Homebrew Caprican (Male) Species Details

"It's only hogwash and smoke if its not true. Trust me love, for me, its all true."

Common male caprican sentiment

 

The great caprican cities are found on the far off archipelagos and islands of Toril. The caprican are a seafaring civilization based on trade, shipping, piracy, and local manufacturing. Charismatic and gregarious, this highly social race can also be vain, cutthroat in business, and are acquisitive by nature. Male caprican will spend years away from their home islands and communities in the pursuit of amassing wealth and prestige before returning to home islands and communities. 

Male caprican wander far and wide across Toril often working as adventurers, pirates, mariners, bandits and mercenaries. They are skilled artisans specializing in art and design focused crafts. They can also be found all across Toril running shops that specialize in hard to find foods, exotic spices, imported wares, and stolen merchandise. 

As a playable race the advantage of the male caprican comes in their high strength and charisma stats. Blade singers, Swashbucklers, and Hex Blades pair well with this race. Their race is skilled in magic and are great in classes that lean into their natural charisma and make great Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks. However they rarely make good Paladins due to their acquisitive natures and naturally self centered and arrogant personalities. Male caprican are rarely glass cannons. They prefer to close in for a melee attack and bring the fight to the enemy. 

Description

One of the beast-kin races, their bodies are horn-headed, tailed, and goat-like. Their bodies are completely furred and have elaborate coloration and patterns unique to each individual. They have mobile pointed ears that flare out from their heads ending in little tufts of fur. Their faces are a hybrid of human and goat, short muzzled, and highly expressive. They have human hands but digitigrade legs ending in split hooves. 

The caprican are sexually dimorphic. Males are on average a foot to a foot and a half taller than the females. Around six to seven feet in height on average. They outweigh the females of their race by one-hundred to one-hundred and fifty pounds. And can top out at around three-hundred pounds for exceptionally muscular individuals. As a rule males tend to be tall, naturally muscular and bulky while females are petite, leanly muscled and extremely lithe.

Independence and Arrogance

Male caprican society places a premium on self-sufficiency, and financial success. Males are arrogant, cocky, and flashy. They flaunt their wealth and resources, wear expensive clothing and decorations, flaunt their physical and business prowess, and adorn themselves with lots of jewelry. In human society this would be seen as highly narcissistic, however for the caprican this is just another form of their natural competitiveness. There are few humble or self effacing male capricans. If you ever meet one they are trying to con you or sell you something. 

Male capricans’ self reliance and focus on individual financial success however has a dark side. Caprican are cutthroat businessmen who are willing murder, steal, and cheat if it means they will gain an advantage. They have few compunctions about breaking the law or using others to achieve their goals. Enough is often never enough. Their constant habit of showing off their achievements can also be grating for some people. In business relations a caprican can be trusted to always stick to the letter of a contract. But they can also be trusted to knife you in the back if they can get away with it.

Success at all Costs

In caprican society in general and male caprican society in particular, achieving success and profit drive many of their social interactions. Competence is measured by the drive, ingenuity, and the risks that one is willing to take to win. Nothing is off of the table and success can be achieved in many ways. Hard work, cleverness and initiative are highly valued, especially for those who work in skilled crafts and trades. They also see nothing wrong with using magic and magical items to get an advantage. Using blackmail, bribery, kidnapping, and threats are also accepted methods of financial gain. Capicran are always aware that today's success can be tomorrow's failure and often have backup plans and contingencies.

From a very young age male caprican are expected to be self-reliant and independent. As children male capricans are expected to compete. They earn additional education in academics, magical and combat training, and access to trade or craft apprenticeships through excelling at those tasks and beating out their peers. They are given few resources, instead they are expected to earn the right to them through their own effort and initiative, even if this means breaking clan law. 

Acquisitive Nature

The caprican are fond of ‘the new,’ and like owning expensive and unique items. Their habit of coveting the possessions of others often means that they will shortly work to own those items through trickery and duplicity, theft, or, if necessary, purchase. A caprican will always go out of his or her way to show off their wealth and status. Because of this, the caprican like investing in new and interesting architecture and art. They like hiring the latest designers of fashion and decor. They are in many ways pushing the bleeding edge of high fashion and new design as both patrons and craftsmen. 

They also are driven to find and keep things that others own and most can’t have. A unique item from an ancient dragon’s hoard. An artifact thought lost to time. A treasure owned by another. Forgotten magic and spells. Rare magical ingredients and specimens. Things forbidden and taboo. For these reasons the motivation for a caprican to become an adventurer is to go out and find loot and treasure.

Public Perception

The capricans are sometimes confused as tieflings by those who are unfamiliar with them or interact with them seldomly. This has led to discrimination and hostility by those who don’t know them and their people. The caprican tendency to be acquisitive, their arrogant and smug behavior, their cutthroat business dealings, and their tendency to dress in flashy and expensive clothing has given some humans and especially elves a negative opinion of them.

In their friendships they are boisterous, charismatic, gregarious, and generous, and are known for forming longlasting close friendships. They like acquiring people as friends as much as objects and art and will go out of their way to meet interesting people. They get along with dwarves very well. And with elves not at all. 

Cities, Dwellings, and Communities

Early in their history the caprican were driven into the sea by a faction of the Vyshaantar Empire during the Fifth Crown War. With few options they turned to the sea and set sail to explore and find new homes. In the years since they have become great sailors and explorers, establishing cities and communities on islands far from the coasts of Toril’s continents. 

The caprican prefer to live in hard to access areas, building settlements and communities on and into coastal cliffs and ravines. The largest caprican cities are to be found on islands and archipelagos far out to sea. In addition caprican can be found in small enclaves throughout Toril in communities that have a large enough population to house profitable business districts, and are found in small enclaves in cities and communities throughout Toril living in fortified Great Clan Houses surrounded by or near to a market, shopping district, or craftsmens’ area.

Clan Society

The caprican live in a socially stratified matriarchal society centered on familial clans. Within the clan only one male resides as the ‘Clan Father’ and sires the young of the clan, but hold no actual power within it. A matriarch leads each clan and rules it with an iron fist. The roles of each clan member are fixed and can not be easily changed. The clan is expected to provide for all of the needs of the women living within it’s walls but females also have few choices that they can make beyond their own personal needs. Due to this life within the walls of the Clan Home can be very secure surrounded by loving and attentive family, but also very stifling, especially for young female capricans. 

A young female’s social status is inherited through their mother’s social status within the clan and their birth order. As they age they are expected to gain status through achieving success in their education and in social relations. A female that is the daughter of a socially dominant mother can lose social status within the clan through failing in their education or assigned roles. No female’s status is safe until their status is established around the age of majority, and then it is maintained through effort. 

Around the age of majority females start to form a small group of females centered around a very socially dominant female that will become either the designated heir of the clan or the matriarch of a new ‘clan seed.’ Educational and financial resources are carefully measured out as a young female ages. If a member of a ‘clan seed’ they are given the resources needed to go out and establish their own clan. In this way the caprican race has spread far and wide across Toril. 

For male capricans the story is very different. Mothers are also loving and attentive to their needs, but their education is focused on weeding out the week, stupid and unambitious. As the male caprican achieves puberty they will be moved to the outer courtyards of their clan homes. The competition between males increases as fewer educational resources are granted to them and those that don’t meet the matriarch's standards are expelled from the clan. Those that survive this winnowing to the age of majority are expelled from the clan home to make their own way in the world with additional education or training in the craft guilds. From that day forth, unless they are selected as a Clan Father they will never see the inside of a Clan Home again. 

Male caprican live in bachelor districts owned by their home clan, or on private estates if they have amassed enough wealth. Shopping districts with upper floor apartments owned by the proprietors are common in caprian communities outside of their home islands. Those few that have impressed one of the many clans might only live with them for a few seasons before the clan selects a new ‘clan father.’ 

The clan is the central organization of the society. Individuals work within the clan to make manufactured goods for sale, run its shop, and act for the good of the clan. In return the clan works for the members physical comfort and maintenance. The clan is the unit of governmental representation, not the individual and the idea of democracy is foreign to the average. Caprican. Males have little political power unless they have developed a sizable enough financial and business empire to demand representation from the female lead society. 

Lycanthropy

If bitten by a lycanthrope the caprican will not, ever, be able to resist the curse. They change into a demonic ‘goat-like’ creature with no midform. If changed by a wereshark they will become an aquatic version of that ‘demon-goat’. The longer that a caprican has been a lycanthrope the longer that they stay in the changed form during each change until they never change back. The only way to cure them is the use of a wish spell.

During the time they are changed they mindlessly attack everyone. Friend or foe. Family. No one is safe. Because of this lycanthropes are never permitted the opportunity to live if discovered and are hunted without exception. It is the one thing that every clan agrees on no matter the political tensions that exist between them. If a lycanthropy outbreak is unchecked it can lead to the absolute destruction of an entire settlement in months. 

If there is a rumor that a lycanthrope is in the area the clans will quarantine all of their children in safe rooms surrounded by a no man's land kill zone. They will post extra guards and hire mercenaries with their own coin. Or, if they can’t they will go out themselves knowing that some will need to be killed by their own people afterwards. There is no second guessing when it comes to lycanthropy and capricans. There are no chances. It doesn’t matter who you are, who pays your bills, what race you are, or who you think you are. You will be hunted and killed.

Origin

Some speculate that the caprican’s origin is demonic, a variant of tiefling. Or, possibly they are  rakshasa-spawn. Some have speculated that the caprican race are andromorphs who lost the ability to change back to their original animal shape. This might explain why they are so susceptible to lycanthropy. There have even been tales that the caprican are the results of magical experimentation by a powerful wizard, dragons, giants, or a long forgotten necromancer. There is even one bawdy tale that a sorceress from long ago enjoyed her ‘special time’ with her herd of goats and made changes to them to facilitate this. No doubt that is apocryphal. 

The caprican are not a form of satyr as some think. They are in fact not fae at all and there are no records of caprican living in the faewild that are native to the region. Also the caprican cannot make half-caprican, nor would they as they find the idea of sexual relations with a non caprican as abhorrent. What records there are of the caprican are found as scraps written by sailors and explored in dusty libraries. What is known is that the caprican have lived in Toril from the time of the Days of Thunder. Disappeared from the mainland for ages and only recently returned to the continents in recent times as financially powerful traders, merchants, and sailors. 

Caprican (Male) Traits

Caprican culture is rich with a tradition of exploration, trade and discovery. Your peoples' heritage has provided you with advantages in communication and influence.

Master of the wind

In honor of you nautical heritage all caprican children are taught the cantrip gust. At level ten the cantrip turns into the spell Gust of Wind

Ability Score Increase

Your Strength score increases by 3, and your Charisma score increases by 3.

Natural Bluster

You have advantage on charisma checks on all beings who have a lower charisma than yourself.

Size

Male caprican are taller and heavier than humans, standing between 6 to seven feet tall and averaging almost 200 pounds. Additionally they are almost double the mass of the females of their race. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Blind in the dark

Caprican have exceedingly poor low light vision seeing only 30 feet and no dark vision.

Master of the water

In honor of you nautical heritage all caprican children are taught the cantrip shape water. At level ten the cantrip turns into the spell Control water.

Curse of the Lycan

If a caprican is ever bitten by a lycan they will never be able to resist the curse and will succumb. Only a wish spell can save them. If discovered they will be hunted to death by their own community.

Languages

Due to their mercantile nature all caprican children are taught languages from early childhood. in addition to common you speak two other languages of your choice.