What about a more flexible prophet and heir system - after all, aspiring gods must breed also!
Within DOM universe, prophets seems to be poor stand-ins and bloodline is important within this context....if you view this through a more or less historical perspective
random heirs who must compete for godhood after death of parentgod would be a good optional idea and inject further depth into this specific succession process - you could opt to wait for orginal god to come back or for an heir (race or nation choice could play an important part in this as part of race characteristics...or this could ben forced on you by popular demand of your race
EG - heirs Progeny could automatically be elevated to "demigod" status apon death of pretender god until his return...either way this creates an exciting new class of hero!
From political and diplomatic perspective this could be exciting -