The other day I was thinking about the fact that I never really explained what the Kitsune revenge mission was (mainly because I hadn't really thought it out). I then promptly forgot until now when I saw Marcello's question.
Kitsune's mission was always supposed to be a lot larger than just killing the people who destroyed the organization 1. to stay in line with the huge scale of their original goals and 2. because by the time Kitsune would gain enough power to take revenge on the various forces that brought about their downfall, many of them would already be dead (although I suppose they could have just wanted revenge on the bloodlines, but that doesn't quite fit our needs so I'm going in a different direction).
The surviving members of Kitsune really had the sense that the forces of cowardice, ignorance, and despair within the human spirit were the cause of the group's destruction. Of course, these traits were not specific to the peasants who betrayed Kitsune. For Kitsune, these traits are the embodiment and root of human weakness. They are failures of the human existence worthy of eradication.
As a result of this philosophy, Kitsune members would, throughout history, assassinate public leaders or even groups of people who allowed these traits to dominate their decisions/lives. While all of these missions were committed in complete secrecy, they were not always successful. If failure did not lead directly to death, it would lead to suicide for the sake of hiding the existence of Kitsune. Over centuries, such failures led to the thinning of the most zealot members. Alongside the disinterest of Kitsune descendants in the mission, Kitsune faded over time.
While important to the ideology of Kitsune, these assassinations were not the true realization of the mission. Kitsune's true mission was to create a world in which weakness could not exist. The form of such a world and the method to reach it was never really agreed upon. In the hands of Ibn, Kitsune's goal is the dismantling of society (simply put, he is a sort of anarchist). His logic is that if nations, armies, and police forces provide protection for their citizens then those citizens are allowed to grow complacent and weak. They need neither the muscle to defend themselves nor the will to make their own decisions.
But Ibn doesn't envision a world of balance where individual might becomes its own form of stability and protection. Ibn wants chaos. Only in formless chaos could human weakness be crushed. Ibn doesn't care what else would be lost with it (he's certainly not a hero).
San Paro plays into this for its current turmoil and for its location. Not only is San Paro a city collapsing into chaos, but it is doing so within one of the strongest nations in the earth. Ibn's hope is that if he can collapse one pillar, then the rest of the temple will follow.
From this origin, I can already see a handful of ways that other characters could be tied into this group. They could be like Ibn: lost children raised upon violence and exposed to the maddening darkness of the world. They could be descendants of the Kitsune members who relearn their heritage and want to pick up the mission again. They could be visionaries moved by the original goal of Kitsune's world for the people. They could be thrill seekers or they could be vultures, hoping to find a living in the wake of destruction. There are probably a million other ways to tie a character into the group and that's before you start mixing and matching origin stories. Let me hear your thoughts. I know you story lovers have some ideas bouncing around in your imaginations.
