Board Thread:Lore Discussion/@comment-5632187-20130119213241/@comment-18016240-20150917222628

Gwyn was a special case due to him using his soul to purposefully link the fires, he shouldn't be held up as an example that the gods or whatever Gwyn's race was can hollow like humans can. As for Vendrick, it's implied that he was just a very powerful human, not a god.

'Godhood' in Dark Souls doesn't seem very different from being human really, it's shown that the gods can still be wounded or killed and often by beings normally percieved as much weaker than they are (ie our very own undead). True, this is partly due to some of them having lost large amounts of their power, but take in the fact that Ornstein, Smough, Gwyndolin and Artorias have been slain by Undead (depending on one's actions in game anyway) and we an see that the gods are by no means all powerful.