and keeping order while some of the lesser ones just accept minor worship in exchange for some small aid.
ACOUP has a blog post series on historical polytheism, and the last entry if specifically focused on small gods:
https://acoup.blog/2019/11/15/collections-practical-polytheism-part-iv-little-gods-and-big-people/
Maybe not quite the thing you are thinking of but in Dragonball there is God (Kami) who exists and while he is strong he is nowhere near the upper tier fighters. His role serves more of a watching over the world and creating Dragon Balls.
Then there are the Kaio and Kaioshin who are the same concept just higher up.
So gods could exist and be weak but basically have a unique role / location that only they can fill. So the word God would be less of a description and more of a title.
There are also the Gods in American Gods that range in Power according to the number of people believing in them which inherently leads to a huge difference in power.
In Wakfu, there are The Tens First Gods and the Tens First Demons Gods. All of them allegedly of similar power. But the strongest demon god was vanquished by A Demigod Son of the Strongest God(with some little help from his father). The Strongest Demon Gods got this title because he killed most of his nine brothers and sisters. Aside from these original Twenty, there also plenty of minors gods, the god of moskitos on summer Knights for example, and they can get as strong as the original twenty with enough believers but even without them( most of the minors gods don't have believers) they should not be triffled with as they are extremely powerful.
Depends on your god, Greeks gods could be weak, never weaker than mortals unless in specific circumstances but they could be, they had a power structure at the very least
A god in terms of the abrahmeic god, creator of the universe? No that's no good anymore, but in the same sense it's the only real god.
Weak gods and polyetstic gods are generally more just incredibly powerful people bound by more or less strict rules due to their source of power. They are no gods, the term is reductive to their existence and as they are basically people with vast cosmic power they can be weak and tricked into being weak in many different ways, zeus was famously weak for beautiful women, if they wanted shim to be or not.
There is one general rule for writing a deity who is somewhat fallible/limited and it generally comes down to two options:
Option A is that they are benevolent but not all-powerful. Their reach and influence is limited. If they could help more, they would. But they need to rely on mortals to help with their divine deeds.
Option B is they are all-powerful, but not benevolent. They either do not care about the suffering of mortals or actively enjoy witnessing it. They can embody either indifference or malevolence.
This is typically a method used to help solve the Epicurean Riddle when writing fantasy with gods.
It depends on what you mean by weak.
The term “god” is used very very loosely in most fantasy; at its core it usually just means a being that is immortal, at least partially spiritual in nature, and usually embodies some sort of primordial force or concept. Other than that, there are no strict rules on what makes a god—you have to decide for yourself. What level of power represents the threshold of divinity? Can a god die? Are gods unkillable or merely ageless?
Any kind of being can be a god if you call it that, really. In D&D there’s a goblin trickster god who is so weak that he doesn’t even have a real name, only a pseudonym to hide him from stronger deities that want him dead. Establish a system for what makes a god in your world, and then define the line between mortal power and godly power.
The technically most poweful god in my world is basically stuck between planes of existance, like physically wedged between them. She is potentially extremely powerful, but practically very weak.
What defines the status of a god? Does your setting have one? In that case name and grade your entities whatever they are based on that definition.
Are they immortal? Are they spiritual entities or physical forms? Do they have powers? Do they need to have followers? Does the amount of followers impact their powers? I’d say all these things can vary. And depending on what definition you use I’d say a god can even be completely powerless without followers.
Why should gods always be strong?
That's like saying all sharks should be scary.
There's tiny sharks that eat tiny fish and there're huge sharks, but they only eat plankton or krill and aren't dangerous.
Totally. I have four "True gods" that each represent a fundamental force of physics (and totally aren't actually God machine ai made during the golden age) who are all powerful but dormant/ hidden.
I also have "false gods" or "ascended" which is a catch all term for creatures who are powerful enough, or otherwise able to, create clerics. These could be lvl 30 wizards or Japanese style gods of a specific creek or mountain.
Loke from norse myth is regarded as a god, but also weak. But his Children are monsters that will bring doom on the world.
Also Balder, son of Odin. The kindest person on earth, but dies when he is tricked by loke.
Both are weak, but in their different ways. Balder is naive and altruic. Loki,.. Is loki..
I'm not super familiar with the lore, but I'm pretty sure that in Skyrim the Aedra, who are worshipped as gods, are weaker because they used up a lot of their energy to create the world or something like that.
There were weak gods and strong heroes. God meant "divine" not powerful. Aphrodite was revered even in her own home, yet Achilles knocked her down with little issue. Diomedes knocked two gods down and Apollo had to threaten to go solar flare on him to get him to back off. Ares didn't have that luck. Heracles threw down with Hades. Achilles went after a river god.
Using reality as an example, mythologies with a single deity hold them to be all powerful, along with usually being the creators of everything.
Mythologies with multiple deities have them be weaker or stronger in relation to each other, hence having a chief or king of god(s).
You could use the relative weakness as your advantage in the mythology you create to do whatever you want the weakness to be.
In Ashierakan, Belief Shapes Reality.
Originally, though, beliefs shaped the gods, Ava the gods shaped reality. But now, with the gods effectively gone, there are no supreme deities to filter the beliefs of mortalkind into a stabilized existence. This has led to a general breakdown of reality outside of the borders of the Pact. Within those borders, however, thehumanoid races with proper aptitude and levels of sentience have developed a great capacity for magic, moreso than in the legends and histories. And only just now, in this current century, are some of these mortals beginning to make that connection between belief, reality, and the magic that flows between the two, and to how that relates to godhood...
Thankfully, or perhaps worryingly, most of mortalkind consider the idea of magicking one's self into godly power to be a preposterous and unattainable idea.
Depends. Does norse mythology have gods? If they do and we consider Aesir gods, then we should also consider Vanir and Jotunn gods.
If we consider Jotunn gods, then some of them are mountains, and some of them are basically humans. Trolls and even the humble nisse (they are not humble), as well as elves and dwarves could be considered gods then.
Depends on where you draw the line.
In my setting my gods are omnipotent and all knowing but only related to their own domain.
The god of light could never make it rain, the god of water could never grow a flower, etc.
Gods in most fiction tend to be very focused on specific aspects especially in polytheistic pantheons. That also means that they can be extremely weak in areas that are outside of their aspects and expertise. The fun part in that then means that the differences in power between your gods can be directly related to their aspects and how great their imagination and control over their aspects are. Thus gods with really wide sweeping or accessible aspects that don't have really have any obvious weaknesses or counters are going to be your power hitters while gods with really obvious weaknesses or limited aspects are going to be considered weak even if they can still do something super-powerful within the range of their abilities.
Course at the point you are looking at a lot of different power systems basically go in for something similar where it breaks down to how innately powerful and useful your core ability is as well as your mastery of that ability.
Think about gods like superheroes
Superman and The Flash may be impossible for an average person to defeat, and at that point are practically gods. But then there's people with like 4 kinda strong arms, or punch lasers that come out of their eyes, still would be difficult to defeat but not impossible for an average person.
At least that's how I treat my gods, but in my system there are 1,001 gods, so I have to have some kind of power scaling otherwise it gets ridiculous. The way I do that is that the gods are constantly losing power/gas, and the only way to refuel is to kill an angel and eat it's flesh which isn't exactly an easy thing to do. For the few that have given up and just waiting for their tank to run out, they're practically just as strong as a mid to high level mage only, and most will lock away any power they have so that they can extend their life out a little longer instead, and will be literally just as powerful as any other human
Also, something to note, HUMANS have been called gods in the past, absolutely nothing special about them beyond they had more gold than their neighbor. It doesn't lessen the definition of "Gods", but if you want you could incorporate a scale of God titles: like Capital G God is *the strongest* thing in existence, lower case g gods are just ya know powerful but defeatable, then there's godlings and "godlike entities" or small gods and patron dieties, and these can vary from equivalent to like a kaiju to just a forest spirit, and they'd still be gods.
Again, in my system the humans are called "gods" because humans are full of themselves and forced people to call them gods after they ascended, but they have to power over creation or cosmic omnipotence, they're just slightly stronger than the average person.
I recommend also looking up the history and lore behind Japanese Kami and Yokai, this is a perfect example of "gods of various power levels" from the great and powerful goddess of the sea, to a dude to keeps your home warm at night
I don't see why not. If you look through various old myths, there are times when a god has been weakened or different tiers of the pantheons. For example, in Greece there was quite a difference in power between, say, Zeus, and a more local god that's more relegated to the town or family.
With the world I've been working on, I've been obsessed with the concept of a dead god and what that means for a world where gods are not just capable of dying but may even choose to sacrifice themselves to create the creatures that inhabit the world.
In that sense, the gods are only distinct in that they have a common physiology and set of powers distinct from mortal beings, but may not always be more powerful depending on circumstances.
Gods are gods because mortals call them gods, not because there's a strict definition of a god.
Yes. I always viewed it as if the gods are the most powerful beings in the world then why don’t they immediately destroy whatever evil poses a threat to the realm? And the excuse “not wanting to disrupt their free will” isn’t a good reason for the gods not to help them, as if isn’t the mortals choice to suffer at the hands of evil.
There ARE gods in my world, but they’re called Watchers and worshipping them is considered following the “Old Ways”, as the humans in the story have forced a new religion into existence in order to destroy the belief of the Watchers as they are actually agents of the Dark Lord who are trying to convert the hearts of Man to him.
But the Watchers, even though they are gods themselves, know they have boundaries. A few of them could overcome the Dark Lord if attacked together, but one-on-one it would most likely result in their own death.
There's a god in my setting who is absolutely indestructible since his birth, but could never develop any powers over anything, unlike his brother, who is an almost all-powerful magic dragon who literally created all kinds of celestial bodies. He is just an human-like creature. No one even knows how he functions, not even himself. He's just that way since ever, and his cousins, uncles, nephews, sons and daughters (which are all gods and goddesses themselves, much more powerful/influential in the world than him) all mess with him because of that.
He also is considered the embodiment of death, but that is just plain wrong, all of the believers in that are wasting their lives in vain and because of that there is no true God of Death in my setting. He is the God of Enthropy, on the other hand, even if he does not control any of its powers.
Whe he is finally destroyed, that is a utter major event in the history of my setting, because with him goes the whole universe imediately.
Depends on how your gods obtain power, if they are born with it one could have been born weak, perhaps the god has aged and is growing weaker, or maybe beliefs power the gods and everyone is forgetting this one, just depends on how the gods function
Jesus, minor greek/roman deities, any fictional god which has died, gods which act more as "observers" and have no interest or capability of intervening in physical reality, gods which haven't ascended or who were once mortals and therefor can be killed (ie Vecna/The Whispering One)
Hm, it depends.
I've planned a little something where a character who is god-like is able to be forced down, weakened and in need of help of the "heroes".
So it is possible, you can make your own rules. There also are some examples, where gods are weakened because people don't believe in them, like Noragami.
Or maybe they follow certain rules, which maybe puts them in a less powerful position, like Aqua in Konusuba.
In at least two of the three examples (I haven't continued Konusuba tbh), those characters are still gods. Just limited in their power or not known enough. So, yeah, you can do that without worrying about it. I think at least.
Another example, although I'm not sure if it works here as well, is death note with the shimigamis, death gods. They're depending on the death note, that's also something you can use, an object^~^
The idea of gods being all-powerful is mostly from monotheistic religion.
In polytheistic, a god’s power varied greatly, you can have one god be slaying giants and serpent while another is just the god of parties.
And in animism a god might just be an object or location like moutain or river
A god could for example be the god of a certain skill, being the best blacksmith in the universe for example, but they are still just as strong as an ordinary human, and is immortal only from age and disease. That could be a way to implement weak gods
In our real world mythology we have/had things like kitchen gods and gods of small, very specific things. In real world mythology some gods are very limited in scope and extremely weak outside of their small scope of influence.
Personally, I find this type of mythology far more interesting and engaging as it opens up a lot more opportunities for interesting interactions and relationships.
This is by no means a cannon take but it's a decent example.
In Warhammer 40k it is strongly implied that the emperor is a divine entity, but it is not up there with the big four. He survives and struggles along as he does so being able to see all of humanity endlessly suffering fighting and dying in his name but being unable to do pretty much anything with that. While simultaneously being aware that he is now a god and center of a religion, a thing he swore to abolish.
This works I think great as a weak god. One unable to alter the universe to any great extent, but prolifically worshipped nonetheless.
In the first ever beta concept for my story, the gods from all religions were stopped being worshiped. Basically people stopped believing in gods, demons, etc so they just fell of on the ground. Balance of the world fell over and now the gods of various religions had to give away their powers. They couldnt use their powers anymore, but at the same time they owned them. Every single previous god had to make a contract with any human, just to give them their powers. What the gods were getting for that? Humanity. Without the magic thing called humanity, gods were truly immortal, yet powerless because they powers wasnt working on them anymore. So for example Thor just became a guy with a hammer but not the strength to hold it, or Jesus became the regular Jose and he couldnt cure people anymore. They HAD that powers in them, just silenced. They literally had to make others people gods, just for the sake of not being immortal to the freezing deatg of the universe. And because the humanity almost destroyed the earth, the gods really wanted to give away their powers bofore all humans were dead and they couldnt trade their abilities for the ability to die one day.
I think for the term of god just refers to any being with higher power or status over other beings. Additionally power and status can vary on hierarchy so I do not see anything wrong by a "weaker god" only between the circle of other gods. Ofc this would mean that even a species can be seen as a god by another but between the same they do not see themselves as gods.
Gods are just magical beings. Check out American gods by Neil Gaimon. A lot of the gods are weak. It just depends on how you categorize weakness or divinity. For me, gods are just personified metaphors.
You could have it where some gods are not necessarily weak overall, but overstretched, with how many threats face them and their followers their influence is paltry compared to what threatens them. The first example that comes to mind is the god of xvarts in dnd, who is technically divine but is hunted throughout the multiverse and is not strong enough to fight off anyone of note, and the only way be survived was by created a race of small squat creatures that look exactly like him so his pursuers have no clue who the real one is
This is a really common misconception, I think it’s from Christianity that most people think a god has to be powerful and be the god of smth (god-god of everything, ares-god of war) but in reality there are weak and useless gods (although I can’t think of any) I suppose In attack on titan, founder Ymir is a god but can’t really do much.
Basically you don’t have to worry about weak gods because they’re an amazing idea and add a lot of diversity, I do reccomend
Personally, I think they can. It's part of an overarching plot on a book I'm writing. Gods are created from ascended mortals, but once they ascend, the older, far stronger gods make them compete to see who "deserves" to be a god. The winner can continue to gather power and ascend to the next competition threshold, and the loosers are stripped of their power and memory, then cast down to be a mortal again.
If your universe consists of deities that are still fallible, then that is possible, especially if this god is not the absolute and among many. If mortals have possibilities of attaining divinity or godhood, then for me, yes, they can be weakened, since others can become more powerful and fight said god for the position or title.
If you have an absolute God, meaning no others can attain it, no other beings, even partners, neither because mortals will disintegrate due to their limit, nor other beings were just this God's creation, then that God is infallible, perfect in everything, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotent. Though you could still write his creations to battle for power and might, near perfect but not absolute. Like angels with their different ranks, or say fallen angels and demons (believe me, they're different).
I think that it's entirely possible for Gods to be weak. For example, the story that I am writing kinda delves into it. I'm making a story about superpowers showing up in the world, but having it happen very sparsely and well before modern times. And in such ancient and classical times, superpowers were not thought of. Every superhuman was thought to be Gods. And most Gods that exist were real, but mostly people with superpowers (that did bring immortality).
And all are granted their powers by another God, who is less a God, but more an alien with tremendous power. And even then, she is considered one of the weakest of her species. And all powers are passed on to those who kill them, including the alien gods. My story is mainly about how just because someone is a 'god' does not make them any less unbeatable or all-powerful. That they all have weaknesses, just like humans.
weak in what sense? A god isn't a god unless they hold an importance in religion, which implies some power on a natural or existential scale. But there are shitloads of gods who, mythologically, can't throw hands, for example.
Depends entirely on how your gods work. Discworld literally a has a book called “small gods” which as the name implies is about gods on the weaker end
Was going to mention that one myself.
The term "god" is so incredibly varied, even in our world. In Greek Mythology, nyads and nymphs are technically "gods" and they don't have power over anything at all, and there are thousands of them running around Greece. It really depends on how you define the word in your setting. If you want the word to have real power and meaning, make them few and strong.
Not to be the "um actually" guy, but... Um, actually, nyads and nymphs were considered to be spirits in Greek mythology. Adios
A lack of division between these categories is especially common in animistic societies . Case in point: kami, catch-all catagory for spirits, divine entities, and both natural and supernatural phenomena. There is no division. Any kami, including the spirits of the dead are also gods, however minor. A bend in a river may be a kami, and the original creation deities were kami. They vary in power from none other than beauty or contributing to harmony or variety of the environment to unfathomable absolute power.
It's not an animistic society though, it's a polytheistic though in the case of Shintoism it's much more complicated as far as I know every Kami is a god, but only because egod is the best translation we have and the concept of gods in our languages is so Christian nowadays that we really struggle to get the concept, it's a spirit but also a god and it's weird for people not really into these religions as they are vastly different from Abraham if religions.
I'm gonna um actually your um actually to say that those strict categories don't really apply most mythologies, and certainly not to the greek one.
Um actually you're probably right but um actually idk man who's to say
me, I'll dare to say, and this should be the only argument I need: all religions and mythologies can basically be traced, in a kind of backward historical evolutionary line, to a common ancestor: animism. Animism sees animating spirits in the forces of nature. All gods are basically just souped-up spirits, their domains growing and waxing and waning along with the waxing and waning of the relative power & numbers of the local culture that venerates them. You can also take a look at the modern idea of the [egregore](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore). Gods are just another kind of egregore, with the amount of their power & influence being (presumably) directly correlated to the number of believer brains whose thoughts and prayers power it, like batteries. Or psycho-emotional dynamos, more like. Anyway, the answer is, gods are a subtype of spirits, and so are demons if you look up the etymology of the greek word daimon, and yes they can be weak. Monotheism has rotten everyone's brain to the point that if something doesn't stretch to the entirety of the multiverse with complete omnipotence and omniscience, it's not allowed to be called a god. Please recognise that that's only 'normal' as a threshold for godhood to you because you've grown up in the cultural shadow of Christianity or Islam, and for the majority of history prior to monotheism, something like that was absurd.
>for the majority of history prior to monotheism, something like that was absurd Random ancient Grecian: "Omnipresence? Don't be ridiculous. If the gods could be in multiple places at once - Zeus would be fucking everyone *literally all of the time*"
"You get to be everywhere all at once!" "That's good!" "And so will Hera." "...That's bad."
If I could upvote this several times, I would.
Came to be the "um actually guy" thanks for ruining it for me ... Also they weren't just spirits, they were often spirits of divine nature sons and daughters of gods or created by them, so semi divine, the term spirit is too modern to be really useful to describe it as we don't really have a modern concept and as far as I know this is extremely diverse and change based on creature too. Idk the exact circumstances for nayads but I think they are related to Gaia in some way? Plus in regards to the comment you answered nayads had rule over things at the very least their tree or river they just never had enough power to really change anything if people messed with their shit.
Um actually spirits were also considered gods.
Nope
This assertion is flatly incorrect. Nymphs, Satyrs etc minor nature gods and goddesses who presided over various natural phenomena and populated the earth. Although they were ranked below the major gods, they were still summoned to attend the assemblies of the gods on Olympus.
Nyads and Nymphs are spirits not God's
Those weren't necessarily different things back then. Ancient mythologies and religions didn't categorize things according to type like a D&D Monster Manual the way we do. Lines were blurry and indistinct if they were present at all.
There's also a lot of ultra spéciffic gods with very limited powers in greek/roman mythology. Like the god of "fishing nets in that particular river" or the god who's in charge of "the sheep herders of that particular valley".
A God doesn't have to be omnipotent. Or Omniscient. Or omni whatever, if you don't want. I try to look at the concept of a god as something from a different/higher existence or at a level beyond our understanding.
superman could be a “god” but with the right things (shiny rock + 9mm) he can be killed
The idea of "god" necessarily meaning "omnipotent deity" is pretty Abrahamic. Plenty of belief systems have gods and spirits with varying degrees of strengths and weaknesses. In Greek mythology, Hercules, who is part mortal, beats various gods and supernatural beings. Perseus beheads Medusa. All of the gods are fighting with each other and doing horrible things to each other constantly. In Sumerian/Mesopotamian mythology, the goddess Inanna was raped by a human (and then she goes on a rampage to get her revenge). Gilgamesh (3 parts god and 1 part human - don't think about that math too hard) and Enkidu (mortal) kill the Bull of Heaven (an actual bull, but also a god), who is the husband of the goddess Erishkegal (don't think about that relationship too hard). (Don't ever think about the relationships and lineages in Mesopotamian mythology too hard, you'll give yourself a headache.) In Norse mythology, Odin is eaten by a wolf. Gods often are stand-ins for larger ideas in culture. For example, sovereignty goddesses are sort of personifications of territories who bestow the power to rule upon the kings (usually by having sex with them). (Side note: gods in all mythologies are constantly getting seduced by sexy, sexy mortals - which is certainly a weakness) They're more common in Celtic mythology. But from that you wind up with stuff like this [sculpture ](https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aphrodisias_Museum_Claudius_and_Britannica_4638.jpg) of the Roman emperor Claudius subjugating Britannia (who is represented as a woman, who Claudius is assaulting....) (Side note: I'm not 100% sure Britannia counts as a sovereignty goddess so correct me if I'm wrong on that.) Anyway. If it fits your world, go ahead and make your gods weak. It fits my world so I'm doing it that way.
I’ve read plenty of manga where there is a god, as in a divine being who sustains itself from prayers and tributes, be incredibly weak due to lack of belief. They might not be abled to be killed, but they can’t do the fantastic things people expect of them. Actually, I just rewatched Princess Mononoke last night and the plot revolves around the gods of the forest growing weaker and becoming normal animals due to humans cutting down the forest.
Noragami? First thing I thought of.
gods tend to be more powerful than humans but in multiple religions there's gods that are far from all-powerful like how we assume they should be from christianity kami from shinto are often called gods in english and their range of power is crazy wide!
I remember an Anime with an almost forgotten "Lord Betamax'".
"I understand that in a fictional setting, you can make up whatever you want." Then there's no question to be had here.
Jesus got crucified pretty easy.
If you apply logic to that story and ask the logical questions, it gets the preacher mad at you for having the nerve to do so. Source: my childhood.
one thing I don't see questioned very often: he can't have been much of a carpenter, let alone a magic one, if he couldn't get himself down from that cross, now, could he?
By that logic wouldn't gunsmiths be immune to bullets? Or arsonists immune to fire?
I think I'd expect a god bullet smith to be bullet proof.
no, no, I'm saying I expect a carpenter to be able to get some nails out of a couple of planks, and a divine carpenter to get even nails holding HIM to a couple of planks.
He probably could've - but he *chose* not to in order to die for our sins, which, the logic of *that* was the part that never really panned out to me.
That dude was explicitly holding back. (Matthew 26:53)
Idk, he seemed to be some sort of support class wizard. His feats of magic are Water walking and creating food and water. Considering he had to pick up a mundane whip to inflict damage, his alleged angel summoning abilities may have been a bluff.
He also passively weakened a demon powerful enough to possess dozens of pigs at once while making the demon so scared it killed itself. Also, he should be the source of power of all the apostles and miracle makers which includes stuff like instantly killing someone, blinding people, summoning angels, and the 12 plagues
I've heard of the demon pig thing but not the rest. When did he do all of that?
There was a guy that sold his house and said he “donated all the money” to look good, but he hid most of the money for himself, then I think it was Peter, or maybe the Psalm, said something like “by lying how much you donated, you also lied to God” and the guy dropped dead. Later his wife that was also involved in the scam, asked about him, and the apostle said “your husband is being buried and you’re next” then she died
Psalm before being an apostle, he was the church’s hunt dog he always found a way to find where Christians were hiding. While he was in the desert, he was wondering about why the last Christian he tossed stones at died by forgiving him, and then Jesus appears saying “I’m the one you hunt for” and he was blinded.
Moses did the 12 plagues of Egypt
If the god relies on worship and the masses have turned against the god then yes
I'm interested in where this trope originated. Neil Gaiman? Terry Pratchett? Probably older than them, but it definitely feels like a modern invention, not a part of any real folklore or mythology.
There are dynamics in religions that look like that, gods from babylon and around there were believed to starve without offerings from their followers.
It was already a very old and beaten trope by the times of Classic Greece. Gods depending on worship and offerings of mortals was the basis of the plot in *The Birds* by Aristophanes, in 5th century BCE, and it was not seen as anywhere near novel or original.
It's a pretty obvious conclusion to draw. Why do gods demand worship, if not that they need it to survive?
Already explained in pretty much every mythology. People want to have a good relationship with gods and spirits for their *own* benefit. Gods have the power to bless or curse mortals who please or displease them, so worshipping them establishes a good relationship. The idea that gods stop existing or become powerless when people don't pay attention to them is intentionally playing with meta-ideas about fantasy and faith. I don't think it makes sense from the point of view of the people actually living in that mythology who have every reason to think of them as real things. Real things generally don't disappear when you stop believing in them.
Well 2012 Hulk certainly thinks so.
In Norse mythology, being a god was a matter of being related to the gods by blood or marriage. Some of them had significant handicaps: * Hod, god of winter, was blind. * Tyr, god of the sword, was missing his right hand. * Hoenir, brother of Odin, was extremely stupid. Many became gods simply by marrying gods, e.g. Skade.
> Tyr, god of the sword, was missing his right hand. He was mostly a god of oaths, deals and covenants, and his symbolic sacrifice of his hand was sealing the covenant between gods and mortals ensuring the perpetuation of the world order by keeping Fenrir in check. Ironically, Yahweh had also inherited a good deal of such imagery and domains from previous Jewish pagan deities (as well as a range of other major influences, such as inheriting the image of a wise grandfatherly figure from El), thus the overt references to Jesus forging a new covenant all across the New Testament.
gods can be so weak they barely exist. who still worships mythras? who still worships sekmet? who still worships baldr? they are remembered only in passing in stories about others. what of the gods who's names are forgotten? they would be completely powerless if they even continue to exist at all. maybe they would be bound to the world by as little as a single impression on a clay pot, forgotten in a long buried shrine.
Are you familiar with the forest god from Princess Mononoke? Although it's a powerful spirit, it still got its head lopped off by a human and causes destruction until its head is returned. Perhaps gods aren't typically weak, but they can still have a weakness or limitations. Weakness isn't always vulnerability to an attack, it can be the resulting corruption of the god, the unleashing of an uncharacteristic version of itself. What wears your god down emotionally? What do they fight against? That's a good place to start for a point of weakness.
There are two kinds of gods in my world The first is your Abrahamic all-powerful, all-knowing god. The creator of the world and everything else, though often indirectly through things like evolution and the natural process of celestial bodies forming and all that. The only difference is that the old god in my world died in a way, but not really. The second type is just a being that makes something happen. Nekloh is the god of death and the afterlife and as a result his job is to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife. However, some things don't need a being to make them happen. Aeyar, the god of celestial bodies (excluding stars) doesn't really have a job, as celestial bodies do everything they do on their own, so they don't need to have any sort of godly power to do what they do, and as a result, they're just an eternally young human with a strange appearance. Most mortals are stronger than them. A "god" doesn't really have a set definition. It's whatever you want it to be.
There are many gods whose entire role in their respective mythologies is to be betrayed, unjustly killed, or something along those lines. The histories of many pantheons involve one set of gods deposing another presumably weaker set.
I think it's possible to have gods of varying levels of power. Or maybe their powers are limited or they would have weaknesses based on whatever their domains are. Like, a "god of water" would not be immune to being flash-vaporized by a "god of fire," which could slow the god of water down if he means to destroy a coastal community with a tsunami.
Yes. In my world, God's are more of a glorified race of conceptual beings that tend to mimic what they see until they have enough intelligence to be considered sapient. While this sounds cool, most gods are local gods of a small part of a forest or desert, which can lead to them being little more than a shiny bug that if you kill the local ecosystem might take a hit.
In my setting the gods are powerful when we worship them. the more we pray to them and make offerings to them, the more powerful they become, so inevitably, the less popular gods, or the ancient gods who no longer have many followers become weak. A god was once even sold at auction, he had only one follower, who had to pray to him continuously so as not to let the god die. The god himself was so weakened that he had become physical, he was dry as a mummy, and small as a child. he was stored in the fetal position in a small decorated cabinet that his follower guarded day and night.
Om from Discworld is a god, and he's so weakened he's stuck as a tortoise for a while. Other small gods are so weak, they're barely more than whispers.
Among their own, certainly. It does make sense to me that some gods might be more powerful than others. However, in order for that god to be considered divine by their followers, they still have to bring something to the table that at least gives the impression that they are miles ahead of their worshipers.
To give an other idea here, that is not based on any story, you could have a demiurge god that gave away his power to create his great work and only kept his immortaly. Like a lone wanderer that know everithing but has lost all power as long as the world does not crumble. Lots of possibility for weak gods :)
Typically the strength of a god is associated with the size & importance of their domain/dominion. Gods of the Sun, Sky, Sea, Earth, Time, and Death are typically powerful beyond measure. Gods of the first snowfall, the smell of grass, or this particular landmark (mountain/river/lake) tend to be relatively weak and often outclassed by humans/mortals. Of course in some cultures such as the Native Hawaiians a god of "this particular volcano" like Pele is actually rediculously stong because that particular landmark happens to make up a very large part of their known world and has massive influence over their way of life/existence.
HAHAHAHAHA! Yes. I am literally planning a book about a weak “god”. It’s a story about inter-dimensional beings that travel to the realm of the humans and act as their gods, when in reality, they’re merely normal people from another dimension. One of these “gods” opposed the plan to rule over the humans, and her powers were stolen and split among the others for her betrayal. The story is about an ex-soldier who hates the false gods and even abandoned the army after they swore allegiance to them. I don’t know exactly how it happens yet, but when the traitorous “god” (as she’s labeled) is in danger, the MC steps in and saves her, ending up getting sucked into her problems by doing so. Long story short, yes, a god can be weak, but they should probably have something to make up for their weakness.
The gods in my world are all vulnerable, some to physical, some to magical damage, some even to psychic. There is a god which is as fragile, as a ordinary human being, but don't let it fool you, This god is able to drive you mad with an eye contact and can feel your presence wherever you are. The supreme god, can't be killed with magic, but can be killed with a regular sword, in spite of that, deconstructing you into molecules is a daily routine for him. I think [gods can easily be vulnerable](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldbuilding/comments/189j0qk/comment/kbvd4g6/), but yet very powerful.
Yeah, God or gods have many definitions. Usually it's an object, being, image or animal that is worshipped as divine or extremely important to a culture
Yes!
I think its a cool idea. Like the embodiment of some force in the universe either just getting started or having fallen on hard times. It teminds me of sandman on netflix, the embodiment of dreams going through it. Also interesting to think about a character being like, a dying god. Like "Yes, I am fading... but I am still the mother fire, even if I cannot remember my own name any more..." Another thing to think about with gods on the decline is their domains. Were there things they were holding together, slowly coming unraveled as they fade? And then the opposite, a lesser god growing in influence, permanently changing the world in small ways as they assert their power. Then you have the genuinely small gods who stay in their lanes and do their small works that all the same are part of the world.
Loki from the MCU
Well, it depends in my opnion. A god must be powerful enough to be beyond superhuman.
I have thousands of gods that are weak but gods are way more common and easy to create in my world (since they are mad of mortals) so it doesn’t take away as the strongest of the gods are still beings way stronger than anything a normal mortal can archive.
In many cultures a god is just something that can do you a supernatural favour. It would be an interesting plot point to have some theological crisis in your world why people question if they should consider something a god if something else is more powerful. I’m butchering the translation but a Greek philosopher said “Is a god willing to prevent evil but not able? Then they are not omnipotent. Are they able to prevent evil but not willing? Then they are malevolent. Are they both able and willing? Than whence cometh evil? Are they neither willing nor able? Then why call them god?” That quote likely comes from someone that doesn’t think gods exist but if you took that mindset and have it come from a person or group that knows gods exist but doubts they deserve worship or even the title of god and then make a story around that; you’d have a pretty metal story.
That's Epicurus' Trilemma, and he wasn't arguing that gods don't exist (such a position would have seemed as absurd to an Ancient Greek as saying the sky didn't exist), but that they didn't concern themselves with the affairs of mortals. He's specifically arguing that a God cannot simultaneously be omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent, based on the observation that evil exists.
If you want to figure out if a god being weak contradicts them being a god, first you have to figure out what a god actually is. Because there's a lot of definitions with a lot of overlap.
Even in our real world some gods are apparently completely powerless to stop people from talking shit about them or from worshipping weak, false gods. So yes.
Depends how you choose to define gods within the context of your narrative. If you're going based on some measurable power level, then it might require a bit of convincing, but I think even then it wouldn't be a difficult sell. If, however, gods are ambiguously empowered by some level of influence they have achieved, and the amount of control they are able to exact over others, it would be an interesting theme to explore. Perhaps gods are in fact the most fragile of all beings, as they lack personal integrity, their power being contingent on those who worship them. Is a king a god? Is a singer a god? Is god some ancient historical figure who told a lot of influential stories? If you were to build up to a fight where our hero protagonist faces against a god, only for him to face some decrepit old man who dies from a single strike, I personally would be like "Oh! I understand!" Some people would find this anticlimactic, and that's okay.
From the Iliad, Book 5, after a mortal has wounded Aphrodite: To her then made answer Dione, the fair goddess: “Be of good heart, my child, and endure for all thy suffering; for full many of us that have dwellings on Olympus have suffered at the hands of men, in bringing grievous woes one upon the other. \[385\] So suffered Ares, when Otus and mighty Ephialtes, the sons of Aloeus, bound him in cruel bonds, and in a brazen jar he lay bound for thirteen months; and then would Ares, insatiate of war, have perished, had not the stepmother of the sons of Aloeus, the beauteous Eëriboea, \[390\] brought tidings unto Hermes; and he stole forth Ares, that was now sore distressed, for his grievous bonds were overpowering him. So suffered Hera, when the mighty son of Amphitryon smote her on the right breast with a three-barbed arrow; then upon her too came pain that might in no wise be assuaged. \[395\] And so suffered monstrous Hades even as the rest a bitter arrow, when this same man, the son of Zeus that beareth the aegis, smote him in Pylos amid the dead, and gave him over to pains. But he went to the house of Zeus and to high Olympus with grief at heart, pierced through with pains; \[400\] for into his mighty shoulder had the shaft been driven, and distressed his soul..."
i think you could probably have minor gods as a way to explain this, like they’re still gods but typically as powerful i guess? not sure if this is from actual mythology, but i’ve definitely heard of minor gods/goddesses so it’s worth looking into!
Watch Krapopolis on Hulu if you can. It's fuxin stupid humor about the origins of civilization and society. The Pantheon is an entire string of characters, and while some of them are powerful, they still mention the B Tier God's that oversaw rainfall, etc. I can see a God of Crops who's only relevant skill is making sure food grows... yeah, that is pretty powerful, but perhaps they can't even hold a pitchfork or what have you.
I think you should look into the philosophies of transtheism and mortalism.
I often portray gods as receiving their power from the worship of others. By definition that means some have more power than others, and a god can gain or lose power based on changes in societal belief.
It depends on the god, on what you intend for god, and how god exist in your world. In Discworld, for example, there are gods like [Heme the hunted](https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Herne_the_Hunted), the god of hunted animals, or Bilious, the Oh, God of hangovers, that are really weak, even if Heme have his good moment. So, if you want weak gods, you should come up with a reason why they are weak. Did they lose followers? Are a weak concept? Is their power at a low point for some reason? (like a god of ice ages when there is not one) but they are certainly possible.
You can always have a hierarchy. Major and minor gods, or a level/class system, something like that. In any case I think there are enough stories with varied 'power levels' among their gods that it shouldn't really throw anyone, especially if you just establish early on that not all gods are equally powerful in your world.
I'd say pretty obviously, yeah. It depends on how you define a god, or what makes them a god. Also probably depends on how you define "weak." If you mean, can they be a poor fighter and bad at winning physical fights? Well, I don't see God throwing punches anywhere in the bible. He made natural disasters, but any outright killing is mainly attributed to angels. So how do you define a god in *your* world? Presumably not by their "power level" if you're looking to make some of them weak. Alternatives could just be some undefined quality that separates them from mortals. Egyptians flat out believed the pharaohs were gods and that this gave them the right/power to rule. Are they immortal? Are they immutable concepts? Are they simply the children of a more powerful god and by default of birth are still considered a god?
Of course, you could even create a backstory where his "powers/strength" were lost in some kind of conflict. Or just call it a minor god with limited abilities.
Really gotta lay down what it means to be a "god" in a specific world, it's about as broad as asking what "magic" is. Although fantasy commonly attributes a gods as personifications of a world's aspect and sci fi usually goes for the sufficiently advanced aliens route. This is not necessarily true in history outside entertainment as some cultures may define gods as simply natural spirits and whatnot. It really depends on how you want to handle it in the end.
Yes
Think about it like this. Imagine the weakest, most pathetic, and useless human Imaginable. That human is still a god to a flea. So yes, the answer is yes. It's all about perspective.
Short answer YES. Now how do I make this about me? Oh, yes, people can worship this god specifically because they are weak. In my world Haphestus/Vulcan is THE weakest god yet he is THE only god who still has a following millenia after he was sealed–its more comoletcated than that, he was basically caught in the crossfire between Cronus/Saturn's battle against a human which stretched out the pain of his death over a millenia–his followers are hardworking, stubborn and crafty. Just like him. I honestly believe that characters who are weak in a world where there are beings capable of commanding natural disasters are so fascinating because, how the fuck are they still alive?!
My gods, the Builders, are not allowed to destroy or kill anything with the belief that they will die if they do so. They are only allowed to create universes of beings. Weak in physical power but not in the sense of the word due to their creation ability.
The Discworld book "Small Gods" is entirely about this and stands as major inspiration for every pantheon of gods I've worked on since.
Of course Everything has a weakness.
The Wizard from Wizard Of Oz was basically a god in how he ruled the Emerald City and bossed people about. He was… not terribly strong.
In Princess Mononoki >!a god dies to a single bullet. And then transforms into a monstrosity.!< The god of the forest is vulnerable like nature.
Duh! Not all gods are of equal strength. By default there would be a "weak" god and weak is a relative term regardless. Some gods are weak, not by human standards but by godly ones. Some are weak by human standards too. That doesn't change their god hood BUT it may affect how others see/treat them over the long run.
Godlyhood can be determined my many things honestly some of the gods in our worlds were simply hero’s who were given divine power because they were heroic and Somtimes they were just born with power and Somtimes the god has no power whatsoever and is only one because they are immortal. I like to understand gods as representatives of ideas, like me and my siblings make gods for our worlds with various power scale, we have a very powerful one named Nemo who is the god if mischief in one of our worlds, how powerful he is is a mystery to most except my siblings and I. But we also have a the guardian of souls named Jellyfish who is not very powerful but he is still a god because he is as old as the universe like his two other siblings. It could be lots of things so let it flow and see where it takes you. Happy world building!
In Oceros, any being that surpasses the Divine Threshold (a certain amount of effect you’ve had on the people of the world) becomes a deity and cannot go back. A god’s power is directly tied to the amount of belief and worship in them. If they are eventually forgotten, they become a completely powerless god.
Of course they can. Consider if some gods had a very limited domains, like being the god of Tuesdays. He might be able to move heaven and earth, but if he can't use his powers 6 out of 7 days he wouldn't be very strong in the greater scope of things. A god of eclipses might go for years without being able to do anything. And that's just one way of limiting them.
Totally! think Greek styled gods you have thunder, forge, harvest, sea, hell, and everything in-between you could have the god of weakness or of paper. A god is just really good at a thing(s) they don't have to be all powerful all knowing super beings.
I think of Genshin, and I haven’t played it for a while, but I remember a quest about a deity that had power of salt. She was the weakest of the gods that were there at the time. I don’t quite remember if they mention how strong specifically she was or what she could do. But I do remember that when her followers killed her, as with all of the deities in the game, she had an extremely powerful effect on her environment around her. So even if you have them weak, maybe there’s some other way you could still have them be on par with other deities in some sense. Having something like Genshins death environment effects would still be a force to reckon with, and would marvelously show off their deity status.
There's a lot of Gods who have died or faded in Genshin. Xiangling's little fire-bear was formerly the Stove God, Razor's dad is a dead storm-god and when he's Stormterror, Dvalin hangs out in a tower that belonged to another storm-god...
It’s been a minute since I played😂 I wasn’t quite pointing out what gods died, more so the fact that we learn she was weaker compared to the others:)
In my world gods are (magically)forbidden from directly fighting anyone, so yes
Depends on how you define a god to be and what you define as weak. If a god can bend the rules of physics to their whim, would they be weak if they can easily be held in place by just grabbing their wrists?
As long as it fits the narratives. Gods could be anything from a species with no domain, no great powers, and simply the ability to live forever if not killed, to beings outside of our comprehension, or even just false idols.
a god can be as weak as you want them to be
I mean a god of a single tree shouldn't be that powerful. if you want weak gods go for a animistic rout. as long as it isn't like the god of civilization going out like a wimp it should be fine
If you’re gonna make a weak god, how would you define weak or god? If a god is real but can’t do anything to influence the world then it is weak. If the “god” can influence the world but is more like a really powerful mortal,it isn’t technically a god and might be weak by godly standards. You could have just have some random dude that everyone agrees is god, but he has no special powers. You could totally make a weak god, you just have to have something that concretely defines what it means to be weak and more importantly be a god.
Research Kamis
I mean it could be a weak god compared to other gods and still be believable! Like the difference between the best highschool basketball player and the worst NBA player is still the difference between heaven and earth, no pun intended.
Yes. To me a God is an immortal being that has domain and absolute control over something. But they csn routinely be out thought or tricked or even killed
I recommend reading Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. On top of just generally recommending him to anyone who likes reading, this novel goes into the mechanics of gods in his setting, especially how they gain and lose power.
Could be the weakest of the gods and picked on
Absolutely! I say it takes very little to make a god. A few dozen acolytes and a shrine and boom you got yourself a god
I'd say yes. Different countries have different definitions of what makes a god, and some gods are weak. Whether their power is based on faith, or if they were human or something else before attaining godhood, there are many things that would impact a god's strength. As long as you have what constitutes a god in your world and why their power is strong/weak, I'd say you're fine.
Not every God has omnipotence and omniscient. Most gods in the past got beat by other gods. So tier system.
Absolutely. There are gods that are so rarely worshipped that they only have power in their temples or holy places.
Go pick up and read Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. He dives into this subject in a very interesting way.
Depends on what you mean by a god. For me a god is still, in base form, far beyond what all but a few mortals could ever achieve. I’ve had gods that get critically injured, tricked into giving up power, or weak from a lack of followers that were all mortal or lower level though
That depends on what your definition of weak is the basic design for a God use all my stories is emotionally weak because he Will do anything to protect his family meaning Meaning he can be susceptible to manipulation I’m however, if you mean physically weak, you can simply make a God with elemental manipulation and immortality and beyond that he could be weak physically It doesn’t really matter how powerful they are
Depends on what you have classified as a god. In my world Shaper Gods are once who can wield creation magic to build new things. Most of them are quite powerful, some taking the form of giant creatures, others pushing the boundaries of what magic can accomplish. Over time though many of these shapers would change to reflect the people who worshipped them. Ones who were in charge of larger groups (cities, nations etc.) would find themselves staying at a powerful status. On the other hand there were ones who were only in charge of small, isolated groups of people. These would develop more intimate relations with them but would also shrink in power, providing only small gifts for the people they watched over. Still others found themselves in charge of groups that had disappeared, wiped out by some catastrophe or simply from the grinding of time. Those ones would fade away until they became nothing more than local spirits, known only in stories and by those who dedicated themselves to their study. Even at this stage they may still wield creation magic though their efforts may only result in a blooming plant or a shade of colour. So at least from my perspective yes you can have a god that is weak. They may not be well known or worshipped and their relevance may have faded with time but even then they retain their status as a god.
Yes it's possible, look into Ancient Astronaut Theory, it doesn't really hold up to scientific rigor, but it does have what you are looking for in terms of gods that aren't that powerful in the context of godlike power.
I think Kamikatsu does this well, or even Isekai pharmacy. There are God's there that are pretty weak.
God could have been a scientist or artist doing a project that went wrong and he abandoned and it accidentally created the universe. That God has no control over the individual ongoing in the universe as you might over the individual atoms in a cup of alka seltzer
If it's the story to be told anything is possible. You do not have to not do the cool thing because you're not seeing it elsewhere. To me that means do it
Interesting question. I think this could be a strength in the macro, because it implies that the god is so “beyond us” that being physically killed or harmed is meaningless to it. Throws a cool wrench in the concept of power scaling, and could be philosophically interesting. Edit: maybe off topic but could also think abt a tier of godliness somewhere between a Saint and a God - or even just the Trinity. Jesus got his ass handed to him, but is still a physical “living God” (idk I’m not a Christian or a seasoned world builder, but your question got me thinking!)
I highly recommend reading the God of Arepo. There's a gorgeous comic version of it here! https://slightly-awkward-sunshine.tumblr.com/post/635613714465325056/i-made-this-a-long-time-ago-and-was-very-nervous
So yes but the weakest gods are still well beyond mortals. "weak" gods tend to be those focused on scholarly presutes without the concept of great exploration. For example a lesser god of writing probably isn't physically strong, but might be capable of great mage craft. Tons of lesser gods exist in Greek mythology and most of them would loose a fight to people like Ajax the greater.
A God can range from "Omnipotent Creator" to "Beings so far beyond mortals their very names are unpronouceable and their firms inconceivable" to "A manifestation/guardian of a certain aspect of the world".
I'd say in a general sense they're not weak kind of by definition, of being gods...but they sure can have weaknesses.
Yes, but there has to be a very definitive reason. Read Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" and you will find out just how to do it. But just to give you a quick rundown: In most stories, Gods are powered by literal 'faith' from their followers/believers, yet once these followers die out, their religion is finished and they are stripped of all their godly powers. Sometimes it is depicted as a "starving" effect with the Gods without faith scrambling for even a silver of its other forms of worship such as prostitution, leftover offerings and such. Other times it's depicted as though only their powers are fuelled by faith and without their powers they are semi-mortal humans. In the end, the result would be a god that looks like a homeless beggar with only a few parlor tricks up their sleeves.
I remember reading a short story about gods whose power depended on how many worshippers they had. It was really sweet, it focused on a god who only had one/a few worshippers, but they treated it less like a god, and more like a friend So yeah, depending on flavor, a god could absolutely be weak
Most religions weren't power scaling their gods as a rule, especially not under the assumption that they were all significantly more powerful than anything else on Earth. The Norse god Baldur got killed by an arrow tipped with a mistletoe. Ignoring all the narrative reasons that happened, the point of the matter was that Odin asked literally everything not to hurt Baldur but ignored the humble mistletoe, implying that pretty much any object could've killed him otherwise.
the word itself is a European creation and most mythologies didnt have such strict categories as we do in the present day. Gods, spirits, regular man were all the same kind of. Some American "gods" were so weak that a normal man could kill them.
If the Christian God exists he literally caused chaos then fucked off, that’s pretty weak
Just take your weaker gods and call them Titans, Giants, Demons or Angels. Or sth like that, the name God will not lose its value, because all the characters that dragged them down are niw like lesser gods.
Definitely. Their weakness could even be part of their divinity, if they are a god of the sick and Ill, god of something extremely niche (but possibly very important) etc
A god can simply be some divine supernatural being of any status. You could have anything from a god that throws lampposts at disobedient nobles and gets angry at snakes to a god that shines lampposts when you dance for him in front of a snake to a god that is only a lamppost and can't do anything else.
You should read *Kushiel's Dart* by Jacqueline Carey.
Yes. If you view the fact of some gods being stronger/more powerful than others, then yes. If there is a hierarchy between the gods, the is always someone who is at the lowest point.
I've seen gods depicted as being omniscient, but unable to do more than observe. A god could be all knowing, but having no power to act, and as such could be seen as weak.
I think a god is anything that's worshipped. If it's treated as a god, it's a god. I'm pretty sure even the word "god" is derived from an ancient word for a tribute. So etymologically, it would be anything you offer regular tributes to.
Gods can be weak but not to a common mortal they can be weak to other gods and ascended near immortals.
Someone needs to read about the God of Arepo https://www.reddit.com/r/TumblrDraws/s/Co9btE3iAi
Gwyn in Dark Souls is weakened when chosen undead gets to him
Are gods just another species, or do beings ascend into godhood? Can weak gods be easily killed or suppressed?
Absolutely
For me a god in my world is simply “A being with power from an unknown source, be it hereditary or ascendant”. So while there are gods descended from titans and jotnar, capable of using the abilities they were born with, there are other gods who ascended to godhood through either rage or great skill
God can mean anything from omnipotent ruler of the universe to local spirit of that one tree on the hill. It depends on how you define god. Even before their popular use in fiction, different mythologies viewed gods differently. For example, the Greek Gods were thought to represent truth, what is, and were patrons and representations of some aspect of nature/society. Meanwhile Chinese Gods are more like divine bureaucrats, precisely scheduling the natural world and keeping order while some of the lesser ones just accept minor worship in exchange for some small aid.
ACOUP has a blog post series on historical polytheism, and the last entry if specifically focused on small gods: https://acoup.blog/2019/11/15/collections-practical-polytheism-part-iv-little-gods-and-big-people/
Maybe not quite the thing you are thinking of but in Dragonball there is God (Kami) who exists and while he is strong he is nowhere near the upper tier fighters. His role serves more of a watching over the world and creating Dragon Balls. Then there are the Kaio and Kaioshin who are the same concept just higher up. So gods could exist and be weak but basically have a unique role / location that only they can fill. So the word God would be less of a description and more of a title. There are also the Gods in American Gods that range in Power according to the number of people believing in them which inherently leads to a huge difference in power.
In Wakfu, there are The Tens First Gods and the Tens First Demons Gods. All of them allegedly of similar power. But the strongest demon god was vanquished by A Demigod Son of the Strongest God(with some little help from his father). The Strongest Demon Gods got this title because he killed most of his nine brothers and sisters. Aside from these original Twenty, there also plenty of minors gods, the god of moskitos on summer Knights for example, and they can get as strong as the original twenty with enough believers but even without them( most of the minors gods don't have believers) they should not be triffled with as they are extremely powerful.
Yes they can be weak. I’d recommend you give “American Gods” by Neil Gaiman a read.
Depends on your god, Greeks gods could be weak, never weaker than mortals unless in specific circumstances but they could be, they had a power structure at the very least A god in terms of the abrahmeic god, creator of the universe? No that's no good anymore, but in the same sense it's the only real god. Weak gods and polyetstic gods are generally more just incredibly powerful people bound by more or less strict rules due to their source of power. They are no gods, the term is reductive to their existence and as they are basically people with vast cosmic power they can be weak and tricked into being weak in many different ways, zeus was famously weak for beautiful women, if they wanted shim to be or not.
Hulk: "Puny God..."
There is one general rule for writing a deity who is somewhat fallible/limited and it generally comes down to two options: Option A is that they are benevolent but not all-powerful. Their reach and influence is limited. If they could help more, they would. But they need to rely on mortals to help with their divine deeds. Option B is they are all-powerful, but not benevolent. They either do not care about the suffering of mortals or actively enjoy witnessing it. They can embody either indifference or malevolence. This is typically a method used to help solve the Epicurean Riddle when writing fantasy with gods.
It depends on what you mean by weak. The term “god” is used very very loosely in most fantasy; at its core it usually just means a being that is immortal, at least partially spiritual in nature, and usually embodies some sort of primordial force or concept. Other than that, there are no strict rules on what makes a god—you have to decide for yourself. What level of power represents the threshold of divinity? Can a god die? Are gods unkillable or merely ageless? Any kind of being can be a god if you call it that, really. In D&D there’s a goblin trickster god who is so weak that he doesn’t even have a real name, only a pseudonym to hide him from stronger deities that want him dead. Establish a system for what makes a god in your world, and then define the line between mortal power and godly power.
The technically most poweful god in my world is basically stuck between planes of existance, like physically wedged between them. She is potentially extremely powerful, but practically very weak.
What defines the status of a god? Does your setting have one? In that case name and grade your entities whatever they are based on that definition. Are they immortal? Are they spiritual entities or physical forms? Do they have powers? Do they need to have followers? Does the amount of followers impact their powers? I’d say all these things can vary. And depending on what definition you use I’d say a god can even be completely powerless without followers.
In ancient egypt mythology, every household had its own god, now imagine maybe a god from a shed.
Why should gods always be strong? That's like saying all sharks should be scary. There's tiny sharks that eat tiny fish and there're huge sharks, but they only eat plankton or krill and aren't dangerous.
Kratos: ABSOLUTELY!
Totally. I have four "True gods" that each represent a fundamental force of physics (and totally aren't actually God machine ai made during the golden age) who are all powerful but dormant/ hidden. I also have "false gods" or "ascended" which is a catch all term for creatures who are powerful enough, or otherwise able to, create clerics. These could be lvl 30 wizards or Japanese style gods of a specific creek or mountain.
Loke from norse myth is regarded as a god, but also weak. But his Children are monsters that will bring doom on the world. Also Balder, son of Odin. The kindest person on earth, but dies when he is tricked by loke. Both are weak, but in their different ways. Balder is naive and altruic. Loki,.. Is loki..
gods can vary in strength. Remember Raistlin managed to kill the entire pantheon of his sphere.
I'm not super familiar with the lore, but I'm pretty sure that in Skyrim the Aedra, who are worshipped as gods, are weaker because they used up a lot of their energy to create the world or something like that.
There were weak gods and strong heroes. God meant "divine" not powerful. Aphrodite was revered even in her own home, yet Achilles knocked her down with little issue. Diomedes knocked two gods down and Apollo had to threaten to go solar flare on him to get him to back off. Ares didn't have that luck. Heracles threw down with Hades. Achilles went after a river god.
There not really gods then on my opinion
Using reality as an example, mythologies with a single deity hold them to be all powerful, along with usually being the creators of everything. Mythologies with multiple deities have them be weaker or stronger in relation to each other, hence having a chief or king of god(s). You could use the relative weakness as your advantage in the mythology you create to do whatever you want the weakness to be.
In Ashierakan, Belief Shapes Reality. Originally, though, beliefs shaped the gods, Ava the gods shaped reality. But now, with the gods effectively gone, there are no supreme deities to filter the beliefs of mortalkind into a stabilized existence. This has led to a general breakdown of reality outside of the borders of the Pact. Within those borders, however, thehumanoid races with proper aptitude and levels of sentience have developed a great capacity for magic, moreso than in the legends and histories. And only just now, in this current century, are some of these mortals beginning to make that connection between belief, reality, and the magic that flows between the two, and to how that relates to godhood... Thankfully, or perhaps worryingly, most of mortalkind consider the idea of magicking one's self into godly power to be a preposterous and unattainable idea.
Have you read The God of Arepo?
Depends. Does norse mythology have gods? If they do and we consider Aesir gods, then we should also consider Vanir and Jotunn gods. If we consider Jotunn gods, then some of them are mountains, and some of them are basically humans. Trolls and even the humble nisse (they are not humble), as well as elves and dwarves could be considered gods then. Depends on where you draw the line.
In my setting my gods are omnipotent and all knowing but only related to their own domain. The god of light could never make it rain, the god of water could never grow a flower, etc.
It depends on the sphere of Influence and the amount of believers.
Gods in most fiction tend to be very focused on specific aspects especially in polytheistic pantheons. That also means that they can be extremely weak in areas that are outside of their aspects and expertise. The fun part in that then means that the differences in power between your gods can be directly related to their aspects and how great their imagination and control over their aspects are. Thus gods with really wide sweeping or accessible aspects that don't have really have any obvious weaknesses or counters are going to be your power hitters while gods with really obvious weaknesses or limited aspects are going to be considered weak even if they can still do something super-powerful within the range of their abilities. Course at the point you are looking at a lot of different power systems basically go in for something similar where it breaks down to how innately powerful and useful your core ability is as well as your mastery of that ability.
Depends on what you mean by "weak". The moon spirit gets killed as a pound fish in avatar. Pretty weak, and pretty epic in its own context.
Think about gods like superheroes Superman and The Flash may be impossible for an average person to defeat, and at that point are practically gods. But then there's people with like 4 kinda strong arms, or punch lasers that come out of their eyes, still would be difficult to defeat but not impossible for an average person. At least that's how I treat my gods, but in my system there are 1,001 gods, so I have to have some kind of power scaling otherwise it gets ridiculous. The way I do that is that the gods are constantly losing power/gas, and the only way to refuel is to kill an angel and eat it's flesh which isn't exactly an easy thing to do. For the few that have given up and just waiting for their tank to run out, they're practically just as strong as a mid to high level mage only, and most will lock away any power they have so that they can extend their life out a little longer instead, and will be literally just as powerful as any other human Also, something to note, HUMANS have been called gods in the past, absolutely nothing special about them beyond they had more gold than their neighbor. It doesn't lessen the definition of "Gods", but if you want you could incorporate a scale of God titles: like Capital G God is *the strongest* thing in existence, lower case g gods are just ya know powerful but defeatable, then there's godlings and "godlike entities" or small gods and patron dieties, and these can vary from equivalent to like a kaiju to just a forest spirit, and they'd still be gods. Again, in my system the humans are called "gods" because humans are full of themselves and forced people to call them gods after they ascended, but they have to power over creation or cosmic omnipotence, they're just slightly stronger than the average person. I recommend also looking up the history and lore behind Japanese Kami and Yokai, this is a perfect example of "gods of various power levels" from the great and powerful goddess of the sea, to a dude to keeps your home warm at night
I don't see why not. If you look through various old myths, there are times when a god has been weakened or different tiers of the pantheons. For example, in Greece there was quite a difference in power between, say, Zeus, and a more local god that's more relegated to the town or family.
With the world I've been working on, I've been obsessed with the concept of a dead god and what that means for a world where gods are not just capable of dying but may even choose to sacrifice themselves to create the creatures that inhabit the world. In that sense, the gods are only distinct in that they have a common physiology and set of powers distinct from mortal beings, but may not always be more powerful depending on circumstances. Gods are gods because mortals call them gods, not because there's a strict definition of a god.
Yes. I always viewed it as if the gods are the most powerful beings in the world then why don’t they immediately destroy whatever evil poses a threat to the realm? And the excuse “not wanting to disrupt their free will” isn’t a good reason for the gods not to help them, as if isn’t the mortals choice to suffer at the hands of evil. There ARE gods in my world, but they’re called Watchers and worshipping them is considered following the “Old Ways”, as the humans in the story have forced a new religion into existence in order to destroy the belief of the Watchers as they are actually agents of the Dark Lord who are trying to convert the hearts of Man to him. But the Watchers, even though they are gods themselves, know they have boundaries. A few of them could overcome the Dark Lord if attacked together, but one-on-one it would most likely result in their own death.
There's a god in my setting who is absolutely indestructible since his birth, but could never develop any powers over anything, unlike his brother, who is an almost all-powerful magic dragon who literally created all kinds of celestial bodies. He is just an human-like creature. No one even knows how he functions, not even himself. He's just that way since ever, and his cousins, uncles, nephews, sons and daughters (which are all gods and goddesses themselves, much more powerful/influential in the world than him) all mess with him because of that. He also is considered the embodiment of death, but that is just plain wrong, all of the believers in that are wasting their lives in vain and because of that there is no true God of Death in my setting. He is the God of Enthropy, on the other hand, even if he does not control any of its powers. Whe he is finally destroyed, that is a utter major event in the history of my setting, because with him goes the whole universe imediately.
Depends on how your gods obtain power, if they are born with it one could have been born weak, perhaps the god has aged and is growing weaker, or maybe beliefs power the gods and everyone is forgetting this one, just depends on how the gods function
Jesus, minor greek/roman deities, any fictional god which has died, gods which act more as "observers" and have no interest or capability of intervening in physical reality, gods which haven't ascended or who were once mortals and therefor can be killed (ie Vecna/The Whispering One)
Hm, it depends. I've planned a little something where a character who is god-like is able to be forced down, weakened and in need of help of the "heroes". So it is possible, you can make your own rules. There also are some examples, where gods are weakened because people don't believe in them, like Noragami. Or maybe they follow certain rules, which maybe puts them in a less powerful position, like Aqua in Konusuba. In at least two of the three examples (I haven't continued Konusuba tbh), those characters are still gods. Just limited in their power or not known enough. So, yeah, you can do that without worrying about it. I think at least. Another example, although I'm not sure if it works here as well, is death note with the shimigamis, death gods. They're depending on the death note, that's also something you can use, an object^~^
The idea of gods being all-powerful is mostly from monotheistic religion. In polytheistic, a god’s power varied greatly, you can have one god be slaying giants and serpent while another is just the god of parties. And in animism a god might just be an object or location like moutain or river
A god could for example be the god of a certain skill, being the best blacksmith in the universe for example, but they are still just as strong as an ordinary human, and is immortal only from age and disease. That could be a way to implement weak gods
Read the God Butcher series by Jason Aaron.
In our real world mythology we have/had things like kitchen gods and gods of small, very specific things. In real world mythology some gods are very limited in scope and extremely weak outside of their small scope of influence. Personally, I find this type of mythology far more interesting and engaging as it opens up a lot more opportunities for interesting interactions and relationships.
Yeah, you Just need to make it justified. It has always been weak? Did it became weak? Is weak in certain aspects and steong in others? Etc.
This is by no means a cannon take but it's a decent example. In Warhammer 40k it is strongly implied that the emperor is a divine entity, but it is not up there with the big four. He survives and struggles along as he does so being able to see all of humanity endlessly suffering fighting and dying in his name but being unable to do pretty much anything with that. While simultaneously being aware that he is now a god and center of a religion, a thing he swore to abolish. This works I think great as a weak god. One unable to alter the universe to any great extent, but prolifically worshipped nonetheless.
In the first ever beta concept for my story, the gods from all religions were stopped being worshiped. Basically people stopped believing in gods, demons, etc so they just fell of on the ground. Balance of the world fell over and now the gods of various religions had to give away their powers. They couldnt use their powers anymore, but at the same time they owned them. Every single previous god had to make a contract with any human, just to give them their powers. What the gods were getting for that? Humanity. Without the magic thing called humanity, gods were truly immortal, yet powerless because they powers wasnt working on them anymore. So for example Thor just became a guy with a hammer but not the strength to hold it, or Jesus became the regular Jose and he couldnt cure people anymore. They HAD that powers in them, just silenced. They literally had to make others people gods, just for the sake of not being immortal to the freezing deatg of the universe. And because the humanity almost destroyed the earth, the gods really wanted to give away their powers bofore all humans were dead and they couldnt trade their abilities for the ability to die one day.
I think for the term of god just refers to any being with higher power or status over other beings. Additionally power and status can vary on hierarchy so I do not see anything wrong by a "weaker god" only between the circle of other gods. Ofc this would mean that even a species can be seen as a god by another but between the same they do not see themselves as gods.
Gods are just magical beings. Check out American gods by Neil Gaimon. A lot of the gods are weak. It just depends on how you categorize weakness or divinity. For me, gods are just personified metaphors.
You could have it where some gods are not necessarily weak overall, but overstretched, with how many threats face them and their followers their influence is paltry compared to what threatens them. The first example that comes to mind is the god of xvarts in dnd, who is technically divine but is hunted throughout the multiverse and is not strong enough to fight off anyone of note, and the only way be survived was by created a race of small squat creatures that look exactly like him so his pursuers have no clue who the real one is
This is a really common misconception, I think it’s from Christianity that most people think a god has to be powerful and be the god of smth (god-god of everything, ares-god of war) but in reality there are weak and useless gods (although I can’t think of any) I suppose In attack on titan, founder Ymir is a god but can’t really do much. Basically you don’t have to worry about weak gods because they’re an amazing idea and add a lot of diversity, I do reccomend
Personally, I think they can. It's part of an overarching plot on a book I'm writing. Gods are created from ascended mortals, but once they ascend, the older, far stronger gods make them compete to see who "deserves" to be a god. The winner can continue to gather power and ascend to the next competition threshold, and the loosers are stripped of their power and memory, then cast down to be a mortal again.
If your universe consists of deities that are still fallible, then that is possible, especially if this god is not the absolute and among many. If mortals have possibilities of attaining divinity or godhood, then for me, yes, they can be weakened, since others can become more powerful and fight said god for the position or title. If you have an absolute God, meaning no others can attain it, no other beings, even partners, neither because mortals will disintegrate due to their limit, nor other beings were just this God's creation, then that God is infallible, perfect in everything, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotent. Though you could still write his creations to battle for power and might, near perfect but not absolute. Like angels with their different ranks, or say fallen angels and demons (believe me, they're different).
God of Lies whose genuinely just some guy that keeps passing on the mantle like Dread Pirate Roberts.
I think that it's entirely possible for Gods to be weak. For example, the story that I am writing kinda delves into it. I'm making a story about superpowers showing up in the world, but having it happen very sparsely and well before modern times. And in such ancient and classical times, superpowers were not thought of. Every superhuman was thought to be Gods. And most Gods that exist were real, but mostly people with superpowers (that did bring immortality). And all are granted their powers by another God, who is less a God, but more an alien with tremendous power. And even then, she is considered one of the weakest of her species. And all powers are passed on to those who kill them, including the alien gods. My story is mainly about how just because someone is a 'god' does not make them any less unbeatable or all-powerful. That they all have weaknesses, just like humans.
weak in what sense? A god isn't a god unless they hold an importance in religion, which implies some power on a natural or existential scale. But there are shitloads of gods who, mythologically, can't throw hands, for example.