A local guardian whose tanuki shapeshifter lore was deified at sites such as the Mahō Shrine in Kari, Sōja City, and the Hinokaminari Shrine and Amatsu Shrine in Kibichūō. The name has no relation to Western magic, with a noted theory of corruption from Marishiten. Some local accounts place its arrival in the late Muromachi period. Worship centers on keeping cattle and horses healthy and on protection from fire and theft. On temple fair days, people would visit leading their cattle and horses, and tales speak of a tanuki’s passage hole and offerings of fried tofu. Hallmarks of tanuki lore appear—shapeshifting, omens, and money glamour that makes leaves seem like gold—yet it ultimately came to be enshrined as the village’s tutelary deity.
Character Profile
This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.
Yokai Type - Traditional Yokai
Category - Deities & Divine Spirits
Rarity - Divine
Personality - honor-bound, rewards kindness and grants protection, stern toward hunting and irreverence
Compatibility - cherishes livestock, harmonizes with village communities
Abilities - blessing for cattle and horses, omen-giving for fire and theft, shapeshifting into human form, glamour that makes leaves appear as money, fostering village prosperity
Weaknesses - withdraws in the face of irreverence or contempt, retaliatory toward hunting and harmful intent
Habitat - Kari and Nakaodakiyama Mahō Shrine in Sōja City, Okayama, Uedanishi Kurogui Hinokaminari Shrine in Kibichūō, Okayama, Hosoda Amatsu Shrine and Kubota-sama in Kibichūō, Okayama
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