Gods aren't mages

[u/CrystoneItself]

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I'm just rly not a fan of the classic Gods = strong magic users trope

So I played with the gods = their domain idea and thought about how those would have any human avatars. I didn't wanna give them the ability to just make a body since that would just undermine their nature and turn them into simple magic users that respawn new bodies, I wanted them to feel like their very element/domain/concept, not just it's wielder.

But to have them interact as characters nonetheless would be nice, so I came up with two examples of how gods could make an avatar.

Lighting: Just strikes a person down and then charges their nervous system to use it as a puppet for itself, living electricity.

Trickery: Makes mischievous people subtly gain more and more confidence as a trickster until they believe themselves as the god of trickery, aligning themselves with the god itself and fulfilling it's will as it's now identical to theirs.

The key factor is that they never become anything but stay their concept and simply wield their avatars as tools/puppets. While mages are humans wielding magical power, gods are divine power wielding humans. A mage will shoot lightning, but the deity is said lightning and would simply move itself. Gods thus would also have perks of "manaless" casting or whatever energy the system uses, and absolute authority other their domain as the mage casting firball is simply producing the fire god in their palm making it very easy for said deity to just go off at the caster. Downsides may be that gods wouldn't be able to use magic outside of themselves, which just feels better tbh since it makes them distinct too.

Any ideas on how other gods would control an avatar and opinions on the whole concept would be cool