To the general world, Tamamo of Abe is just another inhabitant of San Francisco's Japantown, student at the University of San Francisco. But Under the surface, she is a young Kitsune struggling to live up to the legend of her ancestors.
Personality
Usually Tamamo tries to take things slow and to think carefully about what she does, as she has had little experience with the supernatural before. Though she is young and eager, she knows that she must resist the pressure to progress too quickly. Such pressure is as bad for her as it helps her if it becomes too much. When she feels caught between a rock and a hard place she turns into a fury, lashing out verbally, physically and magically in quick succession.
Background
Tamamo's parents did meet in 1994, when her father, an engineer for a Californian company, was on a visit to his grandparents in Japan. In 1995, they married in San Francisco. Her Father's family boasted that they could trace his lineage back to Abe no Seimei, while her mother claimed to be an orphan without family to speak of. Yet she was a kitsune in disguise. The marriage did hold well, and in 1997, Tamamo was born while the two of them did stay with his family in Kyoto. It all could have gone well, nobody ever discovering the secret of her mother, yet when Tamamo had just turned 4 for a couple months, he father spotted a fox tail when his wife was changing and did the one thing a kitsune of her sort could not accept from him: confront her with his knowledge. With a mixture of anger and fright on her face she left, leaving only a tome and a cryptic poem to her daughter. With her mother vanished, Tamamo was brought up by her father alone, mainly staying in San Francisco. Still loving her mother Mayumi, he told her all the famous and infamous kitsune tales and one more, his own, telling of how he met her mother and of their lives together. Knowing though that the world wasn't the most safe, he began to teach her karate when she turned 5. A month before her 7th birthday, she started to have strange dreams, but it was not until a week after it, when she finally cracked the riddle in her mother's poem. Discovering the tome her mother had left for her, Tamamo learned that she herself was more than just a descendant of a kitsune, but most likely one herself. While she went through school and studied for classes, she spent her evenings trying to learn what the tome wanted to teach her, coming to explore and better understand her heritage. As part of learning of her heritage, she also studied traditional Japanese instruments, the shamisen and koto. In San Francisco, where there were many other of Japanese heritage, it was not difficult to find teachers. Over the time since then, she has learned to to handle the powers of her kind and was able to create Illusions spanning a room by her Junior High years.
SIGNATURE ABILITY
Imperial Privilege
Kitsune are said to be the messagers of Inari, royalty among the animals in some sorts, and even a young Kitsune like Tamamo can call upon this legacy to defer others from attacking her. When in a situation of direct confrontation and before Tamamo has dealt any attack, she can raise her voice above the surrounding noises to demand parley. While preventing people and persons to directly attack her for a minute, it does not exclude her from areas of effects and has diminished effect on beings that have no mind at all. Calling upon the privilege is also limited in that it can't be called upon more than once between visits to a shrine.
SKILLS
While not mainly warrior, Tamamo has learned Karate from her father since the age of 5, and could qualify for a Dan, if she should choose so. Atop that she has taken classes in Kendo enough to handle a blade rather well, but she wouldn't qualify as much more than a 2nd Kyu.
Cooking - Competent Level
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It is not too much a stretch to say that Tamamo is quite a good cook, when it comes to Japanese cuisine. It's not Keisaki style 10 course mastery level, but most traditional dishes she can manage. The family recipes she learned from her father.
She is by far not a crack driver, but Tamamo has routine at driving a car with manual transmission.
Japanese Speaker - Expert Level
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Being a second generation Japanese in Japantown San Francisco, Tamamo speaks the language of her nation fluently, even as she has an American accent at times.
Being brought up well aware of the legacy of her kind and left with a tome written by her mother made her sensible about the tells for quite some of the supernatural beings. If she doesn't have a solid grasp on what it is, at least she has a good idea of the general type and where to look it up.
Tamamo is by far not a professional musican, but she can sing pretty well and can play both the Shamisen and Koto, traditional string instruments of Japan.
ABILITIES
Power: Agility - Enhanced Level
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Owing to her kitsune heritage, Tamamo is literally agile as a fox, no matter what shape she wears.
Power: Foxfire - Enhanced Level
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While illuminating ghost flames are a thing of illusion, some kitsune can wield literal "foxfire." In Tamamo's case, she can conjure a strange mixture of fire and lightning. Calling forth these foxfires does require her to channel powerful emotions, and the exact appearance is dependent on the emotions channelled. The damage done with these is always of both electric and fire type, no manner what they more look like.
Power: Fox Shapes - Basic Level
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Thanks to her kitsune heritage, Tamamo has the ability to change between a human and a vulpine shape and any mix-and-match in between. Unlike werewolves neither form regenerates or grants enhanced strength or toughness that she doesn't already posses. Only her running speed is faster in fox shape, though 50 kmh (ca 30 mph) don't qualify for basic transportation magic.
Power: Illusionism - Supreme Level
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Creating illusions is a natural to Tamamo's type of kitsune, and while she might not yet have achieved the supernatural proficiency many of her brethren can claim for themselves, her illusion magic can create lifelike objects. Without too much concentration she can disguise herself as someone else, and with a bit effort, she can change the perceived properties of objects for all senses, including food. She can't pull the "onsen in the desert" trick, but it is enough to change the interior and outside of a whole building dramatically in a manner only very few people can see through. Using an illusionary object as a weapon doesn't inflict any lasting damage, only immediate pain as inflicted by the illusion. Likewise, should mere illusionary damage cause "death" the affected person merely experiences a few moments of unconsciousness before waking expelled from the illusion's effect.
Power: Longevity - Basic Level
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Tamamo's form of kitsune does not grow old or die from age. Many of them even can look back on hundreds of years, some even a record spanning several millennia. Tamamo on the other hand is one of the youngest and has all these still to go, though she will keep her youthful look for probably decades.
Power: Senses - Enhanced Level
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In comparison to a normal human, Tamamo has extremely heightened senses. No matter the form she takes, she can pick up weak smells and silent noises with enough accuracy to track just with them, and as long as there is still a faint sliver of light she can see.
ADVANTAGES
To fund her life, Tamamo has access to the funds of the extended family, but only to finance the basics with a little spending money. While enough to have a new outfit once in a while and go a little bit to the clubs, it doesn't cover extravagant expenses.
Tomamo possesses facial features that are thought to be attractive in Japanese culture. While some fox-faced beauties are Kitsune, not all are, but all kitsune like her are are kitsune-gao-bijin -- or "fox-faced beauties," having a narrow face, high cheekbones and a sharp gaze.
Tomamo possesses facial features that are thought to be attractive in Japanese culture. While some fox-faced beauties are Kitsune, not all are, but all kitsune like her are are kitsune-gao-bijin -- or "fox-faced beauties," having a narrow face, high cheekbones and a sharp gaze.
WEAKNESSES
While mountain ash of the sorbus scopulina variety is effective to one degree or another against most supernatural beings, it is finely ground but otherwise unprocessed rock salt that acts as a barrier to kitsune like Tamamo. A two inch thick line of it prevents her passage, and getting a handful of it into the face will unfailingly show her tell.
Rowan or Mountain Ash is the generalist tool against supernatural beings in north america. While Tamamo is not more susceptible to it than other daemons, contact with it still hurts and being enclosed by it greatly limits access to her powers.
Kitsune of Tamamo's type are at least to some degree spirits of nature. As such she is susceptible to magic that directly targets these, such as getting exorcised and banished from an area or bound and trapped into an object. On the lucky side, she can't be directly controlled via spiritism.
There are many myths that exist about the role of a kitsune: that of a trickster, femme fatale, devoted wife or any combination of these. While the spiritual world does give her some leeway, not everyone understands the nuance of different species being more than mere stereotypes about them. As such, some beings might, based on assumptions about the reputation of kitsune, assume that she, too, should embody one of these archetypes.
