What are the World Gods?
World gods are the second-highest tier of beings to exist in the universe. They have unlimited potential to bend reality, only being limited by the will of the creator. They also do not have any limits for manifesting on the mortal plane. A being can only become a world god by the interference of the supreme being.
As opposed to Deus, the creator, a world god's power is passive. That means even if they stop exerting control on reality, reality continues. Since power in the system is all about perspective, a world god has as much power over anything in an aether as the absolute being has over anything in their imagination.
The intent of Deus is for world gods to create and govern their own power systems, as Deus created Puravis and the Lavis Domain.
Why did I create the World Gods?
There was one point during the fifth age where I kept creating characters for different plot points. I was not controlling the speed at which I created them, so it got to the point where I was not able to develop their personalities anymore. To solve the problem of my attention being spread, I killed half of them off. Unfortunately, I had developed an emotional attachment with these characters, so I had Deus resurrect them as world gods. This kept them in the story, but at the same time pushed them off to the side a bit.
This allowed me to focus on other aspects of the story before revisiting them in the story arc I named "Descent of the World Gods." This arc described the events that occurred when Deus permitted them to descend into the mortal plane and wreak havoc.
How I Balanced the World Gods
The first thing that I had to solve was to prevent the world gods from solving all of the problems that their old mortal peers continued to have. The solution was a rule created by Deus: without his direct permission, the world gods were not allowed to interfere. Instead, they were forced to be content with watching the universe go by.
Second, although it is possible to return to mortal by choice or by force, their memories would be reset to before they became a world god, and they would lose all knowledge they obtained while in their immortal form. Also, they do not have the option of returning to be a world god without Deus interfering.
Finally, I created something called Divine Banishment. This is the cause of what I mentioned above and occurs when multiple world gods overpower another and force them out of the divine domain, thereby returning them to their old state.
Conclusion
In writing, it is very difficult to write an overpowered character in fiction, as it makes it difficult to create tension. Even beyond the world gods, demigods are guilty of this issue too. Even certain characters in the lavis domain who can wield Puravis can be difficult to deal with at times.
I have come to a realization, though. If every character in a fight is extremely overpowered, the extent of their powers compared to a regular person is meaningless. In the words of Syndrome, "If everyone is super, no one is."
