Zeus on top of Mount Olympus.
"Come, try me, immortals, so all of you can learn.
Hang a great golden cable down from the heavens,
lay hold of it, all you gods, all goddesses too:
you can never drag me down from sky to earth,
not Zeus, the highest, mightiest king of kings,
not even if you worked yourselves to death."
Hang a great golden cable down from the heavens,
lay hold of it, all you gods, all goddesses too:
you can never drag me down from sky to earth,
not Zeus, the highest, mightiest king of kings,
not even if you worked yourselves to death."
— Zeus, The Iliad book VIII (translation by Robert Fagles)
In a setting with a few or more gods, there is often one who stands above all the others. Academics call this henotheism.
This god is usually one of the following:
- King of the Gods: Not that different from the rest of the gods, but he tends to have the benefits of Rank Scales with Asskicking in full effect. He's often applicable to You Kill It, You Bought It if someone challenges his title. See this
article on Wikipedia for more info on these types.
- God of Gods: This version is as far beyond the other gods as they are beyond mortals. They're often a stand-in for the Abrahamic God, or at least a Crystal Dragon Jesus Expy. The "lesser" gods or spirits may or may not worship and/or serve them. It depends on the work in question. Unlike the "King of Gods" role, this version is usually completely unbeatable even to the other gods and often created them. In some long-spanning works however, the God of Gods can have an even greater god above it. These types of gods often overlap with Divine Delegation.
Sometimes, there may be both types in the same setting. In that case, the one (or several, if there are multiple pantheons) King of the Gods is still below the God of Gods. A Sub-Trope to Stock Gods. A God of Light is a common choice for this role, especially when specifically a solar deity.
If there's an entire class of beings that are Above the Gods, see The Old Gods or in certain cases, Powers That Be.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Dragon Ball loves this one.
- The status of who is the top god is subject to constant retcon. The first divine being that Goku meets is Korin. He, along with Popo, is later revealed to be an attendant from the Afterlife who advises the God of Earth, Kami, like many other planetary gods. Kami is later shown to be deferential to King Yemma, a deity who runs the afterlife, but we're told he's inferior to another god. We then meet said god, Kami's boss, King Kai, the highest of the gods. At the end of the Frieza arc, it's revealed that King Kai is only the NORTH Kai, and thus presumably there are in total four Kais (Kings of Worlds) that rule over the four quadrants of the galaxy. At the end of the Cell arc, this still seems to be the case, as King Kai refers to himself as the most important person in the universe (the other three Kais would presumably be tied with him). Then the early Buu arc, on top of showing the other Kais (just South Kai in the manga), reveals that even they have a boss, the Grand Kai that leads the four Kais. Then later in the Buu arc (as in later in the same conversation), it's revealed that above him are the four Supreme Kais (God-Kings of Worlds) that rule over the four quadrants of the Universe and the afterlife. They have their own attendants, such as Kibito to Shin, the East Supreme Kai; it's not clear where they rank compared to the Kais, though they're known to be a lot stronger. Finally, the boss of the four Supreme Kais revealed at the very end of the arc is the Grand Supreme Kai, making this dude a King of the Gods. Unfortunately, Shin is the last of the current generation of Supreme Kais, as Majin Buu killed the North, South, and West Supreme Kais before absorbing the Grand Supreme Kai, forming Fat Buu.
- Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods revealed that the Supreme Kais and the Grand Supreme Kai are the Gods of Creation balanced out by the God of Destruction. Continuing the retcons, the God of Destruction is far more powerful than the other gods, though on paper he's ranked the same as the Supreme Kai (enforced by the two sharing a life link; if the Supreme Kai dies, so does the Destroyer). The God of Destruction also has a mentor who is much stronger, and it is revealed there are twelve universes, each with its own Kais, Supreme Kais, God of Destruction, and mentor.
- According to the Super Exciting Guide and some of Toriyama's interviews, the Demon Realm has its own godly hierarchy, with the Demon Kais being below the Demon Supreme Kais, acting as the collective Evil Counterpart of the main universe's godly hierarchy. They also take in the Black Sheep of the Kais and Supreme Kais, integrating them as allies (whether these rogue Kais and Supreme Kais can become Demon Kais and Demon Supreme Kais is not specified). But all of the gods are below the King of the Demon Realm, Dabura. It's not clear if he's divine, but he's explicitly stated to be both the undisputed ruler of the Demon Realm and by far the strongest single being in it.
- Dragon Ball Super reveals that there is a king of The Multiverse named Zen'o, and his mere presence causes Gods of Destruction to freak out. He also has the power to destroy the whole multiverse and kill beings with Complete Immortality, which he later proves. According to Word of God, the only being more powerful than Zen'o is Robotoriyama, Akira Toriyama's Author Avatar.
By the end of Super the Gods of Destruction's terror is fully justified. Zen'o may be top god, and generally a nice enough sort, but he's also emotionally an 8-year-old child. It's shown that he has a complete lack of understanding of the value of mortal, or immortal, life, for example playing marbles with inhabited planets. This includes forcing multiple entire universes to have an Involuntary Battle to the Death, killing Trillions. Having said that, it's also revealed at the end of the tournament in the anime (though not the manga) that a selfish wish at the end of the Tournament of Power would have resulted in him intervening, but he also knew that the winner wouldn't have made it in the first place.
- Fushigi Yuugi has the creator of the Universe of the Four Gods, Taiitsukun (or Tai-Yi-Jun, depending on your translation), who is above The Four Gods and other spirits/deities such as the Nyan-Nyan/Lai-Lai and Tenkou. She represents the Jade Emperor of Chinese mythology.
- Record of Ragnarok portrays Zeus as not only the king of the Olympian gods, but also the supreme god over every known deity, even having authority over other traditionally supreme gods like Odin and Shiva.
- Slayers has three. Flare Dragon Seified is this to the powers of good, and his equal foe Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu is this to the five demon kings. Then there is the Lord of Nightmares. You can run from the others, you can hide behind their opponents. You cannot run from her, as the aptly named Hellmaster found out when he made her mad, and she is known by that appellation because she is so utterly incomprehensible to both sides that the mere whisper of her is a nightmare. She could easily cause a Class Z apocalypse by willing it. Fortunately, she doesn't seem interested at the moment. Heaven forbid you wake her up from her nap though.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!, has a few of them.
- InYu-Gi-Oh!, the Sangenshin/Three Egyptian Gods have a pyramid hierarchy. The Winged Dragon of Ra/Sun Dragon of Ra/Ra no Yokushinryuu stands on the top of the pyramid, while Obelisk the Tormentor/Giant God Soldier of Obelisk/Obelisk no Kyoushinhei and Slifer the Sky Dragon/Saint Dragon God of Osiris/Osiris no Tenkuuryuu are on the bottom.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! R, the Three Wicked Gods have the same pyramid hierarchy. The Wicked Avatar stands on the top, while The Wicked Roots and The Wicked Eraser are on the bottom.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Odin, Father of the Aesir is the leader of the three North Polar Gods, standing above Thor and Loki.
Comic Books
- Marvel's Odin certainly qualifies. He is both the King of Gods in the Norse pantheon, and is also part of a pantheon consisting of his "brothers"; each of whom is a "Sky Father" in themselves to each of their respective pantheons, and includes Zeus, Osirus, Manitou, Nuada, and others.
- The Marvel Universe has The One Above All, who is the collective Author Avatar. It's above every other Cosmic Being and god-like creature in the setting. Of course.
- Some particularly powerful demons and magical entities are worshipped as gods, or even God, by other beings who are themselves worshipped as deities and have the power to back it up. Shuma-Gorath, for instance, has relied on numerous gods and demons to do its bidding and has a massive power difference to back it up. Mephisto and Sataanish, demons who in their own realms are nigh-omnipotent, are said to be like "mice in a great temple" compared to even one of Shuma-Gorath's weaker forms. It is the ruler of literally hundreds of universes and worshipped in thousands more, so the fact that it is a God of Evil makes its power particularly worrying.
- It got worse when it's revealed in The Thanos Imperative that Shuma-Gorath is merely one member of an entire pantheon of these things called the Many-Angled Ones.
- The DC Universe follows a similar route with the Presence.
- Darkseid is God-Emperor of Apokolips and thus King of that world's New Gods. On Apokolips the state Religion of Evil goes so far as to cultivate worship of Darkseid as God himself. Highfather is his (Mostly) Good Counterpart on New Genesis.
- Wonder Woman:
- Wonder Woman (1942): In the Golden Age of Comics those classical gods that show up are treated more like Sufficiently Advanced Aliens who just so happen to be worshiped by some people, but Aphrodite is clearly top "god", with Artemis deferring to her.
- Zeus is top god on Olympus but, prior to the New 52, is not among the gods the Amazons typically worship though they try to be as respectful as possible to him—without allowing him to have his way with them—whenever he feels the need to personally butt into their business in order to placate him since they don't want him to destroy their lives and home. In Wonder Woman (1987) he was dethroned and replaced by Athena and in Wonder Woman (2011) he was temporarily replaced by Apollo.
Fan Works
- Adopted Displaced has a couple of examples across its various stories:
- In the setting of Three More Things!, the two most powerful deities in existence are the Creator, who can will things into existence, and Beast Ragnarok, who can likewise will the destruction of things. Being equally powerful, they're locked into eternal combat without the possibility of either winning. One of the duties of the Jade Council, the alliance of all the other gods (Good, Dark, and Wild), is to ensure that no other beings with such power ever come into existence, as they might ally with either of the other two against its foe; if that happened, the entire balance of the universe would be destroyed and everything thrown into chaos.
- In Order and Chaos, when Discord comes into his full power as Daedric Prince of Chaos and Madness, he declares himself Daedric King, in order to give the Daedra unified leadership and purpose. Most of the other Princes, who view Discord as a friend and loved one, fall into line right away; those who don't, he faces in challenges wherein he beats them at their own skill sets, proving his superiority and magically binding them in servitude.
- The Bridge has several tiers of deity, but each has someone above them:
- Mothra and Battra are deities who once formed huge flocks. Their superior was Reijuu, the Aspect of Life and Terra's Nexus of Magic. Unfortunately,, he fell to evil and became the Big Bad.
- Celestia and Luna are Physical Gods, with their top god being their mother Harmony, the Nexus of Light Magic. Ironically, they actually don't know about her and are more guided by her indirectly than anything.
- Grogar is Harmony's equal and Nexus of Dark Magic. Discord, Tirek, Chrysalis, and King Sombra were all his students, and while not explicitly gods, are each in a similar tier to Celestia and Luna, further fitting this trope. Unfortunately, like the Big Bad, he fell to evil.
- Chronicles of Harmony's End: Array and Discord represent order and chaos respectively, with Harmony above them. It's unknown how strong he was, only that he couldn't fight the two of them at once.
- A Clash Of Neets, Madoka Kami, despite being the second-youngest goddess in the pantheon, is the most powerful member of the Seven by several orders of magnitude, and is seen as the de facto leader by the others.
- Codex Equus has a lot of Fantasy Pantheons, so naturally there are divines who lead these groups, usually because they have the experience, skill, and power necessary enough to back up their position.
- Queen Tiamat and King Bahamut are co-rulers of the Dragon Pantheons.
- High King Irminsul and his beloved wife, High Queen Arvan, were once the co-leaders for the entire Elternteil Deer Pantheon. However, the pantheon fractured when everyone started disagreeing over Deerkind's future and (in Belyolen's case) the mistreatment of Temnobog, leading to the birth of two other Deer Pantheons, the Bogolenya and Hoyklan Pantheons.
- The Bogolenya pantheon is co-ruled by Irminsul's twin sons, Belyolen and Temnobog, founded by Belyolen who desired to get Temnobog away from their family's emotional abuse and give him the love and respect he deserved. Ironically, Temnobog initially sought to become this by usurping his brother, but he was given equal leadership power once both of them discovered they had a unique magical bond that would weaken/strengthen them if one of them tried killing the other, and that they were really born divine equals.
- The Hoyklan pantheon is ruled by High King Kaldr, a divine moose who was once Oakley the Moose from the First Age, and his wife, High Queen Haust. Kaldr became the leader of the divine Hoyklan Deer because Haust realized she couldn't efficiently protect her relatives and peers from Irminsul, who is her uncle, and appealed to Kaldr for help.
- Empress Blackrose and Emperor Blackrose are each the top god of their respective courts. Blackrose spawned the Spring Court, while Blackthorn spawned the Summer Court.
- Indostruus, the Deer God of Industry and Modernization, is the leader of the Novellus Pantheon. Unusually, Munditia is older than him, but sees him as the better leader and thus follows him, though he's still the strongest.
- Fik’iri, the Goddess of War and Love, and Zinabi, the God of Storms and Wind, co-led the Abyssinian Pantheon and were its strongest members. However, they were also Jerkass Gods who treated their worshipers rather callously, and refused to help protect their followers from the Storm King out of spite. This act got them overthrown by the benevolent members of the Pantheon, with Fik'iri losing her position and most of her power to Wibeti, the Goddess of Beauty and Romance, while Zinabi was overthrown by Jegina, the God of Courage and Heroism. Unlike most Top Gods, however, Jegina and Wibeti aren't romantically involved since the latter is dating Moufette, the leader of the Great Skunk pantheon.
- The Grand Primevals in general seem to be this for all of Equus, as they're regarded as so powerful and ancient that almost everyone respects and/or fears them enough not to tick them off. Their opinion is generally given a lot of weight even by deities who don't follow them directly.
- Moufette, Wibeti's boyfriend, is the leader of the Great Skunk Pantheon.
- The Church of the Stars, while technically a pantheon, is actually a religion started by Queen Dazzleglow, a Sparkle Pony Alicorn Queen from the Second Age, making her its leader. However, she credits her father for coming up with the original idea that she expanded on, technically making her father the true top god of the Church of the Stars.
- It's later revealed that there exists individuals who are even more powerful and ancient than the Grand Primevals - namely, the Genesis Sovereign and the Void Sovereign, who are their grandmother and great-uncle, respectively. They are both extremely alien compared to the other deities of Equus, though the Genesis Sovereign is compassionate and benevolent, while the Void Sovereign is bent on returning all life to the Void.
- Imaginary Seas: Zeus is still the king of the gods and the most powerful among them, having usurped their Authorities and very beings to defeat Sefar 14,000 years ago. Percy even admits that as much as he might disagree with Zeus's personality, policies, or actions, the one thing he'd never dispute is that Zeus could tear him apart in a one-on-one fight. This even extends to his Klironomia. While the nanomachines are able to operate independently alone, Percy can feel the Zeus Klironomia enforcing a strict hierarchy upon the others after he steals it from Lostbelt Chiron.
- The Legend of Link: Lucky Number 13: Fate and Destiny created the lesser gods and control their very destinies on a level few of them truly understand. However, they are not invincible — they were unable to kill the Originals or their descendant Hadrian, and are eventually surpassed by another god.
- Mad World (Invader Zim) strongly implies at the end that Miss Bitters is this, with the reveal that she's the mother of both God and Satan.
- Pony POV Series:
- The alicorns and draconequi report to their respective Elders, who are Eldritch Abominations to their Physical Gods. Further separating them from their children, the Elders are stated to be multiversal singularities by Word of God, meaning there's effectively only ONE of each in the multiverse, each 'separate' version simply being a different part of the same being. They've only been shown in one fight in the entire story so far, and it was in their Avatars designed to conceal their powers from Discord and company and more for aiding the CMC on their quest than fighting and were against creations intended to kill gods. Their opponents didn't stand a chance.
- The Outer Concepts have their own Elder, Azerhorse, who is evidently one of the Draconequi Elder's sibling as the Outer Concepts are the Draconequi's cousins. Though unlike the other four Elders, it normally doesn't do anything and even created its children by accident. There's a reason Havoc nicknamed it 'the Blind Idiot Concept'. This is why its spawn have a collective Mass "Oh, Crap!" when it actually addresses them after being infuriated with how their role in Discord's endgame went and punishes them.
- Something above even the Elders is mentioned by Havoc in passing that created the four main Elders and only referred to with female pronouns, no name. However, she's explicitly not involved in the story and it's unclear if anyone other than the Elders is even aware of her existence, making them the top god level deities as far as the story is concerned.
- The (Questionable) Burdens of Leadership of a Troll Emperor: Naruto and Xanna both claim and prove to be at least as far beyond the Ascended as the Ascended are beyond mortals. That they allow mortals to worship them, which much like with the Ascended, further empowers them, only makes the gap wider. Naruto and Xanna prove on multiple occasions that they can freely remove an Ascended's powers, block them temporarily, or even descend the lot of them with no visible effort, even when enforcing their will upon all of the Ascended at once.
Films
- Odin from Marvel Cinematic Universe is the "King of the Gods" type, the Allfather who presides over all other Asgardian Physical Gods, including his two sons, the God of Thunder and the God of Mischief, and his daughter, the Goddess of Death.
- MonsterVerse: The kaiju (who are semi-explicitly treated in this franchise's take on Godzilla as Physical Gods of nature) operate according to a zoological version of the King of the Gods type, where the strongest alpha kaiju acts as the pack alpha via Asskicking Leads to Leadership and commands all the lesser Titans. Godzilla is the default and reigning alpha, but in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), King Ghidorah temporarily usurps Godzilla before the latter reclaims his title.
Literature
- In Warbreaker, the Returned are the gods of Hallandren, and their leader is Susebron the God-King. But Susebron is actually a figurehead for his priesthood, and the Returned are not gods in Brandon Sanderson's wider cosmology, though their followers certainly regard them as such.
- In Discworld
- Blind Io, who's partly modeled after Zeus, is generally seen as the chief of the gods, although it's unclear what, if any, power this position gives him. In Small Gods, he clearly assumes not even another god would dare to challenge him, but a god fueled by a temporary surge of especially powerful belief is actually able to physically overpower him, perhaps partly due to the Refuge in Audacity of even trying. (It's also mentioned that hardly anyone believes in lightning gods these days.) On the other hand, when Offler the Crocodile God hurls a Bolt of Divine Retribution at Io's High Priest in Feet of Clay, it gets deflected and goes off at a right angle.
- There is also, according to the philosopher Koomi of Smale in Small Gods, a Supreme Being. Little is known about him except that he isn't the same as the Creator, because you only need to look around at the universe to realize the Creator can't have been very Supreme at all. Therefore directing prayers at the Supreme Being will only attract his attention and lead to trouble.
- The religion of Djelibeybi in Pyramids has accrued an enormous pantheon over seven thousand years and come to acknowledge eight supreme gods in addition to Io—and yes, each one of them is the supreme god. This references the evolving roles of deities in the long history of ancient Egypt, of which Djelibeybi is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture.
- In Creatures of Light and Darkness, Thoth had this role, as ruler of the House of Life and Death, until his mysterious disappearance. Since then, Osiris and Anubis have basically split the job, as rulers of the House of Life and the House of Death respectively.
- In the Cthulhu Mythos, Azathoth is the most powerful being in the canon, with the only possible rival being Yog-Sothoth. Despite lacking autonomy, Azathoth's very dreams are powerful enough to shape reality as we know it, while Yog-Sothoth is the embodiment of the space-time continuum itself and exists all throughout space and time and outside it too.
- David Eddings:
- In The Elenium and The Tamuli:
- Most of the gods are mortal (although very hard to kill) and their power is directly tied to how many worshipers they have. Then there are The Old Gods Bhelliom and Klael, who have no such restrictions and are responsible for the creation and destruction (respectively) of entire worlds.
- The Elene God is by far the most powerful non-Elder God thanks to his huge number of worshipers but prefers to be an inscrutable All-Powerful Bystander. While other gods grant magic to their followers, he outsources that role to the Styric Pantheon, allowing them to empower his Orders of Magic Knights in exchange for their protection of the often-oppressed Styric people.
- In The Belgariad, UL is the father of the other gods and is far more powerful than them, though he's usually pretty hands-off; he was intended as roughly analogous to the Judeo-Christian God. Torak thinks he's this, but it's all in his head—really, it's about as close as an actual god can come to declaring A God Am I.
- In The Elenium and The Tamuli:
- The Young Wizards series has The One, who is the ultimate source of everything, although It delegates quite a bit. This applies because Its most immediate agents, The Powers That Be, are godlike in power and have been worshiped as deities; in fact, one of them has been known as Athena and other pagan figures.
- Played with in Lord Dunsany's short story "The Sorrow of Search": a prophet has a vision of gods mightier than those his people worship and goes in search of them with his followers. They find them, and they settle down to their new religion, but then the prophet has another vision of gods even beyond those. This repeats several times, with fewer and fewer followers accompanying the prophet each time, until his last vision brings him alone to gods mightier than any so far encountered—who turns out to be the same as the gods he started with.
- The Deed of Paksenarrion has two: the High Lord, whom Paks eventually becomes a paladin of, and Gitres, the High Lord's Evil Counterpart.
- Near the end of Robert A. Heinlein's Job: A Comedy of Justice, Lucifer — in a desperate attempt to get Yahweh and Loki to stop screwing with reality over a bet — appeals to 'the Director' to mandate an end to the central character's troubles. He mentions in an aside to the main character that the Director's powers are beyond his and Yahweh's, but that the Director is also not Top God.
- In The God Engines by John Scalzi, most of humanity worships a god who claims to be the top god, and allows competing lesser gods to be enslaved as starship drives. It turns out that this god is so strong because it's willing to consume the souls of humans, something that the other gods of its level consider abhorrent - and that eventually it has to answer for its actions to another being which is actually the god of those gods.
- The Inheritance Trilogy has the Maelstrom, the Primordial Chaos that birthed the gods and may or may not be sentient, as a variation God of Gods. Also, the God of Chaos and Darkness Nahadoth, the God of Order and Light Itempas, and the Goddess of Balance Enefah created the universe and collectively function as Kings and Queen of the lesser godlings. When the Three fall out of harmony, or any time the Maelstrom's attention is drawn to the physical world, bad things happen...
- In The Silmarillion there is Eru Ilúvatar (who is meant to be the Christian God), who rules over the Ainur (angels equivalent to "lesser gods") as a God of Gods. This was one of the ways that Tolkien—a devout Catholic—reconciled his fictional world to his deeply-held religious beliefs. There's also Manwë Súlimo, who is the leader and most powerful of the Valar (the 14 — 15 if you count Morgoth — strongest Ainur) and functions as a King of Gods under Eru's ultimate lordship.
- In the Mithgar novels, there are several levels of this going on. The main pantheon of gods is led by Adon and the evil splinter group by Gyphon, both of whom being examples of Kings of Gods, because they're the same kind of being as their subordinate deities, just stronger. Above them are the Fates, and above them is the Great Creator. However, the series leaves it unclear if the Fates and Great Creator are personified entities or cosmic forces.
- The Yuuzhan Vong pantheon in the New Jedi Order has Yun-Yuuzhan the Creator, who is somewhere between a King of Gods and God of Gods - he created the lesser gods from his own body and directly rules over them, but isn't so much more powerful that the lesser gods can't go against his will if they really want to. Since Yun-Yuuzhan is supposed to be largely distant from the affairs of mortals, however, as a matter of course the Yuuzhan Vong direct most of their worship to the most powerful lesser gods - twin brother and sister Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla.
- The Reluctant King: In most of Neveria, Zevetas is considered the highest of their pantheon. Tarxia is very different though, as they are ruled by the clergy of Gorgolor (who's elsewhere a minor deity) whom they hold highest. Everyone else they deem to be heretics.
- The Cosmere has an interesting variant on the God of Gods with Adonalsium. Formerly the nigh-omnipotent creator deity/force of the Cosmere, Adonalsium was shattered into sixteen Shards, each of which represents a specific Intent (Honor, Ruin, Whimsy, Odium, etc). There is also the God Beyond, an unknown entity which may or may not actually exist, but if it does would be even more powerful than Adonalsium.
- The Chronicles of Dorsa:
- Father Mizzu is implied to be this for most people in the Empire, since he likely gets invoked most, and they believe he sets people's fates.
- Coyote is the chief deity for the Terintan people. This is mentioned to be unusual, as generally the Trickster God is minor.
Live-Action TV
- The Good Place: It's implied that the All-Knowing Eternal Judge plays this role, or at least is the closest thing to this among the celestial beings, being the one to make decisions that both the Good and Bad Place bigwigs have to abide on the threat of punishment.
- In Supernatural, the pagan gods are more or less on the level of most of the monsters that the humans fight, likely as a result of Gods Need Prayer Badly. In contrast, the angels are largely untouchable, with few exceptions, and the most effective way of killing an angel thus far in the story has been to persuade another angel in one way or another to do so, with Zachariah as the sole exception. Then consider that even in their own belief system they aren't the top of the food chain, and we have this trope. The abrahamic God, or as he prefers, "Chuck", is one of a handful of primordial entities that precede all creation, which is inextricably tied to Him. These include The Anti-God, The Grim Reaper, and the embodiment of Primordial Chaos. In fact, even the pagan deities are cosmic playthings of the Almighty, as he created them to be the boogeymen whenever he wanted to deflect "bad press".
- In Angel, the Old One Illyria, "a great monarch and warrior of the Demon Age," described itself as both "God-King of the Primordium" and "god to a god."
Myths and Religion
- Aboriginal Australian Myths have a complicated example in that, due to most indigenous Australian cultures being non-hierarchical, they are not exactly analogous to rulers as for example Zeus or Ra. Nonetheless, some cultures are, and even in those that aren't a spirit or another is considered either the creator or more powerful than the others, and has been equated with the Christian god by missionaries anyways:
- In the Gamilaraay (also spelled Kamilaroi) and closely related cultures like the Wiradjuri, this would be Baiame, the god of the sky. He is depicted as a Grandpa God and created the world, before departing to the heavens. Alternatively Yhi, the sun goddess, created the world instead, with the specific story being a Gender Flip version of Baiame's
- To the Yuin, this is Daramulum. Daramulum is actually present in other cultures including the Gamilaraay, but usually as a lesser brother to Baiame. In Yuin religion, however, he is elevated to the dominant power in the cosmos.
- Altjira is the Arrernte sky god and ruler of the spirit world.
- To the Noongar the sun goddess Ngaangk is the wisest and most respected of the gods.
- The Kulin Nation has two, the brothers Bunjil and Palian. The former is also the ancestor of the people of the eagle moeity and the latter of the people of the bat moeity. True to the non-hierarchical nature of this culture, they are the creators of the universe and the most powerful gods, but not really respected by the other gods (least of all Waah).
- Tasmanian oral tradition is poorly known due to genocide, so depending on the reccorded version the top god is either Parnuen (the god of the sun) or Moinee (the cultural hero and either the sun's son or his creator).
- Though little is known of him, *Dyḗus (literally meaning "father sky god") seems to be the Trope Codifier, with him being the principal sky god of the early Indo-European people who traveled across most of Eurasia and spread the faith and the name far and wide. Though he doesn't seem to have been the most important god of their faith, he was the template for many future god-kings, including Zeus, Jupiter, Dagda, Dyaus, and Tiwaz.
- In Scythian Mythology the queen of the gods was Tabiti, which Herodotus equated with the Greek Hestia; Papaios and Api, gods he equated with Zeus and Gaia respectively, rank beneath her.
- In Hittite Mythology, the King of Gods was Teshub, who replaced Kumarbi, who replaced Anu, who replaced Alalu. The sun goddess of Arinna is usually his consort and a powerful deity of her own right, sometimes even been identified as the mother and father of all the gods.
- In Mesopotamian Mythology Anu/An, Enki/Ea, Enlil/El, Ashur and Marduk were all King of Gods in different places and times.
- Celtic Mythology had a number of gods that presided over the Tuatha de Danann as the High King, namely Nuada of the Silver Arm, The Dagda, Bodb Derg, and Lugh the Long-Handed. Dagda usually takes most of the features of this trope, though, such as being a sort of chief and "father god."
- Additionally, the mother goddess Danu is believed to be a sort of "God of Gods," since "Tuatha de Danann" is tentatively translated as "tribe of the gods of Danu." This is somewhat speculative, though, as little to nothing is known about her concretely.
- Prior to the descent of Islam, the Arabs had a pantheon of clan deities. They acknowledged Allah, adapted from an Aramaic term for the Hebrew God but besides crediting him with the creation of the heavens, the earths and providing rain they kept him in the background, focusing their worship on the clan deities, mostly as a part to assert the superiority of one's own clan over others (it was a vicious time). According to the Book Of Idols, Allah's children were more venerated than he was and Hubal, whose idol was the greatest of those in the Ka'bah, would have been king of the Arab gods from the Quaraysh and other Meccan's perspective.
- Aramazd was basically the Armenians adopting the monotheistic Ahura Mazda into their own polytheistic system.
- The Zoroastrian Ahura Mazda is similar to the supreme being of Abrahamic religions, but rules over a pantheon of divine or angelic figures called Ahuras, Amesha Spentas, and Yazatas.
- According to Zurvanism, an extinct version of Zoroastrianism, the first principle of creation is Zurvan, a god of time and space who is Above Good and Evil. From it came Ahura Mazda and Ahriman.
- In Yoruba tradition, the Orisha, owners of heads, are often translated as gods since they are worshiped like a polytheistic pantheon but they really are not. It is just that God is too powerful and defying of description for humans to properly worship so a lot of attention is given to Orishas, who take on forms that can be viewed by people directly, with hope they will act as middlemen to God for humans. Undergods is a more correct term.
- Voudoun works similarly. People often call the loa gods, but the theology states there is only one God. Loa are powerful forces who are served by people and serve people in a mutualistic relationship that helps both groups reach paradise with God. Historically, this idea probably came from native West African religions, which often feature a distant supreme being/creator (such as Chukwu of the Igbo religion). But it also dovetailed with Catholicism, historically the dominant religion in Haiti, allowing Voudou practitioners to equate their creator figure with the Biblical God and therefore aver to be monotheistic, while also venerating the loa (who are often identified with Christian saints).
- Nyname the sky god is king in the mythology of the Ashanti people of Ghana.
- Cagn is the king god to the San people of Southern Africa. He is also Trickster God in his pantheon.
- Ala, the embodiment of dry land and highest of the Alusi spirits, is very much the same in the Odinani religion of the Igbo people of southern Nigeria. The supreme being Chukwunote appointed her ruler of everything else. She will live and rule until dry land is no longer needed.
- Roog, who is known by different names depending on which group you ask, is king god in the mythology of the Serer people of West Africa.
- Nana Buluku King and Queen of the gods in the religion of the Fon people of West Africa. There are also many lesser god monarchs, such as Sogbo who leads the thunder gods.
- Perun, notable for being worshiped as a grand god by nearly all Slavic tribes. Even if they couldn't agree on anything else, they acknowledged that Perun was the god of gods.
- Modern-day Hinduism is more in the God of Gods mold. The various local deities are seen as "aspects" of Vishnu or Shiva; but this is after millennia of syncretism, and strong influence by both Islam and Christianity in the recent past. The original concept of these (and several others: Indra, Rama, Krishna, arguably Ganesha) was the king of gods.
- All gods (and indeed all creation) are aspects of the Brahman, the energy-like primordial entity from which all creation springs forth. The many Hindu gods are entities which are distinct, yet still part of the Brahman, as are humans, who are less connected but still part of it. And indeed, many local gods of Hinduism are aspects of other more important gods. In fact, many gods are recognized as being the same god, yet worshiped separately. For example, Parvati and Kali are different aspects of the same goddess who is Shiva's consort.
- In the pre-Hindu Vedic period, Indra was the Top God in the King of Gods mold, but nowadays is seen as far less powerful than Vishnu and Shiva, though he is still sometimes said to manage day-to-day divine affairs beneath them. As well, the Vedas briefly refer to Indra's own father Dyaus, and historians believe he was the Top God of an even earlier period due to similarities between his name and those of Zeus and other pantheon leaders throughout Europe and the Near East. However, no records from this period survive.
- From Japanese Mythology, there's solar deity Amaterasu, a relatively rare example of a Queen of gods being supreme (rather than a consort, if a powerful one). There's also Ame-no-minakanushi, who may or may not count as a God of Gods.
- Chinese Mythology, specifically Taoism, has the Jade Emperor and his Celestial Bureaucracy. However, in some cases, the Buddha shows up as a God of Gods to deal with problems that even the Jade Emperor cannot handle — most memorably at the beginning of Journey to the West. In very early Chinese religion a god named Shang Di was worshipped, who was considered the highest possible deity, but worship of Shang Di fell out of practice early on in dynastic China (the term was later taken over by Christian missionaries to refer to God the Father).
- Huánglóng, the Yellow Dragon embodying earth, is the leader of The Four Gods in Chinese Mythology living at the center of the four directions they represent; however he does not have a Japanese Mythology counterpart and thus is not their leader there.
- Egyptian religion had different kings of the gods in different periods of their history, and it very much depended on where you were, and who you asked. Re, Amun, Atum, Amun-Re, Ptah, and Isis all had their turn at the pinnacle of the pantheon. The Ennead of Heliopolis made Ra (also identified with Atum) the first king of the gods, but then had Osiris and then Horus serve as sort of under-kings because Ra was too busy with handling the Sun (or something like that), leaving affairs on Earth and the other gods to them. We should note that this concept of a heavenly dynasty appeared just as the first pharaohs were concentrating their authority and building up their dynasties...
- The Egyptian religion also included the concept of a deity "mightier than the gods," though more as a matter of theology than actual worship. This deity was rarely depicted iconographically, and writers had no fixed name to refer to him/her. Attempts to illustrate the god beyond the gods generally involved combining the iconography of several deities together into a hermaphroditic, multi-armed, multi-headed, multi-winged entity somewhat reminiscent of Hindu deities.
- There were French settlers that concluded the "Great Spirit" recognized by many of the Amerindian groups they encountered was the same God they believed in. Unfortunately, this way of thinking did not become too popular with their successors.
- In Classical Mythology, Thunder god Zeus is the king of the gods, who succeeded his father Cronus, who succeeded his father Ouranous. Zeus claimed to be stronger than all of the other Olympian gods combined, and while he was never called on to prove it there was never any evidence given to the contrary either. However, no god could get around the decisions of Ananke, the personification of fate and god of gods. And then there's Kaos/Chaos, depending on whether or not it's sentient or not and of course being the source of all things, including all the primordial gods including Ananke.
- The pre-Bronze Age collapse Myceneans (who were regarded as something akin to Ancient Greece by the Ancient Greeks) appears to have worshiped a set of gods recognizable as early forms of many of the Classical gods, including more-or-less the same namesnote , but one difference is that Poseidon (in a form emphasizing his earthshaker aspects) looks to have been the top god, in line with a more cthonic slant to thing.
- Possibly Reo (also spelled Reue) in Lusitanian Mythology, which has a name etymologically related to "Zeus" and was similarly worshipped as a sky god.
- War God Odin is also a king of the gods in Norse Mythology, but when the Norns came the gods themselves could not escape. Odin had no problem with that. You may not be able to escape your fate, but you can meet it with valour. He apparently originally wasn't king over the Vanir (there were two groups of gods, the Aesir and the Vanir — Odin was an Aesir), since there was a war between the Aesir and the Vanir, but stories taking place after the war (almost all of them) have him as having authority over Vanir as well.
- The Judeo-Christian God could be considered a god of gods if you consider the angels and demons as lesser gods, which would make the Archangels as kings of the gods. Early Jewish thought seemed to consider all gods as being real, but all except Yahweh are evil impostors, with Yahweh being the one true god. Later though, in Jeremiah, God only refers to some of the gods as actual creatures that he will punish, like Amon, while most, like Chemosh, are idols based on someone's imagination. Starting in the beginnings of the Medieval Period and continuing into today, this separated into two approaches in most of Europe: many European (and American) Christian church bureaucracies have taken the official view or Sacred Tradition that other (pagan) gods are merely disguises for demons, adding that our (humanity and angels) task is to become gods through an obedience to God and atonement (for humans) by which He will do that; whereas many European (and American) Christian thinkers and philosophers have taken instead the view that the gods of other religions were angelic underlings of God who had been mistaken for deities by "less enlightened" peoples. This latter viewpoint is most familiar to American readers in the Christian cosmologies presented by J.R.R. Tolkien in his famous Legendarium with its Valar, Maiar, and Istari and by C.S. Lewis in his Narnia Chronicles which include appearances by the wine god Bacchus, an untamed river god, the living embodiment of Time, and a Father Christmas praising Aslan!
- In non-Biblical Hebrew Mythology, El and Astarte were the mother and father of the Elohim (godly beings). One of El's sons, usually storm god Baal-Hadad, sometimes someone else, was king of the Elohim. Elyon was God of the gods, basically the same as what the Israelites thought of as God except the other Hebrews did not consider Elyon to be the same as YHWH.
- Aisa is the mother of the Winti gods, a religion that developed among Surinamese slaves in South America and the Dutch empire, and the creator of the continent where people originated from (Africa) as well as the head of the ground pantheon. She and the other Winti were only allowed to reign with the permission of a more powerful supreme God who prefers to stay distant from creation, however.
- The Conquistadors destroyed most records of Mayan Mythology, but from what survives, it's believed the spot was held by Itzamna for the Yucatecs and Gucumatz for the Ki'iche. Spanish sources also mention a more abstract God of Gods figure named Hunab Ku who was sometimes said to be Itzamna's father, but most scholars conclude the Maya did not actually believe in this deity and he was made up by the Conquistadors to assist in transitioning the Maya to monotheism.
- The Adi-Buddha or primordial Buddha is often presented in some interpretation as the highest of the Buddhas in Buddhismnote . Yes, not Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, he’s only one of many millions of Great Buddhas or Tatagatas who appear on the Universe to spread the Dharma (Buddhist doctrine) once every certain amount of millennia (the last one was Vipassa and the next one would be Maitreya), and there are other many Buddhas and Bodhisattvas (Bodhisattvas are basically the same than Buddhas except that they choose to keep manifesting on Earth to help people attain Enlightenment). Theories about what exactly the Adi-Buddha is goes from that he’s the first being in attain Enlightenment countless eons ago or that he is actually similar to the Judeo-Christian concept of God and exists since before the Universe and has always being a Buddha (yet still not the creator of the Universe as that would be anathema with Buddhism)note . Nevertheless the belief in the Adi-Buddha is what allows Buddhism to be legal in Malaysia as the Constitution forbids atheism and all religions are obligated to believe in God.
- Gnostics in general believed that the physical Universe was created by an entity named the Demiurge (generally associated with Yaweh), whether he’s evil or just dumb and misguided depends on the sect, but almost all agree that there is a much more superior God above him which can’t be grasped by human minds, similar to the concept of Brahman in Hinduism and Ain Soft in Jewish Kabalah, from whom the monads (human spirits that the Demiurge uses to create humans) come from and want to return. Even more, some Gnostic cosmologies even place other gods over the Demiurge including in some cases Sophia (daughter or the God of Light and mother of the Demiurge) and/or a dozen of superior pairs of gods/goddesses. In addition, the Demiurge itself has also minor gods under his service (the Archons) who are often worshiped as gods by some cultures thus he’s also (at least in the material plane) king of other gods. These gnostic beliefs also influenced others such as the Manicheans, Cathars, Rosicrucians and some modern Esotericist groups (like the Theosophical Society, also influenced by Hinduism, that mentions the Unmanifest Absolute) and several modern Luciferian groups that think Lucifer is the actual supreme god over Yaweh.
- Finnish Mythology has Ukko ylijumala, a weather god who may have been influenced by Perkunas of the neighboring Baltic tribes.
- Who's in charge in Aztec Mythology depends on who you asknote , but cosmologically, it's whoever's serving as the sun god. So, in order, the top gods were Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Tlaloc, and Chalchiuhtlicue, with Huitzilopochtli being the fifth and current top god.
Tabletop Games
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Forgotten Realms:
- Ao is an "Overdeity" who shuns mortal worship and is powerful enough to redefine how divinity itself functions for subservient gods, though in practice he's more of a hands-off boss than a god to the multiple pantheons. There is also one mention of Ao reporting to a being of pure light, who could presumably be a God of Gods of Gods.
- While the standard (read: human) pantheon lacks a "Top god" (at least publicly; Ao and his boss work in the shadows and most mortals don't know about them), the racial pantheons of dragons, dwarves, elves, giants, goblins, and orcs tend to have a designated ruler/leader among them. As the setting holds to the Divine Ranks trope, the top god in the racial pantheons tends to be the only "greater god" among them, the others being intermediate or lesser deities.
- While Mystra doesn't serve this position, she is the most powerful of the gods. Even with her power spread among her divine servant, her mortal servant and a number of demigod children and Chosen, she was still far beyond any other god in the pantheon. Her domain? Magic.
- Dragonlance:
- Highgod is the supreme being analogous to Yahweh who created the other gods.
- Beneath the Highgod, each of the three pantheons has its own supreme deity: Paladine for Light, Takhisis for Darkness, and Gilean for Balance
- Forgotten Realms:
- Exalted used to have Theion, Divine Tyrant of the Primordials, the beings that created the gods, but then the Exalted killed some of them and crippled the rest, letting the Unconquered Sun become the King of the Gods.
- Nobilis: One god or another incarnates literally every single conceivable ideanote , so there are naturally quite a passel of them. However, Cneph the Creator is on a vastly higher order than any of them— albeit so completely non-interventionist that a few heretics think It may actually be a myth.
- Magic: The Gathering:
- On Theros, there is a pantheon whose mono-white-aligned deity Heliod (an Expy of Zeus without the libido and some traits of Apollo) styles himself the leader.
Heliod: I am the lord of the pantheon. I am the greatest of these.
- The god with the actual claim to the position, in fact if not in name, is the green-blue deity Kruphix, with the seniority and the demonstrated power to back it up. He prefers to remain in the background, except when the cosmic temper tantrums provide too great a threat to the mortals of the plane.
- Kaldheim (based off Norse Mythology) has the Odin-like Alrund, the literal all father who fathered or adopted most of the gods and is the head of the Skoti family. Its worth note that divinity in Kaldheim is constantly overthrown by new pantheons, so his rule is by design not fit to last.
- Kamigawa (based off Japanese Mythology) had O-Kagachi, a multiheaded dragon spirit that was the world soul of the plane. So powerful was he that when a piece of him was stolen he sent all kami to purge humanity, even the most benevolent. Said piece of him became her own entity and replaced him, becoming Kyodai. She takes a role more akin to the mythological Amaterasu, chosing the emperors and revoking their title if needed.
- On Theros, there is a pantheon whose mono-white-aligned deity Heliod (an Expy of Zeus without the libido and some traits of Apollo) styles himself the leader.
- Ponyfinder: The Sun Queen is the eldest and greatest of the pony gods, and is almost universally recognized as the ruler of the pantheon.
- Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer:
- The four Chaos Gods are forever battling to establish dominance, though none of them stay at the top for long (and don't want to, permanent victory would leave them with nothing to do). As they're basically emotion incarnate, this is done both by beating the other gods' followers and by the amount of sentient beings experiencing rage (Khorne), hope (Tzeentch), love/despair (Nurgle) or desire (Slaanesh) in the galaxy. Due to the amount of bloodshed constantly going on, Khorne is usually top god by default. Tzeentch was top god at one point in the backstory, leading the other three to (temporarily) stop fighting each other and bring him down. Just as Planned...
- The human and elven pantheons also have their top gods. The humans have Sigmar, the human turned War God. The elves have Asuryan, God of Justice.
- The Void Dragon is generally seen as the most powerful of the four C'Tan star gods, given that it required the God-Emperor himself just barely fighting it to a standstill so he could succesfully turn it into a Sealed Evil in a Can.
- In Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, Sigmar has ascended even further to become God of the Heavens and is worshipped as the top god by most mortals. It's actually In Name Only, as his relationship with the elven gods is spotty at best, his truest ally in the pantheon, the dwarven god, is absent, and he's directly hostile toward the god of death (not without reason, mind you; Nagash is one of the most evil bastards to have ever existed).
Video Games
- Age of Mythology lets you choose one of three "major" gods depending on your faction (Zeus/Poseidon/Hades for the Greeks, Isis/Set/Ra for the Egyptians, Odin/Thor/Loki for the Norse, Kronos/Oranos/Gaia for the Atlanteans, and Fu Xi/Nu Wa/Shennong for the Chinese), and a total of three "minor" gods upon advancing ages. Each god has different bonuses and may significantly alter the way you approach the game.
- Arceus from Pokémon is the strongest of the (Non Mega Evolved or Primal) Legendary Pokémon and said to be the creator of the universe. Furthermore, it spawned the Creation Trio and Lake Guardians, both of which are considered gods in their own right with the former being capable of creating and destroying a universe by themselves.
- The Legend of Zelda has, since The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening revealed the existence of many orders of deities and spirits. From sky whales to giant sentient trees, who while immortal (they may still feel pain, suffer loss or be killed), their power pales in comparison to the Golden Goddesses that created them, and the reality filled with mortal beings they are charged with tending to, as respective guardians.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, the Golden Goddesses of the Triforce are referred to by the lesser deities such as Hylia as "The Old Gods" aka the Gods of Gods.
- The Settlers III portrays the pantheons of Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt and China all being subservient to an overgod referred to only as 'Him'. He sets the events of the game in motion to stop the mortals developing Monotheistic religion.
- Shin Megami Tensei:
- YHVH, acknowledged in-universe as "the Great Will" is implied to be this, toying with other deities, humans, and universes at whim.
- Later works muddle the picture somewhat with the implication that The Great Will is a separate kind of deity all on it's own that is ruling the Amala Multiverse while YHVH is just the Great Will's most well-known avatar. Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse even implies that the Great Will is actually benevolent and that YHVH is a rogue element. However, problematically, the Great Will doesn't have the ability to remove YHVH from his seat... at least directly, which is why it has the Messiahs do the job for it.
- The original arc of Devil Survivor 2 culminates in a battle against Polaris, Administrator of the Akashic Records. The new scenario added to its Updated Re-release reveals an even higher power: Canopus, the Divine Order of the Universe, the almighty being that selects the Administrators.
- Final Fantasy has a few unrelated examples, due to the independent universes of each game.
- Final Fantasy IV had Bahamut, god of eidolons, themselves powerful supernatural beings that summoners can call on for world-shaking magic. Most eidolons live in a subterranean city, but Bahamut has his own cave on the moon.
- The Fabula Nova Crystallis sub-series of the Final Fantasy franchise had a number of gods in it, but the guy at the top was Bhunivelze. The first god was actually his mother Mwynn, but he killed her and took her position (of course, you'd only know this if you read the supplemental materials). In turn, he created three other gods to serve under him: Pulse, Lindzei, and Etro. By the time the games take place, Pulse and Lindzei are nowhere to be found, while Etro dies in the course of the second game. As for Bhunivelze himself, well...
- The world of Final Fantasy XIV has multiple religious systems. Eorzeans worship the Twelve, Domans worship Kami which are said to exist in all things, and it is mentioned that there are those who only worship a single deity, a notion that seems odd to the speaker. However, there is one god, or rather goddess, that stands above them all. Hydaelyn is the creator of the world, and very possibly the world itself. She is the goddess of light and the one who gives all the Warriors of Light their mission. Despite this, nobody actually actively worships her. It's possible the world at large are unaware of her existence, but even the Scions of the Seventh Dawn who have multiple members who have been given powers by her worship the Twelve instead.
- The Shadowbringers expansion muddles the issue, though. Hydaelyn and her Evil Counterpart, Zodiark (who is worshipped by the Ascians) were never creator gods. Zodiark was created when half of the ancient Ascians willingly sacrificed themselves to give rise to an entity powerful enough to stop a world-ending calamity. When the remainder, caught up in Zodiark's influence, considered sacrificing the "lesser" races that had sprung up in order to resurrect those who had died bringing Zodiark to life, half of the survivors then sacrificed themselves to create Hydaelyn to stop Zodiark. In the ensuing battle, Hydaelyn won by dividing Zodiark (and the world itself) into 14 "shards". As a result, she has the position of being the oldest and most powerful "deity" to be active in the world as long as Zodiark remains divided, but she was created in the same way as the Primals fought throughout the storyline.
- Double variant with the Hive in Destiny. Orxy, the God-King of the Hive and Big Bad of The Taken King, is described as the Hive's chief deity, making him a "King of the Gods" variety. However, Oryx is in turn described as "born of" the Darkness, the Greater-Scope Villain of Destiny itself, which the Hive worship as a universal force of destruction, making the Darkness the "God of Gods" variety for the rest of the Hive pantheon.
- Dragon Age has multiple entities that claim this title:
- The Maker is the closest analogue to the Abrahamic God. Many In-Universe consider spirits and demons to be lesser gods.
- The Tevinter Imperium worshipped seven dragons that are called the Old Gods. Dumat, the Dragon of Silence, is said to be the leader of the seven, and the most powerful. Of the five that have been corrupted into Archdemons so far, Dumat took the longest to defeat and came the closest to destroying the world.
- In the elven pantheon, the husband and wife couple of Mythal, Goddess of Love and Justice, and Elgar'nan, the God of Vengeance, share the role "King of the Gods". Going back further into the elven monomyth, Elgar'nan and Mythal's mother "The Land" and Elgar'nan's father "The Sun" share the role of "God of Gods".
- Kid Icarus: Uprising: Hades is the Top God of the Underworld, ruling over Pandora, Thanatos, and Medusa (albeit begrudgingly in her case). In terms of power, he's far and away the strongest of all the other gods in the game, beating out even Palutena and Viridi. Only Dyntos is likely more powerful, but he doesn't do much personally.
- Lots of Top God of various mythologies duke it out each other in Smite, as the game concept is a Crossover between mythological Pantheons. Many Top Gods are included: Zeus, Ra, Odin and Kukulkan.
- In Dwarf Fortress, the mysterious Armok, God of Blood, the creator and destroyer alike of the myriad worlds and universes of the game. Entirely absent beyond said creation, unless you accept the interpretation that says they're the game's description of the player, which explains why they're called the God of Blood.
- In Egypt: Old Kingdom by Clarus Victoria, it gets a little complicated (as fits Egyptian Mythology). Horus is the patron deity of Egypt's ruling clans in both Upper and Lower Egypt, and later of the Pharaohs of the united empire, and all other cults are subordinate to his. However, the patron deity of the city of Memphis is chosen by the player from Ptah, Horus, and Setnote , and if Ptah or Set is chosen, they actually become more important to the functioning of the empire than Horus. Finally, as the game progresses, the game's lore unfolds and pyramids are built, the Horus cult diminishes in importance in comparison to the funereal cult of Osiris.
- Pharaoh has five gods (Osiris, Ra, Bast, Seth and Ptah), each able to influence part of the game's mechanics (the Nile flood, diplomacy, health, war and industry) and placated by building temples. Depending on the city's location, some gods take on greater importance and can have temple complexes dedicated to them, which give two small bonuses from related aspects (such as increasing game regeneration rates, lowering worker salaries, or empowering priests to fight crime/heal the sick).
- The gods of Zeus: Master of Olympus are arranged so that every god can only beat those of lower rank than him/herselfnote , with two exceptions: Aphrodite prevents Dionysus, Hephaestus, Hermes and Ares from showing up in the first place, while Hera is the only one who can beat her husband Zeus.
- Elden Ring has both variants of this trope at the same time:
- Queen Marika is considered the one true God of the Golden Order, holding power over the Elden Ring and being its vessel. She rules a vast crusading empire alongside her demigod children. However, she wasn't the first holder of the Elden Ring or the first to be crowned God of the Lands Between, and she holds no dominion over the Outer Gods.
- The Greater Will is for all intents and purposes the God of Gods - a primordial cosmic entity of unfathomable power who created the Elden Ring and chose Marika as its vessel. It is by far the most powerful entity in the setting, having created life in all its forms by dividing the 'One Great'. Marika is simply one of its 'vassals', and is even a cut above the Outer Gods who, while not subservient to it, can't really do much to it other than corrupting the life it created. The Greater Will is, essentially, if you took the Abrahamic God and put it in a Norse/Greek pantheon.
- The Elder Scrolls
- Fitting the "God of Gods" version is Anu, who along with his Anti-God "twin brother" Padomay, are the Anthropomorphic Personifications of the primordial forces of "stasis/order/light" and "change/chaos/darkness", respectively. The series' primary Creation Myth states that their interplay in the great "void" of pre-creation led to creation itself. Creation, sometimes anthropomorphized as the female entity "Nir", favored Anu, which angered Padomay. Padomay killed Nir and shattered the twelve worlds she gave birth to. Anu then wounded Padomay, presuming him dead. Anu salvaged the pieces of the twelve worlds to create one world: Nirn. Padomay returned and wounded Anu, seeking to destroy Nirn. Anu then pulled Padomay and himself outside of time, ending Padomay's threat to creation "forever". From the intermingling of their spilled blood came the "et'Ada", or "original spirits", who would go on to become either the Aedra or the Daedra depending on their actions during creation. (Some myths state that the Aedra come from the mixed blood of Anu and Padomay, while the Daedra come purely from the blood of Padomay).
- Akatosh, the draconic God of Time, is the chief Aedric deity of the Nine Divines Pantheon fitting closely with the "King of Gods" version of the trope. It is said that he was the first being to manifest out of the raw energy of the early universe. To the Altmer (High Elves), he is instead Auri-El, the golden eagle god from whom the Altmer (and really all races of Mer) descend.
- In the old Nordic pantheon, Shor was instead the top god. Shor is the Nordic version of Lorkhan, the Trickster God who convinced those who would become the Aedra to aid in creating Mundus, the mortal world. Doing so caused them to lose much of their divine power, and in revenge, they "killed" Lorkhan, tore his still-beating heart form his body, and cast it down into the world he made them create where his spirit is forced to wander. To the Nords, Shor is a bloodthirsty warrior king, very fitting for their Proud Warrior Race. While many Nords would come to accept the Imperial pantheon (where Akatosh is the chief deity), many still hold Shor (and his Deity of Human Origin incarnation Talos) in extremely high regard.
- In the Yokudan/Redguard pantheon, Ruptga, aka "Tall Papa", is the chief deity. He is sometimes associated with Akatosh, but the two are typically treated as separate entities. The biggest difference seems to be that Akatosh participated in Lorkhan's plan to create Mundus, while Ruptga did not "participate or approve" of Sep's (the serpentine Yokudan counterpart of Lorkhan) plan.
- In Runescape:
- Downplayed with Guthix, God of Balance and All-Powerful Bystander who spends most of his time in slumber. Due to the tragic circumstances of his ascension to divinity, he doesn't believe in exercising divine authority; however, he's powerful enough that when the God Wars woke him, he swatted every other deity off the planet, barred them from returning, and went back to sleep.
- The five Elder Gods are at the top of the Divine Ranks by a huge margin, with sole dominion over the creation of worlds and life itself. Their relics are powerful enough to create other gods, and even the crippled Almighty Idiot elder god Mah birthed two gods of equal power to Guthix solely for companionship.
- Anbennar: When the game starts, the clearest Top God is Castellos in the Regent Court faith (of the King of the Gods variety; his role is directly related to being the king in a royal court, hence the name of the faith). While there are plenty of other faiths around, none of them really have both multiple (livingnote ) gods and one god clearly regarded as the leader of the pantheon. Things go awry roughly a century later, with the rediscovery of Aelantir leading to mounting indications that Castellos is dead — this ends up causing a schism in the Regent Court faith, with one branch mostly keeping to the old traditions and bumping up Adean, Castellos' son and God of Chivalry and Righteousness, as the leader of the Regent Court, while another branch adopts a more militant approach to confronting "evil" and regards Corin, the ascended replacement and former avatar of Agrados (Castellos' brother) as God of War, as the Regent Court's new leader.
Webcomics
- The Gods of Arr-Kelaan: Ronson, god of alcohol and apathy, is the head of the Traveller pantheon against his will. The spirit of Arr-Kelaan that brought him and the other passengers and crew of the Traveller to Arr-Kelaan to be the new gods might qualify as well, but it seems to be an unanthropomorphized force that sweeps them along more than a god.
- Sluggy Freelance: In the Mohkadunese pantheon, which exists at the time of the existence of Mohkadun, Krohnus the Time-Father is the chief of the gods, whom he seems to have promoted to godhood himself, and to whom he is overwhelmingly superior in power. Above him is Prozoato the Creator, and above it is something known only as The One, who created both the Creator and its counterpart the Destroyer. The Destroyer is evidently equal to the Creator, but the others, to some extent apparently even The One, view him as the adversary.
- Holystone: With Physical Religion playing a central part in the day-to-day operation of nation-states, the "high god" is as much a political station as it is a spiritual one. It is typically a seat occupied by the God of Life.
- Kill Six Billion Demons has YISUN, the panentheistic supreme being who comprises all of reality and non-reality. Paradoxically, YISUN committed suicide in order to create the 777 777 lesser gods, who in turn destroyed themselves to create The Multiverse, but scripture still describes YISUN interacting with gods and mortals. Transcending time, space, and causality means that being dead isn't much of an impediment.
Web Original
- The God King, from this video.
- DarkMatter2525 played with this, being the humanity the one above the gods... even if they are not gods themselves here.
Western Animation
- In the original version of the story, Primus and Unicron were respectively the lords of the "Light Gods" and "Dark Gods".
- The Third Race from Gargoyles contains gods from many of the world's pantheons, including Anubus and Odin. Oberon is their king and the strongest of them all. However, the creators intended to eventually introduce his mother Queen Mab, who was even stronger than him, and completely mad. Oberon got this position by sealing her away.
