Kakuchi
Kakuchi is a god of the Bureau of Heaven, serving under Burning Feather Lady of Intoxicants. His purview is alcoholic beverages derived from rice. He appears as a man of milky-white skin, dressed in the silk court attire of the Shogunate and with translucent hair bound in near-invisible Shogunate style. Once, his finery was perfect, but these days his appearance seems just slightly askew. At his belt, two bottles of Adamant, each as long as a sword: one containing brewed rice beer, the other distilled rice liquor.
Kakuchi’s purview is expansive, given the dominance of Rice agriculture on the Blessed Isle and the southern coastal Threshold, though this has not always served to maximize his personal power: with most who brew or imbibe his liquors under the control of the Immaculate Order, he must be careful to remain within the dictates of the Perfected Hierarchy and the Prayer Calendar, despite the lubricating effects of liquors on mortals when it comes to extorting prayers. Worse, while in the years of the Shogunate rice liquors were popular amongst the courts of daimyo and chumyo imitating the tables of the Shogun’s court at Meru, in the centuries since the Great Contagion the perceived association of rice wine with the institutions linked with the Blessed Isle, the Scarlet Empire and the Immaculate Order, has seen some regional peoples and spirits turn from his liquors as a political protest against the imperialism of the Realm.
This is particularly distressing for Kakuchi as he has never liked the Immaculate Order, and despite close association with the Dragonblooded during the Golden Age has little trust or alliance with the Bronze Faction of the Sidereal Exalted. The heights of his power saw rice beers and liquors become massively popular amongst the vast numbers of soldiers serving the Solar Deliberative, followed by the times of the early Shogunate when he attended the courts of shoguns and generals to share toasts of toasts of the finest distilled rice liquor with its god so he might bless their courts and enterprises. A few words over a drink could turn a daimyo from sponsoring an Immaculate temple to instead raising shrines to rice wine and war... but this great influence collapsed along with Shogunal Meru itself, and is unlikely to return.
Kakuchi’s most hated rivals are the twin gods of grape wine Harvest of Bliss & Ferment of Madness, whom he considers usurpers of the very term ‘wine’, and of the status of Creation’s favoured upper-class alcoholic beverage. He also faces encroachment by Tuchekkan, god of Rum, in the Southern Blessed Isle, taking advantage of his weakness.
Yet, Kakuchi remains powerful. He plays the cooperative Immaculate god in Creation, and while the Bronze might like him lessened further his fondness for the Dragonblooded means replacement might risk the rise of a spirit more prone to the designs of the Gold Faction. When politics can be made favourable, he keeps the old traditions alive in quiet visits to the Dragonblooded leadership of Lookshy, Lord’s Crossing, the Ending Wall, and other realms where the old Gens still hold much sway.
Another key to Kakuchi’s power is his close alliance with Mochinari, the god of Rice, an always friend and sometimes lover with whom he has good reason for cooperation, given her grains distill into his liquors. The love affair between the two has been long indeed, despite their differing opinions on the path of Bronze, and it was Kakuchi who assisted Mochinari in her insistent campaign that her grain be given position of primacy by the words of the Immaculate Dragons in the Immaculate Texts, Kakuchi's experience debating the early Immaculate theologians in the courts of daimyo allowing her to present Chejop Kejak with a fait accompli he did not want to put in the effort to reverse.
Kakuchi's knowledge of Immaculate doctrine has not lessened in the years since, and some day his long-term plots will come to fruition: to forge a document matching the Immaculate Texts, so perfect that it will convince any Dragonblooded who see it and against which the Bronze Faction could not raise objection without casting doubt upon the theological devotion of their disguises at the Palace Sublime. This document would not be so crass as to decry the Calendar or the Hierarchy, such would be foolish! No, in it the Dragons themselves will exalt rice liquors above all others.
