Granata of the Bursting Seeds
Granata of the Bursting Seeds is god of Pomegranates and daimyo of Fruiting Plants in the Bureau of Nature’s Hierarchy of Type, as well as the Hierarchy of Function’s Committee on Salutiferous Fruits. Though the Bureau of Nature is far from Heaven’s most powerful institution, Granata wields much influence over the fruit gods that must answer to her, a reliable source of prayer and sacrifice. Granata is a competent example of the innumerable middle-management deities serving in Yu-shan, balancing gains of personal power and wealth with proper administration: under her direction, the fruit spirits of the Bureau have found themselves praised for their successes in spreading their plants across Creation (proven by the increase in gifts and donatives granted their superior) or punished for their poor showings by being saddled with the most boring sections of Granata’s paperwork.
The pomegranate itself has a place in many cultures of Creation, particularly in the River Province and the coastal South, as a source of good health and fecundity. It is used both literally and symbolically in a number of health and fertility cults, giving Granata allies in the Bureaus of Humanity and Destiny where her purview serves as dressing on the cults of larger gods.
Granata has a connection of another sort outside of the Bureau of Nature, to Ingenious Flame, Mandarin of Firedust Weapons. A dalliance between the two, born of flirtation amidst the fine soirees of Heaven, has become something more, but neither god knows quite how to proceed… their purviews and duties have no overlap, there is no political advantage or promotion in it, and yet despite how foolish it seems they feel drawn together. For now, both keep their relations private, so as not to face the questions and mockery of their peers, in hopes some day they might find something where the pomegranate and weapons of Firedust overlap.
Granata’s typical form has the body of a voluptuous human woman, wearing silks dyed in pomegranate juice and hemmed with golden pomegranate seeds. Her head is hairless and avian, atop a long neck, with a heavy curved beak used to tear open the fruits of her purview so her long, thin tongue can slip out to scoop up the seeds.
