What is the origin of non-christian deites and realities in Lucifer?

Question

I am currently reading Lucifer solo series by Mike Carey (so far I finished book 6). I also never read the Sandman series.

So far my understanding of the series is such that God is the original deity, creator of all and also that the series is sticking very closely to the Hebrew version of the Bible. That said, the books also feature non-Hebrew, non-Christian deites, such as Norse gods and some Japanese ones as well. The Lucifer and other angels seem to be superior to these deites in terms of raw power, but there are also planes of existence where angels have no powers whatsoever.

Well, what is the origin of those deites and planes of existence? Is it all created by God? If so, why would he allow humans to worship anyone other than himself? Why should there be planes of existence that negates abilities of the angels?

Alternatively, if those deites were on the same power level as God and created they own realities in a way

Lucifer did himself and became God in his own reality,

how would that be possible if God had to

give Lucifer "permissions" in the first place to do so?

Thanks for explanations in advance.

Answer 1

The gods are made from human dreams.

In the "Dream of the Thousand Cats" story in the Sandman, Dream of the Endless explains that dreams are able to change the universe

In a similar manner, various gods are made from human dreams and wishes, powered by the prayers - where those disappear, gods lose their power, like the goddess Ishtar who is a stripper and poor, almost forgotten Bast

On the other hand, the gods from Asian mythology are quite smart because they've found a way to siphon the faith from somewhere else:

And then there is the God, aka The Presence, who indeed is the creator of the universe, but the big unanswered question is "was he always the creator, or was he made so by dreams". If he always was the Creator, then he might not care about other gods or even prayers, since he would be on completely another level than they are. If the Presence is just as man-made as other gods and has to follow the same rules, then He doesn't have much to say about their existence in any other way than convincing humans that they are fake and he is real.

Now, why God had to give Lucifer permission to create his own universe? Well, for starters, Lucifer is not a man-made god, so he doesn't have such power. He has been created as an angel and later banished to Hell. Even while he decided to quit, he doesn't have the power to create such a thing as reality.