"I've walked across the the sun. I've seen events so tiny and so fast, they can hardly be said to have occurred at all. But you, you are a man. And this world's smartest man means no more to me than its smartest termite."
— Dr. Manhattan, Watchmen
One step below being one of the Powers That Be. Occasionally shares space with The Great Gazoo.
Mythology often depicted gods as "human, but bigger." Similar emotions, virtues, vices, etc. but with more power. Special effects and global story-telling exposure has expanded the concept. Gods are often humanoid (easier for actors to portray them) and have a number of powers. The difference between them and non-divine characters is they don't have to be "balanced" in terms of other characters. However, there are sometimes higher beings that the gods are no match for.
Typical god powers and traits can include:
- Attunement to Concept: e.g. Aphrodite the Love Goddess is attuned to love, naturally.note If she's hurt or weakened due to some plot reason, fewer people love, and sometimes the reverse is also true. This attunement may be so strong that the concept defines their very being; a War God will be perpetually warlike, while a God of Evil can only do evil things, etc. Not all gods have attunements, and the level of attunement depends on the writer. Which may overlap with...
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Their power may be directly proportional to the number of worshipers they have, or to the strength of their followers' belief. Sometimes, this trope may even be responsible for their entire existence, where gods are only born because humans believe in them.
- Immortality: They usually don't age, but can be killed — although more than likely it will be incredibly difficult and takes a great deal of effort or a special item to do so. Sometimes only a god can kill another god. And it's not uncommon for them to be resurrected, either — although they may lose their memories or be forced to take a new form.
- Some gods may not be truly physical, only manifesting in the world using Avatars. In this case, destroying their avatars may not be enough to kill them, because they can reform their physical selves.
- Gods tend to have the power to alter reality at will, generally in limited areas or in ways relating to their attunement.
- Super-Strength and/or Telekinesis are common for gods.
- Flight and/or Teleportation are also very common.
- If they are nature gods, they will usually also have Elemental Powers.
Interestingly, Superman and some of the more powerful Flying Bricks fulfill most of these requirements, except possibly the worship bit. This depends on how strictly you define worship, of course, since subscribing isn't usually considered the same as tithing. (For rabid fans, subscriptions can total a lot more than 10% of your income!) Then again, Superman does share a setting with actual Physical Gods, some of whom are even stronger still than he is (Depending on the Writer, of course).
In other fiction, characters who may not strictly be gods may get powers like these simply because, in a place where Everyone Is a Super, then the only way you can really mount a truly serious threat to a world with millions of super-powered civilians is to give the baddies even more absurdly powerful abilities.
Sometimes, a human can become a Physical God, especially if it's possible for said gods to die. These newly minted gods may choose to take up the mantle with solemnity, cackle madly that "A God Am I!", or steadfastly say "A God I Am Not" from lingering sympathy to their human origins.
The existence of a Physical God presents a superficial difficulty to a Flat-Earth Atheist; however, the problem can be overcome by distinguishing a Physical God from whatever Powers That Be might or might not exist in the universe (considering the former to be "merely" ultra-powerful beings not different in principle from anybody else who happens to have similar levels of power, and applying the label "god" only to the latter. The non-trivial difficulty in determining the difference when such beings can only be viewed from a limited human scale is often brushed under the rug). Smarter Flat Earth Atheists will turn into Nay Theists instead...or welcome the new divine overlord....
Compare Reality Warper, Eldritch Abomination, Anthropomorphic Personification, Abstract Apotheosis, Deity of Human Origin, Ultimate Life Form, and Sufficiently Advanced Alien. See also Our Gods Are Different for a more general trope. God in Human Form for a humanoid deity rather than vice-verca, and Humans Are Cthulhu, for when Puny Earthlings are seen as this by other creatures. They're usually the center of a Physical Religion. When all that power amounts to nothing, see God's Hands Are Tied. God Job is when a mortal gets to become this. If these characters get defeated by a weaker one, it's Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?.
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Card Games
- Magic: The Gathering:
- The players are said (by the game) to be Planeswalkers (so go some of the introductory blurbs, "You are a Planeswalker."), incredibly powerful wizards with near-godlike abilities, capable of summoning creatures, magicks and artifacts of power from numerous planes for the purpose of dueling one another. And if you don't buy that, the card-type planeswalker represents lesser mages who can be called on to fight for you, and while not as "powerful" as you, they still possess abilities that can approach Game-Breaker with a little push. The red ones in particular can easily kill a full Planeswalker by themselves, though it could take them a while.
- Since the power of a Planeswalker card in play is measured in "loyalty" counters, which can be removed by dealing damage to it, the card could be interpreted as the player calling in a favor from an ally who may get annoyed and run off after a few decent hits, or after you ask them for particularly taxing favors.
- The New Phyrexia Planeswalker card "Karn Liberated
" is a particularly powerful one; his last and most expensive ability ("ultimate" in player parlance) restarts the entire game, with only the cards he chose to exile starting in play. In context, he remakes whatever world you're currently in, in whatever image you ask him to. note
- The Theros expansion introduces "God" as a creature type, defining deities as enchantments that also become creatures when you control a certain amount of permanents with that color's mana symbol. Much like classical Greek deities, they regularly interact with the physical world and can be killed — although it takes a lot of power, far more than most mortals can ever muster, to do so. Amonkhet features gods of its own, which are far more physical than Theros' enchantment-gods and live among mortals as, essentially, giant, superpowered and animal-headed people.
- Prior to the Mending, Planeswalkers were so powerful that they could not be represented in card form. The Mending changed the fundamental nature of the Planeswalker spark. It no longer grants incredible power, merely the ability to safely travel between planes. This is why the newer Planeswalkers can be represented as cards. The only Planeswalker left that still possesses godlike power is Nicol Bolas, and he had to absorb a conflux of mana from a shattered plane to do it — and even then he only regained a fragment of the power he once held.
- The players are said (by the game) to be Planeswalkers (so go some of the introductory blurbs, "You are a Planeswalker."), incredibly powerful wizards with near-godlike abilities, capable of summoning creatures, magicks and artifacts of power from numerous planes for the purpose of dueling one another. And if you don't buy that, the card-type planeswalker represents lesser mages who can be called on to fight for you, and while not as "powerful" as you, they still possess abilities that can approach Game-Breaker with a little push. The red ones in particular can easily kill a full Planeswalker by themselves, though it could take them a while.
Films — Animated
- Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2:The Foodimals see Flint Lockwood as a living god called N-Woo (Pronounced En-Whoo). Justified, since he created the FLDSMDFR that, in turn, created them.
- Eris, the goddess of discord from Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas.
- The Year Without a Santa Claus has Mother Nature, the immortal embodiment of all of nature, and her two bickering children, the Snow Miser and the Heat Miser, which personify cold and heat, respectively.
Films — Live-Action
- In Blade (1998), Deacon Frost becomes one after turning into La Magra, becoming the physical manifestation of the evil Blood God. As strong as he is, he's still vulnerable to anti-coagulants.
- In Bruce Almighty, the title character becomes one for a while when the real God gives His powers to him, with the only limitations being that Bruce can't tell anyone about it or alter free will. He keeps Bruce's mind completely human however, setting him up to fail in handling His powers and responsibility, and Bruce eventually learns humility and to better his life without godlike abilities.
- Godzilla:
- Mothra is a literal Goddess but despite that condition has a lot of physical weakness and even is mortal. However she is a Legacy Character that keeps living through her offspring, as she lays at least one egg before dying and her children takes her place as full time protector of Infant Island and part time protector of the rest of the world.
- In Godzilla (2014), Godzilla himself is described as being like a god compared to the MUTOs.
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) reveals that various monsters including Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and even King Kong were worshiped as physical gods collectively known as "Titans". Most of the Titans are benevolent acting as enforcers of balance in nature. The only truly evil Titan (so far) is King Ghidorah, though he's actually an alien.
- Immortal: Horus, along with the rest of the Egyptian pantheon in the flying pyramid. They only demonstrate a limited range of abilities, such as possession, mind control and Eye Beams, but it's implied that they're not using more than a fraction of their actual powers. Their pyramid transport is only a mechanical ship that needs fuel and maintenance (in the comic, at least), so they're not exactly omnipotent, although the credit of Earth's creation is given to them.
- Lucy: The main character develops into this after she encounters a drug that unlocks 100% of her brain capacity. Then subverted when she ultimately becomes an immaterial godlike entity intertwined with all of existence.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Thor is a literal god, which is part of why it's very hard to hurt him seriously when he's at full strength. He briefly is made a mortal by his father Odin as a punishment in his first movie. Thor: Ragnarok makes this godhood much more clear with Asgard's SistineChapel-like artwork of him and his newfound and enhanced lightning powers that let him humble the Hulk. He even managed to fatally wound Thanos all by himself when other heroes couldn't even touch him one bit.
- This also applies to his father Odin and his sister Hela, the Goddess of Death. Both are far more powerful than other Asgardians and have a connection to the realm other Asgardians lack. Odin is depicted with a Holy Halo on Asgardian frescoes.
- Downplayed in regard to Thor's adopted brother Loki. He hails from a race of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens and calls himself the God of Mischief, but unlike Odin, Thor and Hela Loki doesn't have innate godlike powers, and all his skills come from learning.
- Ego the Living Planet in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is a Celestial, an eternal entity, millions of years old, able to assimilate matter and manipulate it on a molecular level by mere will, which he has used to not only take physical form as a planet, but to create humanoid extensions of himself and send them to the furthest reaches of the galaxy. His avatars are super strong and durable, have a potent Healing Factor, and can manipulate matter that isn't part of Ego to the extent of effortlessly wiping out a fleet of drone-ships singlehandedly.
- Peter Quill is half Celestial, and the son of Ego. As such, when he gains control of his powers over the planet, he's the only one who can match daddy dearest in a straight fight. However, he loses his powers once his father dies.
- Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War is the last of the Titans. Too bad he is the Mad one. Hulk's punches barely even stagger him, and the only one to near fatally injure him is Thor's Stormbreaker, which is the most powerful Asgardian weapon and the second most powerful weapon overall behind the Infinity Gauntlet. He also gives a Curb-Stomp Battle to almost everyone in the movie. His Children, especially Ebony Maw, worship him like cult members would.
- By Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness Wanda can change reality, create things (even living beings) out of nothing, give people superpowers and take them away and demolish every opponent that confronts her. She's also prophesized to either rule or destroy the Multiverse. By the end of the film, the only beings that surpass Wanda in power are Dormammu, the Celestials, Chthon, the Ennead and the Living Tribunal.
- In Men in Black II, Laura finds out she is the Light of Zartha.
Agent K: When you get sad, it always seems to rain.
Laura: Lots of people get sad when it rains!
Agent K: It rains because you're sad, baby. - In Queen of the Damned, Marius notes that their vampire mother Queen Akasha is a living god and seems to have been seen as such when she ruled over Ancient Egypt. Presumably a God of Evil, since she personally slaughtered most of her human subjects.
- TRON: Legacy: Kevin Flynn isn't quite omnipotent, but he is the Creator of the current iteration of the Grid, and he can also not quite reshape, but bend reality around him. Also in TRON, to a lesser degree. He was able to activate things no mere program should be able to activate (like a junked Recognizer) and was able to shield Yori from being derezzed. (It is also implied but never confirmed that Flynn himself cannot actually be derezzed, having survived with no lasting harm more than one event that would derez any normal program.)
- X-Men: Apocalypse:
- Apocalypse's Combo Platter Powers make him a borderline Reality Warper and he has the life span for it as well, but he is technically not a god.
- Jean Grey's Phoenix Force is a genuine divinity and has the power to match.
Live-Action TV
- American Gods (2017) includes scads of gods including Mister Wednesday, Mister Nancy, Media, New Media, Technical Boy and Easter. Also a djinn, a zombie and a leprechaun.
- Angel:
- Illyria. Similarly to Glory, she had a true form, a taloned, tentacled Eldritch Abomination, but was trapped in a human body. This substantially decreased her power. Then her power had to be artificially reduced further, as it was eating through her physical form.
- Also Jasmine, one of the Powers That Be, and an Energy Being who spent considerable effort creating herself a physical body so that she could come to earth.
- In the Arrowverse, Oliver Queen ascends from a deceased superhero to The Spectre during Crisis on Infinite Earths. He is a reality warper on a multiversal scale and possibly the most powerful being in existence. His feats include overpowering the Anti-Monitor and recreating the entire multiverse as he sees fit when it is destroyed.
- Glory the Hellgod from the fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is an example of a former Hellgod confined to a physical form — in this case, as a punishment. She's still incredibly powerful, able to move at absurd speeds and punch through force fields.
- Charmed (1998) had various characters with every power listed above, some possessing them seperately, others possessing them all at once, like the Avatars.
- Doctor Who:
- The Doctor could arguably considered a physical god. He is practically immortal, regenerating when he gets too old or is seriously injured, he can sense time changing around him, he can travel through all of time and space (with his time machine), and, according to the Ood, his song is sung throughout the universe. The description could be expanded to include all Time Lords in general, who in fact made it part of their mission to preserve timelines and prevent paradoxes.
- In fact, in "Last of the Time Lords", he actually gained further godlike powers to fly and transform matter because the entire world prayed by thinking of his name at the exact same moment.
- And in "The Big Bang" he literally recreates the universe.
- Sutekh from "Pyramids of Mars". Even the Time Lords can't beat him. And if not stopped, he would have destroyed the universe.
- "The Parting of the Ways": Rose Tyler temporarily became one after absorbing the Time Vortex and becoming the Bad Wolf.
- The Doctor could arguably considered a physical god. He is practically immortal, regenerating when he gets too old or is seriously injured, he can sense time changing around him, he can travel through all of time and space (with his time machine), and, according to the Ood, his song is sung throughout the universe. The description could be expanded to include all Time Lords in general, who in fact made it part of their mission to preserve timelines and prevent paradoxes.
- Gods and Goddesses in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess often started at Powers That Be and then became Physical Gods.
- On Heroes, Peter Petrelli becomes this by about midway through Volume One. He's got Nigh-Invulnerability, Telekinesis, Super-Strength, Flight, teleportation, the ability to shoot fireballs and unleash lightning bolts, From a Single Cell type Immortality, and he's a Time Master. In Volume 3, he gets Nerfed by the Big Bad — his own father, Arthur Petrelli — who steals his powers and soon after was himself deemed Too Powerful to Live by the show's writers.
- The Magicians (2016): Julia becomes this after being raped by the Trickster God Reynard. She has Nigh-Invulnerability, can handle magic than others can't, and can still do magic after The Magic Goes Away.
- Stargate SG-1: The Goa'uld would very much like their subjects to believe this, when they're really just Sufficiently Advanced Aliens pretending to be gods. The Goa'uld Anubis (who's also the most evil) on the other hand fits this completely, having become a "half-ascended" upper-dimensional Energy Being who manifests in the lower realms to continue being venerated as a divine Evil Overlord.
- Kamen Rider
- Kamen Rider Gaim revolves around the pursuit of godlike power, and ends with Kouta and Mai succeeding and ascending to godhood. We don't see much of what their limits are, but we know they have some: Mai time-travels and finds her actions restrained and unable to change the past Because Destiny Says So — but that doesn't take away from the fact that she can will herself through time to begin with.
- In Kamen Rider Zi-O, it has been showcased many times that Oma Zi-O's status is nothing less than nigh-omnipotent. Beyond the fact that he has the powers of every single every Rider of the Heisei era, he has unparalleled abilities in using Psychokinesis, Super-Strength, Nigh-Invulnerability, the ability to Freeze Time while keeping his victims aware, and the power to project waves of disintegrating force. And all this is just the tip of the ice berg as every single battle he is in is a one sided slaughter that ends in the blink of an eye due to being so above everyone in the setting. Even after his younger self had obtained the power of every single rider before him, he still isn't even anywhere close to his level.
- Kamen Rider Solomon and Kamen Rider Xross Saber in Kamen Rider Saber, both of whom are nigh-omnipotent reality-warpers thanks to the sources of power they use (the former's being a chunk of the Almighty Book while the latter's a Seiken formed from the powers of all the other Seiken). It's taken a step further for Saber in the finale when he manages to write back reality into existence after it gets destroyed by the Final Boss.
- Seriously Weird has Steve, the Greek God of Chaos, who has an affinity for chaos and weirdness, and who manifests as a Violent Glaswegian. After Harris disrespects him in his own realm, he curses Harris to be a perpetual Weirdness Magnet.
- Star Trek:
- Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as the better-behaved rest of the Q Continuum. It's unsure just what Q's limits are. He does enjoy pushing humans' buttons by acting like a god, in any case (including in "Tapestry" when Picard dies and Q literally appears to him as "God"). In the episode "Hide and Q", Q gives such powers to Riker. Some think Trelane is a Q, too. (In the novel Q-Squared, he is, and Q has to deal with him.)
- In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Death Wish", Quinn, while seeking political asylum to commit suicide, asserts that, while the Q wish to give the impression of godhood, they are not in fact omnipotent.
- There have been several other almost god-level beings that seem to be close to the same power level of the Q (including Kevin from "The Survivors", who destroyed an entire species with a thought, or the species that ended a war between the Federation and Klingons), although a lot of them are energy beings so they may or may not count.
- Supernatural:
- The various Pagan and other non-Abrahamic gods seen in the series are all physical beings with tremendous powers, but can be killed with the right weapons.
- The Trickster. Here, a Trickster is a pagan god. He can reshape reality and mess with time. Dropped a guy into a wormhole For the Evulz. Good times. A few other Pagan gods have also featured in the series. In Season 5, it's revealed that the Trickster is actually not a pagan god at all, but an Archangel, specifically Gabriel, who's hiding from his brothers.
- The demons revere Lucifer as a god because he created their race. Lucifer himself recognizes the usefulness of such blind obedience, but despite his own immense power regards himself as simply God's son. After he gets released, Meg directly describes the archangel in these terms to Castiel.
Meg: Lucifer is the Father of our race. Our Creator. Your God may be a deadbeat, but mine... mine walks the Earth.
- At the end of Season 6, Castiel becomes one. Or at least that's what he claims. He proceeds to take a very active role in managing his new kingdom, roasting half of Heaven, killing people all over the world who displease him, and presenting himself as a wrathful but just deity.
- It has been confirmed by Eric Wolpaw and Rob Benedict that Chuck Shurley as God plays this trope entirely straight. After spending much of the show as an All-Powerful Bystander, he takes a proactive role in Season 11 to fight The Anti-God.
- Super Sentai has several of these. Most of them can be put into two categories. The first are villains, mostly the lead villain, who either is an already godlike being or gains this power later on, or a sentient mecha..
- The mecha in Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger are gods, and their ultimate combined form is essentially the supreme ruler of the universe.
- Daijinryuu from Gosei Sentai Dairanger is a deity looking like a huge Asian dragon tasked with preserving the peace of the universe. Because the conflict between the Dairangers and Gorma was threatening said peace, Daijinryuu visited earth to warn them to stop. Otherwise it would destroy the planet.
- GaoGod from Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger is the originator of the Power Animals the rangers use and the protector of nature itself.
- The enemies in the final arc of Mahou Sentai Magiranger were the Ten Hades Gods of Infershia. These were ten godlike creatures tasked with reviving their leaders, who goes under the name of Absolute God Nma.
- Deboth, the lead villain of Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger attains godhood during the finale, becoming Transcendenterfly God Deboth.
- The Ultra Series has multiple beings that have god in their title or appear god-like from a human perspective, but there are three Ultras that are this trope:
- Ultraman King, the leader of the Showa Era Ultras, and the closest thing their universe has shown to God. He is revered as all powerful and so immensely strong that it only took him three moves to defeat Ultraman Belial: the first was telekinetically grabbing him, the second throwing him telekinetically into orbit, and the last one was creating a moon around him for the sole purpose of imprisoning him. In Ultraman Geed, he takes the normal Ultra ability of fusing with a mortally wounded being to resurrect them up a notch by doing it to the freaking universe after Belial destroys it with a universe breaking bomb.
- Ultraman Legend, the Fusion Dance of Ultraman Cosmos and Ultraman Justice, is revered as the 'god of the universe' in legend and may actually be Cosmos and Justice's true form. While he doesn't exist long enough to show much, he's capable of effortlessly pushing back a planet buster level Wave-Motion Gun and then completely obliterate the gigantic Giga Endra in one hit.
- Ultraman Noa is revered as a god-like being throughout his universe and at full power can seal dimensional rifts among other godly powers. He's so immensely powerful that the only reason the series happens is he loses most of his power in a previous universe saving situation and has to regain it. Once he's back to full strength in the Final Battle, Dark Zagi doesn't stand a chance and is literally punched into orbit.
- WandaVision: Ever since her introduction film, Wanda Maximoff has been one of the most powerful characters in the franchise, with telekinetic and telepathic abilities that make her extremely dangerous. Here, she's gone from "threat that must be carefully observed" to "fuck you, I'm God." She takes over an entire town, and while S.W.O.R.D. initially believes that she's using illusions to fake everything, Monica proves that she has graduated to a full-scale Reality Warper who can create permanent changes to anything that enters her area of control. Darcy and Monica even make note of the fact that she almost killed Thanos all by herself in Avengers: Endgame (and before that, held him off while he had five Infinity Stones on him and she was splitting her effort between that and destroying the Mind Stone in Vision's forehead), had he not managed to blitz her before she could bring her full power to bear.
Myths & Religion
- Polytheistic gods, the most famous pantheons being those of the Greek and Roman, the Norse, the Egyptians, and the Hindu, are almost always of this form. These pantheons may have some gods that are more than a physical god, but the majority of them (and usually the more 'popular' ones) are much closer to this trope. Naturally, there are variations in these far-flung belief systems.
- In most schools of thought in Hinduism, all of the physical gods are simply fragmentary manifestations of a Sentient Cosmic Force type of deity, Brahman, as are humans and all other things and lifeforms. The physical forms taken by those deities are simply illusions generated by the human inability to perceive the divine.
- The Shinto faith holds that the universe is composed of beings of a wide range of power levels and forms, some of which fall into this range, while also all being part of the single Creator God that is also the universe, Izanami.
- The Boddhisattvas are Buddhist deities who choose to remain active and re-incarnate in physical form in the world. The Dalai Lama (the physical manifestation of the Buddha Avalokitesvara) is probably the most famous, but there are hundreds formally recognized around the world. Not exactly gods in the sense that Budhism see them as humans who at some point became what they are after attaining Nirvana, but socially and culturally fullfil the role of gods for all practical purposes.
- While not called gods, the angels of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are often depicted in such a way to qualify for this status. For example, wheels full of eyes. In the original language of the Hebrew Bible, the word for "god", elohim, is used much more broadly than is traditionally assumed. Interpretations for what this means depend largely on one's view of the origins of the Biblical books, but as they are now, they together present the idea that there is a single supreme God who has always existed (YHWH, "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob"), who created countless lesser, finite gods ("the sons of God") that are obedient to his will. In this way, the popular term "angel" is simply descriptive of their function as messengers/servants for the supreme God. This concept is lost in translation such as the English translations.
- Jesus Christ, of course, is argued by most Christians as the only Physical God in History and Real Life.
Pinball
- Flash: The unnamed Thunder God, whose primary characteristic is throwing around bolts of lightning.
Podcasts
- The Adventure Zone: Balance has several:
- Istus, the lady of fate, whom the heroes meet in one of her churches in The Eleventh Hour.
- The Four Judges are godlike entities in the form of giant statues, who rule the world of Cycle 65 in The Stolen Century. They appear again, corrupted by The Hunger, in Story and Song.
- In the Live Boston Stunt Spectacular show, they prevent Garagos, the forgotten god of war, from being summoned from his imprisonment, but not before his 5 hands appear, and destroy the arena.
- Merle finally meets Pan face-to-face in episode two of Story and Song.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons: In the core rules, deities are typically stereotypical, unreachable gods. The official Deities and Demigods book, and the unofficial (but considerably more popular) Immortal's Handbook, present the deities in a way that fits this trope perfectly, along with how to advance high-level characters to godhood.
- Early editions also had a book called Deities and Demigods, and an adventure with deity rules called Wrath of the Immortals. Specifically, the old boxed set/later Rules Cyclopedia version of D&D has not so much "gods" as "Immortals" (yes, with a capital I) taking the same role — virtually all of which were actually ascended mortals who had once lived and fought in the game world. Really high-level player characters can potentially quest for and achieve the same status, using rules from either the old Immortals set or the Wrath of the Immortals box.
- Ascension to divinity or even beyond it is still in the cards for 4th edition D&D characters with an appropriate Epic Destiny (basically the third "class" picked at level 21 in addition to the base class and the level 11-20 "paragon path" the character will normally already have). So far this simply means retiring the character from the campaign, though.
- Advanced D&D has the Queen of the Demonweb Pits adventure, where the goal is to find the Drow goddess Lolth in her home dimension and kill her Deader than Dead. Not bad for a bunch of mere mortals.
- The aforementioned Immortal's Handbook takes this trope MUCH further than any other book mentioned. The most powerful monster in the book can punch planets to pieces, and it's a golem created by even stronger beings called time lords. Time lords are below high lords, who are below the Supreme Being (not-quite-omnipotent ruler of the omniverse), and there are things called ultrals from a level of existence higher than omniversal. Note that all of these beings (except maybe the ultrals since we don't know much) are just as physical as the other gods in D&D.
- Eberron is one of the few settings that averts this, the gods are so abstract it's even plausible that they don't actually exist and clerics get their magic from faith alone, which is supported by a few cults based around mortal entities or undead such as the Blood of Vol.
- Forgotten Realms:
- During the Time of Troubles, all the gods were reduced to Physical Gods. (The novels actually gave the impression they might have been too weak to qualify.) A lot of gods get killed during this time, and one mortal kills and absorbs the portfolios of so many deities that the Overgod is forced to do some role-shuffling when the whole thing is over. Oh, and the death of the god of magic is used as an excuse for the different rules for magic in the new edition of the game. More than once.
- All gods can send avatars to the Realms, though only a few do so regularly. The main problem with the Avatar Crisis (another name for the Time of Troubles) was that they were stuck in avatar form, and barred from leaving the Realms (the other problem was that killing them while they were in avatar form would kill them, rather than merely stripping them of the power invested in the avatar).
- The 5th edition Tyranny of Dragons adventure can end with the players taking on Tiamat, who was summoned into the Material Plane by her loyal cultists. The players can sabotage the summoning ritual to weaken her before she arrives, and may the gods help them if they don't: at her full power, Tiamat is one of the nastiest creatures in 5E.
- Exalted: All the gods are Physical Gods. One of the Exalted's duties (when the world is running properly, which it currently isn't) is to beat wayward gods into submission so that they'll do their jobs properly.
- Godforsaken: The Sacrante, the gods of Bontherre, live and walk among their people in tangible bodies, and work miracles in person. People outside of major cities may not see them very often, but they do no doubt their existence any more than anyone in real life doubts that of their country's president.
- Nobilis: Player Characters qualify, both physically and mentally. Even the weakest Nobles can throw around small cars or catch bullets in a pinch. The more powerful ones are able to leap across the ocean, lift mountains, and reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity with a pocket calculator. As for Nigh-Invulnerability, if you're trying to kill a Noble by nuking them, you'll need five. And even that might not be enough, especially if they took Active Immortality.
- The Primal Order is a "capsystem", a set of rules that can be applied to any RPG system, that outlines how to play deities, and is often considered the best god RPG system around.
- Puppetland: The Maker, hence how the backstory of the game involves Punch — one of The Maker's own creations — killing him for his power.
- Rifts has a book called Pantheons of the Megaverse with gods that boil down to normal stats turned up to eleven.
- Scion focuses on the children of couplings between gods and mortals. In time, the characters grow so powerful that they become gods themselves.
- Warhammer 40,000:
- The C'tan star-gods of the Necron faction can personally take to the battlefield. Only two of the remaining four gods are active however, with the third irreversibly Driven to Madness and the fourth still sleeping.
- Also, the Avatars of Khaine and the Yncarne, the Avatar of Ynnead.
- The aptly-named God-Emperor of Man was this back when he was still up and walking rather than on life support. Despite his insistence that he wasn't.
- There are also his sons, the Primarchs. While not as powerful as him, all of them are much more powerful than a normal man. The only reason that the Emperor was wounded as badly as he was by Horus was because he was his favorite son, whom he was hesistant to kill. Once he saw the depths of Horus's depravity, he erased him from existence with a single psychic blast. The Daemon Primarchs even more so. Take a Primarch, give up his soul to a Chaos God, and replace it with raw Warp power. The result is something second only to the Chaos Gods themselves in terms of power and malevolence, with Complete Immortality to boot. The only tradeoff (besides having a Chaos God own your soul forever) is that their new existence as Warp entities means they cannot manifest in the Materium without a huge expenditure of power.
- The Greater Daemon minions of the Chaos Gods when they enter the Materium. The Gods themselves are too powerful to take a physical form.
- Alpha psykers and above usually veer into this territory. Physically they're more or less members of their respective species, but their psychic powers are so vast they can make reality their bitch without even consciously thinking about it. Stories tell of alpha-psykers snapping Emperor Titans in half with a thought, wiping out armies with a glance, or mind-controlling whole hive cities just by being there. One Nurglite alpha could infect the population of entire planets with Grandfather Nurgle's diseases before his ship even arrived in the system. As a side effect of their reality warping they often become very hard to kill, either by wrapping themselves in impenetrable barriers or by just ignoring boring inconveniences like physics. And let's not forget that even the death of an alpha can have devastating consequences — they often explode with enough power to inflict an Earth-Shattering Kaboom on the world they're on, or spawn any number of really nasty Warp incursions. Unsurprisingly for the Crapsack World that is the 40K universe, such displays of tangible power tend to attract huge numbers of devout followers, usually of the Chaos persuasion.
- Warhammer Fantasy:
- Sigmar, a mortal man who ascended to godhood after his death. A snake god, Sotek, manifested the same day Sigmar was born to save the lizardmen from the skaven. It hasn't been confirmed, but it seems like there must be a connection given that two races were saved from extinction by different, brand new physical gods at the same time.
- When Chaos first showed up, the elven gods gave Aenarion the power to kick so much demonic ass that the elves managed to beat back the outpourings of a fully open warp gate long enough to partially seal it off. He single-handedly killed thousands of enemies, including four Greater Daemons.
- While much weaker than the top gods, Daemon Princes have superhuman strength, biological immortality, and various magical abilities and are usually worshiped as minor gods by tribes of Norscans, Kurgan, and Hung, as noted in several novels and RPG sourcebooks. One example is Kazakital in Trollslayer, whose devoted Champion explicitly refers to him as a "our daemon god."
- The Old Ones (Mayincatec god-like extraterrestrials worshiped by Lizardmen). They modified the orbit of the planet, the planet's continents and tectonic plates, created the Lizardmen from actual reptilians that already existed to protect their creation and then created elves, dwarfs, ogres, halflings, and humans and gifted them magic. They have spaceships, too. Also, Chaos is more or less the dark side of their magic powers.
- Several gods have physical avatars in the mortal world that are available as units on the tabletop, most notably Orion and Ariel, the half-elven forms of the elven gods Orion and Isha, respectively.
- Greater Daemons are explicitly said to be worshipped as minor gods by the Chaos-aligned tribes like the Daemon Princes (who they're stronger than), and like the above, they show up in physical form on the battlefield to fight alongside their minions. They're superhumanly strong, biologically immortal, and have various magic powers from flight to energy projection to teleportation, but can still be felled by mortal weaponry. One notable example (in the Daemons 7e army book) involved Skarbrand, the most powerful daemon of Khorne, appearing in a battle with Imperial troops only to be reduced to a puddle of gore by some pseudo-16th century blackpowder cannons.
- During the End Times, the Incarnates each one held one of the eight winds of magic within themselves. Sigmar also returns in physical form to do battle with Chaos once more. In addition, the elven goddess reveals that their gods are simply the ones who survived their world's fall to chaos, and intends on taking the Grail Knights of Bretonnia as well as a few chosen Elves to become the respective pantheons of the next world. Stats-wise these incarnates are about on par with the aforementioned Greater Daemons and godly avatars, which reflects in their fluff battles (e.g. the Bloodthirster Ka'Bandha taking on three l form
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Ascended Gods, which are Deities of Human Origin, are this trope by default, with their physical forms closely resembling their mortal appearances (or undead appearance, in Nagash's case). They have physical bodies and regularly interact with the world, to the point of having in-game models. This is different from Elemental Gods, like the Chaos Gods and Gorkamorka, who tend to act more like The Powers That Be, though they can take physical forms on the rare occasion it would suit their needs.
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse has Grammaw, a colossal Thunderwyrm revered as a goddess by Black Spiral Dancers. Grammaw nests underneath a nuclear testing site in New Mexico and serves as a living caern for the Trinity Hive. Grammaw exists simultaneously in the physical world and Umbra, houses elemental spirits throughout her body, induces terrifying visions and disfigurements in those passing through her system, and can even grant rebirth to Garou she deems worthy.
- World Tree (RPG) has many of the world's creator gods appear in physical form on the titular World Tree, and, being the source of all magic in the setting, they're about as powerful as you would expect. Some of them blatantly reveal their identity and openly display their omnipotence (indeed, some of them lead guilds and other organisations, and one of them in particular, Birkozon, the god of telepathy and mental magic, rules an entire realm on the tree). Yet others prefer to stay hidden, walk in disguise, or not get physically involved much with the world they created at all.
Theatre
- Thespis: The Roman gods have ended up old, powerless and ridiculously out of touch. Apparently they still get sacrifices from Australia.
Visual Novels
- Demonbane:
- The War God Demonbane is a Humongous Mecha so large it destroys the universe where it is summoned and actually collides with the multiverse. Powerful enough to manipulate universes, and is so overpowered, even Nyarlathotep must go back in time to kill the pilot before he summoned it. Its response? Evolving into the even more powerful form, Elder God Demonbane. It's much smaller, but it has the power to call copies of the War God form, from every reality (in case you wonder, one reality means one multiverse) that has existed, currently exist, will exist, and NEVER existed. In short, More Than Infinite. Needless to say, these only appear in hidden routes of the visual novel.
- There are several other lesser examples, but not by much. To give you an insight to just how ridiculously powerful the examples here are, the prequel novel manages to answer what would happen if two nigh-omnipotent beings ever clashed: Endless conflict where the damage of one is ret-conned by the other before it even happens, with universes consumed as collateral damage. The aforementioned Nyarlathotep thinks this is very boring. So he ret-cons the two out of existence. And to think even this pales in comparison to the above...
- Higurashi: When They Cry is in some ways all about gods. Not only is there a powerful local god who walks among the students but our Token Mini-Moe Rika, who is her descendant, is something of a demi-god as well.
- The witches in Umineko: When They Cry blur this trope somewhat with The Fair Folk, at least in the meta-world. How "physical" this makes them is up for a lot of Mind Screw-tastic debate.
- While Featherine Augustus Aurora is a metaphysical entity, her human form, Hachijo Ikuko, isn't far from being one. Despite all the reality warping shown in the metaphysical world, she is actually able to use the Red Truth in the real world and even able to call Ange to an alternate version of her future.
- Nasuverse has several examples:
- The earliest examples came from Angel Notes, the TYPES. Eldritch Abominations that overwrite the rules of reality around them and substitute their own just by existing, and is therefore extremely difficult to even damage, let alone kill. Even if their bodies are destroyed, they still exist and are able to reform their physical bodies, since they are just physical incarnations of the Ultimate Ones. They don't really contribute much to the plot before Angel Notes (where they came to Earth to destroy humanity), although TYPE-Moon was very active in the backstory of Tsukihime.
- Due to an Ultimate One's (Gaia) death in Angel Notes, it releases a substance called "Grain". It makes the entire humanity become very close to this trope, powerful beings equivalent to walking nukes. However, the World's Strongest Man, Ado Edem, is this trope personified, he gains the ability called "Slash Emperor" which creates a titanic sword that can cut through realities like a hot knife through a butter. With that, he can one-shot the aforementioned TYPES, although he doesn't seem to be able to kill them permanently.
- Some of the True Ancestors could qualify, as all of them are copies of TYPE-Moon. In particular, Arcueid Brunestud, whom the TYPE-Moon often possesses on occasion, takes the cake. She can manipulate probabilities with her Marble Phantasm, can recover after being killed Deader than Dead, and in her ARCHETYPE-Earth form, she has no concept of death, similar to the TYPES themselves.
- The beings listed in the Dead Apostle Ancestors list, which lists 27 most dangerous beings to humanity. The ones at the top 5 ranks qualify, given that TYPE-Moon himself is only a rank 3 at the list. The rank 5, ORT, is actually TYPE-Mercury, who is, according to the Word of God, the strongest being in the planet (before the time of Angel Notes). ORT is only listed here because the previous holder of rank 5 was killed for disturbing its sleep. Rank 4, is a practitioner of True Magic, Zelretch. He manages to beat TYPE-Moon once (by dropping a copy of Moon on it, by the way) although that was only possible because he took it by surprise. Rank 2 is said to be amalgamation of 6 extraordinarily powerful mages who become vampires and fuse themselves, known as "Six Royalties of the Dark". Rank 1, however, is hold by a very powerful Beast of Gaia called Primate Murder, who, is a spiritual wolf capable of killing millions of humans with a thought. It takes seven Counter Guardians just to hold it back. The only reason it hasn't rampaged yet is because it is subservient and is owned by the rank 9 of the list, Altrouge Brunestud (Arcueid's "sister").
- The various gods and demigods from the Age of the Gods era fits the description. In fact, the "physical" is an important distinction between "true" gods and "mere" Divine Spirits, the latter of which is what happens when a god's physical body is somehow destroyed but their essence lingers on and requires belief in order to maintain ties to the world. The various demigods who become heroes can be resurrected as Servants though, and therefore still qualify for this trope, with Gilgamesh and Karna being the biggest examples. However, the former fits the trope better due to gaining a physical body at the end of Fate/Zero, because of the Grail's corrupted mud.
- Then there is Ryougi Shiki's third personality, also known as the Origin of the Void. It possess a very deep connection to the Akasha, the origin of everything itself, and was thought to be omnipotent — until Word of God states that she is still below Arcueid's Archetype Earth form in terms of power level.
- The Shinza Bansho Series is littered with gods of various kinds, but the central focus is on the great Hegemonic Gods and their conflicts, beings that are considered to rank among the most ludicrously overpowered characters in fiction. Suffice to say, forget planets or galaxies, entire universes or even multiverses quake and crumble when these beings clash. Common to them all is that started out as somewhat regular humans who then grew powerful enough to alter the reality around them according to their wishes, eventually turning those wishes into new natural laws that would govern the multiverse. They are, in order:
- The First Heaven, Mithra the Truth. She governed the world of moral absolutes and making good and evil revolve around herself. A world torn by endless warfare between the two sides that are fated to never be able to reconcile.
- The Second Heaven, Magsarion the Remorseless. He governs the world of the eternal sin and planting sin in the hearts of all. It's a world driven by a Darwinist ideology and the darkest sides of humanity is always at the forefront.
- The Third Heaven, Nerose Satanel the Morning-star. The sinless god, he rules a world of no sin filled with happiness, rationality and purity but devoid of free will.
- The Fourth Heaven, Mercurius the Mercurial Snake. Eternal Recurrence, a world where all souls endlessly repeat their lives without knowledge of their past lives apart from those sensitive to the whispers of the past timelines. Also the world that acted as the birth of alternate timelines and realities, giving birth to a multiverse.
- The Fifth Heaven, Marguerite Breuilh the Twilight. She rules a world of acceptance and reincarnation. A peaceful world where all have to right to a second chance to improve their lives and where all ways of life are embraced.
- The Sixth Heaven, Mara Papiyas the Evil One. He rules a world driven by selfishness and rejection of others. A self-destructive world that prevents new birth and destroys old life as all life vies to destroy itself until only it's ruler is left.
- The Seventh Heaven, Hirume the Dawn. The current ruling God. A world that incorporates elements from past dynasties, souls are now able to chose which world they want to be born into and to chose the afterlife of their desire.
- And finally, there are the two Gods who never had any rule due to either being slain by another God or forfeiting the right to rule to another but are still recognized as true Gods. Those are Ren Fujii the Moment, the ruler over the ephemeral moment and eternal stagnation, and Reinhard Heydrich the Golden Beast, the ruler over eternal strife and war.
- Silver Crisis has the titular Silver claim to be this after absorbing the aura/souls of the Goddess Din and the Demon King Ganondorf. In terms of power after making this statement, he's not wrong.
Webcomics
- Dragon Ball Multiverse: Zen Buu is basically immortal, insanely powerful, incredibly intelligent and, unlike the above two, he doesn't have to worry about things like the vacuum of space.
- In El Goonish Shive, Immortals can gain this status if they go long enough without resetting. Even if an Immortal does reach this level of capability, however, actually using their full power corporeally would likely break Immortal law resulting in being forcibly reset so such a display of power would be brief. Pandora demonstrates what this looks like. She kills every single aberration present, destroys "Scarf's" gun and prevents the shrapnel from hitting anyone within the span of a moment. She then leverages the mechanism of her forced reset to force all the other Immortals to carry out her plan to decimate the number of Aberrations worldwide.
- In Endstone, Jon's attempt to end the world was in service of one.
- Energize: In Energize: Hunted, the title character increasingly becomes one of these. He goes from being one of the world's most powerful heroes to effortlessly mopping the floor with all the world's greatest heroes put together. It is eventually revealed that he draws his powers from being host to the Titan Cronos who even the gods feared. He's grown much more powerful since then.
- Gunnerkrigg Court:
- Coyote is physical enough to be... spanked. Doing so is strongly discouraged. And if you think Ysengrin was just protecting his little talking doggie, Coyote will be quick to remind you who's in charge. He gave Ysengrin and Renard their powers, dug the giant ravine outside the Court with his bare paw, and can pull the moon out of the sky on a whim. It's a good thing he doesn't share Ysengrin's desired fate for humanity...
- Jones may also qualify. There hasn't been much display of any powers (yet), but she's completely invulnerable to absolutely everything and has existed for as long as the Earth itself, with her first memory being buried alive in the churning magma that was the Earth's surface during the planet's creation billions of years ago. She also knows what the dinosaurs actually looked like, but refuses to tell Annie as she wants humanity to find out on its own first.
- Loup is definitely this, considering he is the fusion of Coyote and Ysengrin. Even worse, he lacks what little restraint either of his components had and demonstrates what a Physical God can really do when he nearly wipes out the Court with a swipe of his hand. Even the forcefield the Court Robots generate to stop him only initially worked because he was surprised by it. He later claims and demonstrates that he could easily destroy that too.
- Coyote is physical enough to be... spanked.
- Homestuck has several levels of this:
- For one, the players' goal is to create a new universe, and therefore they are gods in a way, whether they're God Tier or not. Karkat uses this fact to back up his claims that he is a god.
- God Tier players are heroes who have fulfilled certain requirements in the game, and are granted immortality (with a couple of exceptions) and complete mastery over their Aspect. Even at the lowest level of God Tier power, John is able to use wind to drill a giant hole straight down to the core of a planet within minutes.
- The First Guardians (and anyone else with a conduit to the Green Sun) are said to be functionally omnipotent and omniscient (they're not quite in actuality, but so far above mortal creatures they might as well be). They can destroy worlds with a snap of their fingers and one such being was capable of annihilating not just an entire universe, but every instance of that universe that could ever possibly exist. They can be killed but there are very few entities powerful enough to have a chance at actually doing that.
- Lord English combines the above two ability sets and possibly others we don't know about at this point, in addition to his already formidable natural abilities, making him the most powerful entity yet introduced. His power and thirst for destruction are great enough that he routinely destroys universes and afterlives, and poses a credible threat to the totality of all existence. He has complete, unconditional immortality as well. The only way to kill him? Glitching reality itself.
- It's Walky!: The Cheese. That's what SEMME calls him, but others know him as "the Wanderer" or occasionally just God. And yet even he gets utterly curb-stomped by Mist in the It's Walky!/Fans! crossover, which went a long way toward building Mist up to be one scary motherfucker himself, at least until it was later revealed that Mist was just a dude who sold his soul to Satan for power, and who ended up strangled to death.
- Jayden And Crusader: Crusader is the artist of the comic he is in. Because of this he attains the powers of the Christian God and does not seem concerned about upping the God metaphors.
- The Seven of Kill Six Billion Demons: In addition to each having sufficient mastery of one the setting's many combat systems to have to narrowed the Demiurge population down to just themselves, Implanted in each of their skulls is a a Key of Kings; a seventh of the voice of YISUN whose power they can channel to alter the location of stars or transform into thousand-foot-tall monsters.
- In Knights of Buena Vista, this is what Adriana does to her Player Character through Min-Maxing. It's not going to turn out well given this is a Campaign Comic about Frozen.
- In Nerd & Jock, this is arguably Jock's true form. Nerd discovers that if Jock's trademark blue cap is off, he transforms into a muscular, godlike being with a Third Eye on his forehead, radiating arcs of power from his mere presence.
- In Problem Sleuth, Pickle Inspector's amazing skill with imagination lets him do some crazy stuff while in the imaginary world, like split into multiple copies of himself, time-travel, combine the two actions to create the subatomic particles that form all matter in the entire universe, and ascend to outright Godhood.
- Slightly Damned has Gaia and Syndel who rule over and live in Heaven and Hell as far as we know, Death, who presides over purgatory or does he? and the Twelve Guardians who keep an eye on Medius in the absence of the higher gods at least, they're supposed to....
- Sluggy Freelance:
- In "Holiday Wars", Alien Santa calls Santa Claus — as in, whoever holds the position — "a virtual god of the holidays". More clearly, in the same story, the description fits Bun-bun after his killing most of the Anthropomorphic Personifications of holidays, taking on new powers with each one he kills. Their combined portfolios give him Reality Warper powers among others.
- The Demon King of the Dimension of Pain and his enemy the Goddess of Goodness are obviously godlike in power as well as status. The Demon King is described as being ethereal, which could ostensibly mean he's "not corporeal", but the fact is still that he has a body made up of some kind of stuff.
- Father Time and Uncle Time (his brother, obviously), Anthropomorphic Personifications of time, seem to be like this, taking the form of large floating heads, though Father Time has been "seen" more often as a disembodied voice.
Bun-bun: You omnipotent or something?
Uncle Time: I'm omnitastic! - Rithuly, ruler of the Rayths in a hellish alternative dimension called the Never, is called an old banished evil god and in the same breath described as taking the corporeal form of either a human, a tentacle-headed ghost, or a large dragon-like creature.
- The gods and demi-gods of Mohkadun whose number Father Time and Uncle Time are actually part of had physical bodies, usually human.
- "Anima: Resolution" features reference to a goddess called Troloria. It's implied she's really someone who won the war between psionicists stealing "souls" from others to increase their power. Apparently she got basically everyone's power, making her powerful enough to alter the whole "anima tapestry", the world's psionic-soul-thingy-system, as she wished.
- Superbitch: Caroline once refers to herself as a "nigh-immortal god-being." It's not clear if she was just comparing herself to normals, or to other supers as well.
- Tower of God
- The Floor Guardians of the Tower. Each one of them is the absolute sovereign of his floor, in total control of the entire mass of Shinsu, a substance and energy that is stated to be unlimited in power when properly controlled. They used to test the people who wanted to ascend to the top, but left that job to the growing amount of people who did pass and settled down. They were thought to be immortal, until Enryu killed one of them. Of the ones that have been seen, Headon appears as a fairly normal-sized humanoid, whereas the Guardians of the second and 43rd floors are vague and gigantic creatures.
- People who ascend the Tower become more and more powerful until they reach the highest accessible level and become Rankers; those with higher and higher Rank are closer and closer to godlike. Some of the very highest Ranks are held by Jahad, King of the Tower, and the heads of the Ten Great Families. They've been granted Complete Immortality by the Guardians and are not only immense in power but also described as having godlike status to the inhabitants of the Tower and being worshiped. Jahad, in his own words, sees things from a god-like perspective and is trying to bring fate itself under his control.
- Another living God would be Phantaminum, being a man-made God who can't be interfered with by any other than his equal. Just like the relatively less powerful Enryu, he's an "Irregular" who entered the Tower on his own power rather than being chosen by Headon and displayed such great power that his Rank is higher than King Jahad.
- Wapsi Square: Tepoztecal is the God of Alcohol, able to produce drinks — or drunks — at will. He is apparently a Golem created by the Magitek of Atlantis, then adopted as a god by the Aztecs.
Web Original
- A very downplayed example, but the Animator vs. Animation series takes place in a computer. Because of this, the Animator who owns the computer is pretty much a god, having the abillity of create and destroy whatever and whoever he wants. It's downplayed because outside of the computer, the Animator is a normal human.
- When you think about it, the same goes for pretty much everyone who owns a computer, as it's implied a huge part of the programs is sentient.
- Atop the Fourth Wall:
- "The Entity" could be considered this when he was in the form of 90's Kid, but still had a form that was much, MUCH larger when he absorbs the entire universe and every being within it into himself except for Linkara's apartment (allowing him to do one last review)
- Lord Vyce himself could be considered one considering he is one of the most powerful enemies Linkara's faced (the only confirmed stronger one being The Entity), in a commentary Lewis mentioned that at full power he could "Go ten rounds with God", he could transform himself into data to fight the Entity on equal grounds, and his greatest accomplishment is fighting and WINNING against beings similar to the Entity in the past.
- Beyond the Impossible: The Greek gods. It's possible to physically hurt them, but they can't be killed by conventional means (unless you count turning a neutron star into a black hole "conventional").
- Chrono Hustle has both Aphrodite and Hermes show up.
- Dreamscape: Like Kai, Drake, and Eleenin, Keedran is one of the guardians of the planet, but she's a straight-up deity rather than a druid or a mage.
- DSBT InsaniT: Waterfall Girl is essentially the Poseidon of the series.
- Fire Emblem On Forums has a few examples:
- Final Hour: Chaos, the Final Boss, a God of Evil who directly engages the protagonists in battle to try to take over the world.
- Wonderful Blessing: The Goddess Dragons, the goddesses who created Generia from nothing, count as this trope. The game's Lord, Serena, is one of them, with her sisters Rhea, Borea, Discordia and Freya playing significant roles.
- New York Magician: Most of the secondary characters. Malsumis, Hapy, Bobbi Bobbi. . . it's what comes when you've got a Fantasy Kitchen Sink in New York.
- Noob: The Sources in the Fictional Video Game in which the story is set. The first of them Fargöth is The Maker of the universe and basically the father of all the other Sources. Most have settled for a "One planet, one Source" arrangement by the time of the game main plot, but a handful of them are a having a Divine Conflict over a moon named Olydri, on which the game is set.
- O-Cast: The Greek gods Though their powers have atrophied and they're living around mortals these days, they are still gods and would like to be treated as such.
- Pilots: The ADPs are once referred to as gods tongue-in-cheek by the narrator, and in some meaningful senses they are. An interesting treatment, in that their sole power is a variant of teleportation, which is taken to its logical conclusion.
- The Protectors of the Plot Continuum have employed Ainur and Force-users in the past; one of the latter ended up the series's most influential Big Bad. Some of the Sues/Stus they come up against also make themselves into this.
- RWBY: The legend of the Two Brothers is about the Gods of Light and Darkness. The God of Light created life while the God of Darkness created the Grimm. They both combined their powers to create Humanity. Many characters will incorporate references to them in phrases and exclamations, such as "Brothers know" instead of "God knows", or making "a deal with the darkness" instead of "a deal with the Devil". They're real gods, who abandoned the world after Salem turned humanity against them; the God of Light gave humanity one chance at earning redemption by tasking Ozma to unite everyone in harmony; if he fails, the entire planet will be destroyed. Salem is trying to make Oz fail; since the gods made both of them immortal, they've been locked in a Forever War for thousands of years over the fate of humanity.
- The Salvation War: Yahweh and Satan are both quite powerful, the latter crushing a messenger with his mind, the former destroying his throne room over bad news. Many demons and angels as well are powerful enough in their own right. Uriel is able to kill thousands with sheer psychic force. However they still prove to be kill-able: Uriel with some missiles and a laser, Satan with two missiles to the face, and God by the hand of Michael and his friends.
- The SCP Foundation has quite a few. SCP-343 in particular actually claims to be the Abrahamic God.
- In Shadowhunter Peril, Oblivion is this, but completely evil. He's the only character in the series to be an Ushubaen, a human with demonic energy flowing through his body, yet still manages to retain a soul that prevents him from imploding with the force of a small bomb. He is powerful enough to fight and actually injure Puriel, and angel of the Almighty himself. Nuriel, another angel, states that he once fought another Ushubaen with two of his brother angels, and that the Ushubaen completely curb-stomped the first angel to death, then killed the other one and severely wounding Nuriel before it was brought down. And since Ushubaens never stop growing in power, it's certainly possible Oblivion will grow to become an omnipotent evil being of destruction, considering how young and powerful he already is...
- In Terramirum, they apparently used to have a whole pantheon of living gods.
- Trinton Chronicles features at least two true-to-life god entities and one specific to the TC universe; Isis & Hermes are prominently mentioned and one actually shows up (in a way)to help out one of her believers. The other one, Gralla, appears only in dreams and through telepathy but one gets the idea that if she manifests physically no one would be to surprised.
- The Wanderer's Library: Such beings appear frequently. Communion, Gods of Money, and Sedna V. Ataciara the Qalluk are just a few examples.
- Whateley Universe:
- The New Olympians are Exactly What It Says on the Tin: the Greek Dodekatheon (the primary gods of Olympus), stuffed into the bodies of teenaged mutants. While their power is only a tiny fraction of what it once was, they are still very much the real deal. It has been mentioned that other deities are around as well, such as Belisarius, a minor Roman war god now passing himself off as the superhero 'Legionaire'.
- In addition, there are Avatarsnote who serve as Paladins for some other gods and god-like beings, most notably Miyet (paladin of Bast) and Okami (paladin of Amaterasu). While they are not the gods and goddesses themselves, they do serve as their agents in the material world, and are given power suitable for that purpose.
