History Main / GodsNeedPrayerBadly

* The NeverwinterNights2 add on, mask of the betrayer shows just how dependant the gods are on worship. They built the 'wall of the faithless', that punishes not sinners but ''non believers'. Being a atheist or a paying lip service to religion is punishable by having your soul slowly digested over thousands of years.

* Very important in ''{{Kannagi}}''. Since Nagi's sacred tree which once sustained her has been cut down, and Zange's is inside a church, the sisters are fighting to become the god of the land. Zange already has a head start over her sister. The more believers they get, the more powerful they become.

A subtrope of ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve, which can be used to explain why ThePowersThatBe care whether or not anyone worships them. Or in games where you play as a PhysicalGod, this is often used as a game mechanic to explain why you can't just DeusExMachina your way through ''everything''. It can also be used by authors as a TakeThat against organized religion. Compare "[[{{ptitle515wm5nq}} I'm Not Afraid Of You]]", where smaller {{Anthropomorphic Personification}}s can be [[PuffOfLogic disbelieved]].

* In a way, there's a "Person Needs Prayer Badly" in medieval European Catholicism... in order to go to Heaven and join the Angels, the soul of the deceased needed to be prayed for. This led to the modern idea of the funeral, as well as other ideas.

* Fritz Leiber's stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser have a unique take: all temples in the city of Lankhmar are located along the Street of the Gods. Less-popular religions are located at the end of the street closest to the city gate; the more numerous a deity's followers, the farther from the gate his temple is located. Religions ebb and fall up and down the street throughout Lankhmar's history.

->''"If {{God}} is all-powerful, why does He care whether we worship Him or not? Ak just saying..."

* In ''[[AgeOfEmpires Age Of Mythology]]'', the player literally generates favour for their gods to produce miracles. Greeks pray at temples, Egyptians build monuments, Norse go to war, and Altanteans own real estate to generate favour.

** In hindsight, the golden Guardian at the Gate (a.k.a. "He looks just like my Uncle Osbert...") from ''Discworld/MovingPictures'' was probably a god of some sort, as he needs people's rememberance, and by extension, their belief that he can protect Holy Wood from the Dungeon Dimensions, if he's to remain awake.

** In hindsight, the golden Guardian at the Gate (a.k.a. "He looks just like my Uncle Osbert") from ''MovingPictures'' was probably a god of some sort, as he needs people's rememberance, and by extension, their belief that he can protect Holy Wood from the Dungeon Dimensions, if he's to remain awake.

* Averted in ''{{Percy Jackson and the Olympians}}'', the Greek Gods continue at seeming full strength despite virtually no following in the modern world. The series in some ways seems to substitute this for the idea that the Gods are tied to Western Civilization, rather than any kind of worship, though they do draw power simply from people remembering the exist, regardless of worship.

* Very, ''very'', '''very''' DependingOnTheWriter in both TheDCU and the MarvelUniverse. Sometimes the gods complain about this, sometimes they draw plenty of power from the ideas they're embodiments of, sometimes they flat don't care.

* ''Any'' religion that states that non-believers are punished.

Possibly, the deity was originally conceived and shaped by the needs and desires of one small group. But like any good {{meme}}, this 'idea' grows with each new person who responds, then spreads the word of this great new 'god on the block'. Soon, the deity has enough collective belief behind their 'name brand' that they actually come into existence, and use that power to fulfill the needs of their worshipers.

But the opposite is also true: As a deity's power base of worshipers shrinks, their divine strength fades; if all worship of them ceases, they may completely fade out of existence in a PuffOfLogic.

* Terry Pratchett uses this one a bunch throughout ''{{Discworld}}''. The Discworld is lousy with small gods, most of them just "a pinch of existence."
** In ''Small Gods'' the god Om was a big deal at one time. He left his people, claiming he would return at the rise of the next prophet. When he does return, he finds himself inexplicably trapped in the body of a small tortoise. As it turns out, in his absence the belief that was vested in him as a god had gradually shifted to belief in the church, or more specifically, belief that having belief in the church is less likely to get you brutally killed for heresy. By his return, only a single low-ranking disciple actually believes in the deity Om himself and not just Omnianism.
** In ''Monstrous Regiment'', it appears twice [[spoiler: The Duchess becomes, from an actual dead person, a kind of deity, while the previous deity Nuggan slowly fades away.]]
** In ''Hogfather'', this fact is deliberately used in an attempt to kill the Disc's [[CrystalDragonJesus Crystal Dragon Santa]] by using mind control to stop children from believing in him. When the Hogfather falls out of existence, all that belief goes into completely random concepts that never existed before, such as the Verruca Gnome; the Eater of Socks; and Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers.
** ''The Last Continent'' features the God of Evolution, who has no worshippers. He exists because he believes in himself very strongly, or more precisely, what he does.
** During ''GoingPostal'' Moist Von Lipwig perpetrated a con that resulted in the border-line small God Anoiah becoming vastly more popular and thus powerful. He now prays to her on the basis that she owes him.
*** It may well have paid off since [[spoiler: in ''discworld/MakingMoney'' the SmugSnake secondary villain's spring loaded false teeth (stolen from a dying old man and thus already a poor fit) self destruct in his mouth (her domain includes things getting stuck in drawers implying her influence really is spreading).]]
* MargaretWeis and TracyHickman in the ''TheRoseOfTheProphet'' series (the prominent plot point actually).
* The gods of the ''DragonLance'' setting don't die without worship, but getting it does make them more powerful.

* ''StarTrekNewFrontier'' brought us the Greek gods (who were also the Roman gods, the Norse gods, etc.) known as The Beings, who were kin to Apollo in the original series ep "Who Mourns for Adonais." They eventually get all powerful thanks to the worship of the Danteri... and the fear of the ''Excalibur'' and the ''Trident''. [[spoiler:They're beaten by said crews becoming quite literally fearless, along with the help of Mark McHenry (the descendant of Apollo and Carolyn Palamas)... and Woden/Zeus/Santa Claus, god of all gods.]]

* This is how it works in Dave Duncan's ''Great Game'' trilogy. The balance of power in that world is being upset by one demigod who has discovered a much more efficient means of getting divine power from worship--human sacrifice--and threatens to overthrow the major gods.

* In the Books of Swords, when people find out gods can be killed, their faith is shaken. Eventually, it is discovered that humans created gods by believing... which they stop, destroying all the gods. This leads to the question of "If humans made the gods, where did humans come from?" (Inversion of a question often asked theists in RealLife.)
* [[GodIsEvil Yahweh]], in ''[[TheSalvationWar Armageddon]]''. "Like [[StargateSG1 the Ori]]," as an intelligence officer {{lampshaded}}.

* The Nameless Ones in Ursula Le Guin's ''The Tombs of Atuan''
* In Orson Scott Card's ''{{Enchantment}}'', the old Slavic gods Mikola Mozhaiski and the Bear of Winter aren't killed by a lack of belief, but their concerns are much smaller and they try to live normal lives until they're needed again for godly duties.

* Averted in the short story ''The Food of the Gods'' by PoulAnderson (in collaboration with his wife Karen.) Here it is stated that while worship -- or at least reverence -- is needed in order to achieve Godhood, once that state is reached the resultant deity is immortal, and no longer requires active worshippers. Some degree of continuing respect, however, is necessary if a God (or pantheon) is to have any continuing major influence on the mortal world. As an example, it's related by the god Hermes that when Christianity displaced Paganism, a dark age followed because the Olympians held too much of civilization within themselves. It was only when the Christian Trinity allowed Greco-Roman mythology to be rediscovered that the Renaissance became possible.
* The Greek gods in Marie Phillips's ''Gods Behaving Badly'' have been holed up in a house in North London for a century or two, shadows of their former selves because the faith that made them powerful is now going to "[[{{Jesus}} the upstart carpenter]]" and his father.

* In the StarWarExpandedUniverse, the zealot species Yuuzhan Vong seems to think this way: "The gods may have created us, but it is we who sustain them through worship."

* In Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry series, the main characters are fairies, and referred to repeatedly as deities or former deities. Those who are still believed in [e.g., Frost] grow in power, and those who are no longer believed in diminish. There are also characters who exist as a sort of vampiric ghost of gods whose worshipers have died out, referred to as the Starving Ones- [[spoiler:they are responsible for several slaughters, increasing in scale, in one of the books, as they use the energy to attempt to rebuild themselves.]]

* The initially conventional Christian-themed horror series ''{{Brimstone}}'', in which a damned policeman is given a second chance at life by Satan in return for tracking down 113 souls who had escaped from Hell, undergoes a dizzying GenreShift when [[spoiler:the LAPD policewoman who had been his inside track with Earthly authorities is revealed to be the ringleader of the souls, a dead Canaanite priestess who had engineered the escape from Hell by seducing Satan. (The policeman had, unwittingly, been helping her to eliminate members of her "gang" that had gone rogue.) Her plan is to systematically eradicate belief in the God of Abraham from human culture, thereby causing God, Heaven, and Hell, to all blink out of existence. The protagonist realizes that Satan had been desperate to retrieve the escaped spirits, not out of some altruistic desire to restore the CosmicBalance, but because if the priestess were to succeed in her agenda, Satan, being part of the Abrahamic mythos himself, would blink out of existence as well.]] Naturally, just as the series [[TooGoodToLast threatened to actually become interesting]], the network [[ScrewedByTheNetwork pulled the plug]].

* {{Stargate SG-1}}

** In the Christmas special episode of season 3, the brothers run into two old Gods who are kidnapping people and sacrificing them to themselves. The couple boast that they use to be so powerful people would make sacrifices to them daily, but time moves on and they've assimilated themselves into modern culture and now only kidnap a couple people a year to sacrifice and keep themselves going.
* The original ''StarTrek'' episode "Who Mourns for Adonais" involves a cosmic entity claiming to be the Greek God Apollo. Apollo says that his fellow gods faded away as humans stopped worshiping them. He tries to force the ''Enterprise'' crew to worship him, but their resistance to the idea ultimately convinces him that humanity has indeed outgrown him, and he chooses to fade away himself.

* A Greek myth/folktale likely written in Christian times by Plutarch times tells of the death of the god Pan when people start thinking of him as only a made up story. FridgeLogic -- with the rise of Neo-Pagans beginning worship of Pan again, does that mean they rose him from the dead?

* DungeonsAndDragons
** In the Forgotten Realms, 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 all of the universe. This is a relatively recent development, 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 anymore.
** In the ''Planescape'' setting, this mechanic is explained via the fact that the Outer Planes (where the gods live) is [[ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve shaped entirely by belief]].

* WorldOfDarkness

** The new ''WorldOfDarkness'' has the Astral Realms, which include the Temenos, the collective consciousness of humanity. Among the conceptual archetypes present there are every god ever worshipped. In this case, since they are formed through human belief, their power is proportional to how much humans regard them, not necessarily through worship. For example, Anubis exists in the Temenos, and though not as powerful as he was when he was actively worshipped by a powerful nation, he is still a relevent and well known symbol, which means he still possesses the power of a minor god. Other gods are less fortunate. Since the Temenos is a focal point for all human knowledge and experience, even a completely forgotten god would still exist somewhere, albeit significantly weakened. Its also suggested that some Temenos gods might be based by humanity on truly divine beings (a theory particularly popular with devout mages who suffur crises of faith upon learning they can meet their deities in the Temenos).

* In ''{{Exalted}}'', not only do Gods little and big benefit from worship as the currency of [[CelestialBureaucracy Yu Shan]], but ''anyone'' can earn [[PureEnergy Essence]] if they get a Cult worshipping them. Something many player characters will find handy.

* Before coming up with [[MagicTheGathering Magic]] and acquiring TSR, WizardsOfTheCoast released a supplement called ''The Primal Order'' to provide formal system-independent rules for deities and ways they interacted with mortals and each other. As described, all gods had a certain amount of power at all times (unless deprived of that by suitable attacks, at which point they could expect to shortly cease to exist barring possession of a loyal home plane to regenerate from over the course of a century), but gathering worshippers both living and dead as well as acquiring planar real estate and spheres of influence all provided significant boosts that only the strangest gods would want to do without.

* In ''{{Eon}}'', the highly detailed Swedish RPG, it kinda works like this; gods generally don't die, but lack of worshippers can lead them to the brink of "starvation". An entity called "King Frost"; an amnesiac old man walking the frozen deserts of the northlands, is theorised to be a 'fallen god' clinging to life. It's worth to note that the gods can return when they get worshipped again though.

* This one is OlderThanFeudalism- in ''The Birds'', the Greek gods lose power because the prayers they were offered couldn't reach them because of a great wall built in the sky.
** Actually, it was not prayers that were intercepted - it was rather more physical smoke of animal sacrifices.
And the gods did not immediately lose power - rather, they went hungry and suffered from hunger, although they turned out to have some stockpiles of smoke and rationed the smoke.
And it was a plot point that not only Greek gods suffered - non-Greek gods were also starving and did not have stockpiled smoke. They accordingly threatened to attack Greeg gods unless the Greek gods make terms with Nephelokokkygia that would lift the blockade.

* Played straight in Alundra. The villagers of Inoa pray to Melzas, whom is actually evil, unknown to said villagers. Also Nirude, a giant god, lives off the prayer of midgets.
* Played absolutely straight in TheElderScrolls. The more people worship a given deity, demigod, or what-have-you, the more powerful they become. Greater gods like the Nine Divines and Daedra Princes can survive without it, but will be seriously weakened until they get more followers. Lesser gods can be outright killed by lack of worship. The reason it's easier for greater gods is because they personify widely-known abstracts, so even if all their followers in one culture are purged, they have another culture to pick up the slack.

* In ''{{Populous}}'' the more worshippers you have, the more powerful miracles you can perform.

* In ''FateStayNight'', 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 Sasaki Kojiro, an opponent of MiyamotoMusashi]], who is entirely fictional in the {{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 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.
* {{Actraiser}}

* In ''BaldursGate 2'', during one sidequest, you meet an avatar of a god with so little belief that he is fading away. [[spoiler:Amunator]] and a small village of followers were bound to immortally guard "the device" forever, over the years their faith has transformed to hatred and the avatar can barely even show himself, much less do anything.

* In Ultima VIII the old gods reveal to the player they are nearly powerless now that about everyone worships the four new gods instead.

* In ShinMegamiTensei, the gods, demons, and spirits feed on a substance called Magnetite or Magatushi - which is human belief and emotion and works as the setting's mana source. In Nocturne, when humanity was wiped out, demons had to abuse ArtificialHumans to produce Magatushi to stay alive.
* Referred to in SamAndMax, where Hell is conquered because nobody believes Beelzebub to be a threat anymore due to too many goofy portrayals in media and thus he is weakened, whereas the Soda Poppers are widely hated enough to have the power to challenge him.

* Was played with to an epic extent in the (now completed) ''[[http://indepos.comicgenesis.com/ Indefensible Positions]]''. It took this to it's logical extreme by having EVERY meme being a god powered by people's thinking about them. [[spoiler:One of the characters becomes a small god after her death this way.]]

** Since Elan was unwilling to leave Banjo (who is an actual puppet) with the orcs, he creates Banjo's twin brother and rival, Giggles the Clown, as the god of slapstick. The violence-loving orcs appreciate this, and immediately convert. So Banjo went back down to a single worshiper, but since they were defined as equally powerful rivals, that probably remains the case. The [=OotS=]-verse has established that being defined as a rival gives free XP to keep one side from being too weak for the role.
** Elan once tried to get Banjo inducted into the Northern Pantheon, specifically to gain more worshipers. The local priest angrily rejected this idea, and Elan then decided Banjo was too good for their pantheon, unaware that Odin (who likes puppets) approved of the idea.

* Seen in the WhateleyUniverse with the New Olympians. After escaping imprisonment (by whom hasn't yet been revealed) into the modern world, the old gods of Olympus find themselves greatly weakened and without worshippers to draw power from, and end up having to take mortal hosts. Who in the present day form their own loose school clique at Whateley Academy... -- It's also been mentioned in the canon background material that even simple spirits (basically considered randomly occurring self-motivated 'knots' of magical energy) may be able to evolve into 'gods' over time if given a source of worship to draw on.
* Used in {{Adylheim}} where the less powerful gods require constant supplication and sacrifices to be made in their honour, whereas the more powerful ones merely use this as something of a divine power up. In return they're usually inclined to offer everything from providence to small miracles.

* In ''{{Thundercats}}'', while negotiating a system of catacombs as [[ThisIsSomethingHesGotToDoHimself part of a ritual ordeal]], Lion-O discovers a beautiful, brightly-lit room full of treasures. A mysterious figure, clearly terrorized by his presence, attacks him but is too weak and decrepit to put up any resistance. After Lion-O assures him that he is not a thief, the creature introduces himself, explaining that millennia ago he was a much-renowned god, but that his power has withered to virtually nothing after enduring many centuries without having been worshiped. He goes on to explain that ''anyone'' can become a god, but few attempt it as without worshipers this is certain doom.
* In ''[[CareBears Share Bear Shines!]]'', Princess Starglo explains that stars are powered by belief and wishes, but so few people believe in her or wishing on stars that she doesn't have much power left, which leads to her turning off all the stars in the sky (including the sun). By the end of the movie, she nearly fades away, but is saved by a burst of belief from the Care Bears.

* In a way, there's a "Person Needs Prayer Badly" in medieval european Catholicism... in order to go to Heaven and join the Angels, the soul of the deceased needed to be prayed for. This led to the modern idea of the funeral, as well as other ideas.

* ''StarTrekNewFrontier'' brought us the Greek gods (who were also the Roman gods, the Norse gods, etc.) known as The Beings, who were kin to Apollo in the original series ep "Who Mourns for Adonis." They eventually get all powerful thanks to the worship of the Danteri... and the fear of the ''Excalibur'' and the ''Trident''. [[spoiler:They're beaten by said crews becoming quite literally fearless, along with the help of Mark McHenry (the descendant of Apollo and Carolyn Palamas)... and Woden/Zeus/Santa Claus, god of all gods.]]

* In an episode of ''{{Supernatural}}'' the guys come across the haunting that wasn't - it was just a practical joke. The prankee buys it and posts the story on the internet where it becomes well known in a UrbanLegend kind of way. Once enough people believe that there is a ghost there it actually appears. It was defeated by writing a weakness into the text - once enough people believed it, the ghost was defeated that way.

* The original StarTrek episode ''Who Mourns for Adonis'' involved a cosmic entity claiming to be the Greek God Apollo. Apollo said that his fellow gods faded away as humans stopped worshiping them. Apollo tried to force the Enterprise crew to worship him, but their resistance to the idea ultimately convinced him that humanity had indeed outgrown him, and chose to fade away himself.

* This is the status for the gods in the ''Scarred Lands'' campaign... except for ChaoticEvil Vangal, who derives his power from how many people his worshippers slaughter. Otherwise, he would've died, since most people aren't too keen on worshipping a BloodKnight who doesn't even pretend to have any other motive besides fun.

** The Ascended Orissi Adria, being the focus of ''everyone's'' worship as [[spoiler:the last remaining Ori]], is not invulnerable - she simply had was just too strong for SG-1 to take her down.. Once [[spoiler:the Ark of Truth was deployed and the Priors stop believing in her and hence]] she loses a significant bulk of that power, it opened the way for a [[HeroicSacrifice Oma Desala gambit]].

* [[fridgebrilliance Any religion that states that non-believers are punished.]]

* While this trope is believed by few in real life concerning actual dieties, there is no denying that a religion's influence and power increase with the number of followers.

* The ''OrderOfTheStick'' universe in general employs this trope to explain any god not in the [[strike:four]] three original pantheons. In particular, Elan and some orcs are Banjoists, worshippers of Banjo the clown, god of puppets. He doesn't have many followers, so his divine lightning is little more than a spark. One of the prequel books reveals that mortal character can ascend to Godhood in this manner.