Tsune

The Tsune are a fox like race that inhabit the Eastern Islands. While the race changes depending on the island they live on, there are a few common threads that tie their race together. Heavily concerned with personal honor, they hold their personal creed and outlook on life as the most important part of their lives, and consider anyone or anything that is in opposition to their creed to be an enemy or obstacle that should be removed. This has also led to an extreme feeling of nationalism, and they only interact with races outside of the islands during limited trades. The rare Tsune that ventures beyond the boundaries of the island is often considered an outcast amongst its own people.

Physiology
The Tsune resemble humanoid foxes, bipedal in nature, with the head of a fox, long, silken tails, and a thick coat of fur, which, depending on the native island, could be red, silver, or white. They do not often wear much clothing, save for light, silk cloaks, and only during the colder months of the year. While primarily bipedal, they can, if need be, bend down on all fours to increase their speed.

Their sense of hearing, smelling, and eyesight are especially powerful, making them excellent hunters. Their eyes, often golden in color, allow them some measure of nocturnal sight, and their hands are often tipped with claws. The claws are often a sign of status amongst the Tsune, with more powerful Tsune having larger claws. Because of this, declawing is an especially harsh punishment reserved for high ranking criminals. As powerful as their other sense are, the Tsune's sense of taste is blunted, often leading them to ingesting potentially harmful items without realizing it. For this reason, it's a common practice to thoroughly smell anything they plan to put in their mouths.

A Tsune's tail is used for balance and also as a form if silent communication. Often how sign language is used to communicate in secret with another person, the same principle is used in relation to a Tsune's tail. Whether it is raised, lowered, shaking, shuddering, or swaying in a wide arc, it often conveys more of a Tsune's emotions than their faces do, as their fox-like heads are not built for displaying as wide a range of emotions as other races.

Culture
Again, due to the differences in the island clans, the culture differs slightly from place to place, but all the Tsune clans generally have some similar cultural ideas. Since Tsunes prize their honor so highly, any insult is taken with great gravity by them and an insulted Tsune will often take on a creed of vengeance against any and all who he feels have insulted him. this has led to long chains of familial feuds based on insults and assassinations.

Tsunes do not often have close relations with other races, aside from the Kerri, who they share the islands with. They view most of the rest of the world as uncouth and barbaric, unable to comprehend the practices of other nations, to the point where Tsunes who are overly exposed to other cultures feel an extreme case of identiy crisis. For this reason, most Tsunes prefer to avoid any sort of interaction from the outside world, to the point where trading with the main continent is very limited and anyone who moves beyond the sanctioned trading harbor is often met with extreme hostility.

In terms of war, Tsune have never engaged in anything resembling an extended confrontation. Most wars are small-scale skirmishes, either between two families or two different clans. The worst that the Tsune have experienced have been a few small inter-island battles. This could be changing, however, as relations between the main continent and the islands has been strained as of late, as the other races have been demanding more access to trading posts and have attempted negotiations for access to the natural resources of the islands. The more militant clans are expecting a major confrontations before the turn of the century.