Moriyama

Backstory

     Moriyama was born in the Edo period to a clan of Bake-Danuki, among 7 other siblings, deep in the mountains, Known as The Moriyama Clan.
Known as Ponta-chan by his family and Ri-kun by his peers. Ri was the most talented of his siblings, he quickly learned and mastered shape-shifting. He earned the nickname "Ponta" for having the loudest belly drum.
     Rinobu was next up in line to become the head of his family, as his father fell ill with a sickness leaving him weak and without much energy but the daunting responsibilities put him in a hard place. When his father finally died he decided to become head of the family, pushing himself to be better.
     As Rinobu got older, in his early adulthood, he occasionally went out into the city disguised as a human. Even though he was supposed to be covert, he couldn't resist the opportunities to help humans and occasionally trick them and became well known in the city as the helpful cheeky mountain man, telling the locals he hailed from the mountains, they assume his strength was from fighting off the vengeful spirits of the mountain.

More Story - Moriyama Clan

        The Moriyama tanuki clan take residence in a Shrine Grove, a clearing in the center of a circle of thick trees and brush, safely guarded against humans.
Throughout the Edo period, the Moriyama clan's land had faced uprooting with the expansion of developing towns and cities, though they fended off humans successfully by tricking, scaring, and tormenting humans that set foot in the mountain. The humans, never fully seeing the tanuki, dubbed the mountain clearing a shrine grove and treated The Moriyama clan as kami. In the eyes of the other youkai and kemono that inhabited the mountain, the Moriyama clan become local royalty.
        The Moriyama clan now had serious respect among the other tanuki clans and were seen as the ruler of tanuki of the mountain, tanuki from other clans sought protection under the Moriyama clan and were accepted with open arms.
         With the modernization of humanity the Moriyama clan adapted. After his fathers passing, Rinobu and his family turned the shrine grove into a full-fledged shrine, disguising themselves as a human family running the shrine.