The Almighty Dollar

When he takes a bath, is it laundered money?

"Blessed Exchequer, whose greed is eternal. Allow this humble bribe to open your ears and hear this plea from your most devout debtor."

— Quark praying, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "The Emperor's New Cloak"

A deity whose power is wealth or money-related. Named "Almighty" by Jesus when he warned money had an allure or power which could distract people from serving God.

Wealth gods are Older Than Dirt if you count food as currency. For Stone Age cultures, a Food God was also the wealth god who brought forth plentiful grain and flocks of livestock. Hungry people value food over other currencies, 'cause you can't eat money. Analysis of fossilized skeletons shows that malnutrition was common during ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and amongst pre-Roman European tribes. Modern ideas about wealth and money solidify during the Older Than Feudalism period.

Real life wealth gods often fit the mold of "healthy, wealthy, and wise", where a model of virtue drew abundance or reliable "daily bread". Sometimes a family's wealth has a protective spirit, or a livelihood such as merchants and shopkeepers have a Patron Saint. Historical evil gods/spirits related to money had domains like poverty, famine, bad luck, ill luck, or Greed. Such evil gods or demons of greed, poverty, or misfortune are an Inverted Trope.

Mixed morality around money is also reflected in that some tricksters are also wealth gods, such as the Greek god Hermes. The infamous Loki's help for the Norse pantheon was primarily financial. Sometimes a Love Goddess is also the wealth deity, since she makes people happy and the jewels look so good on her. Since The Power of the Sun is symbolized by the metal gold, a solar deity is sometimes a wealth deity, like sun god Ra's daughter Hathor.

Strangely, wealth deities are more common in real life than fiction. Even fantasy worlds where Gods Need Prayer Badly might lack a wealth deity despite all the potential worshippers looking for divine help with their finances. Probably fantasy wealth gods suffer from the Boring, but Practical trope since they're more likely to be encountered at an everyday store than a battle. But wealth deities can be a balance-shifting Wild Card since their power of money is True Neutral. Good, evil, chaos, and law all use the same currency.

Fantasy humans or aliens like DS9's Ferengi might worship money directly, a case of Blue-and-Orange Morality. But in real life, humans "worship" money by ignoring all gods/values to pursue money. Money itself as a god is an Internal Subtrope of the wealth god trope. Characters who experience money itself as a god are seen in tropes like: The Scrooge, Gold Fever, Loves Only Gold, Miser Advisor, Money Fetish, Every Man Has His Price, Screw the Rules, I Have Money!, Money Is Not Power, or Death by Materialism.

This is a Sub-Trope to Stock Gods. Not to be confused with novels or other works of fiction named, "God of Money". Supertrope to Mammon.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• The Holy Dragon Digimon Majiramon, one of the Devas derived from the Buddhist Twelve Heavenly Generals. It's known to be calculating and greedy, putting a price on everything and expressing various matters through their monetary value. In Digimon Ghost Game it goes on a rampage through Japan after Jellymon disrupts the Japanese economy, with the intent of smiting her master Kiyoshiro.
• Good Luck Girl!: Inverted and Played With. Momiji is a binbogami, a Japanese god of poverty and bad fortune, who's the foil of Ichiko Sakura, a young girl who was born with an excess of good luck and fortune at the point to compete with gods; in fact, Momiji was sent to Earth to absorb Ichiko's fortune to balance the world. Also, in further chapters of the manga Konjikihime turns up; she's the goddess of fortune, but was overshadowed by Ichiko, joining Momiji in her mission.
• Noragami: Inverted with Kofuku, since she's a god of poverty and misfortune. She was actually the one responsible for causing the Lost Decade of Japan to start by literally bursting the economic bubble.

Films — Live-Action

• Silent Movie: The conglomerate Engulf & Devour begins their meetings with a prayer to the dollar itself.
  O mighty dollar we pray to thee, for without thee we are in the crapper. Amen.

Literature

• American Gods:
  • One of the "modern deities" is "consumer culture", which involves love of money.
  • Implied with the man in the charcoal suit, who can sense and manipulate exchanges of money around him and who gives Shadow an impression of wealth.
• The Belgariad: The Tolnedran religion is centered around money and its acquisition. This led to the disastrous invasion of Maragor, wherein the Tolnedrans invaded Maragor in the mistaken belief that they had a hidden treasure, and when they couldn't find any treasure, they threw a tantrum and massacred the Marags wholesale, almost completely wiping them out.
• Book of Swords: The Blue Temple hoards money and valuables. The main plot of The Second Book of Swords involves robbing the Blue Temple's treasure hoard hidden within a well-guarded Elaborate Underground Base.
• Chronicles of Chaos: The Greek/Roman god Mercury is god of money as well as speed. Mercury is able to find the orphans whenever they spend money.
• The Dark Profit Saga: Given the premise of the series is "fantasy adventuring meets capitalism", it's not surprising that there are multiple gods of trade and wealth.
• The Divine Comedy makes Plutus into a demon of wealth who tortures "Hoarders and the Wasters" within the fourth circle of hell.
• The Dresden Files: Befitting Hades' role as the Lord of the Earth and the riches within, his vault is filled with treasures beyond measure and worth. From gem-formed plants, to fountains of diamonds, to the original masterpieces of great artists, everything is well-kept and one could easily take $20 million in valuables and not even make a scratch in his total sum in this vault alone.
• Evillious Chronicles has demon characters representing the Seven Deadly Sins. Salem Dunbar is the demon of Greed.
• The Gentleman Bastard Sequence: The Sansa twins mention having spent time as acolytes in the cult of Gandolo, god of traders, and that part of their training involved going to market with some spending money on feastdays. Jean, who spent the same time in the cult of the goddess of death getting ritually poisoned, stabbed, drowned and strangled, is not amused.
• Stranger in a Strange Land: The Fosterite church is essentially prosperity-gospel evangelism on crack, to the point that the churches have gambling machines in them.
• The Trope Namer is generally agreed to be Washington Irving, in his 1837 short story "The Creole Village".
  The almighty dollar, that great object of universal devotion throughout our land, seems to have no genuine devotees in these peculiar villages; and unless some of its missionaries penetrate there, and erect banking houses and other pious shrines, there is no knowing how long the inhabitants may remain in their present state of contented poverty.

Live-Action TV

• American Gods (2017) has the anthropomorphic personification of money, an old man referred to as "The Bookkeeper" who is older than most of the Old Gods. He has a trio of creepy girl scouts selling candy bars speaking in unison as guards.
• Star Trek: Deep Space Nine has a money religion Played for Laughs and perhaps a social commentary on the greed of the The '90s and The '80s. An alien race named the Ferengi practically worship money. The Ferengi afterlife version of heaven is called the Divine Treasury; their version of hell is the "Vault of Eternal Destitution." A "Blessed Exchequer" overseas their afterlife, reviews each soul's profit and loss statements and accepts a bribe which allows deceased Ferengi to bid for a new life from the Celestial Auctioneers.
• Supernatural: The Greek god Plutus appears in "What's Up, Tiger Mommy?". Plutus runs an Auction of Evil selling off supernatural items to monsters and demons, with bids including tons of gold, dismembered virgins, and half the moon. From his short appearance, this money god believes he's Above Good and Evil, showing no interest in anyone's welfare.

Music

• Although not named in the lyrics, Ghost's song "Mummy Dust" is about Mammon, a Biblical deification of money and material wealth, and his corruptive influence on humanity.

Mythology, Religion, and Folklore

• Aztec Mythology: Yacatecuhtli was the patron god for merchants and commerce.
  • Quetzalcoatl was also a god of merchants, amongst other things, but not exclusively one like Yacatecuhtli.
• Buddhism: Buddhist wealth gods are named Jambhala, and five exist.
  • The Green Jambhala is chief of the five, usually shown with a jewel producing mongoose in his left hand. The mongoose kills the snakes of greed and spits out jewels of generosity. His specialty is transmuting negative to positive, just like associated Buddha Akshobhya.
  • White Jambhala is a manifestation of Guan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion (or goddess of mercy). Her wealth power is healing poverty, eliminating sicknesses, curses, and bad karma. Sometimes associated with China's The Four Gods (also known as four heavenly kings), specifically the compassionate King of the East whose color is white.
  • Yellow Jambhala is known to grant fortunes and be charitable. Overlaps some with the Green Jambhala, protector of the North, chief of heavenly gods, and also associated with Vaisrava.
  • Red Jambhala is known for prosperity related to harmonious marriages and is married to a mother of wealth. Sometimes thought to be the Hindu wealth god Ganesh.
  • Black Jambhala is also known as Hindu wealth god Kubera. He is also the god of wealth in Tibetan buddhism. He is also king of the west within China's The Four Gods. He is also a manifestation of Amoghasiddhi Buddha whose superpower was helping purify people from envy. He helps protect people from bad luck and bad debts.
  • Vaisravana is a Buddhist deity who is considered a "god of wealth" in Tibet.
• Canaanite Mythology: Gad is sometimes translated to "god of fortune" when mentioned in The Bible, the Book of Isaiah 65:11. Strangely enough, a founding patriarch Jacob, might have named his son Gad after a pagan god, according to some scholars.
• Celtic Mythology: Vesunna was a Celtic goddess who gave prosperity, abundance, and good fortune. Vesunna was worshiped during Roman times in an area which became the western half of France or Roman Gaul.
• Chinese Mythology
  • Defied Trope: Budai is a deity who is also known as "the Laughing Buddha". Budai personifies "poor but happy" within Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese Buddhism. Budai was an example of how one doesn't need actual money to enjoy the benefits of wealth, like being popular, virtuous, and well fed.
  • Caishen is a god of wealth and happiness in Chinese folk religion and Taoism.
  • Fude Zhengshen was another Chinese god of wealth, more focused on blessed virtue and also known as the oldest of gods.
  • Guan Yu is a bodhisattva celebrated in Chinese folk religion, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. Guan Yu is mostly known as a guardian deity and holy emperor, but he is worshiped as an alternative wealth god in Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia.
  • Liu Haichan is an alchemy god symbolized by gold coins. Liu Haichan might be another face of Caishen.
  • Tudigong is a god of the soil and farming associated with wealth and landlords. Other names for this god include Dizhushen, Tudipo, Tugong, Tudiye, Dabogong, Sheshen, Tudijun, Tudihuofushen, Fudezhengshen.
• Christianity:
  • Jesus taught that no one could serve two masters, as one who serves Mammon (money) cannot serve God as well. He saw "money worship" as Serious Business when He cleansed the temple of money changers (John 2:13-16, Matthew 21:12-17, Mark 11:15-19, and Luke 19:45-48). Mammon/money was The Corrupter for the Christian faithful, especially since it was a time when slavery made people rich and manipulating grain prices could create wealth at the expense of people starving to death.
  • Saint Cajetan is the Catholic Patron Saint of the unemployed, gamblers, and good fortune.
  • For decades, various Protestant churches have taught prosperity theology, which claims that a righteous life will be rewarded with financial success and material prosperity not just in heaven, but also in this world. This is... a contentious position among other Christian churches, to put it mildly, with those who don't follow it describing it as worshiping God for wealth and pointing to Jesus' statements against greed.
• Classical Mythology:
  • Abundantia, a Roman goddess, personified abundance and prosperity. She was associated with the Golden Age of Greek mythology and the mythic "horn of plenty" (cornucopia).
  • Agathodaemon, or agathos daemon, was a noble spirit who lived within vineyards and grainfields. Agathodaemon was the husband of Tyche; rituals to him could increase agricultural yield and profit.
  • Averruncus was the god of averting harm, including financial ruin.
  • Fortuna was the Roman goddess of fortune, both good and bad. Fortuna was associated with the capriciousness of chance.
  • Hermes was the god of merchants, as well as the Trickster God among gods.
  • Hades was the god of wealth as well as the afterlife, as the Earth contains gold and precious stone, which he could access since he was the Chthonic god of a subterranean realm. His Roman name, Pluto is a title means "the wealthy one". The name Pluto could have been conflated with Plutus.
  • The Roman goddess Moneta protected the funds of her worshipers, along with another duty protecting memory. Moneta's name became the source of English language words such as "money" and "mint".
  • Plutus was the god of agricultural wealth, who was blinded by Zeus so he would distribute wealth indiscriminately and without favor for the good.
  • Tyche was the goddess of fortune, both good and bad. Tyche was also associated with a Greek city's prosperity and destiny. The Roman version of Tyche was named Fortuna.
• Dedun was one of the few Nubian gods remembered from ancient Africa. Dedun was associated with the lucrative trade of incense, and so is remembered as a god of wealth and prosperity.
• Egyptian Mythology:
  • Bes was a god who protected Egyptian households from everything bad including financial ruin.
  • Hathor was a major goddess connected to mineral wealth (semi-precious stones, copper, gold), cattle wealth, and abundance festivals. She is first clearly depicted as a goddess with a cow's head during the Fourth Dynasty (c. 27th-25th centuries BCE, roughly contemporaneous with the construction of the Giza pyramid complex), and the portrayal (along with a related depiction as a woman with cow's horns) persisted until the closure of the Egyptian temples after Egypt's conversion to Christianity. Like India, ancient Egypt saw cows as sacred sources of food, though unlike the Hindus the Egyptians never developed a taboo on cattle slaughter (indeed, officials, priests, and even workers were often paid in beef). Cattle is an Older Than Dirt currency. Later, she was associated with Horus and the sun metal gold. From the Middle Kingdom period until Ptolemaic and Roman times, Hathor was associated with various joyful (and drunken) festivals celebrating abundance.
  • Renenutet was an ancient Egyptian goddess of wealth, well-being, nourishment, and harvest. She was also a goddess of childbirth and midwifery, and also a snake. (Yes, Egyptian mythology can be singularly weird.)
• Ekeko was a god of abundance and prosperity during ancient Bolivia.
• Hindu Mythology:
  • Inverted: Alakshmi is a Hindu goddess of the opposite of fortune, misfortune and poverty due to malicious emotions like jealousy and envy. Alakshmi's title translates to "Not-Lakshmi", so she is an opposing goddess to Lakshmi.
  • Ganesha is a popular Hindu god with an elephant-head. Ganesha is god of wisdom, intellect, remover of obstacles, and patron of artists and scientists. Some sects, such as the Jains, see Ganesha as a god of wealth also.
  • Inverted: Jyestha was another Hindu goddess of misfortune opposed to Lakshmi. Jyestha was associated with sloth, poverty, sorrow, ugliness, unlucky places and crows.
  • The "Lord of Wealth" had several names: Kubera, Kuvera, Kuber or Kuberan. Kubera was also the god king of "Yaksha", semi-divine natures spirits, and not just another minor lord. Associated with the chief of China's The Four Gods.
  • Lakshmi is the Hindu Goddess of Good Fortune and Beauty. Her ability to enhance good fortune is symbolized by the gold coins in art work about her, particularly coins pouring from her hands. She is also a case where Love Goddess, female beauty, and wealth overlap. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her name is a relatively common given name among modern Hindus—and is used for both boys and girls (the most prominent Lakshmi today is probably the businessman Lakshmi Mittal, the world's biggest steel magnate).
• Ikenga is a Nigerian god of personal power and "strength of movement", who is also associated with fortune and wealth.
• Japanese Mythology
  • Benzaiten is a goddess of financial fortune, talent, beauty and music, adopted from Buddhism. She's the only female in Japan's Seven Lucky Gods.
  • Bishamonten is is another of Japan's Seven Lucky Gods, and the guardian of Heaven's treasure house and known to share treasure (in a good way). Bishamonten is also Japan's version of one of China's The Four Gods. Bishamonten fits the mold of protector of the North, whose color is green or yellow, and the chief god of the four.
  • Binbogami are inverted examples, being household gods of poverty and misery in Japanese folklore.
  • Daikokuten was a god associated with wealth and prosperity who inspired a fun custom, "theft of fortune" where divine images are stolen.
  • The Shinto god Ebisu had a lot of domains including fishing, fishermen, luck, wealth, and business/commerce.
  • Mahakala is a deity of household wealth in Japan, particularly related to food and the kitchen. Mahakala is a major god and widespread in other cultures such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism, but not neccesarily related to wealth.
• Kumugwe is a wealthy sea god, also named "Copper-maker", famed the riches in his undersea dwelling. Kumugwe was worshipped by Native American tribes in the Pacific Northwest.
• Maneki Neko, the happy "beckoning cat" of fortune, originated in Japan and spread throughout East Asia, and can be found in many ethnically Chinese or Hong Kong restaurants and takeaways in Britain and America. They are thought to be lucky for business and profits.
• Mesopotamian Mythology:
  • Ashnan goddess of grain counts as a wealth deity in a culture who described "wealth" in terms of grain and livestock.
  • Enkimdu is another god of farming, and a prototype of the wealthy, healthy, and wise farmer.
  • If your culture uses cattle as money rather than coins, then the god Lathar counts. The Sumerian Creation myth, "Myth of cattle and grain" counts sheep, cattle, and grain as wealth.
  • The Sumerian civilizations included the Babylonians, Assyrians and Akkadians that lived thousands of years before the common era. Two Sumerian gods of fortune are Ziku, a Babylonian god of fortune associated with the God Marduk, and Bogu another god of wealth.
• Within the New Age movement, one can find a number of spiritual money teachings. The Law of Attraction, laid out in Rhonda Byrne's self-help book The Secret, teaches that positive attitudes and simple exercises like meditation and visualization can help people get what they want.
• Norse Mythology:
  • Inverted: Gullveig was a goddess of greed whose obsession with gold helped start the war between the Aesir and Vanir. Gullveig was called by other names, Gullweig, Heidr, or Heid.
  • Freyja was a popular goddess of beauty, love, fertility, and magic who was also known for a love of beautiful gold and jewelry. Freyja is an example of how a pantheon's Love Goddess overlaps with wealth deities because isn't beauty a treasure? What better place for jewels than on the hottest of women?
  • Freyr: Like many fertility deities, Freyr was also an agricultural deity primarily responsible for good harvests and therefore was associated with prosperity. The Older Than Dirt meaning of wealth/prosperity is abundant food.
  • Loki is a case where the trickster god is also that pantheon's financial adviser. Loki helped the Aesir out of financial jams, such as when the Aesir couldn't pay for the fortification of Asgard.
  • Not much is known about Thor's wife Sif except she had luxuriant golden hair, but this motif marks her as related to wealth deities. Agricultural goddesses of good harvest had hair the color of golden wheat, and gold metal was another sign of wealth.
• Voudoun:
  • Anaisa Pye is a loa or Patron Saint of love, money, and general happiness.
  • Inverted: Kalfu is a spirit of bad luck, malicious destruction, injustice, and misfortune.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Eberron: Korran. The largest financial district in Sharn is centered around a temple of Kol Korran, and is therefore called the Korranath.
  • Forgotten Realms:
    • Abbathor is the evil dwarfish deity of greed.
    • Astilabor is the draconic goddess of acquisitiveness, treasure, and the desire to acquire and hold wealth, primarily as a means of increasing one's status. She instilled in dragonkind the innate need for collecting and protecting their hoards, and is worshipped primarily by the most rapacious of dragons. Her own hoard, hidden somewhere in the plane of Limbo, is said to contain more wealth than that in any other place in the multiverse.
    • Garl Glittergold is the Top God of the gnomes and helps his people prosper, and has a knack for finding gold and gems.
    • Waukeen is the patron goddess of wealth and trade known as the "Merchant's Friend".
• In Nomine:
  • Marc, Archangel of Trade, oversees the mortal world's commerce — mostly focusing on wealth exchange in the traditional sense but also extending to any situation where people exchange tangible or abstract things of value — and manages Heaven's fortune.
  • Mammon, Demon Prince of Greed, seeks to own everything and everyone in existence, and makes his headquarters in the Bank of Hell. Marc has a cold, intellectual loathing for Mammon, seeing him as the embodiment of profit over principle; Mammon, on the other hand, sees Marc as a fellow profiteer.
• Pathfinder:
  • Abadar is a Lawful Neutral god of cities, commerce, law, and money, believing those things to hold the key to prosperity and happiness for any disciplined person. His clergy commonly act as bankers and are expected to invest in their communities. He's also one of the few non-good deities to empower paladins, who act as guardians of trade routes and commerce. In Starfinder, Abadar's church has developed into the largest MegaCorp in the Pact Worlds, AbadarCorp, with fingers in pies ranging from food production to planetary colonization.
  • The Archdevil Mammon, the Open Palm, is the keeper of Hell's vaults — in fact, his spirit inhabits every coin, jewel, and precious item in the treasury, and he whispers temptation to anybody who possesses one. His mortal cults revere him as a patron god of greed and wealth.
  • The followers of the Prophecies of Kalistrade worship the concept of wealth itself, amassing immense personal wealth in order to use it as a catalyst to create their own personalized afterlife.
• Warhammer: Handrich is the god of merchants and wealth (and possibly an aspect of the god of thieves and gamblers; popular opinion leans this way, with the only real distinction being that Handrich will expect you to shake his hand and thank him for fleecing you, but Handrich's followers view Ranald as a despicable conman and robber). His priests are often leading traders, temples are managed by the local Traders' Guild and the holy days are the major trading days. His cult is strongest in Marienburg and Tilea, both areas where merchantry is a major part of the economy and mercenary trades are well-established. Uniquely, his magic uses money in lieu of the normal Eye of Newt, and he accepts IOUs.
• The World of Darkness:
  • Mage: The Awakening: "The Chancellor" is an evil example, a Deity of Human Origin who seeks to control the world through greed and scarcity, encouraging humans to see each other as commodities rather than people. Its greatest success to date is said to be the global rise of capitalism.
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse has the totem spirits O' Mighty Dolla' and Easy Credit, who essentially embody their names.

Theater

• Aristophanes: An Older Than Feudalism example can be seen in Plutus, or Wealth. Plutus, the god of wealth, is cured of his blindness and now can identify those who deserve his gift. Economic chaos ensues.
• In Hadestown, Hades' position as God of Wealth is most pronounced when his excesses are compared to the poverty aboveground, and it's implied all the money in the world flows in and out of Hadestown one way or another. Many people, including Eurydice, are willing to take his offer of Hadestown to escape their lives of poverty in exchange for a steady income.
• Money Talks is about money being put on trial (It Makes Sense in Context). In the last act "the Great God Dollar" is summoned to testify, and is revealed to be the Devil.

Video Games

• After the End: A Post-Apocalyptic America: Given a spin with the Consumerist faith, which originated from people finding references to "the Almighty Dollar"... and taking it literally, believing the Almighty Dollar struck down Old America because they did not honour it enough using the ritual of "shopping". The Monetarist heresy agrees on the Almighty Dollar striking down Old America, but believes that overzealous shopping weakens the Almighty Dollar, and instead one should seek to save its power by collecting holy artifacts like dollar bills and bonds.
• Baldur's Gate has a goddess of money, trade, and wealth named Waukeen, also known as the "Merchant's Friend". Although Waukeen isn't an active character, her name appears on temples and districts such as "Waukeen's Promenade" in Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Waukeen was a popular goddess in Amn before she disappeared during the "Time of Troubles", an important event in the game backstory. Waukeen's loss helped create a power vacuum among merchants, and some of the game's characters still worship her.
• The Elder Scrolls: Wealth, commerce, labor, and communication all fall under the domain of the Aedra Zenithar, and thus he is considered the patron deity of merchants and middle nobility. Like all the Aedra, he's actually quite benevolent, and out of all the Aedra, he interacts with mortals the most, teaching them that the best path to prosperity and peace is earning an honest profit; which is why being one of his worshippers is implied to be incredibly rewarding. And, rather uniquely, he's also sometimes associated with agriculture and depicted as a warrior god as well.
• The Elona Game Mod Elona+ allows the player character to worship the goddess Yacatect of Wealth, who accepts jewelry as sacrifices. Among the benefits of worship are inncreases to the negotiation and investing skills, an increased chance of getting Random Drops from monsters, a pet goose that, when fed, will lay platinum coins, a holy relic that can be invoked monthly to generate platinum coins and a holy Deadly Disc weapon in the form of a coin.
• Final Fantasy XIV: Nald'thal, the Traders, is the singular manifestation of the twin gods Nald and Thal. Nald is the God of Commerce who rules over the wealth of the living. His brother Thal is the God of the Dead. Together they are the Patron God of the Merchant City of Ul'dah, who pray to Nald'thal for prosperity in life and fair judgement in death.
• Genshin Impact features Rex Lapis, also known as Morax and, more recently, Zhongli, the god of Mora (the local currency), contracts, and the Geo element. Deconstructed to an extent. As Zhongli, he dresses, behaves, and spends like the upper crust, but is perpetually penniless and constantly requesting funds from the Traveler and Childe. When he's revealed to be Rex Lapis in retirement, he explains that he's not used to not being able to conjure Mora at will.
• Hades:
  • Hades himself, as befitting Classical Mythology. His domain over precious gems and metals is why there's so many gems to earn across your escapes, not to mention the Underworld has a functional and active economy thanks to it. Many of the enemies that try to prevent Zagreus' exit have been bribed by him to do so.
  • Poseidon, to a lesser degree, thanks to the fact that being the lord of the oceans themselves means everything within them, including the riches to be made off it and all the treasure that's sunk beneath the waves, belongs to him. As such, one of his boons is just directly dredging some up and giving it to you in the form of obols, gemstones and healing items, and another makes all rewards of the former three worth even more.
• Stellaris and its MegaCorp DLC introduces Megacorporations which are somewhat of a Mechanically Unusual Class, with its own set of government principles. One of them being "Gospel of the Masses", and Corporate empires with that principle can build a unique Corporate building called the "Temple of Prosperity"...
  "This Megacorporation embraces a curious blend of commercial and spiritualistic values, in which the position of ordained minister and corporate officer have merged into a single role."
• Touhou Project:
  • Inverted with the Yorigami twins, Shion and Jo'on. They're both gods of misfortune who suffer from Power Incontinence. Shion is a goddess of poverty who absorbs people's good luck and wealth, including her own, and turns it into bad luck and debt, while Jo'on is a goddess of pestilences with the ability to consume the financial assets of anyone she chooses, which affects her own assets too. Despite the fancy clothing and jewelry Jo'on wears, it symbolizes how she's quick to spend all her money as soon as she gets it.
  • Played straight with Chimata Tenkyuu, introduced in Touhou Kouryuudou ~ Unconnected Marketeers. She is a goddess of the marketplace who deals with the concept of people exchanging ownership of things by selling and buying them in marketplaces.
• Warframe: One of the main enemy factions, the Corpus, is something between a MegaCorp and theocratic society that worships the very concept of Profit, treating avarice and self-interest as cardinal virtues and compassion and generosity as deadly sins. They'll do anything and everything in their power to make a quick buck, selling weapons and enslaving entire planets to get their fix. Especially notable in this regard is Nef Anyo, an influential Corpus aristocrat who dresses and speaks like a televangelist and promises wealth by giving money to his "Temple of Profit", on top of a few of his own very successful businesses.
• Zeus: Master of Olympus: When Hades agrees to become a city's patron god, he creates silver deposits for minting coins, doubles the money produced by tax collectors, and occasionally blesses the city directly with wealth. Justified in that he's god both of The Underworld and of all wealth beneath the earth.

Webcomics

• In When Heaven Spits You Out, money is a common issue for the main character, Ryan, and his family due to their impoverished living. In Part 1 of the story, he and his friend, Frank, are fascinated by a $20 bill stolen by their other friend, Peter, from his dad, and they use it to take themselves out to the cinema.

Western Animation

• Our Cartoon President: In "The Economy", the entire episode frames how Donald Trump and his administration sees the Economy is same as how devout theists see God; the economy's sudden downturn not being the result of bad policies and frivolous spending, but that it is simply "testing" them and that they should not lose faith that it will fix itself.
• The Simpsons: This trope is parodied and named in "Team Homer", when Bart and Milhouse tried a magazine-folding trick to answer the question: "What higher power do TV evangelists worship?" Homer later finds the magazine and tries it himself, but folds it improperly.
  Homer: "The 'all-ighty ollar"'? I get it.

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