Homebrew Caprid Species Details

1. Core Identity

Caprids are creatures of corruption, predation, and oath-bargaining. Their culture prizes dominance, cunning, pain endurance, ritual intimidation, and the ability to survive in environments where softer peoples perish.

They are not mindless marauders. A Caprid warband may seem savage to outsiders, but their society has its own brutal etiquette. They recognize debt, hierarchy, omens, blood-tithes, forbidden hospitality, and the sacred terror of a properly witnessed oath. Their leaders are often horn-crowned seers, witch-priests, cavern tyrants, pact-bound champions, or fey-touched oracles who claim to hear commands from “the old roots beneath the world.”

Caprids are especially common in three kinds of places:

The Deep Places. Caverns, undercities, chasms, collapsed temples, forgotten mines, and Underdark passages where they raid, breed, bargain, and build crude but cunning strongholds.

Corrupted Fey Realms. Darkened groves, thorn palaces, carrion meadows, and warped seasonal courts where cruelty is treated as art and beauty has teeth.

Fiend-Touched Borderlands. Ruined shrines, blood-soaked crossroads, volcanic caves, cursed battlefields, and cult territories where infernal or abyssal patrons use Caprids as guards, soldiers, hunters, and enforcers.

III. Physical Description

Caprids range from Medium to Large in stature, though most playable Caprids are Medium for game balance. A typical Caprid stands between 5½ and 7 feet tall, with powerful legs, narrow torsos, long arms, cloven hooves, and heavy shoulders. Larger Caprids can reach 8 or 9 feet in height and are often bred, blessed, or cursed into monstrous war-forms.

Their heads resemble those of goats, antelopes, ibexes, or monstrous rams, but their faces are more expressive and unsettlingly humanoid. Their eyes are often gold, red, sickly green, white, or black with horizontal pupils. Outsiders call these “evil eyes,” though Caprids consider them a mark of ancestral favor.

Their horns are their pride. Some curve tightly beside the skull, others spiral outward, sweep backward, or crown the head like jagged hooks. Caprids carve their horns with clan marks, kill tallies, pact sigils, or fey riddles. A broken horn is a grave humiliation unless it was lost in a celebrated battle.

Their bodies are covered in coarse hair, usually black, gray, dun, brown, bone-white, rust-red, or mottled. Some have long beards, thick manes, ridged spines, or bony growths along the shoulders. Their hands are dexterous, with hard dark nails, and their hooves can grip stone, mud, roots, and uneven cavern floors with alarming stability.

Caprids often smell faintly of musk, damp stone, smoke, iron, wet leaves, or old blood. This scent is subtle among civilized individuals but overwhelming in warbands or dens.

1. Temperament and Worldview

Caprid society is built on the belief that the world is a contest of wills. Mercy is seen as weakness unless used strategically. Kindness is treated with suspicion. Beauty is admired most when it is dangerous. Faith is measured by what one is willing to sacrifice, steal, or ruin.

Most Caprids are raised to believe that surface folk are soft, celestials are tyrants wearing gold, aberrations are blasphemous intruders, and fiends are useful patrons best obeyed until they can be outwitted. They despise aberrations with particular hatred, viewing them as mind-thieves, flesh-defilers, and enemies of the old cavern powers. This enmity occasionally forces Caprids into temporary alliances with dwarves, gnomes, Blood Hunters, or Underdark scouts, though such truces are unpleasant and rarely clean.

Caprids value:

Dominance. Authority belongs to whoever can seize it, keep it, and make others fear losing their protection.

Cunning. A strong warrior wins a duel. A clever one ensures the duel happens on a bridge, in darkness, during a storm, after the enemy has been poisoned.

Oaths. Caprids are treacherous in casual dealings but terrifyingly serious about ritual vows. A properly witnessed oath becomes a spiritual snare.

Endurance. Pain, hunger, exile, and humiliation are expected. Survival is proof of worth.

Corruptive Power. Many Caprids believe holiness, innocence, and beauty exist to be tested, stained, or claimed.

1. History and Origins

No single origin story explains all Caprids. Their own traditions contradict one another, and each clan insists its version is true.

One myth claims the first Caprids were once fey shepherds who guarded the wild herds of an ancient twilight court. When they betrayed their queen and led fiends through hidden moon-roads, they were twisted into horned betrayers forever bound to the paths below.

Another claims they were an early mortal people driven underground by celestial crusaders. There, starving and surrounded by monsters, they accepted aid from fiends who taught them how to survive through terror, cruelty, and pact-magic.

A third, told by Caprid witches, says they were shaped by an Old God of hunger, rut, and ruin: not created for evil, but for appetite. According to this legend, all civilization is a fence, and all fences exist to be broken.

Scholars of Aetheris disagree on which tale contains the most truth. The prevailing view is that Caprids were once a mortal underground species that became deeply entangled with fey curses and fiendish bargains across many generations. Their present nature is therefore cultural, magical, and partially inherited.

1. Society and Culture

Caprid communities are usually organized into herds, courts, dens, or hornholds. These groups can range from a few dozen raiders in a cave complex to sprawling subterranean settlements ruled by horned tyrants.

Leadership

Caprid leaders rule through fear, spiritual authority, and visible strength. Common titles include:

Horn-King or Horn-Queen. A warlord who rules by conquest and ritual dominance.

Bell-Witch. A pact-priest, oracle, or curse-worker who interprets omens through bells, bones, smoke, and entrails.

Gorewarden. A military commander responsible for raids, slave-taking, and defense.

Root-Speaker. A fey-touched elder who claims to bargain with corrupted groves, buried spirits, or ancient cavern things.

Black Shepherd. A handler of beasts, prisoners, thralls, or lesser fiendish creatures.

Law and Custom

Caprid law is harsh but not random. Theft is tolerated when clever, punished when clumsy. Murder is accepted if ritually justified, condemned if it weakens the herd without gain. Cowardice is despised unless it serves a later victory.

Hospitality exists, but it is dangerous. A guest who eats salt, bread, or bitter root under a Caprid roof may be protected for one night. A guest who refuses the offering may be hunted before dawn.

Art and Craft

Caprid craftwork is rough, symbolic, and unnerving. They favor horn carvings, bone flutes, hide drums, iron bells, hooked blades, root masks, thorn harnesses, and ritual brands. Their music often uses clattering percussion, bleating throat-song, and discordant pipes that echo terribly in caverns.

VII. Religion and Spirituality

Caprids most commonly worship evil gods, fiends, cruel archfey, hags, or forgotten chthonic powers. Their rites emphasize sacrifice, domination, corruption, fertility of monsters, blood-bound oaths, and the breaking of sanctified places.

They are often found in service to:

Fiendish Patrons. Devils and demons use Caprids as hunters, temple desecrators, slave drivers, and shock troops.

Wicked Fey Powers. Corrupt fey courts prize Caprids as wardens, torturers, revel-beasts, and border guards.

The Old Gods. Some Caprid covens honor ancient powers of hunger, decay, fear, and wilderness without pity.

Witch Covens. Caprids frequently serve witches as protectors, familiars writ large, enforcers, or ritual participants.

Caprid worship is loud, physical, and frightening. Bells are rung until they crack. Fires are fed with bitter herbs. Horns are painted with blood or ash. Captives are forced to hear sermons promising that the weak exist to feed the strong.

VIII. Relations with Other Peoples

Caprids are widely hated and feared. Their reputation has been earned across centuries of raids, cult service, desecration, and predation.

Aberrations. Caprids despise aberrations. They view mind flayers, beholders, and flesh-warping horrors as invaders from a reality that should not exist. This hatred is one of the few traits that can make Caprids useful to other peoples.

Celestials and Godborn. Caprids loathe celestials and their mortal servants. They see celestial order as a cage and divine mercy as hypocrisy.

Dwarves and Underground Folk. Dwarves, duergar, deep gnomes, and other subterranean peoples often battle Caprids over territory, mines, tunnels, and water sources.

Elves and Fey-Touched Peoples. Fey-aligned peoples view Caprids as signs of a corrupted court or diseased crossing. Some dark fey, however, welcome them.

Humans and Surface Settlements. Caprids raid isolated villages, steal livestock, abduct travelers, and corrupt local cults. Most frontier communities teach children to listen for bells in the hills.

Fiends. Caprids often serve fiends, though they are rarely trusted by them. A Caprid who betrays a fiend and survives becomes a figure of terrible admiration among its people.

Blood Hunters and Witch Hunters. These orders commonly hunt Caprids when they serve covens, undead cults, or fiendish forces.

1. Caprid Names

Caprid names are harsh, guttural, and often combined with earned titles. Many names include clicks, growls, or bleating throat sounds that surface tongues simplify.

Male Names

Brakkor, Vruun, Ghalrek, Tharnak, Kroven, Baalgrit, Morruk, Skeld, Rauthak, Dregor

Female Names

Vesha, Gralka, Maudra, Thryss, Kavra, Zanneth, Brugha, Velkra, Hessik, Dratha

Clan or Herd Names

Broken Bell, Crooked Horn, Bitterroot, Red Hoof, Stone-Gnaw, Thorn-Crown, Deep Runnel, Black Pasture, Nine Knuckle, Carrion Pipe

Earned Titles

Hornbreaker, Bell-Eater, Cradle-Thief, Saint-Spoiler, Root-Binder, Chain-Bleater, Eye-Crooked, Gate-Gorer, Moon-Spoiler, Pact-Crowned

1. Caprid Adventurers

A Caprid adventurer is rare and almost always controversial. Such a character may be an exile, a renegade, a spy, a cult survivor, a fiend’s discarded tool, or a monster trying to carve a new fate from very ugly stone.

Caprid player characters work best in campaigns where the party and DM are comfortable with dark themes, moral suspicion, and redemption that is earned rather than assumed. A heroic Caprid should face social consequences, but not be impossible to play.

Good adventuring concepts include:

Exiled Horn-Bearer. You refused a pact, spared a captive, or failed a rite and were cast out.

Aberration Hunter. Your hatred of mind-twisting horrors is stronger than your loyalty to your herd.

Broken Pactblade. You served a fiend and escaped, though the brand still burns.

Fey Court Runaway. You fled a cruel revel-realm and now understand that beauty can be a trap.

Temple Prisoner. You were captured by a holy order and slowly learned there are forms of strength your people never taught you.

False Demon. Everyone assumes you are a fiend. Sometimes you let them.

XII. Optional Legacy Ability Score Increases

For tables that still use species-based ability score bonuses, Caprids commonly gain:

Strength +2; Charisma +1
or
Constitution +2; Strength +1

Strength reflects their physical power, horns, hooves, and climbing ability. Charisma reflects their terrifying presence and pact-bound mystique. Constitution reflects their ability to survive harsh caverns, cruel rites, and toxic environments.

XIII. Caprids in Aetheris

Caprids can appear across Aetheris wherever civilization thins and old terrors have room to breathe.

Common Locations

The Underdark of Aetheris. Caprid dens occupy ruined mines, fungus-choked caverns, abandoned dwarf roads, and old ritual pits.

Corrupted Fey Crossings. They serve cruel fey courts, hags, and predatory revel-hosts.

Ozythralis. Caprids may lurk near corrupted woodland crossings, old battlefields, and places where nightmare cults gather.

Velmyris. In diseased fey groves or twisted seasonal courts, Caprids act as enforcers and huntmasters.

Drakthar. Some Caprid herds serve fiend-bound warlords, volcanic cults, or subterranean tyrants.

Sahariad. Desert Caprids are rarer but may haunt buried cisterns, glass ruins, or cult caverns beneath ancient Zepharan sites.

Common Roles

Caprids are useful as:

Villainous raiders
Fiendish cult enforcers
Witch coven guardians
Corrupted fey soldiers
Underdark predators
Aberration-hunting antiheroes
False demons in folk horror adventures
Pact-bound bodyguards
Cave warlords
Ritual duelists
Monster-species player characters with DM approval

Caprid Cultural Traits

Horn Oaths

A Caprid oath is often sworn while touching horns to stone, iron, blood, or fire-heated metal. Breaking such an oath is believed to invite spiritual mutilation. Caprids may lie freely in ordinary speech, but a horn oath is far more dangerous.

Bell Terrors

Caprid warbands often carry iron bells. These bells are not decorative. Each tone signals a tactic: encircle, scatter, drag captives, kill witnesses, call beasts, or retreat into tunnels. Some bells are cursed.

The First Wound

Young Caprids undergo a rite where they must survive a wound without crying out. The scar becomes a social marker. Those who fail are not killed, but they are marked as weak until they perform some act of cruelty or courage.

Feast of the Broken Gate

After destroying a settlement, shrine, or rival den, Caprids may hold a feast at the breached entrance. Doors, gates, locks, and thresholds have symbolic value to them. To break a gate is to prove no boundary is sacred.

Hatred of Mind-Thieves

Caprids teach children that aberrations do not bargain, rule, or conquer properly. They “unmake the self.” This belief is one reason Caprids fight mind flayers and similar horrors with surprising discipline.

Typical Equipment and Dress

Caprids favor intimidating, practical equipment. Their clothing and armor often include:

Layered hides and boiled leather
Iron bells, hooked chains, and bone toggles
Horn caps or engraved horn bands
Ritual brands burned into belts, armor, or flesh
Crude but effective polearms
Serrated knives and cleavers
Root masks and beast-skull helmets
Heavy shields made from wood, bone, or scavenged metal
Charm bundles of teeth, finger bones, thorn knots, and cracked holy tokens

Caprid champions often wield glaives, mauls, greataxes, hooked spears, or barbed whips. Witch-priests carry bells, crooked staves, sacrificial knives, and carved horn talismans.

Settlements and Example Locations

The Bleating Vault

A cavern settlement built around a collapsed temple. Hundreds of bells hang from the ceiling, ringing whenever air moves through the tunnels. Outsiders cannot tell which bells are warnings and which are prayers.

Hornroot Court

A corrupted fey realm grown around a black-barked tree whose roots drink from underground springs. Caprid courtiers here wear masks of polished bone and serve a cruel archfey known only as the Bridegroom Under Leaves.

The Red Hoof Warrens

A maze of tunnels beneath an abandoned mining region. The Caprids here specialize in ambushes, pit traps, and trading captives to fiendish patrons.

Saint-Hollow Crag

A desecrated pilgrimage site where Caprid cultists have inverted the old hymns into war chants. Celestial servants sometimes appear here, only to be hunted through the ravines.

The Crooked Pasture

An underground fungal plain where Caprids herd blind cave-beasts. The “pasture” is dotted with cages, witch huts, and standing stones carved with oath marks.

Character Concepts and Hooks

The Saint-Spoiler Who Saw Mercy

You were raised to desecrate holy places, but one celestial spared your life instead of destroying you. Now you cannot decide whether mercy is weakness, poison, or the first true strength you have ever seen.

The Aberration Butcher

Your herd was devoured by mind flayers, and your hatred of aberrations eclipses every other loyalty. You will fight beside anyone who helps you kill them.

The Broken Horn Exile

Your horn was shattered in a failed rite. Rather than accept humiliation, you fled to the surface and seek a deed great enough to replace what was lost.

The Witch’s Former Hound

You served a coven as hunter, guard, and executioner. When the witches tried to sacrifice you to an Old God, you escaped with stolen secrets.

The False Demon

Villagers believe you are a demon. You use that fear when necessary, but each terrified face reminds you that you may never be seen as anything else.

The Pactless One

You were born into a herd sworn to a fiend, but the pact did not take root in you. Your soul is your own, and many powerful beings consider that an insult.

Summary of the Caprid

The Caprids are a horned, goat-like species of deep caverns and corrupted fey realms, feared across Aetheris as demon-kin despite their mortal origins. Marked by curled horns, cloven hooves, dreadful eyes, brutal customs, and a long association with fiends and wicked fey powers, they are natural antagonists for campaigns steeped in witchcraft, Underdark horror, cult warfare, and corrupted wilderness.

Caprid Traits

As a Caprid, you have the following traits

Ability Score Increase

For tables that still use species-based ability score bonuses, Caprids commonly gain:

Strength +2; Charisma +1
or
Constitution +2; Strength +1

Strength reflects their physical power, horns, hooves, and climbing ability. Charisma reflects their terrifying presence and pact-bound mystique. Constitution reflects their ability to survive harsh caverns, cruel rites, and toxic environments.

Darkvision

You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet

Horns

Your horns are natural weapons. When you make an Unarmed Strike, you can deal 1d6 + your Strength modifier Piercing damage instead of the normal damage for an Unarmed Strike.

In addition, immediately after you move at least 20 feet straight toward a creature and hit it with your horns on the same turn, you can force the target to make a Strength saving throw. The DC equals 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier. On a failed save, the target is pushed up to 10 feet away from you. You can use this pushing effect a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

Sure-Footed

You have Advantage on saving throws you make to avoid or end the Prone condition. You also have Advantage on ability checks made to climb, balance, or keep your footing on stone, roots, rubble, steep slopes, or cavern terrain.

Cavern-Born

You are adapted to life beneath the surface. You gain proficiency in the following skills: Intimidation, Perception, Stealth, and Survival.

In addition, you always know the direction of the nearest downward slope, natural tunnel, or significant underground passage within 60 feet of you, provided it is not hidden by magic.

Wicked Eye

You know the Thaumaturgy cantrip. When you reach character level 3, you can cast Cause Fear once with this trait. When you reach character level 5, you can cast Darkness once with this trait.

Once you cast Cause Fear or Darkness with this trait, you can’t cast that spell with it again until you finish a Long Rest. You can also cast these spells using any spell slots you have. Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells, chosen when you select this species.

Enemy of the Unnatural

You have Advantage on Intelligence checks made to recall information about Aberrations and Celestials. When tracking an Aberration or Celestial, you can add your proficiency bonus to Wisdom (Survival) checks if you are not already proficient in Survival. If you are already proficient, you can add double your proficiency bonus instead.

Powerful Build

You count as one size larger when determining your carrying capacity and the weight you can push, drag, or lift.

Languages

You know Common and one additional language of your choice. Caprids from deep realms often learn Undercommon. Caprids tied to wicked fey courts often learn Sylvan. Caprids serving fiends often learn Abyssal or Infernal.