Info on Kitsune?

[Hand of Vecna]

[[ hrm, I don't see a "D20" or "Monster" tag.... ]]

Anywho, a friend of mine's putting together a BESM D20 game, set in a medieval fantasy Oriental world. The PC's will be friends who've just come back to town on discovering one of their friends (who never left town) has been killed by Evil Forces. Magic is at a low level to begin with, but will be expoding out fairly soon. We're starting at 5th level.

My idea was to play a Pet Monster Trainer, who's Pet Monster is a Kitsune werefox/fox spirit (I was originally going to go for a Lovecraftian Horror, but a fellow player talked me out of it). It'll look like a normal fox at first, but as magic grows in the world, the Kitsune will grow more tails as it gains power, until it has all nine tails.

So, here's my question, and the ultimate point of this post -- where might I find info on Kitsune? I've been looking through some of my D&D stuff, but have yet to find anything yet. I've seen a blurb on them in GURPS: Japan, but it wasn't much help. Can any of you fine folk help?

 

[Andrew D. Gable]

Well, Green Ronin's Jade Dragons and Hungry Ghosts and AEG's Creatures of Rokugan both have versions of the Kitsune.

 

[Ruvion]

According to Korean mythos...(and I'm sure the original source of this mythos may well be Chinese in origin)...the Nine-Tails Foxy Ghost(tm) usually take the form of a woman (may well be a mortal woman before her transformation). She was wronged by a man/men in the past and as a vengeful spirit, she lures men by disguising herself with magic into previously uninhabited old lodges (redecorated using illusive magic) and sucks their life energies from them. The Fox grows in power over the centuries, where a 1000 years old Fox seems to be the cliche bench mark. Her real forte seems to be the magic of illusion, but against mere mortals she may find illusion is all her pride will permit (she may have other eldritch powers in terms of D&D terms). In one folk tale there is a confrontation between the Nine-Tails Fox and a Dragon Spirit, a meeting in which she flees once she realizes that he is no normal male...don't remember how that tale ended. That's all I know for now...

[[ hrm, I don't see a "D20" or "Monster" tag.... ]]

Anywho, a friend of mine's putting together a BESM D20 game, set in a medieval fantasy Oriental world. The PC's will be friends who've just come back to town on discovering one of their friends (who never left town) has been killed by Evil Forces. Magic is at a low level to begin with, but will be expoding out fairly soon. We're starting at 5th level.

My idea was to play a Pet Monster Trainer, who's Pet Monster is a Kitsune werefox/fox spirit (I was originally going to go for a Lovecraftian Horror, but a fellow player talked me out of it). It'll look like a normal fox at first, but as magic grows in the world, the Kitsune will grow more tails as it gains power, until it has all nine tails.

So, here's my question, and the ultimate point of this post -- where might I find info on Kitsune? I've been looking through some of my D&D stuff, but have yet to find anything yet. I've seen a blurb on them in GURPS: Japan, but it wasn't much help. Can any of you fine folk help?

 

[beta-ray]

Could you be more specific about what kind of information are you looking for? How factual? How much cultural info?

How about this for starters?

Inari

 

[Hand of Vecna]

Hrm, I suppose that would be helpful

Common abilities found in Kitsune, notable personality quirks, strengths, weakness -- if a Pokemon were modelled after a Kitsune, what would it look like and be capable of?

 

[beta-ray]

Hrm, I suppose that would be helpful

Common abilities found in Kitsune, notable personality quirks, strengths, weakness -- if a Pokemon were modelled after a Kitsune, what would it look like and be capable of?

Dunno much about Pokemon and abilities, but what about these?

Nine Tails

Vulpix

 

[BVB]

White Wolf put out an "Eastern" supplement a while back for the Werewolf game series. Kitsune was afforded its own chapter as a new shapeshifter option.

 

[tarchon]

According to Korean mythos...(and I'm sure the original source of this mythos may well be Chinese in origin)...the Nine-Tails Foxy Ghost(tm) usually take the form of a woman (may well be a mortal woman before her transformation). She was wronged by a man/men in the past and as a vengeful spirit, she lures men by disguising herself with magic into previously uninhabited old lodges (redecorated using illusive magic) and sucks their life energies from them. The Fox grows in power over the centuries, where a 1000 years old Fox seems to be the cliche bench mark. Her real forte seems to be the magic of illusion, but against mere mortals she may find illusion is all her pride will permit (she may have other eldritch powers in terms of D&D terms). In one folk tale there is a confrontation between the Nine-Tails Fox and a Dragon Spirit, a meeting in which she flees once she realizes that he is no normal male...don't remember how that tale ended. That's all I know for now...

A number of different kinds of animals are cast in the same role in East Asia, like cats, snakes (e.g. the Chinese film <i>Qing She</i> - "Green Snake"), or deer. The nearly exclusive emphasis on foxes has always struck me as being a Japanese thing, but they're prominent in Chinese and Korean folklore as well. Kurosawa's <i>Dreams</i> has a sequence involving fox spirits.
Powerful animals, essentially dire or legendary animals in D&D terms, were supposed in folklore to be able to accrue formidable magical abilities and eventually to take on human form, though imperfectly. From a Buddhist point of view, this was seen as sort of a way for the animal to get around the natural order of reincarnation. Thus, tales about such animals commonly cast them in a perverse or even evil light by default, which can sometimes be puzzling if you come in with a Western worldview, especially when the particular tale doesn't depict the spirit doing anything that would be considered evil if done by a human being.
Oddly, very similar legends about seals (roans or selkies) are known from the British Isles, and you can turn up wolves that do it if you sift through enough German/Scandinavian legends.

 

[demiurge1138]

I can tell you how not to do kitsune...
But that's a long, painful and darkly humorous tale I'll hype up so someone might actually want to hear it...

If you'd make a kitsune Pokemon style, other then the Ninetails route (too fiery), I'd give it illusion, charm and polymorph self abilities. Probably fey.

Demiurge out.

 

[tarchon]

I can tell you how not to do kitsune...

For the record, "How'd you like to jump over my lazy brown dog?" does _not_ work.