[Wids]

Good points, particularly about the portfolios. They're not really anything like tangible objects, like a wallet which you pick off of somebody after beating him into a stupor. I suppose they're more like concepts which Ao dispenses, and if a god dies, his or her portfolio simply vanishes into the ether. After all, we have...what? Six or seven Gods of the Sea? Istishia, Umberlee, Deep Sashelas, Sekolah, Blibdoolpoolp, Valkur, possibly Eldath and Trishina...none of them inherited that Sea portfolio from any of the others, and each of them represents different aspects of the seas and oceans. Valkur was a mortal sea captain who attained his godhood after facing Umberlee's wrath through a series of trials and ultimately besting her, but Umberlee didn't lose a mote of her portfolio; Ao simply raised Valkur to godhood and gave him a portfolio of his own.

On the same token, we never really hear about how Xvim got the portfolio of Strife from Cyric, or even if he got it back at all. All we know is that Cyric kept it but simply stopped being the God of Strife after a while, Xvim ascended to godhood and took up the Strife portfolio, then Xvim morphed into Bane, who reclaimed his old Strife portfolio and devoured Xvim in the process.

Gods are kind of tricky like that, aren't they? :-/