Dasterian the Robust Character in Zheng-Kitar | World Anvil

Dasterian the Robust

Saint of Alcohol, Pleasure, Blind Rage, and Destruction

Titles: Saint Dasterian the Robust, Father Tippler, Friar Half-Rack, Diablo McDougall, The Three-Sheet Mindhoarder, Dasterian the Empty   Favored Weapon: Earthbreaker   Alignment: Earth   Elemental Lord: Daknuzun, The Chthonic Queen   Obedience: Spend an hour drinking hard enough to get yourself blackout drunk, with the strongest alcohol you can get your hands on.   Effect: You may function normally no matter how inebriated you are, take no penalties for being drunk, and can survive on Alcohol as if it were water. Once a day, you may flush all alcohol from your system after failing a save against a harmful spell or effect to give yourself another save against the same effect with a +5 bonus - success means you resist as if you had succeeded the initial save. However, doing so means you forget the events of the past minute as your buzz wears off. While drunk, you can innately tell the hardness of an object you are in contact with and whether it has been magically reinforced to have more HP or Hardness.

Divine Domains

Charm, Plant, Destruction, Madness, Travel(Exploration and Trade Subdomains Only)

Artifacts

The artifacts of Dasterian are few and far between, and not well-documented - much like the saint to which they are said to have once belonged, they have been found all across the continent as if they were dropped by their owner during wide-ranging drunken rampages.  
  • The Everflowing Font: A wondrous item said to have once been Saint Dasterian's favorite mug, this incredibly divine artefact was said to have been dropped by the Saint himself as he ascended to Sainthood and now takes a myriad of forms depending on its surroundings and owner - though it always serves as a recepticle for liquid and is said to contain every known and unknown alcoholic beverage in the known Cosmology, even some magical beverages from far-distant worlds and Planes that are said to be able to do anything from heal the injured to revive the dead.
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  • The Housetosser Girdle: A legendary waistwrap said to have been owned by Saint Dasterian during his time before he arrived on the shores of Zheng-Kitar, the Housetosser Girdle was said to have arrived on Zheng-Kitar years before the saint himself after Saint Dasterian, in one of his nasty fits of drunken rage, tossed the belt into the sky after a loss in a card game. The belt, tossed into the sky, is said to have sailed four times around the planet of Ea before crashing through a mountain in The Tianzhao Peaks(Completely leveling it in the process) and continuing unimpeded into the Narixian countryside, where its' landing created a crater hundreds of feet wide. This belt, said to infuse its wearer with the infinite strength of Dasterian 'Diablo' McDougall, has been worn by all manner of heros and champions across Zheng-Kitar - though it is oddly always accompanied by tales of fits of blind rage and rage-driven rampages that typically result in the wearer tossing whatever lies nearby...whether that is a house or a person or otherwise.

Holy Books & Codes

Rather uniquely, the holy book of Dasterian has never been conclusively identified and catalogued by any religious scholars - because of the extremely small size of his faith, the name or appearance of his Holy Book remains an utter mystery.

Divine Symbols & Sigils

Two hands clasped in prayer, with liquid flowing out from the wrists and cups branded on the back of the hands

Tenets of Faith

Let loose your primal self. Destroy the facade that masks your true self, and throw away your shame at the animal within. Never abide masks, "fake" personas, or guises of any kind, and help others connect with their true self.
 
Life for pleasure and indulgence. The meaning of life is to enjoy and indulge - let all aspects of your life be in the pursuit of or to enable your pleasures and indulgences. Let no pleasure nor indulgence go untasted.
 
Seek your answers at the bottom of a mug. Give yourself over to the great and holy alcoholic spirit when you find yourself ailing. Let Alcohol and all it provides guide you and imbibe all aspects of your life.
 
Brook no insult nor slight. Never allow a slight or insult towards you to go unpunished, and enact reprisals on those who dare to.

Holidays

The holidays of Dasterian are flexible and mutable - his followers tend to christen random days as holidays according to events that happen to them personally in their lives, meaning he has no standardized holidays that are publically known, if any even exist.

Divine Goals & Aspirations

To drink and enjoy life to the fullest.   To help others live without shame for enjoying drink or for who they are when drunk.

Followers & Priesthood

In truth, extremely little is known about the followers and priesthood of Dasterian - as one of the smallest and least well-known Saints on all of Zheng-Kitar, precious little is known about those who worship him in a meaningful divine sense; far more common, rather, is for plenty of citizens and people who dwell across the continent to pay him lip service when drinking or as a name to ward off drunkenness or blind rampages, but rare is the being who worships Dasterian for divine power or in a similarly meaningful way.   As such, it is next to impossible to ascertain his Followers or Priesthood - from what extremely little is known, Dasterian himself rarely makes contact with others to induct them into his faith, meaning that his followers are typically drawn from all walks of life and species, but tend to have much more personal relationships with him akin to Warlocks and their Lesser Idols. They are not believed to have any ranks or formal gatherings, but just as likely is that, if such things exist, they have not been discovered or made public knowledge yet - giving his followers and priesthood a certain air of mystery that many have been interested in learning more about.   From everything that is known about his followers, it seems Dasterian himself personally visits each and every one of his followers - either in person through divine disguises or(more commonly) in their minds in drunken, half-coherent rambling inductions which typically result in mild alcohol poisoning to those as they awake from such meetings. In fact, all of this combines to create a Saint whom many express surprise at his status as as Saint - reactions such as "Wait, that's an ACTUAL Saint?" and "So he's not just some old wives tale?" being the most common response to those wondering about his actual following.  

Ethics

Due to the extremely small-scale and almost entirely absent nature of Dasterian's faith in the public eye, the ethics of his faith aren't well known or documented - but from what can be inferred from the extremely rare recovered scraps from what may have been holy book, Dasterian preaches solving all of life's problems through alcohol - telling of all alcoholic spirits as some kind of mystic trance-inducing drug through which anyone can connect with their inner selves and become their true selves.   He seems to preach ethics and ideologies of staying true to one's inner self, of connecting and unleashing one's own primal, inner "Id" into the world at large - whether that be through unbridaled drunken rage, mad artistic sketchings or ramblings, or any other way one might express their base instinctual impulses.   On a deeper level, he seems to preach a life lived in pursuit of pleasure and indulgence - to what end remains a mystery, but he nonetheless seems to preach an ideology of pursuing indulgence and pleasure constantly - that the purpose of one's entire life is to enjoy and indulge and so one must throw away all other things in pursuit of these things, or do them only so far as enabling one's deeper desires or indulgences.   Any other specifics of his faith's ethics aren't well known - as his faith is extremely small-scale on Zheng-Kitar.  

History

The History of Dasterian comes almost entirely from the publication "The Ballad of Diablo McDougall", which is believed to be a publication about Saint Dasterian from his days as a mortal - that is to say, information on Saint Dasterian is incredibly scarce, almost as much(or moreso) than the past of Cynebald the Unseen, though for likely very different reasons.   From what is known, Dasterian began his life on the far-off continent of Corexus as something of a town drunk who was apparently quite infamous for his drunken fits of rage - this, coupled with his apparently divine strength meant that young Dasterian apparently quite commonly punched the walls of his house down, leveled entire buildings in his drunken rampages, and in one nasty instance, apparently somehow killed his own wife in a fit of drunken rage.   Somehow, after leaving his home town behind after being ostracized for his extreme fury while drunk, Dasterian is spoken of as carving a path of drunken destruction across the entire planet of Ea on a bender that lasted for what seems to be(According to the ballad) several decades straight - during which time he not once returned to sobriety, even as, in his extreme state of inebriation, somehow pierced the Noctum Veil while swimming alone and under his own power through the Liuwang Ocean, so strong the currents could not claim him as he washed up on the shores of modern-day Kingdom of Seoghar and, sober at last, realized the strange and far off land to which he had arrived and rejoiced.   Embarking on a second bender that would last for thirty years, Dasterian reportedly demolished the entire royal palace of the Kingdom of Seoghar, wiped out gangs and armies of bandits and raiders threatening vineyards and orchards, stamped out entire barbarian tribes while blackout drunk, and, in the feat that got him inducted into sainthood, got into a bare-knuckle brawl with powerful champions of The Yema known as The Platinum Dragon and The Bloodthirster, besting the fully-armored warriors in a drunken bare-knuckle fury and brutally killing them without even realizing the deed he had achieved, for no other reason aside from an insult they paid to him in passing.   While highly unusual, Daknuzun, The Chthonic Queen was said to look upon him with favor for his strange(if drunken) defense of vineyards and orchards, his rampant stubbornness, refusal to accept sleights, and his single-handed feat of destruction of a pair of Yema Champions and took the rampaging drunkard up into her court after his death at the hands of an angry town mob who managed to catch the drunkard while he slept and lynched him; though he was said to never once awoken during the entire lynching, even after the townsfolk fetched a steelthread rope to support his enormous obese bulk.   Of course, this may well not be the entire story of how he ascended to Sainthood - in fact, it is somewhat of a commonly believed theory that some deeper, perhaps more insidious reasoning on the part of Daknuzun, The Chthonic Queen is the bigger reason that the otherwise useless Drunkard was allowed to ascend into Sainthood. He does, though, stand as proof to Zheng-Kitarans that regardless of one's origins or nature, Sainthood is a reward bestowed equally to all.
Damned Ol' Dasterian, Big and Strong -   No four walls can hold him, short or long -   Punched down his house, killed his wife -   So damn tossed he ruined his life -   Never will change, never will stop -   Out comes Diablo with a drop!
— Excerpt from The Ballad of Diablo McDougall
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Children
Home
The Thornspire Fortress, The Elemental Plane of Earth
 
Areas of Concern
Drunks, Blind Rages, Amnesia, Destruction, Hedonists, Life's Pleasures and Joys, Barbarians, Bloodragers
 
Holy Animal
Panther
 
Holy Colors
Purple, Red
 
Holy Number
3
 
Demonym
Dasterian

Example Divine Oaths

 
Oath of the Drunkard: Spend as much of your waking life as is feasibly possible in a state of perpetual blackout drunkenness, such that you will not remember large sections of your recent life if your buzz is to wear off. Never waste an alcoholic drink or refuse one when it is offered to you.
 
Oath of the Sommelier: Always be collecting new ingredients that could be used to brew or create new alcoholic concoctions, and always be striving to create new types of alcohol or new uses for alcohol. Cultivate and Nurture any plant or vine that could bear fruit useful to brewing, and never bring harm or allow harm to be done to such plants. Sample every alcoholic drink you find that you have not already tried at any cost.
 
Oath of the Debtkeeper: Keep a complete log of all debts you have incurred and all grudges you have, both for yourself and for others who cannot or will not seek vengeance for an action done upon them. Never forgive a wrong done upon you or your allies, and always ensure those who do so suffer in an equal or greater measure for what they have done. Never forgive a grudge or a slight without enacting some repayment in return.

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