For cases where your worshippers are just some farmers who can't do much directly, is there some way to represent advantages their worship gives you from a dsitance?
I know up close they could contribute FP to Ceremonial Magic but since gods reside in other dimensions, is there maybe some kind of inter-dimensional Leech FP to get energy from the consenting for greater works?
I realize early on that 'new gods' might effectively be tulpas with Dependence (Belief) so it's something you get to avoid a loss of HP or FP, but you'd figure that long-term gods would eventually find some way to get rid of such a disadvantage (particularly if they began as mortals).
One possibility might be to treat this like B122 Non-Chemical Addiction for telepathic contact. If we treat gods as telepaths (can make contact with anyone) even though it's "free" we could justify the pursuit of worshippers as facilitating this: it's still EASIER to make telepathic contact with someone consenting and trying to contact you, perhaps?
Since "Expensive" is only "telepathic contact with one specific person" I don't think it'd go quite that far (-10) but "worshippers only" telepathic contact is at least somewhat more restrictive than anyone, so maybe a slightly more generous base value of -6 instead of -5 ?
This way, since telepathic contact with consenting worshippers is presumably legal (+5) it's at least worth a net -1 (a quirk) instead of 0, which lacks incentive.
In dealing with the 'psychological dependency' you would use Will rolls with B440's Withdrawal rules, failure causing 1pt quirks instead of 1 HP loss like a HT-based physical withdrawal, quirks which vanish soon as you indulge your addiction again, or if you completely withdraw (14 successes) unless you crit-fail the extra Will roll at the end.
Ways we could make it even more important is by using Required Disadvantage: Addiction (PU8p16) as a -1% disadvantage. This is sort of like 'free points' so long as you have worshippers to contact: hopefully you have enough that there's always some around, and some kinda long-distance telepathy with them so contact is easy.
Telepathy you control is generally more flexible (so long as worshipper is alive you can tap their mind anytime you like) but if you have a cheaper kind of telepathy which requires a worshipper to initiate contact (pray to you) that could create more incentive to create active worshippers who are prompted to think of you regularly.
IE if someone only prays to Thor once a week, that's 6 days of withdrawal if Thor requires them to pray, but if Thor can initiate the contact when he likes then it doesn't matter if they forget their daily prayers.
-1% isn't incentive for weak characters, but powerful gods probably have some advantages worth hundreds of points, so it can plausibly cheapen purchases.
One thing does sort of complicate gaining points via Required Disadvantage:
Sometimes, voluntarily or otherwise, you must try to give up your Addiction.
Should you successfully withdraw from an Addiction, you must immediately buy off this disadvantage
It seems like GM is obligated to, if a god won't voluntarily try to curb their addiction to worshippers, involuntarily create a situation where they must, like maybe their worshippers get killed off, telepathic contact is severed, etc.
It seems like "Minor Addictions" could be a way around that though, since you can "waive the usual withdrawal rules" which presumably includes being forced into "must try to give up" situations by GM.
It still has a "must buy it off" caveat though, but it's much harder to get there: instead of a TOTAL of 14 successes you need 14 cumulative ("successful rolls in succession") ones.
This requires an addiction be worth -5 though... which somehow alcohol or tobacco qualify as. I guess to be an alcoholic/chainsmoker since it's legal (+5) you need a base -10 from Expensive meaning you spend 0.5% starting wealth per day on your vice... which works out to 15% of average starting wealth per 30 days.
Apparently if you take a -5 addiction and reduce it to 0pts via +5 legality it's automatically a "Minor Addiction" though and worth -1 anyway, so that could be the way to go here to create the trait upon which a -1% required disadvantage discount would work.
B164 specifies "addicted to a drug that causes psychological dependency" so I'm not 100% sure if we're allowed to do quirk for non-chemical dependencies like telepathic contact though.
Given that "telepathic contact" is not elaborated on, I'd assume anything most stuff listed on B257 would work (except passive defenses like Mind Shield), so you'd want to find the cheapest possible ability with the longest range to fulfill the addiction. Empathy (B51) is listed, but instead of 15 you could probably take the 5pt sensitive version.
Spirit Empathy is the eventual upgrade most gods would want though, because then you could take P48's "Remote" enhancement and get contact via supernatural means like remote viewing. This would explain the shift from "active in the material plane" gods to "talk to you when you reach the afterlife" behaviors: it's just safer and lower-effort to make contact with the spirits of worshippers to fulfill your Addiction requirements.
Interceding with the material world when you have Spirit Empathy would just be moreso to court potential worshippers so they'll flock to you when they die, to make sure no other god makes contact first.
To cover that, you could have it be resistible empathy, and assume consenting worshippers voluntarily flop their Will rolls while those worshipping another god already will resist it and prevent contact.
To prevent just brute-forcing spirits who resist, you could do something like Limited Use.