Q: Can I use an extract from your site in my project?

With Godchecker all things are possible. Please check our permissions page.

Q: How do I contact Godchecker HQ?

Easy. Just use our contacts page. Email now comes in by the basketful. Two full days a week are taken up with answering them. Sometimes we don’t have the answers! However your emails are cherished and go into a file. Often your suggestions and corrections go straight onto the Holy Database with a silent blessing. We just cannot thank everyone personally, but you all deserve a big juicy kiss from the God or Goddess of your choice. Contact us.

We aim to make Godchecker as useful and informative as possible. Suggestions for improvement are most welcome. Press enquiries and interview requests are encouraged. We can supply facts, images and opinion — and you’ll find us very quotable.

Q: I’m doing some research for a project. Can you help?

We would love to say yes, but the gods keep us very busy and we are unlikely to have the time. We may be able to answer the odd question or point you in the direction of suitable reference material. It depends. Of course our site is at your disposal for information-gathering. If you need additional info not on the site, you are welcome to ask. Contact us here. But we cannot guarantee anything.

If you work in the media or entertainment industries we may find it easier to accommodate you. See below!

Q: I’m working on a book/article/movie and need some info. Can you help?

If you need some information for your creative project we can probably assist you provided that you are happy to give us a plug, credit, publicity boost or otherwise spread the word of our existence. Contact us here.

Q: Can I talk to someone about advertising on your site?

No. Please go away.

Q: Can I buy your site? I will give a good price.

No. Please go away.

Q: Where do you get your information?

We’ve used many different sources and references in creating Godchecker. Books. More books. Even more books. Also journals. Encyclopedias. Information kindly given to us by passing scholars, and corrective snippets from site visitors with local knowledge. Did we mention books?

In this new-fangled Age of Electronic Enlightenment, we have also found many websites of enormous value in our researches. However, not all sites are created equal and there is a lot of bewilderingly erroneous information out there. Our general policy is to use websites to compare and cross-reference existing material rather than as primary sources.

We aim to check every piece of information against multiple independent sources. Often this isn’t possible but we do try! Many deities are well-attested with hundreds of mentions in ancient literature. Others are lucky to get more than a scratchy inscription on some obscure temple wall.

Even well-known reference works are not necessarily infallible. Our knowledge of some deities — for example in the African and Oceanic regions — relies largely on the accounts of one or two intrepid Victorian explorers who may have misunderstood what they were being told or interpreted it through their own religious filters. Just because an obscure deity’s personal habits are listed in the Encyclopedia Britannica does not mean they are correct. With only one source of information, errors can be perpetuated across eternity. Take the Aztecs, whose culture and religion were destroyed by the invading Spanish. History’s main source of info on Aztec mythology comes from the people who killed it.

We aim to include references with all our entries. If these are missing it’s because we haven’t collated and added them to the database yet. A comprehensively incomplete (and very outdated) list of reference materials can be found in our Resources section.

Q: Is this for real? Did you invent all these gods?

Absolutely not. All our deities are 100% genuine. Why would we invent a god when mythology is so rich in weird and wonderful legends? Every culture on Earth has its share of strange ideas. What might seem bizarre to you could be another person’s most cherished belief.

How could we invent the Drunken Rabbit Gods or the God who juggled his own eyeballs? Not to mention the God who forgot to create the world because he was having such a great time at a party. Neither can we claim responsibility for the bald Goddess with a solid gold wig or the God with only one leg.

These are all authentic deities from cultures around the world. Our articles may exhibit a humorous style and contain the occasional cheeky aside, but Godchecker is absolutely based on authentic recorded myths and beliefs. If you’re still suspicious, check out our reference library.

We admit that it’s a lot of fun inventing Supreme Beings. After all, humans have been doing that for thousands of years. Interestingly, once or twice we have been contacted by visitors claiming to have inside information on obscure gods which subsequently turn out to be invented. In our innocent early days, we once took such a submission at face value and inserted into the Holy Database. Only to discover that the God was a fake! Red faces all round. How the gods laughed. That episode taught us a valuable lesson. Now we scrutinize all incoming data with the Microscope of Doom and only the utterly verified get in.

How we treat modern deities such as the Flying Spaghetti Monster is another question entirely. Suggestions welcome.

Q: Who chooses the Top Gods?

It is you out there who decides, not us. The process is completely automatic. The GodRank positions are based on several factors including popularity. We cannot divulge any further info as we swore an oath of secrecy to the data dwarves.

Q: Who chooses the Deity Of The Day?

Every day a different deity is plucked from the Holy Database and given a chance in the spotlight. This is decided by the fickle fingers of fate. To give every god a fair chance, we operate a completely random Godlottery system. Any deity or spirit who meets our proprietory Index of Interestingness threshold is given a chance.

Q: Is there a God of...?

Is there a God of Chocolate? Is there a Goddess of Credit Cards? Is there a Spirit of Laundry?

You may just be curious, or you may be looking for a God for some specific purpose. (You would be surprised at some of the requests we get.) Either way, the answer is probably YES. There are gods of practically everything. Biggie gods deal with profound subjects such as Creation, Death and Love. But there are plenty of lesser deities who handle more mundane matters. Sheep. Coconuts. Plumbing.

In some cultures there are gods for every tree, rock, insect and raindrop. On the other hand, the Romans were so worried about accidentally missing out obscure deities that they raised statues to Gods they didn’t even know about, just to be on the safe side.

We have thousands of deities on our books, so there’s bound to be at least one to suit your needs. We are always searching for those elusive Gods of Birdseed and Donuts. By popular demand we have now added the ability to search for gods by role, occupation or patronage. Go see for yourself.

Q: Why are some gods missing?

We have thousands of supreme beings on file, but not all of them are online yet. We’re working through them as quickly as we can, but does anybody listen? We are mortal like you. We cannot instantly produce pantheons to order and illustrations by next Tuesday. It is hard work checking facts, correcting errors and arranging press interviews with spiritual entities. We are as frustrated as you!

We sometimes receive quite angry emails from people who believe we are deliberately ignoring their deity of choice through some kind of spiritual bias. That is just silly. Please be assured that all gods, spirits and mystical entities are welcome at Godchecker HQ.

Suggestions: Buy us a bigger spade, find us some hours with more than 60 mins. Supply us with a magic carpet, place a small coin in our begging bowl. We are surrounded by thousands of gods all jostling for their place. Patience!

Q: How do I report a mistake?

If you’ve found an error on our site, we’d love to hear about it. We make no pretense to be infallible. We are mere seekers after truth and usually have more questions than answers. Mythology is full of conflicting sources. There may be several versions of a myth, or different interpretations. But we aim to represent myths, beliefs and deities as fairly and accurately as we can. Even the really silly ones.

We make every effort to correct errors and omissions. Please share your expertise! We particularly like to hear from people with roots in the cultures we try to represent. That often gives us much useful information.

If you find an error, it’s best to report it via the ‘report mistake’ button on the page concerned. We’ll double-check and make any necessary corrections as soon as we can. For more general feedback, you can contact us here.

GodSpam alert: We often receive ranting emails from people who simply haven’t read their own religious literature properly. Please double-check your facts before you explode at us.

Q: Stop! Don’t you know there is only one god?!

Monotheism means the worship of the One True God. Unfortunately there’s some confusion over who the One True God actually is. For example, Christians believe one thing, Muslims another, and the Jewish faith is different yet again.

It seems to us humble Godcheckers that Christians, Jews, Muslims, Protestants, Catholics, and Seventh-Day Jehovah’s Mormons all devoutly worship the same Supreme Being. But the devil is in the detail. Apart from confessing their devotion to the One True God, they can’t agree on anything else. Which is very sad as this has caused a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.

We sometimes receive quite angry emails from mortals telling us that their One True God is the only deity worth featuring. “How dare you mention other gods?” they ask. We wonder what all the billions of people who’ve worshipped other deities over the past ten thousand years would say to that.

We don’t pretend to be experts on all religions, but we can certainly point you to quite a few places in the Holy Bible where other Gods are mentioned by name. Why else would the Lord say “Thou shalt have no other gods but me?” He was indeed a ‘jealous god’ — because there were many other gods for him to be jealous of.

Whether in business or religion, monopolies can be a very bad thing. Monotheism seems to bring out the worst in human beings. Those biggie mainstream churches have a lot of power and influence. Jesus might sue.

The bottom line: Godchecker is a mythology site. Not a religious site. Just because we feature a God of Aardvarks doesn’t mean we advocate aardvark worship. We cannot condone human sacrifice, and you call upon the Invisible Pink Unicorn at your own risk. What you believe is entirely up to you. We here at Godchecker are perfectly happy with our divine Holy Snail™.

Q: Why are you mocking my beliefs?

We do not maliciously mock or spoof. We try to take the gods as we find them. We aim to entertain as well as enlighten. Please do not read malicious intent into our merry, light-hearted approach. As we have pointed out before, it is the gods who invented laughter. We really do rejoice in the rich world of mythology. Now and then we may accidentally tread on a few toes, but it has never been our intent to stamp on naked feet. A little gentle humor is preferable to grovelling.

Like religious commentators down the ages, we have no hesitation in asking pertinent questions. Occasionally also impertinent ones. No malicious disrespect is intended. We don’t wish to offend anyone in any way. But, as the saying goes, offence is taken, not given. It seems that some humans simply cannot tolerate tolerance. In the decade since we started, we have received many emails threatening us with divine punishment. Remarkably, these have all been sent by mortal humans. Not one god has ever complained.

Although the subject is fascinating, we can’t get too involved with deep theological debates. We don’t do Godspam. We are positive that the gods do not like being forced down humans’ throats. Zealots and bigots may froth, but we reserve the right to laugh with the Gods. No entity or philosophy should be immune from rational thought or good-natured ridicule. Even atheism would not exist if there were no gods to not believe in.

At Godchecker, we respect everyone’s right to believe whatever they like, no matter how peculiar it may seem. We adore and celebrate the diversity of humankind’s myths. We try very hard to treat all deities with equal bemusement.

Twitter — some handy advice for tweetlings

We have an active presence on popular chat website Twitter under the handle @godchecker where our social media pixies pass on snippets of info, gossip from the gods and of course our ever-popular Deity of the Day. Most of the time this is a highly enjoyable experience, but occasionally we encounter issues.

“Why did you retweet me?”
A strange question, but one we are sometimes asked. Like everyone else on Twitter, we retweet (RT) people all the time. That is how Twitter works. We share tweets with our followers because we think they are of interest. It certainly does not imply that we agree with or endorse any message. Sometimes we may RT something to see what our followers think or to initiate debate. If you do not wish your tweets repeated, please do not tweet us. Twitter is a public forum and all tweets to @godchecker are visible whether they are retweeted or not.

“One of your followers is attacking/bugging/trolling/laughing at me”
We hope not. In our experience, our followers are friendly, open-minded and tolerant people. However, we are not responsible for the actions of others and cannot get involved in third party squabbles. In the unlikely event that you receive a message which makes you uncomfortable, we suggest you use the ‘block’ button which Twitter has in its infinite wisdom provided.

Q: What is Godchecker?

Godchecker is an online mythology encyclopedia powered by our unique Holy Database. We research and explore all the world’s mythologies, from the well-known classical pantheons of Rome and Greece to the strange and obscure gods of Oceana, Lithuania and Esoterica. Our mission is to seek out strange new Gods and bring them to your attention.

Mankind has a rich and fascinating history of legend, myth and belief. Once upon a time the gods roamed the Earth and influenced the affairs of men. Not to mention the goddesses. And if they weren’t always helpful or easy to please, at least it made life more interesting. To mortals across the world, the gods were not mere fairy stories, they were real.

So where have they gone? Did the immortal gods die out? Have the original deities become extinct? Is this a mystery worse than what killed the dinosaurs?

Not really. Monotheistic religions such as Christianity have always tried to obliterate their rivals. Throughout history, entire belief systems have been wiped out. We think that’s a real shame. Never forget your roots. Human beings have a rich cultural legacy which should be treasured in all its wonderfully crazy diversity. Our mission is to bring those faded deities out of the shadows. Why not adopt a deity? Some may have sunk into godly obscurity, while others are big movers and shakers in cosmic affairs. But all are worthy of your scrutiny. Even in our modern world, Fortuna still controls the dice, and Raven is as tricky as ever.

In these troubled times, it pays to know which gods are on your side. Some will come when you call, while others will make a very rude gesture. Whether you’re looking for mythological facts, a deity to protect your investments or just a cracking good read, Godchecker is here to help you meet the gods.

Q: How did Godchecker come about?

Godchecker was conceived by Chas Saunders, our original Godchecker-in-Chief, as a follow-up to the blisteringly strange Chronic. The site started life as an illustrated reference book of weird and wonderful Gods. But when the first draft was put online, the concept exploded in all directions and demanded a site of its very own. Thus Godchecker.com was born.

Godchecker developed into its current form thanks to the dedication of dedicated Godcheckers and supporters. For ten years Chas Saunders devoted himself to research, producing mythological writings from his secret base at the Hub of the Universe. He also attempted to illustrate each and every God known to mankind. Unfortunately for us, the Gods were so flatterd by his efforts that they struck him down and whisked him away to Heaven to continue his work in-situ. He is very much missed. Every year on his birthday we pray that he receives a crate of good ale and an infinity of pencils.

Peter J Allen built the site back in 1999 and began contributing material in 2001. He is now the Director of Unholy Operations, ruling over the Godchecker empire from its Underworld HQ. At his disposal are a small team of staff and a basement full of imaginary creatures.

Many people across the world give valuable assistance to this project, offering help, encouragement, corrections, information and advice. We thank you all.

We are not theologists, archeologists, linguists or anthropologists. We are not apostles or even apologists. We just report on the Gods as we find them. Our investigative journalism is not infallible — but neither are the Gods themselves. We are always happy to look, listen and learn.

The Gods told us to do it. The Gods gave us the gifts of curiosity and laughter — and if we can share them and spread a little joy, it’s love and blessings all round. :)

Q: Who are the Godcheckers?

Many are called, but few can handle the long hours and anti-social deities. Although we are international in scope with contributors from a myriad of countries, our main team is based at Godchecker HQ, a slightly shabby office just down the road from the River Styx in the heart of the Underworld. The Godchecker team is currently comprised of the following mortals:

St Peter the Bewildered — Director of Unholy Operations
Editorial director, research guru, personal friend of several gods
Rowan Allen — Assistant Godchecker
Additional research, writer, development testing, God wrangler
Sonia Rice — Public Relations
Press and media liaison, advertising, customer service
The Data Dwarves — These sturdy database workers live rent-free in our basement.
Miranda — HR Nymph
Various social media pixies
Tommy Martin — landscapes
Jacqui and Mark Love-Saunders — unbridled encouragement
Paul Clayton — Choas Theory
Many other folks around the world offer help, information and advice. We thank you all.

Sadly missed: Chas Saunders — Ex-Godchecker-In-Chief
The inventor and perpetrator of Godchecker, now currently on extended leave researching a myriad of possible Heavens

Q: What do all those weird symbols on your site mean?

We are very proud of our runes. Since the beginning of Godchecker, we have always tried to avoid mythological clichés. So during our 2014 redesign, we decided to go back to basics. And you can’t get more basic than a rune.

Humans have been scratching sacred symbols in the ground with sticks for millenia. Emoji and computer icons aren’t just a modern invention. Your ancestors were doing all that stuff thousands of years ago.

So the elves in our Art Department collected together a hopefully representative sample of runes, characters, pictograms and heiroglyphs from all across the world and gave them a Godchecker spin. Hope you like them. We are particularly proud of our SEARCH icon — which looks a lot like a fork prodding at the ground to uncover juicy nuggets. Who says search icons should be a boring old magnifying glass?

Q: That’s a nice font. What is it?

Since 2014 our house font has been the gorgeous PRATER SANS from FontFont, designed by Henning Wagenbreth (site) and Steffen Sauerteig (site). Our design dept spent many eons searching for the perfect typeface. It needed to be bold, readable, suitable for displaying the names of a zillion bizarre deities, modern yet amazingly primitive, and with a massive helping of quirkiness.

The original characters of Prater Sans were formed by cutting out shapes from pieces of paper, which we thought was a lovely idea and perfectly in keeping with our rather idiosyncratic design philosophy. Its chunky lines fitted perfectly with our wonky user interface, inspired in part by the art of Chuck Jones and the kirigami of Marc Hagan-Guirey.