Fictional thought exercise

[chipotle]

In a setting that is an alternate version of feudal Japan, with races of anthropomorphic animals instead of humans but no other (overt) magic and myth, what would it mean for a fox-person to be a kitsune?

Comments

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

The easy answer is MOAR TAILS!

Another answer might be to have Kitsunes be something along the lines of the human-appearing creatures in our legends, like vampires... Kitsunes would look like regular foxes, and walk among the rest of the foxes, but would be of a more tricksy/seductive bent, and may have other powers. However, in order to use a lot of these powers, they'd have to reveal their extra tails, or something of the sort.

Kappa could be done similarly: Turtles who always kept the tops of their heads covered when out and about, and who were careful not to return bows, but who also had the powers of the human-legend Kappa.