Morality among the gods

It had not always been this way.

In the past, the Gods still had reasons to listen to mortals, to the Kings as well as the beggars, to men and women, and all the creatures big and small, because that was how they got their power. The agglomeration of force hadn't begun, and while one could reasonably imagine being in favor of a powerful king who commanded a large number of subjects who he could force to worship his deity of choice would work better than being worshipped by say, a fly, that didn't always pan out well for the deities in question. For example, everybody knew the story of the old god Om who was supposedly the most powerful and worshipped god in his local pantheon and yet his existence kept on diminishing until he just about popped out of existence. He lived as a mere tortoise for thousands of years until his strongest devotee... the only one remaining. who worshipped him for who he was, and didn't just make a show out of the whole religion business without giving as much as a thought to the god of devotion, picked him up and brought him back to power.

The gods got a lot more egalitarian after that, not out of kindness their heart or a sense of justice, both qualities which by the way they seemingly had less of than the evilest of mortals, but due to to a very honed skill of self-preservation. That is what they were the best at...preserving their realms, and their hold onto power at any cost, damned be the ethics of getting there. Most had the sense that there was no sense of morality or rightness or wrong in the world, it was them and only them who set those rules and they were above following the rules they'd set in stone for their followers. Thuggery and villainy was not just considered acceptable, it was respectable. As long as you came out on the top that is. For the gods it had always been winners takers. There was only one rule they followed, and it was that of the power. That who is stronger is righter than that who is weaker. Everything came after that.

The above was not strictly true for all the deities, truth be told. There were certain gods and goddesses, who'd formed groups of their own, who considered the values they'd hold their followers upon to apply to themselves too. They believed in higher standards and ethical universal moral laws, the sort that would apply to everybody, including the powerful beings. It was perhaps their self-set limits on unethical actions that didn't let them get very far in palace of swarga. But they were out there for each other, not for strategic political reasons but because they considered each other to be a part of a worthy cause that would lift them all, and that was their strongest asset.