Bastiano the Storied
Saint of Trade, Cities, Smugglers, and Family
Titles: Saint Bastiano the Storied, Lord of the Free Markets, Bane of the Balmiri Blockade, The Great Rumrunner, Saint of the Scales, Father Freetrade, The Heroic Hospitaler
Favored Weapon: Crossbow
Alignment: Water
Elemental Lord: Arlaxod, Emperor of the Torrent
Obedience: Spend an hour calculating market prices for the coming day, the best routes to run nearby blockades, and vowing to bring wealth and happiness to the common man at any cost. Once the hour is up, take a moment to wish your family well wherever they might be.
Effect: You gain +4 to appraise checks and gain it as a class skill. Any vehicle you are piloting gains double speed if it is being chased. One of your movement speeds increases by 15ft.
Divine Domains
Water, Travel, Community, Liberation, Trickery(Deception, Greed, and Thievery Subdomains ONLY),
Holy Books & Codes
The Freemarket Almanac
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A fireplace with a mountain of coin inside it
Tenets of Faith
Wealth and Happiness should rest in every man's reach. Any man, given a keen mind and sound judgment, should find both within their reach. Find those who keep both in the hands of the few and destroy them.
That which is unfound is never unfair. Skirt the line and get away with all you can hide - but never complain or resist when you lose the game and get caught.
Let the free markets flow fairly. Trade and commerce must remain open, free, and fair - never given freely but never earned nor lent in trickery or deceit.
Let the light of Civilization shine bright. Bring civilization and enlightenment to the world's darkest corners, that they may find joy behind its walls.
Family is the greatest treasure. Hold them close, protect them, and look out for them. Love them and help others find it in them to do the same.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
To shatter the holdings and vaults of the 1% and keep money and happiness in every man's reach.
To promote regulated commerce and the expansion of civilization.
To constantly test the regulations of commerce and the wits of the free man to see if he is worthy of the coin he seeks.
Followers & Priesthood
The followers of Saint Bastiano are varied and numerous, and can be found mainly in The Ustanan Concord, The High Seas, and The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet, and in ports all across Zheng-Kitar - as the Patron Saint of Commerce and Trade he counts an enormous amount of merchants, traders, auctioneers, and the like as his followers, and his status as the lord of smugglers and illicit merchants means many unsavory types such as smugglers and shady traders and merchants also pay homage to Father Freetrade. He is also an enormous object of veneration at the hands of the poor, or those who have suffered immensely at the hands of others - they look to him and his ideals as a savior to them, praying that their suffering is allieved and that they be given the wits to recover from their current state in society. His followers are not incredibly well-organized - though they always happily pay homage to each other when they see each other, they tend not to organize themselves into enormous conclaves and the like. Instead, the extent of their organization is small, focused, like-minded groups who band together for common purposes, such as commerce, trade, to spread civilization, or to protect family - meaning that many auction houses, merchant guilds, money-lending firms, banks, and the like have all been filled with followers of Bastiano, who prefer to integrate themselves into existing structures rather than form their own. However, if no such structures exist in a newly settled area or somewhere otherwise devoid of banks or commerce centers, they will happily form them and populate them. Most centralized followers of Bastiano in the Ustanan Concord and on land tend to structure themselves like mercantile houses, with Bankers and Archbankers running increasingly large territories for the faithful and overseeing large swathes of the church's operations and sending envoys out into the wild to spread civilization to the barbaric and uncivilized. For the faithful in The Gāngtao Migrant Fleet and on the high seas, there is much less formal rank - all are roughly considered equal, and happily greet each other in passing, but otherwise place little importance on hierarchy - instead considering themselves as part of a communal, equal brotherhood where meetings are had aboard ships at sea, drinking and singing shanties of their travels and journies, and yearning collectively for hearth, home, and family.Ethics
The followers of Bastiano believe in a strange, sometimes seemingly contradictory ethos - they are staunch believers in open and regulated markets as well as fair trade, and believe that one should not disrespect them with trickery or deceit, but at the same time they hold no qualms about smuggling or trying to undercut those attempting to buy from them. Though to many these two ideals might seem in conflict, to the followers of Father Freetrade it is far from it - they believe that it is not unfair for a trader or merchant to seek to trick those who try to buy from him or smuggle his goods to increase his profits, but at the same time also believe that, should that merchant's trickery be uncovered and called out, it is only fair for him to issue a refund or give a proper price to the one who called him out. At the head of their ethos is the notion that "Any man with a keen mind and sound judgement can find wealth and happiness" - meaning that, if someone is keen enough of mind to realize they are being tricked or that smugglers are nearby, they deserve to be rewarded for it. So while followers of Father Freetrade have no qualms about trying to increase their profits by smuggling, undercutting profits, overselling or underselling, and the like, seeing it as no more than a game where the capable are rewarded, they despise those who actively manipulate the markets and keep those who should earn both wealth and happiness from getting what they are owed, and those who conspire to rig the markets and the game to always go in their favor. It's a fine line, but one they take deadly seriously - hunting down those who manipulate coin and commerce for their own selfish gains as described above. Additionally, followers of Bastiano believe in expanding the borders of civilization - but rather uniquely, they do not believe in needlessly following the rule of law or government. Civilization, to them, is a thing expanded by teaching the barbaric, bringing trade to the most secluded of villages, and using the power of travel and trade to slowly spread culture and civilization to others a bit at a time - they delight in teaching savages who will listen to fit into civilization, and giving them a chance to fit in - but also are notorious for breaking up and killing those barbarians who refuse to get with the times. And finally, they hold family incredibly close to their hearts - family sits at the heart of every goodly follower of Bastiano's hearts, and they always teach and believe that one should always treasure and cherish their family, as one will only ever get one, be they by blood or by association. They believe in always at least trying to get along with their family, looking out for them, hearing out their requests, and at least attempting to protect their interests and work towards their benefit at various points - and will happily and sometimes too eagerly try to help others reconnect with their family, or fix their familial problems. They see it as their duty to remind others of the importance of family, and though they might bicker and fight, cannot fathom disowning or abandoning one's family - they are a thing to be looked out for, and kept in touch with even if one goes their seperate ways with them.History
The life of Bastiano the Storied is perhaps one of the most well-documented and thoroughly detailed tales in all of Zheng-Kitaran history - primarily due to a curse he suffered from in life from the moment he was born that made him very sickly and weak. This curse, as it is known, came from a jealous lover of his father's, who spited his father for getting with another woman to have a child. The curse caused the young Bastiano's life to become as weak as a dim candle, as it was a curse that cursed him to a life of ignominy that erased him from others' perceptions and from their memories - he would live his life as a shadow, a forgotten man whose name and figure none could truly remember - a living ghost from birth to death. Very quickly, even his own mother and father forgot about his existence before he was barely 12 years old, and consequently abandoned him on a crowded dock in Narixia, in the city of Balmiri. From there, he was said to join the crew of a sailing schooner that made its money smuggling spices and trade goods up and down the western coast from Narixia to Dhara to Qushu - though most people on the ship would forget about him each day, and never acknowledge his existence. The captain, however, a proud and broad-shouldered Githyanki, was seemingly immune to the curse's effect, and taught the young Bastiano much about the world - and inspired in him a burning desire to carve his legend onto the world, to overcome this curse of his and leave his deeds, if not his name, carved into the history books forevermore. Taking over the helm of Captain of the schooner after his mentor passed away in a pirate raid, Bastiano led the ship to the proudest of heights as the greatest smuggler ever to live - he yearned to be as his heroes, the legendary Asad the Patient and Eurystheus the Boatman, whom he grew up idolizing - and with his ship at his back and his crew at his side he ran the most ironclad blockades the world had ever seen. Most notably, he was the first to break the legendary Balmiri Blockade during The Age of Expansion, running life-saving food, water, and medicine to the starving residents of Balmiri who were under siege from their patron country of Narixia - taking a massive loss of profit and risking the life of himself, his ship, and his crew to save them from starvation and sickness, selling his goods at a measly one copper a piece and loaning them on incredibly generous rates. Over countless years and decades, his name became the most talked about of the age as the legendary smuggler whom no blockade or trade barrier could stop - a hero of the downtrodden who would risk life and limb to run the blockades of the world's strongest navies to deliver supplies to those in need. He even made his name famous in the Ustanan Concord as he adopted it as his unofficial home out of a desire to live as his hero Asad the Patient the patient had - and in the process broke up and smashed the tyranny of the Merchant Family of Frescobaldi, who had conspired to strip the markets of their freedom and rig them in their favor for eternal profit. Returning coin to the hands of the people, he sent a stark reminder to the Merchant Families of Ustana on the ways of Free Marketeering and Open Trade. So it was that, on his deathbed, he died a man who had overcome his curse and spread his name to every corner of the world - a hero prayed to by the poor, a man venerated begrudgingly by the Merchant Families of Ustana, and one who sailors from Myrkheim to The Migrant Fleet venerated as a sailor among sailors, and a merchant unrivaled. The almanacs and codicies he wrote in his final days would go on to form the basis of his faith after his death and subsequent canonization into sainthood by Arlaxod, Emperor of the Torrent, who inducted him into the halls that his hero Eurystheus the Boatman had joined centuries earlier.
Kind friends and kind brothers, raise ye glass wit' mine Lift up ye voices, together, this one last time Sing a song for those departed, and those that remain For we may or might never, meet here again
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Children
Example Divine Oaths
Oath of the Righteous Vagabond: Never set foot in your village or hometown again unless to combat some great and dire threat. Defend every other community and creature as if they were your own family, and treat them accordingly. Always grant asylum to those in need in your house, dwelling, campsite, or place of rest and be willing to share meal and drink with them.
Oath of the Freemarket Fighter: Never hestitate to hide, smuggle, or try to shortchange others in deals - but if your attempts are called out, give them what they are owed fairly. Seek out those who actively hinder or manipulate the markets or coin for their own gain, and destroy them.
Oath of the Barbarian Hunter: Seek out backwards barbarian or savage villages and bring them into the fold of civilization where possible, or see them laid low and scattered if they cannot be swayed. Expand the borders of civilization as often as possible.
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