Invasion!/Yokai:Profile

Yokai

The Yokai are a species of ancient colonists who came to earth before it had developed any self-aware sentient life. They set down in a region on the east side of the Eurasia continent. Later as human life developed sentience the descendants of the Yokai colonists made the decision to hide themselves and keep interaction to a minimum, although there were those who broke this standard. The Yokai possess a shape-shifting ability which they had originally used to take on the appearance of a mammal local to their landing area known in the earth language as a "Kitsune" in the local language, or "Fox" in the current dominant English. They do have a weakness in their transformations that they can never cause their tails to fully vanish which renders then unable to add or remove limbs from their body, only change their appearance. Thus, in cases where they do take on a form like that of a human, they usually keep the tails they had in their fox form as they have grown more accustomed to those bushy tails over their own natural slimy tails.

Throughout the centuries, the local humans have created several stories in regards to the Yokai, attributing several abilities to them that they do not in fact possess. Most of the local folk-lore correctly attributes most of their abilities to the name "Kitsune," identifying the fox which is their preferred form with all of their capabilities as they are, but the same folk-lore has gone on from there to use the actual name of their species and attributed all manner of forms, abilities, and powers that far exceed anything they can actually do, although due to them having the ability to change their shape it is easy to see how this confusion could have happened.

The native Yokai colonist descendants are long removed from any technology or contact with their home planet. During the invasion, a landing party made contact with the native Yokai colonist descendants in order to warn them of the impending danger.

Abilities

Negligible Senescence The Yokai do not experience telomorase breakdown, and thus do not experience negative effects from aging. In fact, the older they live the stronger they become. You can often tell the age of a Yokai by the number of tails they have. They are born with one tail. Around age 50 or so they grow a second tail (give or take 10% of their age.) They then grow a third tail at around age 200, a fourth around age 500, and then they continue on at a logarithmic rate with greater age gaps between each tail. The oldest Yokai who are around 20,000 years of age have 9 tails, the 9th tail having grown in at around age 12,000. It is as of yet uncertain whether or not they are capable of growing a 10th tail.

Shape-changing abilities The Yokai have an abundance of stem-cells identical to the embryonic state of their species in their bodies, and the ability to mentally guide the apoptosis of some cells in some regions of their body and promote cell development in other parts of their body in order to alter their physical appearance. It takes a 1 tailed Yokai around a year of effort to take on any form they want, but a 9 tailed Yokai could alter their appearance in under a day. One thing a Yokai can never change though is that they absolutely cannot eliminate their tails beings their tails contain the organ that produces their plentiful stem-cells and this organ cannot be migrated. The tails must remain at bare minimum 4 inches long and 3 inches in diameter in order to preserve this function.

Enterprising and intelligent Yokai will often grant their skin chamilion-like color changing abilities, and ready an entire set of hair follicles in order to shorten the time they need to transform between similar forms that can be sped along simply by growing their hair or changing skin color. Such simple transformations can be completed even by 1 tailed Yokai in about 30 minutes.

Pyrokenisis The Yokai have the psychic ability to create and control fire. Flames that the Yokai create will always have a bluish-white color where as already existing flames they manipulate will have the color appropriate their original fuel source.

Biology

Genders & Reproduction

The Yokai can be either or any gender appropriate to a form they have decided to take on. However, even the oldest Yokai will need an additional 50% to the time it takes them to transform in order to adapt their gamates to be capable of reproducing viable offspring with another species. Any offspring born via methods other than the mammalian female method of reproduction will produce a normal member of whatever species they are imitating, perhapse with some faint psychic abilities. They will not have the embryonic stem-cell prodicing tails or the ability to transform unless they reproduce via the female mammalian method. They must bear the child within their own bodies in order to impart those abilities as it requires them to partially un-do the transformation. Upon conception the fetus will be a perfectly normal member of the species they transformed into and the Yokai mother must revert the fetus into a Yokai while it is in her womb. This is not possible if they are reproducing as a male or reproducing by laying an egg.

Aging

As mentioned above under "abilities," the Yokai have negligible senescence and only grow stronger as in all of their abilities as they age. They are capable of making themselves look elderly, but they will always be in perfect health. In terms of appearance of physical age, the Yokai can freely choose how old or young they look.

Diet

Yokai can modify their intestinal tract to process almost any substance, however due to the need to fuel their well developed brains they cannot afford to dedicate too much physical space to their intestines and thus need to consume high energy foods such as meats and cooked vegetables. They could theoretically modify their digestive tract to process rocks and minerals, but the energy it would take to do so would be very inefficient so it is almost never done. Their diet usually consists entirely of organic substances. Their immune system is another thing to factor in to what they can and cannot eat as well, their immune system is approximately as strong as that of a human.

Senses

• 5 basic senses

The Yokai have the ability to determine the sharpness of all 5 of their basic senses, but the exact strength of their senses is determined by how many neurons in their brain they dedicate to each task. The standard is that each of the 5 senses are about 150% that of a human, but some Yokai will weaken one of their senses in order to enhance another.

Other Considerations

While the Yokai are plenty capable of making themselves in every way better than a natural creature of the form they are taking, they are somewhat limited by the biology and laws of physics as apply to their form. Physical strength for instance is strongly dependent on the physical bulk of the muscles. A Yokai can make their muscles a little longer and infuse their bodies with enzymes to increase ATP production, or even mentally override the 5% natural limit on their muscles. Muscles of all creatures of every species can only use 5% of the output of their muscles at any given time in order to prevent the muscle from tiring too fast. A Yokai can override this limit for a short burst of strength, but it will of course have the consequence of tiring them out quickly.

Other capabilities such as the perceptual senses can be improved a lot further beyond the natural limits of the creature who's form they are taking on, but even this is limited by the amount of neurons in the brain that can be dedicated to this task. Yokai have a far thicker neural density compared to the human brain, and they generally preserve their high functioning brains when they take on the forms of non-hominid animals. On this subject, Yokai tend to be smarter than humans, but not by an overwhelming amount. Their IQ tends to average around 125. The unusual thing though is that the standard deviation for intelligence among their species is only 5 instead of 15 as it is for humans, meaning their IQ bell curve is extremely sharp and you just about never see a Yokai with an IQ below 100, but it is also unheard of to find a Yokai with an IQ above 150.

Government & Culture

Government

The Yokai blend into human society, but their tribe does have some semblance of an internal government. The direction of the Yokai tribes are determined by a council of the 13 oldest members of the earth Yokai. These 13 oldest Yokai are the only remaining survivors of the original colonists (the rest having died violent deaths to predators as Yokai do not die of old age.) These 13 elders run the Oligarcical faction of the Yokai, the more structured portion of the population. This faction often uses its power to influence human politics.

There is another earth-born faction in the Yokai tribe. It is the anarchistic faction. The anarchistic faction rarely meets face to face and is dispersed throughout the world and blended in with humans. They have however embraced the advent of the internet and tend to use it to communicate with each other, often highjacking conspiracy theory pushing media in order to sneak in code words that will be understood by any Yokai but seem normal and unimportant to a human.