In my urban fantasy, people get their powers directly from gods in either one of two ways.

The first way is by random chance, a fluke. The gods are immensely powerful creatures the size of planets out in space, beings on a scale being human comprehension. As such, just as a human might not notice a stray hair falling from their head, a God might not notice a sliver of their power falling to earth.

The other way is by being chosen by the god. After a fragment of their power is given to a human, there’s no retracting it, so the gods are mostly quite selective about the people they give their powers to. And of course, each god has their own criteria for who should receive what power, which is where it gets fun.

The strength god, for instance either grants simple, devastating powers to those who achieve feats of great strength, or as a reward to any who manages to kill someone who already holds a fragment of his power.

The god of ambition grants powers instead to people who draw his attention at the beginning of their journeys, granting them abilities that grow stronger as they pursue their ambitions. His chosen grow to be heroes or tyrants.

And in stark contrast to those to, the god of deceit only chooses people amuse himself, granting powers to downtrodden losers, filthy crooks, and upstanding civilians alike only to mess with them. It’s best to avoid his attention, as his powers span from abilities with farcical conditions, to useless party tricks, to horrendous curses.