History Main / GodsNeedPrayerBadly

** ''Literature/{{Warbreaker}}'' has an unusual take on the trope: the Returned subsist on [[OurSoulsAreDifferent what are effectively human souls]] (Breath) that ''must'' be given willingly. Thus, Returned need people to believe in them enough that they would willingly give up their souls to see them live another week. In this case, it helps that the Returned can, in turn, give away their own Breath - albeit [[HeroicSacrifice at the cost of their life]] - in order to heal someone. Additionally, any person who gives up their Breath for one of the gods receives generous financial compensation.
** [[GreaterScopeVillain The Shard Odium]] (the GreaterScopeVillain of the Cosmere as a whole, but most present in ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'') does this in a weird way. He doesn't need or want worship, but rather encourages mortals to hate and blame him for all their problems, as this [[spoiler:implicitly gives a person's agency to him and thus makes him their master. He wants to destroy all the other Shards and become the sole deity of the Cosmere so that ''everyone'' will blame him for their suffering, cementing him as the most powerful being in existence and making all mortals his servants]]. However, it's not clear if he's ''literally'' consuming their emotions or just figuratively; one villain was the subject of a [[BreakThemByTalking Breaking Speech]] where a hero pointed out that joining Odium obviously hasn't actually made him feel better.
** ''Literature/WaxAndWayne'' averts this, as a god's power or existence is independent of how much worship they receive. In fact, the three gods of [[spoiler:Northern]] Scadrial ended up with inversely related to the amount of followers (all three religions are henotheistic, worshiping one god in a pantheon). The Shard Harmony is the only genuine PhysicalGod, but his religion is the smallest and forbids worship. [[GrimReaper Ironeyes]] is immortal and arguably the most powerful living Allomancer and Feruchemist, and has a religion of an unspecified size between the other two. It’s at least bigger than Harmony’s because Ironeyes hijacked the [[GodEmperor Lord Ruler’s]] religion from the [[Literature/{{Mistborn}} previous trilogy]], which was fanatically followed by the government. [[CrystalDragonJesus The Survivor]] is the most ineffective because he [[{{Irony}} died three hundred years ago]], [[spoiler:until he turns up alive in the South]]. His religion is the biggest because he engineered it to incite widespread, fanatical devotion among the massive skaa population, promising (and delivering) hope in a CrapsackWorld.

** In general this applies more to DC than Marvel. In Marvel the abstracts are not usually called gods and transcend them. More traditional gods like [[Characters/TheMightyThorThorOdinson Thor]] and [[Characters/MarvelComicsOlympians Ares]] have not been worshiped on a wide scale for centuries. They don't complain about loss of power or seek out new worshipers. They show no loss of power over time. Some writers have shown a connection between mortals and gods, but generally this is more a cultural connection that allows gods to interact on Earth instead of a dependency on faith.

** The Comicbook/NewGods tend to stay strong without a race to draw strength from, but at times they have implied to be more the gods of Ideas- [[Characters/NewGodsDarkseid Darkseid]], for instance, is the God of Tyranny. Incidentally, he is the only god worshipped on Apokolips and he is ''far'' more powerful than all of his minions, each gods in their own right. However, this has nothing to do with how many worshipers he has- he has instead been periodically slaughtering entire ''pantheons'' of gods of other worlds and stealing their power for himself, and he was amongst the strongest New Gods before doing that anyway. The New Gods do not seem to ever depend on worship for their power.

** In the ''Comicbook/FearItself'' crossover, [[Characters/MarvelComicsTonyStark Iron Man]] mocks, invokes, ''and'' turns this into one helluva TearJerker. He started [[RageAgainstTheHeavens screaming at Odin and the other gods]] (but mostly Odin), yelling that if they wanted a sacrifice he'd give them the "only thing he could give worth anything": his sobriety, by taking a huge swig of alcohol. Even though it was a {{Narm}} scene, it was effective to the fans who know how hard he works to stay sober.

** [[Characters/MarvelComicsLoki Loki]] on the other hand quite confident on claiming that gods ''don't'' need belief... but they do need something from people and that's [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality stories]]. On one hand believing Loki is not a smart idea on the other they ''did'' demonstrate the ability to affect change by mucking with myths. (To date Loki successfully rewrote Cul, wrote [[Characters/TheMightyThorGiants Hela]] into existence, and retold Loki.) This idea has been revisited by [[Comicbook/MoonKnight2021 other]] [[Comicbook/LegionOfX writers]], and the general consensus is that gods need worship to become real and it makes them more powerful, but they can stick around as long as their stories are told.

* ''Comicbook/TheSandman1989'' has gods born from dreams and when they are forgotten they return to the world of dreams to eventually fade away. ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'' follows a similar idea.

* In the ''Comicbook/XMen'' comics, the DimensionLord Mojo's magic powers are tied to the number of people who pay him homage, which they do by watching his TV shows.

* There's a ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' fic that deals with the gang visiting a realm that serves as a home for the forgotten gods to seek help from Ares. While there Ares comments that two of the gods don't really belong there since they seem to have plenty of followers, a South American god still worshiped by natives, and even more strangely, a [[Comicbook/TheMightyThor norse god]] who seems to have gained power in the last century.

* One chapter of ''Manga/FrankenFran'' shows the point when the UsefulNotes/FlyingSpaghettiMonster finally gets enough worshipers to become real because of this trope. FF being [[BodyHorror the kind of manga it is]], it manifests by absorbing several of its followers into a single hideous mass.

* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' works like this (and ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve in general). This is most relevant in the 10th game, ''Mountain of Faith'', where goddess Kanako Yasaka, faced with fading away due to modern Japan's waning faith in the divine, decides to relocate the Moriya Shrine to [[FantasticNatureReserve Gensokyo]], where she ought to have an easier time finding worshipers. Unfortunately this muscles in on the local religious "authority," protagonist [[{{Miko}} Reimu Hakurei]], and BulletHell ensues. After this ends, Kanako stays around and attempts to gain faith other ways, treating the whole thing like a business venture.

** DC gods tend to be more vulnerable to this, though the [[Franchise/WonderWoman Olympians]] can also draw strength from the veneration of their attributes, like war (Ares), skill & wisdom (Athena) and love (Aphrodite) which lead to those three becoming the most powerful Olympians in ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987''. This also effects the way they're able to adapt with the times as Zeus and Hera are sky gods without worship or venerated attributes to draw on their personalities and values are static and ancient. These days power relies less on direct worship and more on how important the concept a god represents is to the mortal world, for instance Ares can feed on conflict of any kind. When the Olympians were widely worshiped they had to split off avatars of themselves--the Roman pantheon--or be overwhelmed with power, a problem even the strongest of their number has no issue with in modern times indicating worship is their best source of strength.

** In the ''Comicbook/FearItself'' crossover, Comicbook/IronMan mocks, invokes, ''and'' turns this into one helluva TearJerker. He started [[RageAgainstTheHeavens screaming at Odin and the other gods]] (but mostly Odin), yelling that if they wanted a sacrifice he'd give them the "only thing he could give worth anything": his sobriety, by taking a huge swig of alcohol. Even though it was a {{Narm}} scene, it was effective to the fans who know how hard he works to stay sober.

* In Creator/CyrilMKornbluth's short story "The Advent on Channel Twelve", Mickey M- er... [[CaptainErsatz Poopy Panda]] becomes an physical living God when millions of American children are convinced to literally worship him.

%%* ''Literature/{{Earthsea}}'': The Nameless Ones in ''Literature/TheTombsOfAtuan''.

The opposite is also true: as a deity's power base of worshippers shrinks, their divine strength fades and if all worship of them ceases, they may completely fade out of existence. The tragedy here is that worshippers who leave the god because [[ReligiousRussianRoulette they didn't grant their miracle]] will continuously weaken the god until they can't grant ''any'' miracles. It's kind of like a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run bank run]] on a god.

Depending on the setting, the gods can often provide incentives for people to worship them. The gods of most typical TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons games grant divine spells to their priests, which give them all kinds of fancy powers. Mortals and gods then end up in a symbiotic relationship, with the humans providing belief and worship to the gods and the gods providing assorted divine miracles in return.

* A few beings in ''Videogame/TokyoAfterschoolSummoners'' lose powers, or even die if people don't believe in them. The crux of the ''Valentine Fantasy'' event is about Boogeyman, who feeds off the fear he instills in people. Because he spends the event saving kids, making friends and eventually destroying his [[PowerSource fear-inducing Artifact]] to stop the BigBad, he loses that fear and eventually fades away. [[spoiler: He comes back, and it's suggested that he returned because of the belief and support they have for him.]]

** The Heroic Spirits (not outright gods but at least a few levels of spiritualism above humans) mostly exist due to - and are partially sustained and empowered by - the belief they've inspired in humanity. Their strength appears based partly on their actual power and partly on pure PopularityPower. As Rin explains in the game prologue, even fictional characters count, what matters is the image created by the minds of the people. The game features two major explorations of this - [[spoiler:Assassin is a nameless samurai called forth to play the role of UsefulNotes/SasakiKojiro, an opponent of UsefulNotes/MiyamotoMusashi]], who is entirely fictional in the Franchise/{{Nasuverse}}. In other words, the pure belief that humanity has in the existence of said hero is so strong that it allows him to exist, [[spoiler:albeit through summoning a nameless spirit to take on his name and fill his role]]. On the flip side, [[spoiler:Archer (EMIYA) is a hero from the future]]; nobody knows of his existence and he therefore owes neither his existence nor any of his powers from belief, persisting as a Heroic Spirit only through the connection all Heroic Spirits have with the earth itself. [[TheBerserker Heracles]], naturally, gets top billing either way you look at it. [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] (the very first Heroic Spirit) and Myth/KingArthur also rank highly, as does [[UsefulNotes/AlexanderTheGreat Iskander]] in ''Literature/FateZero''.
** To clarify a bit, if a person gains enough acknowledgement in the minds of humanity at large - be it as a Hero, Villian, or Anti-Hero - , real or imagined, they go to the afterlife known as the Throne of Heroes, rather than what happens to normal souls. Once there, they become pseudo-deific spirits of enormous power known as Heroic Spirits. As the Throne exists outside of time, all Heroic Spirits, past, present, and future, dwell there, even after being completely forgotten. That said, a Heroic Spirit's power(as well as their specific Noble Phantasms. Such as, King Arthur's Excalibur is the most famous part of his legend. So naturally it is more powerful than another, such as Rhongomyniad, another weapon of his, yet a far more obscure one) increases the most people know about it. So while being forgotten won't kill or destroy them, being remembered makes them stronger. It even happens on a local level. Hercules is a famous Heroic Spirit worldwide, so when he is summoned as Berserker in Japan, he retains a far greater portion of his powers than Cú Chulainn - Lancer - who would normally be capable of going head-to-head with him, but is so obscure in Japan that he holds only a fraction of his normal strength. This has lead to him being dubbed by fans as "the Most Useless Servant in the War". For a bit of context, when Vlad the Impaler is summoned in ''Literature/FateApocrypha'', he is at about 60% power outside of Transylvania, and he's famous worldwide for inspiring the Legend of Dracula. Cú Chulainn, on the other hand, is so obscenely obscure outside of Northern Europe that it's unlikely that people from anywhere else had even heard of him before watching this.
** Don't overestimate this sort of power, however. While the overall belief that the world possesses in a Heroic Spirit can certainly increase their power if summoned, they can still easily lose to a less-known Servant by virtue of simply possessing an inferior skillset to said opponent. There's a reason that Cú Chulainn, despite his relatively unknown nature in Japan, can still take on someone with the fame of King Arthur, Medusa, or even Heracles in a fight and have a good chance of coming out victorious, or someone like [[spoiler:EMIYA]] can defeat Gilgamesh due to the specifics of their Noble Phantasms. Skill is just as necessary in a fight as power, after all.

** All ayakashi, from the smallest to the largest, gain power from humans believing in them. For spirits of wind or storms or even art, losing belief isn't a huge deal as they'll never lose so much belief as to die (and there are other power sources anyway)--but the OddJobGods such as the spirit that rattles beans at people have a lot to worry about. Ayakashi with strong willpower can keep their strength, but most will weaken and have to fulfill their purpose to keep existing. On the other hand, humans believing in an ayakashi give it a huge power boost... even if the humans don't know it's an ayakashi. [[spoiler:Garaku Utagawa was originally just the spirit of an ink brush, but gained enough power to maintain a human form that normal humans could interact with. He then proceeded to become a world-famous artist, making him one of the most powerful ayakashi around]].

** In general this applies more to DC than Marvel. In Marvel the abstracts are not usually called gods and transcend them. More traditional gods like [[ComicBook/TheMightyThor Thor]] and ComicBook/{{Ares|Marvel}} have not been worshiped on a wide scale for centuries. They don't complain about loss of power or seek out new worshipers. They show no loss of power over time. Some writers have shown a connection between mortals and gods, but generally this is more a cultural connection that allows gods to interact on Earth instead of a dependency on faith.

*** At one point, Wonder Woman caused ComicBook/{{Ares|DC}} to realize that as much as he wants to trigger WorldWarIII and wipe out humanity with nukes, he can't. While such a war would give him a short term power boost, if everyone is dead, there will be no more war and he would eventually fade into nothing. Ares eventually found a way around this by overthrowing Hades and becoming the God of the Dead too. As the dead in the Underworld are all his worshipers, he was safe to try to trigger World War III again.
** The Comicbook/NewGods tend to stay strong without a race to draw strength from, but at times they have implied to be more the gods of Ideas- {{ComicBook/Darkseid}}, for instance, is the God of Tyranny. Incidentally, he is the only god worshipped on Apokolips and he is ''far'' more powerful than all of his minions, each gods in their own right. However, this has nothing to do with how many worshipers he has- he has instead been periodically slaughtering entire ''pantheons'' of gods of other worlds and stealing their power for himself, and he was amongst the strongest New Gods before doing that anyway. The New Gods do not seem to ever depend on worship for their power.

** Thor once discussed this with ComicBook/CaptainAmerica. Even he's not certain whether his existence depends on mortal belief, and wonders if he will just vanish when people no longer need him.
** ComicBook/{{Loki}} on the other hand quite confident on claiming that gods ''don't'' need belief... but they do need something from people and that's [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality stories]]. On one hand believing Loki is not a smart idea on the other they ''did'' demonstrate the ability to affect change by mucking with myths. (To date Loki successfully rewrote Cul, wrote ComicBook/{{Hela}} into existence, and retold Loki.) This idea has been revisted by [[Comicbook/MoonKnight2021 other]] [[Comicbook/LegionOfX writers]], and the general consensus is that gods need worship to become real and it makes them more powerful, but they can stick around as long as their stories are told.

** Prior to the ComicBook/{{New 52}} reboot, DC villain ComicBook/{{Eclipso}} tried to kill {{God}} by destroying the focal point of the worship that sustains Him: [[spoiler:{{Earth|IsTheCenterOfTheUniverse}}]].

* In ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', [[HollywoodAtheist Oolon Colluphid]] uses the existence of the Babel Fish to prove the existence of God, but since "proof denies faith" and God Needs Faith Badly, the concrete proof of his existence caused him to promptly vanish in a PuffOfLogic. The text goes on to mention that while he made bank with the book spreading this argument, it's generally considered a bunch of dingo's kidneys.

* In the world of ''Literature/TheSagaOfBilly'', this is the case for the lesser gods, like [[{{Pun}} Bit'hum]], protector of Roads and Pathways. However, the greater gods are actually recognized as such if they are self-sufficient. These major deities' powers are fueled by the simple actions of mortals, which are now akin to worship: for instance, the god of Craftsmanship is sustained by the fact there are craftsmen in the world, and the goddess of Motherhood is unconsciously worshipped with every birth.

* Expanded by Creator/DanSimmons in his short story ''Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell'', where different versions of ''Hell'' as well as God become true on the basis of the number of people who (consciously or not) believe in them. Vanni Fucci, a blasphemous thief condemned to [[Literature/TheDivineComedy Dante's Hell]] simply because Dante did not like him very much, takes an opportunity to take over a televangelist's show and convince everyone not to believe in Dante's Hell anymore. HilarityEnsues.

* ''Literature/{{Deverry}}'': It is explicitly stated that gods not only need prayer to have power; they need it to even ''exist''. Gods exist as energy constructs on the various astral planes, and do not form unless there is a great deal of belief in not only their existence, but in who and what they are. Even when they exist, it takes genuine power to get them to do anything -they're still "just" constructs, and the power from the living person is what gets things done.
* ''Literature/TheHeartstrikers'': The actual mechanics of this are examined in some depth. All humans have the ability to unconsciously move magic (mages are simply those who can do so consciously). Therefore, whenever enough humans believe in something, they will carve out a hole in the Sea of Magic that will fill with magic, the vessel for a new spirit. These "Mortal Spirits" are the ancient gods of humanity, death and war given shape. Not only do they tend to be very dangerous (since humans tend to believe more in things that terrify them), but they are far more powerful than natural spirits like those born from mountains or forests. [[spoiler:In fact, these Mortal Spirits are the reason [[TheMagicGoesAway the magic was turned off]]. Unless a Mortal Spirit is bound to a Merlin who can temper its nature, it will inevitably go on a destructive rampage. But the Mortal Spirits vastly outnumbered the Merlins, so the last Merlins sealed away all magic instead in order to put the Mortal Spirits to sleep. Thankfully, by the time the Mortal Spirits return, Marcie realizes that the human population is so much higher that they ''should'' be able to provide one Merlin for every Mortal Spirit, preventing another apocalypse]].
* ''Literature/SwansBraidAndOtherTalesOfTerizan'': In "In Mysterious Ways" the gods gain strength the more worship they get. Given this fact, the clergy of new god Cot'Dazur decide to get more power by having thieves steal the icons from all other gods since people focus their belief on these. [[spoiler:Terizan realizes this and foils them, stealing the icons back which she puts back into their original temples.]]

** The God cards of the ''Theros'' block are indestructible Legendary Enchantment Creatures, but if the god's controller doesn't have a strong enough devotion to that god's color (or colors) [[note]]measured by the number of colored mana symbols in the mana costs of permanents that player controls[[/note]], they cease to be creatures altogether. [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ur/303 This represents their in-universe nature]], as the gods are born from humanity's beliefs infused in Nyx (Theros' [[TheSacredDarkness magical night sky]], associated with dreams and the subconscious). According to Kruphix, the god of horizons and mysteries, many gods have come and gone, including previous [[GodOfLight sun gods]]. Following [[spoiler:Elspeth's death]], Ajani Goldmane has openly declared war on the gods by convincing people not to worship them.

*** The Necrons' master plan to end Chaos works like this pre-6th edition. The Ruinous Powers are [[AbstractApotheosis embodiments of emotions]] felt by living creatures, so, if you ''kill off'' all living beings in the universe (the Necrons are robots inhabited by [[MindUploading uploaded consciousness]], and don't register as living creatures for the purpose of Chaos), there'll be nothing for Chaos to feed on.

*** The von Carsteins want to convert the entire world to zombies under their command in order to deny Chaos their bodies and minds. Sadly, the other factions failed to see the logic in this and fight the vampires as much as they do Chaos and each other. This is based off the plan of their forebearer, Nagash the Undying, who considers this Step 1 in his plan to KillAndReplace the Chaos Gods and be the only will in existance.

* ''VideoGame/HollowKnight'': [[spoiler:Long before the events of the game, the people of Hallownest worshipped the Radiance, a cruel [[MothMenace moth goddess]] who kept her citizens enslaved in a HiveMind... until the Pale King came along and brought them free will in exchange for fealty to him. Losing followers, the Radiance was all but forgotten about until an ancient statue of her was found at the summit of [[DugTooDeep Crystal Peak]]. Now, the Radiance holds sway over Hallownest once more, having created [[MysticalPlague the Infection]] to pettily spite those who had failed to properly worship her.]]

* In ''Webcomic/{{Chitra}}'', Phobinus the God of Beauty wants to become a major player in his world's pantheon, like the God of Lightning or the God of War. To do this, he needs his apostle Chitra to attract faithful devotees to live in his kingdom (and eventually expand the territory). The more devotees a god has, the more powerful they become. In a flashback conversation between advisor Tornian (a native of the land) and Chitra (a girl [[{{Isekai}} from 21st century Earth]]) in Chapter 37, Tornian compares belief in the gods to a form of currency among the divine:

** ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'': A god's power is determined by his/her number of worshippers, and needs at least one worshipper to maintain Divine status (albeit at a demigod level). The only exception is the overdeity Ao, who needs no worshippers to maintain power because he rules over other gods. This wasn't always the state of things, as the deities were independently powerful before the Avatar Crisis, when Ao got fed up with nobody doing their duties or taking care of their worshippers any more. The post-Avatar Crisis fluff tended to suggest, when the subject came up, that the gods ''did'' gain power from being prayed to and having followers before the Crisis. What Ao did after the Crisis was, essentially, toning down the power you gained from your Portfolio, and ramping up how much power you gained from belief[[note]]this may explain how Myrkul got the idea for the Spirit-Eater Curse failsafe despite the Avatar Crisis not having occurred yet at that point[[/note]].

** DC has this apply to [[ComicBook/FreedomFightersDC Uncle Sam]], whose power is directly proportional to the American People's belief in freedom and liberty. Whether American protectorates like Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands' people's belief in freedom and liberty counts towards this is never specified.

* ''Literature/SwansBraidAndOtherTalesOfTerizan'': The gods gain strength the more worship they get. Given this fact, the clergy of new god Cot'Dazur decide to get more power by having thieves steal the icons from all other gods since people focus their belief on these. [[spoiler:Terizan realizes this and foils them, stealing the icons back which she puts back into their original temples.]]

** Islam takes this much further. In Islam, sins are defined as violations of entities' rights, and these rights fall into three categories: Divine rights, people's rights and (the very vaguely defined) self rights. The creator's right to acknowledgment and worship falls in the first category, which basically means God can personally press charges on Judgment Day whether you were a non-Muslim or a fully devout paragon of faith who missed prayers one time or forgot to account for a skipped day's fasting. More importantly, God may choose NOT to hold you accountable for violations of divine rights, but will not forgive sins that have harmed other people. If you've slighted another human in any way, only that particular person can forgive the sin. All the religious commandments are either instructions on gaining brownie points in heaven or training exercises to help a person become less susceptible to violating others' and their own rights (and in a lot of cases, it's said that they're meant to be both). As such, there's lots of traditions in Muslim countries that can essentially boil down to LevelGrinding to help rub off points to even out the inevitably large number of sins a person might have on their records. These customs are usually centered around the recently deceased, with funerals being major displays. It is said that if you're forgiven by 40 mortals at your funeral, God will forgive every sin targeted towards him so most funeral services include asking for everyone in attendance to declare to God that they forgive the deceased completely. There's also forms of essentially bribing people to send small prayers to the one you lost, there's customs of giving away free food where the receivers simply recite short Quran verses dedicated to the giver.

** ''Literature/SmallGods'' concerns the rise, fall, and return of the Great God Om, patron deity of the theocratic empire of Omnia. He left at the height of his power, promising to return during the rise of the next prophet. When he does come back from his godly vacation, he finds himself inexplicably trapped in the body of a small tortoise, unable to conjure more than a spark of static. As it turns out, his followers began to believe less in him and more in his church, or more specifically that showing proper commitment to the church [[ChurchMilitant was less likely to have you tortured to death for heresy]]. By Om's return, only a single lowly acolyte believes in the actual deity Om rather than Omnianism. There's also one man who disbelieves in him so intensely and specifically (and [[FlatEarthAthiest to his face]]) that it's almost as good; Om is suitably impressed at this and takes something of a liking to him. [[spoiler:In the end, it takes [[ThereIsAGod an impossible-to-deny public miracle]] to bring him to proper, Divine strength]].

** ''Literature/SmallGods'' concerns the rise, fall, and return of the Great God Om, patron deity of the theocratic empire of Omnia. He left at the height of his power, promising to return during the rise of the next prophet. When he does come back from his godly vacation, he finds himself inexplicably trapped in the body of a small tortoise, unable to conjure more than a spark of static. As it turns out, his followers began to believe less in him and more in his church, or more specifically that showing proper commitment to the church [[ChurchMilitant was less likely to have you tortured to death for heresy]]. By Om's return, only a single lowly acolyte believes in the actual deity Om rather than Omnianism. There's also one man who disbelieves in him so intensely and specifically (and to his face) that it's almost as good; Om is suitably impressed at this and takes something of a liking to him. [[spoiler:In the end, it takes [[ThereIsAGod an impossible-to-deny public miracle]] to bring him to proper, Divine strength]].

* Subverted in ''Film/ThorLoveAndThunder'', where gods doesn't seem to need worshippers at all, given Rapu's indifference to Gorr being his last devotee (and even tells him there'll always be more believers and there is noeternal reward as he believed). It is this callous indifference that sets Gorr down the path to becoming the God-Butcher, murdering gods with the Necrosword. The other gods of Omnipotence City seem to pass the time in carefree hedonism, similarly not needing belief or competing for believers.

** Jiyva the Shapeless, god of slimes. There's only one slime smart enough to worship it; if you kill it, Jiyva ceases to exist ([[DevelopersForesight unless you took it upon yourself to worship it beforehand]], in which case you'll suffer penance for killing such a powerful slime).
** Ignis the [[MeaningfulName Dying Flame]], a god of fire whose worshipers have all left it long ago. Ignis is obscure enough that you can't even choose to follow it in the usual way; you can start the game worshiping Ignis as a Cinder Acolyte, or a faded altar might turn out to be dedicated to Ignis, but otherwise you'll never see any sign of it. Those who ''do'' find and follow Ignis will be granted what little power it has left all at once -- you'll have access to a few potent fiery abilities, but [[FuelMeterOfPower they have limited uses]] and don't scale well past the early game. Use up all your piety with Ignis and you'll be stuck with a useless husk of a god; at that point, it's often better to abandon it for a new god, despite Ignis subsequently [[TakingYouWithMe burning itself completely out in an attempt to kill you for the betrayal]].

** Islam takes this much further. In Islam, sins are defined as violations or entities' rights, and these rights fall into three categories: Divine rights, people's rights and (the very vaguely defined) self rights. The creator's right to acknowledgment and worship falls in the first category, which basically means God can personally press charges on Judgment Day whether you were a non-Muslim or a fully devout paragon of faith who missed prayers one time or forgot to account for a skipped day's fasting. More importantly, God may choose NOT to hold you accountable for violations of divine rights, but will not forgive sins that have harmed other people. If you've slighted another human in any way, only that particular person can forgive the sin. All the religious commandments are either instructions on gaining brownie points in heaven or training exercises to help a person become less susceptible to violating others' and their own rights (and in a lot of cases, it's said that they're meant to be both). As such, there's lots of traditions in Muslim countries that can essentially boil down to LevelGrinding to help rub off points to even out the inevitably large number of sins a person might have on their records. These customs are usually centered around the recently deceased, with funerals being major displays. It is said that if you're forgiven by 40 mortals at your funeral, God will forgive every sin targeted towards him so most funeral services include asking for everyone in attendance to declare to God that they forgive the deceased completely. There's also forms of essentially bribing people to send small prayers to the one you lost, there's customs of giving away free food where the receivers simply recite short Quran verses dedicated to the giver.

*** In the {{expansion|Pack}} ''Mask of the Betrayer'', a major plot point is an exploitation of this trope. Myrkul, the previous GodOfDeath, created the Wall of the Faithless as a place to imprison Faithless and False souls after death -- respectively, those who didn't worship gods and those who failed to uphold their gods' tenets. His intent wasn't to punish them for [[FlatEarthAtheist not worshiping the deities who keep the world running]], but to ensure that ''he would never die so long as the Wall exists'', because memory and belief in it would effectively empower him. The good deities and Kelemvor, the much more benevolent god of death, tolerate the Wall's existence on the grounds that when Kelemvor did try to remove it, it caused a chain of events that would have led to TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt.

*** ''[[VideoGame/HyperdimensionNeptuniaReBirth1 Re;Birth 1]]'' (which takes notes from the first game but tells its own story) does something similar, and then flips it on its head. [[spoiler:How do the [=CPUs=] defeat a monster that regenerates because people believe it will? [[HoistByHisOwnPetard Run a propaganda campaign to convince a majority of people it won't.]]]]

** The goddess Bast is a shadow of her former self.

[[folder:Fanfics]]