Pyroraptor Draws

To talk about the AU a bit more, it'll be very similiar to the standard P4G story, except with a focus on folklore. Yosuke is still the Magician Arcana, but his mother will fulfill the role of the Hermit and the actual fox who takes over the shrine. Unfortunately this does mean the shrine fox itself does not exist in this AU.

As for the main cast we have:

Yu - an ordinary human. I thought this fit the best for him. He's going to still be an animal whisperer with an added interest in the occult.

Yosuke - A kitsune and shrine fox in training. Liberty is taken with all of the mythologies to some degree, to fit the narrative and also mirror the fact that folklore tends to have both some kernels of truth and a lot of exaggeration. Yosuke has 3 tails despite not being, you know, 300 years old.

Chie and Yukiko - They are both Tanuki, Yukiko's family of course running the inn for generations. Chie moved into inaba when she was basicially a very young child, and them both being Tanuki adds to them both being friends.

Kanji - Kanji is a werewolf, as is the rest of his family. Werewolves are obviously aggressive in folklore, but i decided to twist it a bit. They're only really dangerous during a blood or supermoon.

Rise - Rise is a Siren. Self-explanatory. I mostly based her appearance on a Common Lionfish. Once again, there's both a duality when it comes to the myths of Sirens. Their song charming people is a side-effect, it is actually an evolutionary adaption to communicate over long distances, similiar to whales. However this manifested in legends because some sirens certainly abused this unintended side-effect. They do not eat humans though.

Naoto - Naoto is a bakeneko. This is mostly based on the myth of some cats becoming sapient and helping their owners. Fits well with the Fortune arcana. They also have a split tail, which is seen as an omen amongst bakeneko.

Teddie - Teddie is already Teddie, and I thought it to be best to keep him as he is already. Everyone is confinced he's the strangest one, even though they're all out of the ordinary.

Overall, this AU operates on a similiar logic as VTMN, where there is a masquerade. Cryptids and Yokai prefer to keep themselves as hidden as possible, as to not be hunted. Humans are generally unaware of them and the magic around them, both linked to a general loss in believe and the obliviousness people have.

Now, I am strongly conflicted on the recently created 'Direwolves' by Collossal. On one hand, technology like this COULD be theoreticially used to help current species which are going extinct or recently extinct species by perhaps increasing the avaiability of their genetic pool. HOWEVER, the creation of these 'Direwolves' proves that we need to be incredibly careful with this technology.

These animals are neither direwolves, if anything they are their own species or a genitically modified form of a greywolf. They do not actually have that many things in common with actual direwolves either, from what i could tell (they look more like a game of thrones/media version of one).

I usually try to stay out of debates like this, but as a person who grew up loving extinct animals, this pains me to see. These animals have no current niche in the modern ecosystem neither do they resemble an actual Aenocyon Dirus from what I can tell. I encourage everyone to look up peer reviewed studies about these animals and if you want to know more about what Collossal actually created, a lot of people have made great videos about the topic. (Hank Green, etc.)