Incident at a Japanese Inn: An Introduction

Now that the rough draft of The Inugami is complete, as I edit it, I am already doing research for the next section of my braided novel.

Incident at a Japanese Inn takes place inside the walls of the Tsuta Ryokan, a Japanese guest house made by yōkai for yōkai. In the first two sections of the novel, The Shrine War and The Inugami, I introduce the reader to only two types of Japan's hundreds of yōkai: Kitsune (illusion-casting anthropomorphic foxes) and Inugami (anthropomorphic canine slaves created by a dark and evil Daoist sorcery). I also very briefly introduced two onis, generic Japanese dæmons.

In An Incident at a Japanese Inn I am opening my literary universe to a number of yōkai races:

• Tengu, a sort of bird-like creature
• Nekomata, a fork-tailed cat
• Tanuki, raccoon dogs and I will play down their...let's say, prominent assets.
• Yanari aka House Creakers: little tiny goblins that make the floors of your house creak.
• Mujina, a shapeshifting badger 

Unfortunately, Japanese folklore only contains a very few of actual races. the vast majority of yōkai are singular entities restricted to a very specific locale such as a city gate or a specific river, so I may take my liberty as a writer and make up a yōkai of my very own.

As always, stay tuned. The adventure will be a lot of fun.