History Main / DeityofHumanOrigin

** Elan completely succeeds in turning his hand puppet, Banjo the Clown, into a god through worship, but unfortunately, with only a handful of worshipers, Banjo is a somewhat weak god and unable to effectively smite unbelievers.[[note]]This gets discussed by Roy to answer the elephant in the room; Banjo is simply too weak to create anything and wouldn't last past the next world to gain enough followers anyway.[[/note]]

* In ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'', this is how most intelligent creatures regard the [[DeusEstMachina Archailects]], who are colloquially referred to as "AI Gods". They have done such things as create artificial planets, bio-engineer new species, and preside over virtual realities (these achievements are considered to be trivial by their standards). A few have even created pocket universes that house the majority of their consciousness. The Archailects, for their part, do not consider themselves divine, but have long since given up trying to convince the lower intelligences that this is the case, and act the part of (usually benevolent) Gods in galactic society.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Persona}}'', [[BigBad Kandori]]'s goal is to become one of these. [[spoiler:He gets it, but it turns out to be nothing of worth to him.]]

* The Gods-From-Flesh in ''VideoGame/CultistSimulator'' are exactly this.

*** Of the four most recent Winter and Summer Ladies, one was supposedly never mortal, two were changelings (human-faerie hybrids, [[spoiler: Mab's daughters in fact]]), and the current Winter Lady was [[spoiler: a mortal, albeit a mage.]]

* In ''Literature/WhitechapelGods'' from S.M. Peters, technologists of the day create the steam-powered god Mama Engine and gear-powered god Grandfather Clock who battle for supremacy and control of the Whitechapel district of London via their part-human MechanicalAbomination proxies like the Boilermen.

A Deity of Human Origin is an actual god created by humans (or other mortal beings), or who used to be one such mortal being (or several) before becoming a god. Not merely godlike, but an actual de facto god who has created a universe or sentient species or performed some other feat worthy of a true god. May or may not still have a physical body. The mere fact that the universe existed before this character's ascension implies that there are primary gods who have given a large part of them into shaping the universe and that this creature is most likely one of the secondary gods.

It may be a person who was raised up by other gods, or a computer program that has somehow tapped into a source of divine power, or anything, really. The important thing is that it's an actual god with roots in humanity. This trope does not refer to the actual concept of gods being invented by man.

This may ''overlap'' with AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence, but that trope doesn't require actual Godhood, and this trope doesn't require a higher plane.

If the Deity of Human Origin is [[TheMaker the creator]] of the world/universe, then it's another one than the one they grew up in... unless TimeTravel is involved, of course.

In many, although not all, cases, this character may have been a GodhoodSeeker beforehand.

In any case, the trope name uses the word "[[WhatMeasureIsANonHuman human]]" in a very broad sense -- FantasticSapientSpecies can be included.

Compare AngelicTransformation, DemonOfHumanOrigin, GodGuise.

* ''Blog/BetterBonesAU'': By [[TrappedByTheHost taking back her own body after Sol possesses her]], Fallenleaf (originally a normal cat) gains Sol's powers and essentially takes his place as one of the four gods of the setting.

* ''Fanfic/AClashOfNEETS'' includes the canon examples of [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Madoka]], [[Literature/TheHeroIsOverpoweredButOverlyCautious Ristarte]], and [[spoiler: [[SelfDemonstrating/KefkaPalazzo Kefka]]]]. It also adds two characters who weren't this in canon:

* The [[spoiler:Idea of Evil]] in ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' is this, going so far as to call itself [[spoiler:"the ungodly God born of Man."]] An argument can be made for the five members of the God Hand as well: if [[spoiler:Griffith]]/Femto is any indication, each one WasOnceAMan, but it's unclear whether they're as omnipotent and undefeatable as they seem. Slan, one of them, does mention they are ''not'' gods, and that there ''are'' events they cannot foresee, although such events are exceptionally rare. The [[spoiler:Idea of Evil,]] on the other hand...

* ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueDark'': In the issue focusing on Hecate's origin, it is established that the various pantheons of gods were created from the imagination of humankind affecting the Sphere of the Gods.

* ''ComicBook/MoonKnight2021'': Moon Knight's old enemy Stained Glass Scarlet was killed off-panel by the police. As her legend spread, however, people started praying to her for revenge and this let her be reborn as a goddess.

* ''ComicBook/{{Supergod}}'' is all about various countries building [[SuperheroGods superbeings that are gods (or gods that are superbeings)]]. However, [[GodIsFlawed the concept of "God" is a flawed one]].

* ''ComicBook/XFactor2006'': [[spoiler:Theresa Cassidy becomes the new Morrigan by killing the previous one who herself was an ordinary mortal girl before killing her predecessor. Theresa uses her new godly powers to heal the mind of a traumatised Polaris who had been broken by the [[TomatoInTheMirror revelation]] that [[SelfMadeOrphan she was the one who killed her parents]] when her powers manifested.]]

* ''Film/GodzillaVsKong'': If the [[{{Kaiju}} Titans]] including Godzilla are [[PhysicalGod gods]], then [[Characters/MonsterVerseMechagodzilla Mechagodzilla]] is [[EvilInc Apex Cybernetics]]' attempt to create their own artificial god with which they can elevate themselves to godhood by proxy of remote controlling the Mecha -- the movie's novelization portrays the Mecha's human pilot Ren Serizawa as a GodhoodSeeker in particular. [[spoiler:Due to Mechagodzilla incorporating [[UndeadAbomination Ghidorah's undead skull]] as a piloting system, Apex's artificial Titan gains a mind of its own from the skull's subconsciousness and it [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters pays them for their hubris]], then it goes on to fight Godzilla and Kong to the death. And it proves along the way that Apex managed to make Mechagodzilla powerful enough that it ''almost succeeds'' in defeating both Godzilla and Kong (albeit after both those two were already exhausted from a previous fight)]].

* In ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles1'', a man named Klaus became this long ago when he [[spoiler:destroyed the universe while performing a scientific experiment to create a new one. He and one of his fellow researchers became the gods of the world they created, Zanza and Meyneth]].

* In ''Whitechapel Gods'' from S.M. Peters, technologists of the day create the steam-powered god Mama Engine and gear-powered god Grandfather Clock who battle for supremacy and control of the Whitechapel district of London via their part-human MechanicalAbomination proxies like the Boilermen.

* In Creator/WilliamShatner's ''The Quest for Tomorrow'' books, the protagonist reveals that humans are eventually supposed to reach TheSingularity and AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence as a single being. The other races would eventually join this being, although humans would be the key. Once it became all-powerful, the being would travel back in time and create the primary universe from which TheMultiverse stems. However, certain events conspire to keep this from happening, and the heroes have to take some drastic measures to save reality from unraveling.

* In the ''Literature/GodsOfManhattan'' series, many famous personages from New York's history have been promoted to gods in the afterlife, including Literature/WaltWhitman and Babe Ruth.

* Frank Herbert's ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Godmakers_(novel) The Godmakers]]''. The priests of the planet Amel practice "religious engineering", in which gods are literally created through psychic powers. The protagonist develops psychic powers and becomes the first human god the priests of Amel have ever created.

* In Creator/IsaacAsimov's ''The Last Question'', humanity builds a supercomputer of unparalleled processing power and keeps upgrading it over millions of years, asking the eponymous question ("How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?", that is, violate basic laws of physics and enter god territory) from time to time. The answer is always "There is as yet insufficient data for a meaningful answer." This remains the answer even as the computer grows exponentially more powerful as the story progresses through the gradual death of the universe, and even when the Universe is completely dead and the computer was the only thing left in existence (its hardware had transcended matter and energy and been consigned to Hyperspace long before that point).[[spoiler:But then the computer realizes the answer to the question, and the story ends with "And [the computer said] 'Let there be LIGHT!' and there was light."]]

* DeityOfHumanOrigin: Or DemonOfHumanOrigin, as "demon" is usually a term to refer to all supernatural entities. In many games, humans can transform into demons or gods through various circumstances (with certain games sometimes distinguishing gods from demons).

* On the Massacre route of ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiIVApocalypse'', the player character becomes God [[spoiler: of a new universe that he created after destroying the old one and killing every other god and demon in it.]]
* In ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiV'', the central conflict of the back half of the game involves the efforts to replace God, who [[GodIsDead was killed by Lucifer sometime before the story begins]]. Only a Nahobino, a being with the power of a demon and the knowledge of a human, can do so; the protagonist becomes a Nahobino at the beginning, while several other characters either want to attain the same power or actually do so in pursuit of the throne. [[spoiler:Three of the game's endings see the protagonist become the world's new creator deity, while the fourth sees them destroy the throne outright.]]

* The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) has taught that God was a mortal at one point and that they themselves might one day become like God, as summed up with Lorenzo Snow's couplet: "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be." In recent years there has been far less emphasis on the first half of this teaching (that God was once a mere mortal), and many Mormons don't believe it at all, but the second half (that men and women can someday become like God) is canonical.
** Fundamentalist sects of the LDS specifically hold that the Heavenly Father was once Adam.

*** 'Emperor' Cuhlecain has a cult dedicated to his worship, called the Cult of Emperor Zero due to the circumstances of its formation (Tiber Septim was Cuhlecain's top general, and took over after Cuhlecain was assassinated not long after taking the Imperial City. Thus, Cuhlecain was 'Emperor Zero' of the Third Empire). Whether he actually ''did'' become a god is not confirmed, but then the same is true of Reman Cyrodiil, as well.

* ''Fanfic/AClashOfNEETS'' includes the canon examples of [[Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica Madoka]], [[LightNovel/TheHeroIsOverpoweredButOverlyCautious Ristarte]], and [[spoiler: [[SelfDemonstrating/KefkaPalazzo Kefka]]]]. It also adds two characters who weren't this in canon: