Board Thread:Wiki Discussion/@comment-29522860-20160901163612/@comment-29522860-20160901215413

Technically a "god" in this game is any living thing with a fragment of the Light Soul of Gwyn within them, seperating them from just being a huge varient of hollows. When you go back into history before the first linking, humans were identical to gods in power due to their Dark Soul fragments within them, but they were shorter (the overpowered dark sorceries in the first game could clue one in on the fact that humans may naturally hold more power then gods). While the name is attributed to the race with the Light Soul, the authority of "gods" is just what they use to hold power over the humans who they insured would forget the power they have.