Ever notice how often fantasy gods get stuck with just earth, air, fire, water? Feels a bit lazy after a while. What hooks me are the deities who command weirder, more specific forces. There's the god of rust and decay in N.K. Jemisin's 'The Broken Earth' trilogy—Orogenes aren't gods per se, but their power over seismic energy and stone feels elemental in a brutally geological way. Or take the idea of a god of silence or stillness; I recall a character worshiping that in some niche LitRPG. They control the absence of something, which is a fascinating twist on the concept.
Then you've got the gods of more abstract elements. Pat Rothfuss plays with naming, which is essentially power over the true name and nature of things—that's almost a meta-element. In some shifter romances, the moon goddess's power isn't just over light, but over cycles, madness, and transformation. It's less about throwing a lightning bolt and more about governing the fundamental rhythms that underpin a world. That kind of depth makes the magic system feel lived-in and the conflicts more personal than just a divine showdown.