Inki is a one-tailed kitsune, formerly of the Spring Court, now Courtless and wandering.
Personality
Inki is usually a fox kit at heart -- playful, endlessly curious, quick to anger but equally quick to forgive, basically friendly and trusting. He comes off as a lot less experienced and competent than he actually is. He becomes depressed when he thinks too much about how he screwed up his life in the Court, and can become defensive when challenged about it.
Background
Inki used to be a five-tailed kitsune, one of the zenko who worked in the service of the god Inari in the Spring Court.
Some time ago -- a week? A century? He's not really sure, mortal time is strange for the Fae -- he was given an assignment to serve as Inari's messenger to a mortal woman who had caught his eye, that he wished to make his consort for a time. But the lass caught Inki's eye as well, and instead of delivering his Lord's proposition he made her one of his own.
Inari was furious. This wasn't the first time Inki had been insubordinate where mortal women were concerned, and he'd had enough. He raised a stink, and Inki was banished from the Seelie Courts, stripped of his titles and his status and most of his power, bound by _geas_ not to further molest mortal women, his _hoshi no tama_ kept between Inari's hands. Without Inari's protection or most of his own magic, he was a nogitsune, subject to mortal magics and even to physical assault. The Faerie courtiers, so deferential to him when his star was rising, now mocked him endlessly, calling him "kon kon" -- the cry of a bestial fox, suggesting he was no better than they.
Although he can still travel into and out of the Fae realms, he is welcome in neither the Seelie nor Unseelie Courts. He has some magic, still, but nothing compared to his former power. He is resentful of how he was treated, and dreams of regaining his former rank. This is possible but requires him to perform acts of true nobility and self-sacrifice in Inari's eyes, which... will take some doing.
In the meantime he is mostly traveling around the mortal realms in order to stay out of Faerie, which reminds him too much of what he's lost.
SKILLS
Ancient World Skills - Expert Level
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Inki spent considerable time in the human world, so he is familiar with a variety of historical human cultures and has mastered a _lot_ of skills that were widely used in those cultures. He can glaze pottery and plant wheat and fire a bow and shoe a horse and tan leather and would be a total rock star at an SCA event.
That said... initially he is _completely_ ignorant of pretty much anything more recent than, say, the early 1800s. He learns quickly and will pick up modern skills relatively soon if they matter, though, so this is more of an RP thing than a real weakness.
Inki has various innate magical abilities, as described elsewhere, but he also knows a bit about magic and how to use it, fantastic beasts and where to find them, who the players are, etc. He's never studied it formally, and he's no kind of wizard, but you can't live in the Spring Court for millenia without picking up a few things here and there.
Navigate Faerie - Competent Level
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Inki knows his way around Faerie and the realms that connect to it. He is most acquainted with the regions around the Spring and Summer Courts, but he's done his share of wandering around all over.
ABILITIES
Magic: Cloud Minds - Basic Level
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Inki can cloud the minds of others in his presence, leaving them confused, distracted, and inattentive. People in this state are unlikely to notice or remember anything that happens. They tend to lose impulse control and do things they would normally resist the temptation to do, as though intoxicated. They are also typically very suggestible, as though in a hynotic trance, although this varies a lot depending on the individual. In general, strong-willed individuals and those with magical defenses can resist this power, and perceptive individuals can tell what he's doing.
(Of course, this power can only be used on a character with the player's consent.)
Magic: Dreamshaping - Enhanced Level
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Inki can visit the dreams of others, as long as he knows them in real life. This ability is not limited by distance, and can even work between worlds. He need not be invited, but sufficiently strong-willed individuals and those with magical defenses can force him out of their dreams. He can "blend in" to the dreamscape and not be an obvious intruder, but sufficiently perceptive individuals can be aware of his presence. He can manipulate the content of dreams, though this makes his presence easier to notice.
Magic: Faerie Travel - Enhanced Level
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Inki can move into and out of Faerie with ease.
Faerie is an unusual place, and does not reliably behave in accordance with the laws of physics or what mortals would consider logic or common sense. Parts of it are highly mutable, responsive to the thoughts and feelings of those who travel there, while other parts are fixed, often by the will of powerful beings such as Oberon. Parts of it are easily reached from mortal realms, and might even have permanent portals to those realms, while other parts are entirely inaccessible. An hour in Faerie might be a mortal century in some places, and vice-versa in others. One region of Faerie might connect to Earth in the 18th century while another connects to Earth in the 21st century and a third to Thanagar or Oz or Hell or... well, you get the idea.
Consequently, by taking "shortcuts" through Faerie, Inki can travel quickly from one place to another, or even from one time to another. Inki is most comfortable in regions of Faerie that correspond to modern-day Sangria, so most of the time he travels between different locations Sangria now and Faerie now. Like many Faerie natives, he has an intuitive ability to navigate Faerie, and usually ends up where he intends to go.
That said, even natives can get lost, and Inki might in principle end up anywhere, at any time, when he crosses the Veil, especially if something strange is happening. (In other words, Inki is in principle a Traveller, albeit not a reliable one.)
He can take people and things with him when he crosses the Veil, and even send them through the Veil without him. This works much better with inanimate objects/forces than with people, who can often resist him.
Magic: Illusions - Enhanced Level
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Inki can manifest illusions. These are very convincing, engage all senses, and are logically consistent... for example, he can manifest a flamethrower and appear to spray flame from it, and flammable objects in its path will appear to catch fire, char, and smoke, and those flames will appear to spread, and smoke detectors in the area will seem to go off, and someone watching the area from a satellite hundreds of miles away will see the building catch fire, etc., etc. To all intents and purposes it will behave like a flamethrower.
However, illusions are incapable of physically affecting the world. Anyone hit by the flames would feel pain, experience their flesh burning, etc., but would not actually be injured. When he dismisses the illusion all the apparent affects would seem to vanish/be undone, ashes would return to their former form, etc.
Beings with magical awareness can tell that his illusions are illusions.
Magic: Sense Magic - Enhanced Level
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Like most Fae, Inki is sensitive to magical beings, objects, and events. He is not an academic expert of any sort, but he's been around the block a few millenia and has learned how to recognize and distinguish between different kinds of magic.
Magic: Shapeshifting - Enhanced Level
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In the material world, Inki's default form is that of a startlingly well-groomed red fox, somewhat larger than usual but basically normal-looking. He reverts to this form if his powers are disrupted.
He can change his form pretty casually. There is a default human form he adopts much of the time, but he can take the form of other people, animals, even inanimate objects without much difficulty. The forms he adopts include whatever "props" are associated with it... clothing, gear, etc.
From a magical/philosophical perspective, his shape-shifts are illusory, in that they alter the accidents, but not the essences, of his nature. That said, they are VERY GOOD illusions, capable of fooling pretty much any kind of mortal/technological detectors. To see through them requires magical senses/"true sight" type abilities (to which he appears as a red fox and is recognizable as a one-tailed kitsune).
However convincing they are, though, they are not "real" transformations, and Inki has the same abilities regardless of the form he is in. (See his Illusions ability for more details.)
Magic: Sidestep - Enhanced Level
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One useful side-effect of Inki's ability to Faerie Travel (cf) is that he's effectively immune to non-magical attacks as long as he's aware of them, since he can either 'sidestep' them by moving across the Veil or (more difficult) displace the attacks themselves across the Veil. (Because magic attacks exist on both sides of the veil, this doesn't reliably work to avoid magic attacks.)
Exceptionally quick attacks might land before he can summon the will to do this, and of course attacks he doesn't see coming, he can't evade.
Magic: Speech - Enhanced Level
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Like many Fae, Inki communicates more through essences than words. Consequently he can generally communicate with anything capable of communication... he understands all languages, including nonverbal ones, and can express himself fluently in them. This extends to slang and idiomatic expressions and native accents.
This does not in any way let him read minds or determine whether people are telling the truth. It also does not necessarily mean he can understand what someone is trying to express, if the concept itself is obscure to him.
Magic: Vulpine Traits - Basic Level
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Inki is superhumanly quick and agile, has enhanced scent that can follow tracks and identify individuals, can see just about as well during the night as the day, has superhumanly sharp hearing that can target objects based on the sounds they make, and has claws on his hands and feet that behave like short-bladed knives (like a switchblade).
(Just to be clear: his strength, endurance, and resistance to injury are not superhuman.)
ADVANTAGES
Since having been exiled from the Spring Court, Inki isn't really "at home" anywhere. He does hang out in Faerie quite a bit, though, so he's found an out-of-the-way corner of Faerie to call home.
That the stuff of Faerie, at least in some areas, is psychotropic... it responds to thought, so you can create stuff by imagining it, like magic. Places like the Courts are stable and fixed, anchored by the will of powerful leaders, but Inki lacks that kind of power, so anything Inki constructs in the liminal spaces is more fragile, subject to various kinds of fantastic "weather", not to mention vulnerable to vandalism by those who pass by.
So basically, what he has is a kind of astral campsite. He can control what it looks like, what happens there... basically, decorate it however he likes... and it feels like "home" for him. To a mortal it might feel solid and real, but other Faerie can mess with it pretty easily if they want and he'll have to rebuild it.
Because Inki is a skilled illusionist, he can make the space look and feel like anything he wants, but there's a complexity limit. It's kind of like a virtual-reality environment with limited memory... he can make it look like Metropolis from a distance but he can't actually populate it with convincing cars, people, furniture, etc. It's just a backdrop, not a simulated world.
He has tried to hide it so it's difficult to find without being led there, but, again, he's just not that powerful... mortals and minor Fae might have trouble finding it, maybe, but it wouldn't be difficult for any competent Fae.
Inki has been around, well, basically forever. Not on Earth full-time, of course, and time in Faerie is weird, but still, he's been there for much of human history, often hanging around interesting or powerful folks. Consequently he will often turn out to know things, have met historical figures, have paintings of him turn up in museums, owe or be owed old favors, that sort of thing... especially when it comes to magical history.
This is more of an RP hook than anything else.
WEAKNESSES
Inki, like many kitsune, is afraid of dogs. There is a long-standing mythological reason for this, but Inki himself is unaware of the history... he just really doesn't like dogs, and for the most part they don't like him.
Since Inki is now Courtless, he can readily be summoned and bound to service through rituals that invoke his true name. This name is secret, but can be obtained by those trained in the right techniques, even if they have no magical power, or even by relatively clueless mortals who stumble across the right book or artifact. He can also be directly affected by magical wards, lures, bindings, compulsions, and similar things that do not affect mortal beings.
Like many Fae, Inki is "allergic" to forged iron (though not to iron alloys like steel, nor to unprocessed iron ore). It will burn his skin, dispel his illusions, force him back into his true form. He cannot escape forged iron shackles, not even by shapeshifting or moving into Faerie. He is especially vulnerable to wards, compulsions, etc. that include cold iron in their construction or casting.
Inki used to be a high-ranking kitsune of the Spring Court, and frankly kind of a dick. Now that he is fallen from grace, many of his former rivals are taking the opportunity to get back at him. This most often takes the form of mischief and practical jokes at his expense, but can sometimes get out of hand.
Also, several Unseelie Court Fae are hoping to corrupt Inki further and eventually recruit him. In practice this manifests as "bad luck" creating situations that tempt him to misuse his abilities.
(If you are interested in running NPCs making Inki's life difficult, either one-shot or ongoing, let me know!)
Inki is bound under Inari's _geas_ to not molest mortal women. If he violates the _geas_ Inari (or, realistically speaking, one of his subordinates) is notified, and may mete out punishment. A certain amount of rules-lawyering is tolerated here, but in general he does best not to push his luck.
Inki will twist meanings and be evasive and rules-lawyer with the best of them, but bottom line, if he actually gives his word to do something, he will commit himself to doing it. There is some level of magical binding tied up in this, and if he breaks his word there will usually be direct unpleasant consequences, but mostly it's a psychological limitation, albeit a powerful one. This is a known and documented fact about him, so magical scholars and the like will be aware of it.
Inki is impulsive and undisciplined, even by kitsune standards. He has a VERY hard time resisting his own desires, be they for food or sex or shiny things or whatever. He is easy to lure, tempt, and manipulate... even if he knows something is probably a trap, he will often feel compelled to go after it anyway.
Ordinarily, Fae of his sort receive sustenance directly from the Court to which they belong. Since Inki is now Courtless, he must draw his sustenance from other sources. Many magical artifacts and beings of magical power can sustain him, but the most common source is the worship and adoration of mortals. (He _can_ also feed on mortal terror, but this tends to be short-term intoxicating, mid-term sickening, and long-term addictive, so he avoids it.)
Like all kitsune, Inki is exceedingly curious and clever -- sometimes too much so for his own good. He has a great deal of difficulty letting any mystery go unexplored, and is extremely prone to devising complicated, over-elaborate, implausible plans to achieve simple goals.
