Character Base

• Character Name: Taro Watanabe
• Age: 151
• Canon (Date/Year Released)/Canon Point: Original
• Items Coming Along: Tape recorder (with used tape), a set of spy novels, a swiss army knife, a set of lockpicks, a crowbar, first aid kit.
• Content Warnings for Character: Racism, general criminal activity, soul eating, World War II, murder, religious manipulation.

Character Background

• History:

World Information

It's more or less 'modern day', but with a twist - legends are real. Not dramatically - you won't see faeries floating through the air on your way to work, and you won't run into an inugami at the park - but they're still there. They blend into human society where they can, and shelter those who can't. Supernaturals from the same regions cluster together in chapters of the Underground - a network of supernatural creatures that do what they can to survive and to not alert the 'normal' population that they exist.

The basic structure of the Underground is this - each 'region' (usually several states or the equivalent territory thereof) has a council that is elected every decade. The manner of election has changed over the years - ranging anywhere from a fighting tournament to peaceful ballot-casting. The council then elects provincial managers, who then elect district managers, who rule over the city managers. Usually this is enough, but large cities are divided into quarters, which are the smallest unit.

The Underground has a large network of specialists in forgery, robbery, and item fencing. It's through these systems that most supernatural creatures make a living or gain the means to live off-network. Most choose to stick to their own kind, and the ones who can function 'above-ground' are seen as being stupid, lucky, or both. For those who can't live amongst normal humans due to appearance problems, they might spend their whole lives in the dark, literally underground, or in protected safehouses - because appearance illusions are expensive to purchase for those who can't cast them on their own.

For those that can live amongst humans, they generally live spread out. More than two or three members in a neighborhood is rare, due to territory disputes and worries of too much power blowing an area up. There's also the matter of most members of the Underground being used to a criminal life where you have to be too careful, and so the fear of being stabbed in the back is high. There's rumors of the Underground being connected with the Mafia, Triad, and Yakuza, and while the depth of these connections isn't known, there are some members that run their operations in a distinctly gang-like manner. There's even a black market that sells off things like cursed knives and bottled human souls, the latter of which contain the energy that the supernaturals use to fuel their magical abilities. They can get by without them, but the boost helps. Humans have a lot of potential magical energy, but little or no way to use it unless they are partly supernatural themselves.

However, things are changing in the Underground. The Underground is starting to tear itself apart from rumors of direct communications with the gods - and conflicting messages. Members are dying, and it's unclear if it's an inside or outside job. Panic is rising, and it's getting harder and harder to hide things from human society.

Character Information

Taro, as a tanuki, wasn't 'born' the way most humans are. He wasn't, and then he was. Scrounging around in his natural form, he experimented, and took the form of a small human child who was adopted by a family on the coast. He 'grew', changing his illusion to suit the age he was supposed to be, and when his family immigrated to America, he followed.

With a big new land to explore and the pressures of keeping an illusion growing, Taro ran away from his family, though he worried about them and checked in on them from time to time under disguises. Things did not go particularly well for him or them during World War II, leading Taro to swear off the idea of families. He toured around the country, and found out that he wasn't the only 'mythical' creature who had arrived from Japan or other areas in Asia. He helped form another arm of the 'Underground', a way to help those so-called 'mythical' creatures who could blend into human society to survive - and to shelter those who couldn't in safehouses. He modeled the idea after the European spirits he ran into who did the same thing. After all, it was a good idea - why change it?

Over the next several decades, he met a young half-kitsune woman named Toshiko. She was afraid of him at first, but he gained her trust and introduced her to the Underground. Sometimes they would work 'jobs' together, which usually involved stealing something valuable. Usually Taro would distract a guard with illusions and Toshiko would swoop in, but sometimes they involved more planning, and the two of them quickly learned that they were a deadly team. They moved around together, and Toshiko started to spend more time among humans. Taro was afraid for her, but let her do what she pleased - after all, he wasn't likely to be able to stop her.

With more free time, Taro started investigating some troubling rumors about the Underground. Some of the higher-level members were starting to claim that they had direct communication to the gods, especially the gods of their own lands. Believing this to be a total sack of bullshit, Taro started digging into files and listening in on conversations.

The higher-ups did not take this well. Founding member or no, Taro had to be eliminated. One day when he was sitting in the safehouse apartment he shared with Toshiko, a tengu burst in, locking the door behind him. He explained that Taro was going to die. Calmly, clicking on a recorder in his pocket, Taro tricked the tengu into telling him what was happening.

The gods were real, yes. But they were fading without prayer, so they were forming cults among the Underground to gain power again - and they would do whatever they needed in order to get it. Of course, this is just what the tengu was told - but he didn't care. The tengu slaughtered Taro and left a note for Toshiko.

• Core Relationships:

+ His family: The only family he's ever had - the Watanabes took him in and fed him and clothed him and treated him as their own child, even moving to another country to try to have a better life for their children. He knows he hurt them terribly by running away, but he knew he wouldn't be able to keep up his disguises forever. He will always hold a candle for them in his heart, and he can never forgive what they were put through during the war. He's never wanted a family since - they're the only ones he's had and they're the only ones he needs.

+ Toshiko Yamamoto: His best friend, his only confidant, his partner in crime. (Literally.) Their relationship is close enough that one might mistake them for being a couple, and many have. But they're not - they're really just the best of friends, and anyone who says otherwise can fuck off. They care about each other deeply, and Taro worries about Toshiko a lot. She's younger than him and half human, so he initially tried to basically be her senpai - but she wouldn't take that from him. She's the one person in the world that he can trust intimately enough to reveal his insecurities to, and the same with her. Occasionally they've spent a few years apart, but they always come back to each other. She was his first thought when he was attacked, and the person he trusts to carry on his investigation now that he's gone.

+/- The Underground: He loves his creaetion, despite it getting away from him. He loves that there's a safe place for creatures like him. What he hates is the criminal element. Sure, forgery is fine - you need to get paperwork somehow - but the gang activity in it makes him really uncomfortable. If somehow their cover was blown completely, the addition of serious criminal activity would only make them look even worse to humans. Not that he's ever paranoid that day will come, no...

- Gods: Taro has never had any respect for any god or godlike being in his entire existence. He recognizes that they exist, but he has no love for them. He wants people to be self-directed, not spoken down to by a deity. He doesn't want to overthrow any gods or anything like that, but those that claim allegiance to them are viewed with suspicion. The gods in his world are gathering power and followers through some very dubious means, and he's already died because of that nonsense. He doesn't want to deal with even more bullshit like that.

Taro might seem like he has very few relationships, and that's true! As a magical creature he has to hide his existence from people in general. Due to his need to keep moving around the country so he doesn't get caught, he's had very little time to make deep friendships with basically anyone but Toshiko. He's a very lonely person, especially when separated from her... but he hides it as best he can.

Character Personality Through Key Moments

(2+) Positive Experiences:
+ Taro is clever. You can see this in his experiences of setting up the Underground - you have to be clever in order to get such disparate groups of supernatural creatures in order to work together. Taro also exemplifies this in his thievery, often causing distractions or illusions convincing enough to be able to fool the guards or the cameras. Furthermore, he shows this in his death - being smart enough to have gotten a tape recorder and clear-headed enough to start recording.
+ Taro is also upbeat. He's got a great sense of humor even with what he's seen, and this comes through in his general everyday demeanor. He's gotten far by joking with people - he's stolen plenty of wallets by becoming fast friends and just sneaking his hand into a purse or bag. He also exemplfies this in his death, joking with the tengu that's trying to kill him in a last ditch effort to save his life.

(2+) Negative Experiences:
- Taro can be aloof - while he pretends not to be, he definitely keeps his own counsel most of the time. He cares about other people deep down, but he doesn't want to really get to know humans. After all, they're just going to end up getting upset when he picks up and leaves suddenly. He tries to not get too close because he knows that they can't really know him. That's a good way to get autopsied or heartbroken due to shorter lifespans. He also is pretty removed from a lot of the Underground - people know him, but they don't know him. Most people don't even know what a huge hand he had in creating their branch - they know who he is now, but not what he's done.
- Taro is also overly curious. Curiosity can be a good trait, but not when Taro uses it. He sticks his nose into everyone's business whether he's wanted or not. He's had numerous occasions of being chased off or beaten by angry people, bot human and supernatural alike. Most importantly he's also gotten his nose stuck into all of this god business, and that's what got a tengu sent after him to kill him.

Deer Country Attributes

• Canon Powers: As a tanuki, Taro’s specialty is illusions and transformations.
- His illusions can be broken through by someone who has a fair amount of magical skill, but for those unfamiliar with illusions his can be somewhat tricky to see through. The more complicated the illusion, the less time he can keep it up. Something like making a pile of leaves to look like a pile of money can last several hours, while something like making someone see an image of a horrible alien monster can only last maybe a few minutes. Changing someone’s entire worldview with an illusion might be kept up for a few seconds at most. Importantly, while they don't hold up to magical scrutiny they do hold up visually - a hundred dollar bill looks real, and that scurrying rat that distracted the guard can get picked up on camera.
- His ‘natural’ form is of a small tanuki (roughly like this), but he walks around with a human disguise most of the time. As long as it’s not too drastic, he can keep up a transformation for days before reverting to his usual form. He can also change his disguise’s gender at will (though he usually prefers not to). His disguises are pretty accurate, even getting the voice right - so someone who’s not very attentive might mistake him for whomever he’s disguising himself as (which is obviously the point). He has to force himself to adopt the right mannerisms, though. He can also transform into animals and use their physical capabilities (breathing water as a fish, flying as a bird, claws as a grizzly bear) but the more physical stress he puts on his transformations the faster they break. He can also transform into objects but that’s not as fun.
- He has a limited ability to store things in a 'pocket space' - it's basically where anything that would go in his pockets goes. He can't store anything bigger than what would fit inside a small bag or deep jeans pocket - and the more or bigger the items are, the less he can store.

I have a permissions post for his powers here, as well as an opt-in for fourth walling.
• Blood Type: Paleblood
• Omen: A white fox
• Blessed Day: April 1
• Patron Pthumerian: Argonaut
• Blood Power Manifestation: Eventually I want him to be able to dreamwalk, but I also want him to be able to calm emotions a bit. Good for talking people down from corruption or beasthood.

The former will take a while to manifest, the latter he'll probably think he's just doing via talking. His natural abilities will definitely be stronger.