Harvest of Bliss
Harvest of Bliss and Ferment of Madness Twin Overseers of Wine
Harvest of Bliss and Ferment of Madness are the twin gods who govern wine and are nearly exact opposites of each other. Harvest governs the joyful aspects of wine, its pleasure and social power; he appears as a ruddy, burgundy-haired young man, hearty and full of good cheer for all, his naked body entwined with vines of fruiting grapes. Ferment is his brother's twisted reflection, sickly and fevered-looking in robes that smell of vinegar and are stained dark with spills; his responsibility is wine's excesses and sicknesses, the illness and madness that it can bring. Despite their opposed portfolios and temperaments, they are fiercely protective of each other and work side by side to oversee both celestial and mortal wine production. They (technically) serve under the eye of Burning Feather Lady of Intoxicants in the Bureau of Heaven, though if the gods who dwell in the Vineyards of the Celestial Wine were to refuse her commandments it is likely she, not they, would be Starmetal after the ensuing litigation.
The twins, working together, have been responsible for spreading grape wine as the finest of mundane drinks, securing the support of the wealthy and the longing of the poor. A key factor in this was the use of the reputation of Celestial Wine to secure their domination of the term 'wine' itself, once used widely to refer to alcoholic beverages of all kinds, to be sure that all who heard it would think first of the grape and only after of other beverages. Its link to the wine of the gods has done most of the work, and thank goodness, for the twins face a difficult conundrum that most gods need never fear: they are bureaucrats with real jobs. As gods of wine, they must oversee all its paperwork and functions as would any other... but they are also vinters, for the Celestial Wine must be prepared by their hands alone, each batch must be perfect, else the wrath of all the gods including Sol Invictus (who consumes nothing save that wine and the Peaches of Immortality) will descend, and more diligent replacements will be found to operate Heaven's vineyards. The twins face a number of rivals and candidates to usurp them, particularly other alcohol gods (Kakuchi overseer of rice liquors and Tuchekkan overseer of Rum both push hard to secure dominance over alcohol consumption on the Blessed Isle), and while turning their attentions and influence to destroying any single one would be sure to succeed, the turning of attention might well result in their doom even at that moment of victory... even if they outmaneuvered their target personally, would any god in Yu-shan be willing to tolerate that the vinters of their treasured wine might be acting with overt political motive?
Instead, with what little spare time they can muster from vinting and paperwork, the twins are frequent attendees at the orgies and soirees of Great Forks, where their cult flourishes amongst vinters and imbibers alike. They once had a number of worshippers in secret upon the Blessed Isle (particularly amongst the vinter of House Cynis), but the creation of the Imperial Monopoly on wine and its grant to House V'neef by the Scarlet Empress was a devastating blow, the consolidation of vineyards and vinting into a small number of hands enabling the Immaculate Order to ferret out such improprieties much more easily. Of course, even only granted 'official' prayer according to the proper Prayer Calendar, the twins do well, for grape wine is an important product for the upper classes across Creation, and Celestial Wine the deserved drink granted the Incarnae by the Elemental Dragons, its good oversight deserving of proper recompense.
Source: Expanded from AntiVehicleRocket on the unofficial Exalted wiki.
