Heretic God

Heretic Gods are gods, heroes, and divine monsters who have stepped out of myths and legends to manifest in the mortal world, endangering people.

Summary
From myths and legends, they were born. The essence of the world and beyond, this is what comprises the supernatural core of them, thus lending form to these existences, the gods. But for some gods, the forms and nature of their myths becomes a burden, and they rebel against them, manifesting in the world, escaping from the myths and legends, also known as the Domain of Immortality, as Heretic Gods, and bringing disaster with them.

What determines the power of a Heretic God is not their fame, or how powerful they were portrayed in their myths, but rather their own will and determination.

There are also some cases in which Heretic Gods lose part of their divinities as a result of being wounded or sealed. Sometimes, these lost pieces have been put into Grimoire. In these cases they are shown to experience change in their personalities. The example of this can be seen from how Verethragna, Sun Wukong, and Lancelot all showed changes in their personalities once they regained their full power and Athena who lost her memories and personality after part of her power was absorbed by Metis (Anime Only). Regaining the lost piece will return the Heretic God to their normal selves.

Types of Heretic Gods:
Many of the different gods have been revealed to have a specific nature or element to them, which embodies a core part of their status and their origins. In the cast of Susanoo and Sun Wukong, this nature was Steel, while in the case of Osiris, Athena, and Apollo, this nature was Earth.

Gods of Steel

 * Gods of Steel are those gods who embody the sword, their myths and legends containing veiled references to forging or tempering a sword. Many of them, such as Siegfried, Achilles, and Sun Wukong, share a characteristic of having skin of extreme durability, through immersion in fire or liquids such as water or blood, and harken to the methods for forging a sword. They generally play the part of heroes and war gods, and often are noted for slaying snakes or dragons, such as Susanoo's slaying of the Yamato No Orochi, Perseus's slaying of Medusa, or Siegfried's slaying of the dragon Fafnir. These dragons being symbolic representatives of Mother Earth Goddesses, whom are forced to marry the one who defeated them, granting some Gods of Steel the power to command Miko of those goddesses.


 * In many myths, Gods of Steel will gain weapons or powers from slaying dragons or serpents. For example, Siegfried gained his invulnerable skin from bathing in the blood of a dragon, while Ame no Murakumo no Tsurugi was found by Susanoo after he slew the Orochi, an eight-headed snake monster.


 * "Immortality on the battlefield. This is also a characteristic of Steel. God of the military, god of might, god of war, god of battle. Gods born to fight belonged to the category known as Steel." [Volume 8]

Gods of Earth

 * Gods of Earth, on the other hand, embody nature (sky, sea, land, underworld, darkness and the cycle of life [life, growth, maturity, death, rebirth, {immortality, healing, transformations}] ) whether in whole or in part. They are often noted as having entered the Netherworld in some fashion, either through death such as Osiris, or being born in the Earth as Apollo, only to return through some means to the world of the living, such as Apollo rising in the sky as the sun god, or Osiris's resurrection.

Mother Earth Goddesses

 * Mother Earth Goddesses are female gods of earth similarly embodying nature (sky, sea, land, underworld, darkness and the cycle of life [life, growth, maturity, death, rebirth, {immortality, healing, transformations}] ) whether in whole or in part, but differ greatly from their male counterparts. Often, when a Mother Earth Goddess was assimilated into a new area or religion, she would be turned into a monster, who would then be slain, and her priestess would then marry the slayer in order to make her subordinate to the ruling gods. The slayer generally being a God of Steel.


 * Many goddesses of the earth are symbolized as snakes or dragons, with the foremost example being Athena who was also Medusa. Religions that assimilated them would often use this trait to their advantage. They would split the Mother Earth Goddess into a beautiful maiden and a ferocious monster. The heroes would then defeat the monster (a.k.a the goddess) and then marry the maiden (enslave her) in what would become the stories we know today.


 * Mother Earth Goddesses can take weapons of [Steel] as the heroes stole those weapons or powers from them to begin with.


 * Mother Earth Goddesses were often paired with a male god, often a god of Steel, to act as a guardian or protector. These gods were usually lovers, brothers, or in the oldest traditions, sons.

Sun Gods

 * Sun gods are generally gods of light. They often have a quality of immortality similar to that as possessed by gods of Steel. In at least some cases, gods of the Sun are also gods of earth such as Apollo, or gods of steel, such as Verethragna. and they are unaffected by anything using the sun such as when Godou used his authority of White Stallion to attack Sasha Dejanstahl Voban when he was using the authority of Apollo or when he used it to attack Circe.

Subordinate Gods

 * Not much information is known about the difference between a Subordinate God and an Individual God. It is stated that a Subordinate God can share their power with its “Master”, the God that summoned them and controls and protects them, and vise versa; however, only the “Master” can take all the power from their Subordinate God.


 * Subordinate Gods are less powerful than a normal Heretic God because, since they have subordinated themselves to another god, they lack the will to succeed no matter what others say that an independent Heretic God possesses.


 * If a Subordinate God's leader is slain, the Subordinate God will quickly fall as well.

Fake Gods

 * Fake Gods are not true Heretic Gods, but are magical copies that look like, and have access to the Authorities of a specific Heretic God, but have only a fraction of that god's full power. Because of this, they are only slightly more powerful than a Divine Beast.


 * Fake Gods seemingly do not fulfill the requirements necessary for Pandora to grant a Campione an Authority.


 * The only known source for Fake Gods is the Divine Ancestor Guinevere, using the power of the Holy Grail.

Reincarnated gods

 * The reincarnated gods are gods that their souls were reborn in humans and allow them to use their power normally due to their execive power for the human body, they cannot use everything at once and they can only use a part having only the power of a demi-god with the potential To fight with God and his power just like them is inflicted by his ego and determination. Toba Riona, Toba Fumika and Yukino Mononobe belong to this class.

Powers and Abilities
Heretic Gods are endowed with divine powers and weaponry called Authorities which embody their right to rule in the myths. These Authorities can sometimes be quite different from the modern version of the god, reaching back to the origins and history of the myths and legends from which the Heretic God was born. For example, Athena's petrifying gaze, which she shares with her alternate identity of Medusa, or Apollo's power over wolves.

Heretic Gods are supernatural beings thus make them invisible to normal people. Only mages, witches, priests, Hime-Miko, and those with some touch of the supernatural can see them according to the anime, though the Light Novels appear to contradict this. However it 'does' confirm that Heretic Gods can choose whether or not to be seen.

Heretic Gods also can perform magics with much greater ease than mortals, even without using their Authorities, as Athena showed when she made the people around her not notice her, and by the actions of Sun Wukong.

Heretic Gods are immortal, living forever unless killed. Even if killed, however, a Heretic God will merely return to the myths and legends which spawned them, and may return to the human world in time. As long as their myths and legends exist, so too will the Heretic God in some fashion, as the myths are part of the Heretic God themselves, and the Heretic God is just the manifestation or extension of these myths. Also, Heretic Gods are immune to all mortal weapons, be they swords, clubs, guns, poison, chemical, or biological. Only the most powerful of magical weapons or spells can harm, let alone kill them. Heretic Gods can even survive without a physical body. This happens when they have drained most of their power, or have been badly, but not mortally, injured.

Heretic Gods can even seemingly possess people, though it is unknown if the possessed must fit any requirements to be eligible for this.

Fate
Those Heretic Gods who survive long enough will eventually calm themselves. However, they find that they cannot return to their myths unless slain, so they choose to either go to sleep, or pass into the Netherworld and wait there, where they are separated from the mortal world.

If slain, a Heretic God will return to the Domain of Immortality, which lies beyond the Netherworld, with a chance of eventually returning as a Heretic God once again. However, if there have been changes to the god's legend since the time of their manifestation, the Heretic God who manifests may be completely different from the one that walked the earth before.

Some female Heretic Gods, the great earth mothers, will, after being defeated by heroes, become Divine Ancestors, and are suggested as being the Ancestors of Hime-Miko, and the sources of their supernatural abilities. Divine Ancestors are Witches who possess eternal youth and Magic powers surpassing humans, but weaker than those of a Campione or god. They can also transform into snake/dragon gods by sacrificing their immortality. There is some suggestion that this transformation into a Divine Ancestor only happens if they have their divinity stolen to empower the

Gods of Steel

 * Ame no Murakumo no Tsurugi (Demigod & Subordinate God)
 * King Arthur*
 * King Who Manifests at the World's End*
 * Raksasa Raja Ravana
 * Lancelot du Lac
 * Perseus/Mithras
 * Siegfried*
 * Sun Wukong the Monkey King
 * Susanoo (Former)
 * Vaisravana (Subordinate God)
 * Verethragna
 * Zhu Ganglie (Subordinate God)
 * Erlang
 * Nuada Airgetlam*
 * Tyr*
 * Odysseus*

Gods of Earth

 * Apollo/Lyceus*
 * Minos/Minotaur
 * Saturn
 * Osiris*

Earth Mother Goddesses

 * Athena/Medusa/Pallas Athena (Divine Ancestor )
 * Athena Parthenos (True God)
 * Gwenhyfar/Guinevere (Divine Ancestor)
 * Hera*
 * Artemis*
 * Leviathan (Divine Ancestor)
 * Metis
 * Princess with the Crystal Eyes/Sita (Divine Ancestor)
 * Artio
 * Pandora (True God) (All Giving Woman)
 * Aphrodite(True God)
 * Izanami no Mikoto (True God)

Sun God

 * Circe
 * Mithras
 * Phoebus Apollo
 * Apollo/Lyceus*
 * Ra*

Gods of Unknown Nature

 * Balor of the Evil Eye*
 * Feng Bo*
 * Erinyes*
 * Lei Gong*
 * Melqart
 * Ramiel*
 * Tezcatlipoca*
 * Vulcan*
 * Yu Shi*
 * Oberon*
 * Noah
 * Gods who have been mentioned as existing, but have not been shown in the course of the story.

Trivia

 * Some Heretic Gods are not actual gods (at least in the modern versions of their myths) but mortal (or semi-mortal) heroes.
 * These, so far, have all been gods of Steel, excluding Christian saints.
 * Heretic Gods think of Campione much like normal people think of Heretic Gods, as dangerous existences that must be destroyed for the good of the world, no matter how many lives it costs.
 * Erica indicates that there are different classes of Heretic Gods, but so far only has mentioned a Divine King-class.
 * What being a Divine King, or other class of Heretic God, means, is presently unknown.
 * Pandora is the only known god to have manifested without becoming a Heretic God first.
 * Erlang may also count, though he did not fully appear in the mortal world.
 * Verethragna was stated as a god of Steel in Vol.5 Chapter 4.
 * While Heretic Gods, they are unaffected by changes to their myths and legend. However, if they are slain, the next time they return to the mortal world, they will have been altered by these changes.
 * It is unknown if they will remember what happened during their previous time as Heretic Gods.
 * No god may truly manifest in the living world without first becoming a Heretic God, but under the right circumstances, they can extend their power there. Erlang is the first example of this.