Homebrew Caprican (Female) Species Details

"My daughter, do you know why we never hang our rivals, but  instead get them to hang themselves?"

"No mother, why?"

"Because no matter how much rope you may be holding, trust me they are holding more."

-A conversation overheard in a caprican cafe

 

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 female caprican comes in their high dexterity and charisma stats. Blade singers, Swashbucklers, and Hex Blades can pair well with this variant, like the male version. But this variant better takes advantage of classes that lean into their natural charisma like Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, and occasionally Paladins. Or classes that take advantage of their high dexterity like Bards, Monk, Rangers, and Rouges.

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-like hands but digitigrade legs ending in split hooves. 

The caprican are sexually dimorphic. Females are on average a foot to a foot and a half shorter than the males. Around five to five and a half feet tall. They are much lighter than caprican males, rarely weighing more than one-hundred and fifty pounds. A caprican weighing one-hundred and 80 pounds is a very fat female. As a rule males tend to be tall, naturally muscular and bulky while females are petite, leanly muscled and extremely lithe.

Prideful and Communal 

Those that break the social norms of caprican society do so alone and with few clan resources to rely upon. In essence they are given the same opportunity as males of their race, none. Independent female caprican tend not be openly arrogant rather they are proud. Independent in a different way from their male peers. They have built a life free of the stifling social constraints and forged their own way. In the future they may become the nucleus of their own ‘clan seed,’ but in the now they are independent. For these there is almost a driving force pressing them to prove to the world that they can succeed. For those that are not independent female caprican society places a premium on social status and group unity. 

Females tend to be coolly judgemental, quick with the cutting comment and quicker to close ranks around their own. Where the males measure self worth expressed by their arrogant self promotion. Females are quick to measure their worth by their social rank and status within their clan. Inured to the over the top behavior of the males in their society they are quick to cut the knees out of their male counterparts with cutting and barbed words, and each other if needed. Female caprican society values self sacrifice and delayed gratification, and values putting the needs of an individual second to the needs of the clan. Within the clans there is support and love to be found. There is always someone to talk to. There are always resources to be shared.  

There is a dark side. Female caprican society can be stifling. The roles of clan members are rigidly held and there are few ways to raise your status after members reach the age of majority. More individualistic members of the clans will often chafe against the social structure. In clans where opportunities are fewer the ability for a female member to go their own way are also few. In caprican society there are very few single and independent females living outside of the clans. The clans also can be almost sociopathic in their business dealings with outsiders and other clans. There is a lot of pressure within the clan to promote a unified and more prosperous picture of the clan than might be the truth. 

Success at all Costs

In caprican society in general achieving success and profit drive many of their social interactions. The difference between male and female definitions of success is the individual vs. the group. The clans can often engage in activities that are ethically gray and willfully walk down the slippery slope rather than slip. In addition to trade and manufacturing, the use of blackmail, bribery, kidnapping, and threats are accepted methods of advancing the clan’s interests. 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 female caprican are expected to be self-sacrificing and put the needs of the group ahead of their own at all costs. The success of the whole is always paramount. As children female capricans are taught how to win at business. Their education is carefully managed to make the best use of their talents for the success of the whole. Not succeeding is not allowed. A great deal of resources are given to them and much is expected in return. 

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. The clans will always go out of their way to show it’s wealth and status. Because of this, the caprican clans 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. 

Caprican females like new and interesting things as well as males. When given the opportunity to break from the expected norms of their society and strike out for their own as adventurers or as part of a clan pirate crew, they do so often to attain ‘pretties.’ 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 long lasting 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 the 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 its 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. There is a lot of pressure in the clans to excel in proving their worth to the clan, and justifying the resources expended.

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. 

For independent females there are often few options other than to move away and start a business or join an adventuring party. A few of the more notorious and sociopathic pirates are female caprican who have fled their clans and struck out on their own. 

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 (Female) 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.

Ability Score Increase

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

Size

Female caprican are shorted and lighter than humans, standing between five to five and half feet tall and averaging almost 100 pounds. Additionally they are almost half the mass of the males of their race. Your size is Medium.

Speed

Your base walking speed is 30 feet.

Master of the wind

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

Master of the water

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

Natural Bluster

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

Blind in the dark

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

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.