Culture
After fleeing Otherworld, having garnered the hatred of the Cait-Sidhe, the Kitsune made homes for themselves in the Mortal Realms. In doing so, they found themselves living close to the Kitajal-Ol and later, their vessel-bound brethren.
In their nation of Kinokashima, the Kitsune work and live closely with the Kitajali. Their society is a feudal empire structured around a singular leader, known as a Shikken, and the Shikken's vassal lords known as Shoguns. Their society is a strict one, but not an unjust one. Manners and politeness are highly valued among the Kinokans. Being rude to someone of even a lower station than you is grounds for seeking reparations.
As one can expect of the Kitsune, they also value espionage. Gathering together Dei warriors, Yuk wizards, Ol scouts and Cáo Tinh spies into various ninja clans that the Shikken and their Shoguns use to uncover useful information and weaknesses in enemy nations or aggressor armies. They were also used extensively in the Golden War to disrupt the Empires logistics and harry their command structure.
Interestingly, in the society of Kinokashima, farmers, laborers and fishermen are ranked higher than merchants. This is because merchants make coin by peddling the wares of more productive jobs. While not directly labeled as such, many of the other social strata consider the merchant caste leeches and parasites to varying degrees.
For various reasons Kitsune clans sometimes migrate to Samara Strima where they are unwelcome, becoming Cáo Tinh. However, they have an easy time of hiding in the rural regions. Many of their homes are shrines to the various Devas of the Kitajal-Shan, where they are often adopted as spirits of the land working in unison with their Deva masters.
Because of this, many Cáo Tinh tend to live up this legend, accepting offerings and delivering blessings as they see fit. However, before one confuses them with simple charlatans it is important to remember that the Cáo Tinh are careful not to abuse this position, and so they rarely make appearances to those delivering offerings, but only do so when their family needs the offerings.
Native Language
Cáo Tinh and Kitsune primarily speak an obscure and distantly related dialect of Síog, seemingly descended from Autumnsong, called Kotoba. Its a rushing language with no discernable pauses and spoken at a dull whisper.
Cáo Tinh were originally called Kitsune in their native Kotoban, but when they arrived in the Mortal Realms the Unknown referred to them as the Cáo Tinh, a name they kept when dealing with the wider Scorched Realms, though they may refer to themselves as Kitsune in their mother tongue. Kitsune will often refer to those who do not live on the Kinokan islands as Cáo Tinh which in this context has a similar meaning to "bumpkin" or "countryfolk". The Kitajal whom live on Kinokashima alongside their Kitsune allies no they prefer Kitsune and so choose to use this term themselves.
They may also speak Shani or Pek.
Customs & Values
Even the Kitsune of Kinokashima bear that stripe of curiosity and desire for adventure that plagues the Cait-Sidhe of Ulthar. Kitsune live in close families, often sharing a single dwelling.
A Kitsune family can rarely support more than a few members because of this. Those born later replace their older brothers and sisters who are given the responsibility of seeking out new places for their kin to hide and establish new homes there, if in Samara Strima, but in Kinokashima they begin a new clan cell with a generational home. They prefer these members to leave of their own volition and so, Kitsune society places a great deal of emphasis on independence and hail the pioneering spirit in their children as respectable.
While Cáo Tinh are loathe to travel or interact with others in their fox-forms outside of Kinokashima, even if they are forced to do so, they are not met with the same skepticism as Cait-Sidhe are in the Grim Countries. Rather, possibly more annoyingly, they are regarded as a good omen and many passerby will beg blessings and push offerings on to this exasperated Cáo Tinh. Kinokan Kitsune often go about their daily business as foxes, only adopting their human guises for convenience.
The First Road - When a Kitsune comes of age, they are allowed to immediately embark on their first voyage into the wider world. This custom is known as the First Road and without taking this journey, Kitsune believe their fox-forms cannot attain additional tails.
Common Etiquette
Kitsune ritually keep secrets and let few others know them. This makes trusting one fairly difficult, more so because they also consider revealing a secret to be a high form of insult to whomever the secret originated from. It is also considered social suicide to be overly rude to others, even those of a lesser station, unless they were rude first.
Taboos
It is common for Kitsune to give each other gifts when first they meet. Whether this is a parody, or an extension of the folk-practice of the Kitajal, is up to each individual Kitsune.
