By Reyadh Rahaman
To write gods into your fictional world in a way that feels organic and interesting, you’ll need to consider what kind of deities they are and the nature of their connection to the non-deities of your universe. Whether benevolent, malevolent, or indifferent—they need to serve a purpose.
The Roles of Your Gods
Before you get your sapient races to start building majestic monuments and practicing any number of religious rituals, you need to think about why people revere these deities. Therefore, you need to brainstorm what your gods do and why their actions are worthy of worship…or worthy of being despised.
Creation Gods
A common appearance of gods in fiction is as some sort of creational force. The universe needs to start somewhere, so using incredibly powerful beings as the source for that seems reasonable. If you take this route, define how the gods created the universe, as it’s pretty boring if you solely mention that they were responsible and give no other details.
Such a tactic can work if you want your dominant religion to be the type that enforces the idea that mortals can’t comprehend the nature of the divine—but that’s not really as satisfying for readers. This method may work in real-world religions, but IRL worship is quite different from a reader’s attention span. Remember, your fiction is supposed to captivate and entertain people: you’re not going to win anyone over by copying and pasting existing theological paradigms.
Instead, have your gods create the universe using a specific method. A stellar example of this is Tolkien’s legendarium. In the beginning, when time and space weren’t really things yet, the god of this universe (Eru Ilúvatar) and his primordial spirit posse (the Ainur) felt like creating a universe. So, in their timeless and immaterial void, they started singing. They sang and created the Music of the Ainur (Ainulindalë) which started off soft, slow, and subtle. However, soon enough, as each of the Ainur sang their parts, they harmonized with one another, and the concepts being sung were heard, realized, and visualized until they became tangible. Since each of the Ainur were distinct individuals, their aspects wove into the Music and resulted in the creation of a (mostly) balanced universe.
Eru and the Ainur only want to create and then love their creations. This is a very parent-child-like relationship. You can think of this as Eru and the Ainur wanting something to appreciate and care for—so they made just that. Their purpose in Eä (the universe)—after its creation—is to watch over those who exist within the realms of time and space.
As for the creation method: you don’t have to use music or another immaterial method. You can use anything you’re passionate about! Maybe your gods painted the world into existences with void pastes and thought pigments. Or, how about a universe that was sewn together from the threads of fate? You can go even crazier and take a more visceral approach: your god could literally vomit up existence.
Not only does this begin crucial themes in your fictional world, but it also leads to a genuine way for your mortal worshippers to revere their deities. Using the Tolkien example from above: music is seen as something spiritual and sacred in Middle Earth—the elves, humans, and dwarves alike all find singing and instrumentation to be soothing, reassuring, or motivating. This isn’t true worship, but the way these races feel around music ties closely back to the origins of their universe and why it settles their souls to such a profound degree. This calmness once more connects to the love Eru and the Ainur have for the inhabitants of Eä.
As another example, if your gods created the world through painting, you can have this expressed through churches and other religious buildings being heavily covered with beautiful works of art, and worship could take the form of creating new pieces. In such a universe, the gods likely care a great deal about aesthetics and the physical nature of existence. Worship in this visually pleasing manner results in a direct tie to the gods and how they created the world. Draw parallels to your gods’ purposes and your fictional world will come out feeling genuine.
Caretaker Gods
Alternatively, your fictional world could have been created through some sort of Big Bang equivalent and your gods may be the keepers and maintainers of the universe. As such, instead of being all-powerful deities, they would simply be a powerful elder race. However, don’t mistake such gods for being weak, as they could control the sky, sea, and stone of the world—as well as much more. You don’t have to stick to the tangible parts of a universe either: life, death, and destiny are some of the other parts of your setting that could be governed by your caretaker gods.
This route tends to be more satisfying to readers, as there’s a clear and easy-to-understand purpose that usually comes off as immediately natural. Great examples of this are found in Greek mythology. At first, there was Chaos, but then, some vague stuff happened (not ideal, but there are a lot of messy debates here I’ll skip over) and the first primordial beings were birthed into the universe: the titans. The titans were not quite corporeal beings (Uranus was kind of the whole sky and Gaia was pretty much all of the Earth); they were concepts as much as individuals. Then, from breeding both in literal and non-literal manners, the gods were born from the titans after a few generations. The gods, instead of being personifications of the universe, were more like humans except exceptionally more powerful in terms of their mental and physical capabilities. They ruled over aspects of the world and maintained them: Zeus looked after the heavens, Poseidon governed the seas, Hades managed the afterlife, etc.
A lot of ancient Greeks worshiped the gods in a manner befitting that god’s role. For Zeus, whose temples were often on hills or mountains, people prayed there while on their knees and having their hands outstretched to the sky. In Poseidon’s case, whose temples were frequently built along the coast, the drowning of animals (yikes) was a common—yet horrid—practice. As for Hades, who did not have temples (he didn’t reside on Olympus like the other gods), people would worship him in caves, and would do so by sacrificing animals with black skin or fur (another yikes), or would pool blood in hand-dug pits.
Let’s create our own caretaker goddess as an example. She’s the goddess of snow—who brings about winter and the decrease of temperature—and people could worship her by creating snow and ice sculptures. Her temples could be on glaciers or built on lakes that freeze over during the colder months. The sapient races of this world may want to minimize how cold it gets, so they show their appreciation for this goddess by acknowledging her power through the aforementioned methods in hopes that she makes winter mild and blizzards less frequent. Feels reasonable, right?
Unthinking Gods
By this, I don’t mean foolish or unintelligent gods; I mean those that are not sapient yet still exist and have great power…and possibly a will. Not all gods need to be creators or caretakers. Some can just exist and perpetuate existence. These deities don’t need to be corporeal—in fact, it works better if they aren’t. What’s more, since their purpose and goals are less defined, you can go wild with such a concept.
These gods could have been created by human thoughts, emotions, and more. They could exist in a realm of ideas outside of the physical universe, or in some sort of astral or spiritual setting. Alternatively, they could simply be the universe and everything within them may not be aware that they’re living on and in a being beyond their comprehension. Do you think any of your skin cells know they’re on an organism trillions of times larger than them? More importantly, would they even have the capacity to comprehend such concepts? The same could be said for a being in a universe dominated by (or composed of) an unthinking god.
For example, let’s look at Azathoth in Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. This unthinking god is like a living colossal black hole in the center of the universe: the nucleus of all creation. They are sleeping—being lulled by incomprehensible music played by a race of nigh-infinitely-mighty extraplanar entities. If they were to awaken, it’s hinted that Azathoth would annihilate all existence…or something close to that.
The purpose of Azathoth is to scare readers instead of inspire awe in them or support a core part of the tangible world. Azathoth is the be-all, end-all, deity who doesn’t care about anything—for they have a will but no true cognitive process, or at least one that’s beyond the ken of humans and most other intelligent beings.
There aren’t many worshippers of Azathoth except those of a demonic nature or those from realms beyond our own. The few human followers Azathoth has are likely insane, deranged, or don’t understand the true nature of this being and so try to vainly seek power from it. This sets up the scene for plenty of crazy cults who can be written to do anything sinister.
This is the best type of god if you’re experimenting with new cosmogonies and want to create a unique, original, and unrelenting universe where the rules can be vastly different from more traditional settings. On top of that, you can fit lesser gods into such a universe pretty easily. They don’t all have to be madness-inducing vortices either: they can be chill homies who just want to exist and maintain order in the face of an eldritch void monstrosity.
Go With the God Flow
After you find which type of gods fit your world the best, put your world together and then create some races! Doing so can help you create a fantasy story that’s both fun to write and triggers your creativity. As you’re coming up with the history of your universe, make sure to clearly indicate how and where the gods intervene (or purposely avoid intervening).
Make connections between the actions of gods and your races; create legends, myths, and marks on your physical worlds where the gods have left some sort of impact. Once you decide on the purpose of your gods, it’ll be easier and easier to shape your universe in a way that feels realistic, interesting, genuine, and—most importantly—meaningful.
Thanks a ton for this! My current WIP’s all about gods and an in-depth article like this is exactly what I needed. The section on caretaker gods even made me realize that I haven’t described how my gods are worshipped 😅