This presentation will consider several cases of “local gods” in the villages of central Hunan in the PRC. Though distinctly local and nominally not representative of any of the major religious institutions of China, gods on household altars in this region are commonly subsumed within ritual practices that are imbued with Daoist discourses. Though in some cases Daoists are indeed the main ritualists who serve a particular local god, in other cases the ritual is performed by vernacular ritualists (shigong), or yet other agents. I will argue that Daoism has functioned as the main trove, almost like a toolbox, from which various ritual repertoires have been used to consecrate, maintain, and spread local gods.