Inugamis have the following basic fey powers:

• Inugamis can vanish and become insubstantial by speaking their True Name into a reflective surface.

If they wish to possess an inanimate object, they must bury it for a day first. If they do not dig it back up, they will become trapped in the dirt with their heads poking out.

An inugami may choose an owner to bind to permanently by licking their nose, neck, and ears twice a day for a week. When they bond to an owner, they take on their family as well, helping them get things they want, helping them prosper, but also making them susceptible to hard-to-treat diseases. If a family tries to get rid of the inugami, they sometimes lash out and attack family members, biting them to death. When an inugami dies in a possessed person, that person dies as well, covered in bite marks.

Mortals and other feys can capture starving inugamis, cut off their heads, and bury them at a crossroads. This will exacerbate the inugami's grudges against those who did not feed them and create a curse that can be wielded by the buryer.

Inugamis cannot possess a being without ears. Families can get rid of an inugami connection by luring it away with food to another family, then fleeing to the mountains.

If they do not speak their True Name backwards into that same reflective surface in half a minute, inugamis lose their True Names. They have a fortnight to recover it or they become targets of the Wild Hunt, corrupted into another kind of fey, or turn into a hag or boggin. Iron or steel will bind an inugami into powerlessness. An iron horseshoe nailed over a door will bar an inugami from entering a house. Most inugamis detest tobacco smoke, and it can be used to stave them off. This is just a preference, however, and not a weakness.

Inugamis sometimes possess mortals by licking their ears. This can bring them ruin or good fortune.

A mortal can summon an inugami through certain rituals:

• Bury a dog alive with its head sticking out of the ground.
• Attach a dog to a pole and putfood just out of reach, then cut its neck when it is about to starve. The head will fly forward and bite at the food and become an inugami.
• Burn a dog into just bones, put the remains in a vessel, and pray to it, to get the inugami to possess the burner and grant requests.
• Set several dogs to fight one another, then give the surviving dog fish to eat. Cut off the dog's head, eat the remaining fish to be possessed.
• An inugami can be summoned by mortals by burying a dog to its neck, surrounding it with food, and then letting it die or killing it with a bamboo saw.

A captured inugami kept in a chest in a store room or in a communal water jug can be controlled by a mortal. Some families are more susceptible to inugami possession because their ancestors were possessed. Where this is common, others discriminate against these families.