Ichirou

The Shadows

• Kitsune

  Kitsune are from Japanese folklore and are Japanese foxes. A kitsune can have up to nine tails, depending on its age, wisdom and power. The only way to kill a kitsune is to cut off all of its tails, as it is said that one of the tails is its main tail and the source of all its power. Not knowing which tail is the main one, one would have to cut off all its tails to kill it.One, five, seven, and nine tails are the most common numbers in folk stories. When a kitsune gains its ninth tail, its fur becomes white or gold.
  
  A kitsune is a shapeshifter, and usually when it reaches the age of 100 years, it learn the ability to take on a human form. Thus, they have to be a fox for a hundred years before it can shapeshift from a fox to a human and back again. It is also said that a kitsune can duplicate other human beings, in other words shapeshift into the look-a-likes of different people.
  
  Kitsune can be either male or female, and usually take the form of young Japanese girls, beautiful women and older men.
  Kitsune are believed to possess superior intelligence, long life, and magical powers. They are a type of spiritual entity, and the word kitsune is often translated as fox spirit. However, this does not mean that kitsune are ghosts, nor that they are fundamentally different from regular foxes. Because the word spirit is used to reflect a state of knowledge or enlightenment, all long-lived foxes gain supernatural abilities.
  
  There are two common classifications of kitsune. The zenko are benevolent, celestial foxes associated with the god Inari; they are sometimes simply called Inari foxes. On the other hand, the yako (nogitsune) tend to be mischievous or even malicious. Local traditions add further types. For example, a ninko is an invisible fox spirit that human beings can only perceive when it posseses them. Another tradition classifies kitsune into one of thirteen types defined by which supernatural abilities the kitsune possesses.
  
  Physically, kitsune are noted for having as many as nine tails. These kyūbi no kitsune gain the abilities to see and hear anything happening anywhere in the world. Other tales attribute them infinite wisdom (Omniscence).
  
  There are thirteen different kinds of Kitsune, each with a corresponding element, listed as follows: Heaven (or Celestial or Prime), Void (or Dark), Wind, Spirit, Fire, Earth, River, Ocean, Mountain, Forest, Thunder, Time and Sound. One of the most important things to a Kitsune is freedom. They do not fare well to being locked away, and do not like to be forced to do something they don't want to. Doing something like that would be likely to get you killed if they are freed. Kitsune love playing tricks. They like to take things and hide them from people, or do just about anything else to piss someone off.
  
  Kitsunes' have things called Kitsune balls, or star balls, which is a small white-gold ball that is a Kitsune's most prized Kitsune - Mythical Creatures Guidepossession, since it is almost like their life force in a ball. If you get your hands on a Kitsune's star ball, you would have the ability to control the Kitsune, and make it do your bidding. However, Kitsune hate being stripped of their freedom, and when the Kitsune gets its star ball back, there will be serious repercussions for you to deal with.
  
  In some stories, kitsune have difficulty hiding their tails when they take human form; looking for the tail, perhaps when the fox gets drunk or careless, is a common method of discerning the creature's true nature. Variants on the theme have the kitsune retain other foxlike traits, such as a coating of fine hair, a fox-shaped shadow, or a reflection that shows its true form. Kitsune-gao or fox-faced refers to human females who have a narrow face with close-set eyes, thin eyebrows, and high cheekbones. Traditionally, this facial structure is considered attractive, and some tales ascribe it to foxes in human form. Kitsune have a fear and hatred of dogs even while in human form, and some become so rattled by the presence of dogs that they revert to the shape of a fox and flee. A particularly devout individual may be able to see through a fox's disguise automatically.
  
  One folk story illustrating these imperfections in the kitsune's human shape concerns Koan, a historical person credited with wisdom and magical powers of divination. According to the story, he was staying at the home of one of his devotees when he scalded his foot entering a bath because the water had been drawn too hot. Then, "in his pain, he ran out of the bathroom naked. When the people of the household saw him, they were astonished to see that Koan had fur covering much of his body, along with a fox's tail. Then Koan transformed in front of them, becoming an elderly fox and running away."
  
  Other supernatural abilities commonly attributed to the kitsune include possession, mouths or tails that generate fire or lightning (known as kitsune-bi; literally, fox-fire), willful manifestation in the dreams of others, flight, invisibility, and the creation of illusions so elaborate as to be almost indistinguishable from reality. Some tales speak of kitsune with even greater powers, able to bend time and space, drive people mad, or take fantastic shapes such as a tree of incredible height or a second moon in the sky. Other kitsune have characteristics reminiscent of vampires or succubi and feed on the life or spirit of human beings, generally through sexual contact.
  
  Kitsunetsuki
  
  Kitsunetsuki literally means the state of being possessed by a fox. The victim is always a young woman, whom the fox enters beneath her fingernails or through her breasts. In some cases, the victims' facial expressions are said to change in such a way that they resemble those of a fox. Japanese tradition holds that fox possession can cause illiterate victims to temporarily gain the ability to read. Though foxes in folklore can possess a person of their own will, Kitsunetsuki is often attributed to the malign intents of hereditary fox employers, or tsukimono-suji.
  
  Exorcism, often performed at an Inari shrine, may induce a fox to leave its host if it is possessing someone. In the past, when such gentle measures failed or a priest was not available, victims of kitsunetsuki were beaten or badly burned in hopes of forcing the fox to leave. Entire families were ostracized by their communities after a member of the family was thought to be possessed.
  In Japan, kitsunetsuki was noted as a disease as early as the Heian period and remained a common diagnosis for mental illness until the early 20th century. Possession was the explanation for the abnormal behavior displayed by the afflicted individuals. In the late 19th century, Dr. Shunichi Shimamura noted that physical diseases that caused fever were often considered kitsunetsuki. The belief has lost favor, but stories of fox possession still appear in the tabloid press and popular media. One notable occasion involved allegations that members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult had been possessed.
  
  In medicine, kitsunetsuki is an ethnic psychosis unique to Japanese culture. Those who suffer from the condition believe they are possessed by a fox. Symptoms include cravings for rice or sweet red beans, listlessness, restlessness, and aversion to eye contact. Kitsunetsuki is similar to but distinct from clinical lycanthropy.
  
  Tricksters
  
  Kitsune are often presented as tricksters, with motives that vary from mischief to malevolence. Stories tell of kitsune playing tricks on overly proud samurai, greedy merchants, and boastful commoners, while the crueler ones abuse poor tradesmen and farmers or devout Buddhist monks. Their victims are usually men; women are possessed instead. For example, kitsune are thought to employ their kitsune-bi or fox-fire to lead travelers astray in the manner of a will o' the wisp. Another tactic is for the kitsune to confuse its target with illusions or visions. Other common goals of trickster kitsune include seduction, theft of food, humiliation of the prideful, or vengeance for a perceived slight.

• Void

  Known as the Dark kitsune in some traditions, or the reiko. Those of the void are often nogitsune, although there are those who swear to Inari as well, and the element as a whole is not viewed as 'evil'. Often, voidlings are rather dark and brooding in nature, and can be downright malicious and territorial at times. The void is the essence of nothingness, the absence of everything including darkness, but their powers generally revolve around the shadows and darker materials. Void-users can cause blights within the land, drain life, summon creatures of darkness, vanish into shadows, and drain light from areas. They feed upon darkened areas, such as marshes and swamps, leaving behind poisoned waters and dead critters. Shadows are also fed from, leaving mortals without shadows or already dark areas seemingly more bleak.

• Magic

  Illusion
  
  Kitsune are innate illusionists. To them, illusion is as real as anything else around them. A kitsune who uses illusion to appear human *is* human, and can talk, act, make love, and sire children while the illusion exists. A kitsune who transforms a staff into a snake, creates a snake who can crawl, bite, and kill.
  The kitsune, using this glamour, can make objects, weapons, people, homes, and even manipulate the landscape to suite their needs. More often than not, the illusions are biased towards the element the kitsune is connected to.
  One kitsune is capable of creating illusions and manipulating the landscape in a small vicinity, but when kitsune gather their collective resources, whole cities can be made.
  
  
  Realms
  
  Kitsune can make pockets in reality. They can make an entire castle under someone's floorboard, and populate it with people. This world is real, but made from the spiritworld. As such, there can be a time-dilation. This time dilation, on average is: 1 day on Earth = 7 Years in the Realm.
  These realms are usually just homes, and forests, and are not whole worlds. It usually takes about three to five kitsune to make a whole realm and populate it.
  
  
  Mind Control
  
  Kitsune can dominate those around them. This is a form of enchantment, and using this, a kitsune can cause someone to see anything the kitsune wishes, or overlook things the kitsune wants them to. Once control has been established, the victim is held until someone can break the magic.
  
  
  Foxfire (Kitsune-bi)
  
  Kitsune can produce lightning or fire by rubbing their tails. This becomes a melee weapon. Kitsune can also breath fire, to a limited range, about five feet or less. Kitsune can also create small balls of fire, and use these as lights, thrown weapons, or as playtoys.
  
  
  Possession
  
  Kitsune can possess targets, taking over their minds and bodies. This is sometimes out of sheer necessity. Possession lasts until the next sunrise or sunset unless the kitsune is using this as a form of manifestation. They have no access to the abilities or memories of their target.
  
  
  Shapeshifting
  
  A kitsune can transform into anything covered by the 13 Elements. This means they can turn into trees, forests, rocks, water, or other people. The limits are that the transformation does not give them the innate abilities of the form they have taken, and they are vulnerable to what can harm that form.
  Kitsune who are possessing someone can not use this form of transformation, unless they are doing it through illusions.
  
  
  Kitsune Ball
  
  Kitsune can create small balls of focused power. These balls look like small, white spheres that can easily be mistaken for a child's toy. These balls are a focus for kitsune abilities. Kage's kitsune's ball is encased by his actual body and disguised as a tattoo resembling an eclipsed sun between his shoulder blades. While the sphere is etched into his skin, in order to obtain his ball (which first one has to connect the dots), they'd have to pull it from his mortal flesh, quite possibly killing the body. As the ball is separate from the body, the act would not destroy Ichirou, just the flesh form he takes.
  
  
  Kitsune and Magic
  
  Kitsune can study any normal field of magic. A drawback they possess however is that to use any form of magic requires them to either draw the energy from a source of power, or draw it from themselves. Unlike mortals, though, they weaken when they draw off their own energies, which does not replenish under its own power. A kitsune who casts magic too often will eventually become weak, and starved.

• Skinweaving

  Skinweaving is a particular unique technique in which Kage utilizes while in his Avatar state. As his body is covered with tattoos, some illusions of the form, others actually etched into his body, Kage can draw from the art's black ink, causing it to slither across his body to his hands in which he expels as shadowy liquid substance that he bends and distorts at will. This is his primary means of channeling his element as the tattoos are one with his being and are given magical properties via the soul sphere, the vessel for his soul and source of his power, imprinted at the center of his back. It is possible for Kage to weave the ink from another person's body by encasing the target in his own essence and twisting it. This process is excruciating and is primarily used to torment and terrify others.
  
  The primary disadvantage to this technique is the time required to bend and manipulate the tattoos as well as the tattoos representing his pool of energy. Once the art is drained from his body, he is without energy and becomes very weak and sick.

• Character Sheet

  Illusion		Siphon Life		Shadow Golems
  Shadow Constructs		Mind Control		Shadow Step
  Siphon Essence		Pocket Realms		Shapeshifting
  Possession		Light Absorption