ChrisClark13's page

TL;DR: Half-Kitsune race: Formerly Human person that suddenly changed into Kitsune form and can't change back. Note: If you want a race like this where the human doesn't change shape, just play as a human.

A while back, I decided that for at least a while I was only going to make Kitsune/Fox-people characters... so when a campaign came up DMed by a friend that was going to be set in 12th Scottland (Basic plot: Magic is suddenly coming into the world. Divine and Arcane magic is suddenly being given out like candy to about every 1 in 10000 people. And yes. The Pope is a cleric, moving on.) I quickly came up with a concept for a race that was basically a human that had been overcome by sudden Fey magicks and turned into a anthromorphic fox person. The DM said okay and now I have a Druid that's a fox person.

And then a while later another campaign came up on the Giant In The Playground forums that had the warning: [Heavy Houserules]. (Dark Sun + a smidgen of Dragon Mech. Going to be playing a Gunslinger/Coglayer.) Being bored I clicked on it and asked if I could be a Kitsune. He said if I wanted to have it be a sudden genetic mutation because the Cleansing Wars would mean there would be no Kitsunes left. I said I had a custom race for just that scenario and decided to re use the race from the 12th century setting.

So after a while I've been thinking.... what about a character who has Kitsune ancestry that suddenly awakened one day that caused him to change shape? What if I made a Half-Kitsune race?

So this is where I'm at now, my idea for this race is that a member of this race has ancestors that are Kitsunes that one day suddenly was activated and they changed shape involuntarily and suddenly he/she can't change back? How would that look like mechanically? Would they still have the Bonus Feat that a human gets? Would they still get a +2 CHA? Or how about the +2 to any ability score but still with -2 STR because their Kisune forms are frail? Is that even possible common sense wise? And so on.

I'm looking to create a Half-Kitsune/Kitsune-Descendant race for the Dark Sun setting, because Kitsunes probably existed at one point. As a note to whether or not this would be viable for a Kitsune and a Human to have children together. In Japanese folklore (according to Wikipedia) it was possible.

Anyways, text walls aside. Here is the race I made for the 12th century setting for those who are interested/want the details.

The reason why I'm asking you guys is because I'm sure a community of people with more experience than me would know how to balance a race like this. So using above as a base, (minus the Fey part, that's just there mostly for justification for the existence of the race for the setting it's in.) I want suggestions on how I should throw this together.

I'm making a Kitsune character for a campaign over on the Giant In The Playground forums and as I was looking over the rules for Kitsune, this confused me:
Vulpine Pounce (Combat, Kitsune)

Me and my sister are playing a campaign together and our characters are also brother and sister. I want to make a trait out of that. What would you suggest?

EDIT: The real question is: Would you allow this in your own game?

What I'm planning on doing with my Witch is having him make a collar for his familiar that has the continuous effect of bestowing Anthropomorphic Animal on the fox, then having some help from another party member to train the fox as a (adorable, but awesome) ninja.

Also, at the lowest level I could pull this off (level 5), the familiar's intelligence is 8 (or possibly 9 with the Anthropomorphic Animal spell, it boosts animals that have 1-2 INT to 3 INT)

In your honest opinion would it be possible and/or legit?

I also have a couple of other questions that tie into the first one:

• When an animal is affected by Anthropomorphic Animal and it has ranks in Linguistics, can it speak more than one language?

• Can a familiar gain experience in any way? (Like a PC, cohort, etc.)

• A fox standing on it's hind legs could easily stand 3 feet tall could it classify as a Small sized humanoid with the Anthropomorphic Animal spell? It'd be about the size, if a tad smaller, than a Gnome.