Tuchekkan

Tuchekkan is a god of the Bureau of Heaven, serving under [[Burning Feather] Lady of Intoxicants. His purview is alcoholic beverages derived from cane sugar, the most prevalent of which are Rum and Grog. Though a great deal of rum is distilled in the southern Blessed Isle, where worship of the god is heavily regulated by the Prayer Calendar of the Immaculate Order, Tuchekkan’s large cult exists less amongst distillers than imbibers, as by tradition across the West many sailors and pirates offer a traditional prayer before they take a drink of grog, regional variations in phrasing and poetry boiling down to ‘May Tuchekkan bless this mug to hold more rum than seawater’. Such small prayers are not a major thing, and carry little temporal influence over those voicing them, but repeated over and over again across the vast Western seas they leave the god with ample resources for divine politics.

Tuchekkan’s greatest rivalry in Heaven is over dominant liquor on the Blessed Isle, where his two greatest opponents being the twin gods of grape wine Harvest of Bliss & Ferment of Madness, and Kakuchi the god of rice wine. His position is the weakest of the three, but with more to gain his appetite for risk is far greater than that of his enemies… with the return of the Solar Exalted and the looming Realm civil war, he might prove a useful divine ally in exchange for advantage in his struggle.

Tuchekkan has the appearance of a short, rotund man of dark skin, fading from deep browns at face and chest to ambers at his extremities. He is bald, though he wears a crown of woven sugarcane, his lower body covered by a belt of silken sailcloth held up by a barrel hoop of white Jade. He speaks with a phlegmatic voice and jovial tone, though the laughter in his eyes can harden into anger in an instant, even as his relaxed mood shifts into brief bursts of aggression.

Tuchekkan’s powers are many, but the best known are his ability to bless a barrel or cup of fresh water, transforming its contents to the finest and most potent Rum… he makes regular appearances in the West, where those who he has heard uttering prayer to him in a dingy tavern or buying drink at market might find themselves blessed (an undertaking which feeds into the tales that in turn encourage his cult). He is also known to have an opposite power, to transform liquors not made from sugar into naught but foul salt water.