Do you think "Caliban" works better as a race or a term?

[Hell_Born]

We all know the Caliban; the White Wolf-created race that debuted in Ravenloft 3rd Edition as a thematic reskin of the Half-Orc, then newly returned after having been stripped from the PHB for the entirety of AD&D 2nd edition. In Quoth the Raven #8, the excellent article "Brutes & Banshees" gave the Caliban some much need love, building on the intriguing seeds of lore planted by WW and fleshing it out into one of the best races of Ravenloft, and a true embodiment of its Dark Fantasy potential. I was recently contemplating how Calibans might work in 5e (a shame WotC has chosen to ignore they exist), idly contemplated telling a hypothetical fellow gamer that "if you don't like these stats, you could always reflavor an existing race", then stopped, thought about that sentence, and went "wait a minute..."

Because the truth is, Caliban crunch is actually very flexible; the basic definition of calibans as a race are "humanity's shunned mutant offspring", and that lends itself to a wide array of races. Literally any beastfolk race would slot perfectly in Ravenloft by just reflavoring them as a Bestial Caliban, since by the rules as written, people will react to them the same whether they look like 80s Tigra, a generic anime catgirl, Killer Croc or Marvel's The Lizard - all the crunch fits just fine into the existent backstory. Wanna play a Brute? The half-orc, orc, goliath or even Midgard's trollkin stats all work just fine for that caliban race. Ghoul? The bugbear, dark/deep trollkin, and even goblin or kobold stats work. Witchbreed? Tiefling, genasi, or even aasimar. The only one I can't immediately name a substitute for is the Banshee.

What I'm trying to get at is this: do you think caliban should remain a unique Ravenloft race? Or do you think it would work better if it were retooled into, essentially, the Demiplane of Dread's analogue to the old terms "demihuman" and "humanoid" - a catch-all for any being which is humanoid, but clearly not a human, halfling, dwarf, elf or gnome, especially creatures that spring spontaneously into being from warped births, like planetouched?

[Mistmaster]

I use them as Marvel's Mutant expy.

[Resonant Curse]

Shifters from Eberron might be a good race to swap in. I haven't looked at 5e stats for them, butnkind of similar and can go a lot of different ways.

[DocBeard]

Caliban is a cool name and it fits the "cursed hero" slot pretty well. You can always use half elves and hexbreed for the prettier type of magically doomed do-gooder. If you want to have a wider variety of caliban, maybe make them a theme? Then you can pick out exactly what deformities you want and how they synch with your base race and class. That might be a good answer for the Vistani pc question, too, come to think of it.

[Zilfer]

I've generally in my 5e games of ravenloft taken to using it as closer to a term. Most outsiders of more exotic races like, Tieflings, Tabaxi, and anything very obviously not fully human as a 'Caliban'. Which obviously confused most outsiders since they've never heard the term before. I still use default calibans as well though if I recall they can range very widely in descriptions. I'm pretty sure I remember Mordent's Calibans being more spindly and long limbed for example.

[alhoon]

I use Calibans in other fantasy worlds too. Using 5e, I made the Half-orc a subrace of the Caliban. I give them more or less the same background as in Ravenloft.
As for Half-orc calibans, they can be born from elves that betrayed their kind, especially if they mixed with humans.

[Five]

Like most things D&D I think caliban has value in both import and export. If it fits the themes the table wants to use to frame their adventures and campaigns then it fits. If it doesn't then it doesn't.

Caliban in 3E Ravenloft is not that much of a different idea than 2E's Red Steel and its Red Curse and Legacies. Though now that I think of it its uncontrolled legacies (but potentially controlled via Inheritor kit or similar class/character option) might be ported for more flavour and options when customising caliban in Ravenloft...

The caliban is cursed due to circumstances beyond their control. Maybe they were born under a bad moon; to a cultist during a dark ritual and who offered them up as some sort of gift with the umbilical cord still attached; they were given birth in a sinkhole of evil; a graveyard; tainted blood flows through their veins; the reasons are as numerous as you want them to be. End result is a caliban, or, a cursed humanoid.

From memory, put simply legacies are spell-like abilities. Mutant powers. Similar to wild talents. The average caliban has one that they can use three times a day (2E). If the character decides to specialise then they can become an Inheritor and develop more legacies (one every three levels or so).

The drawback of having a legacy is mental or physical loss, loss of health, and deformity. The loss and deformity ties in to the legacy. A legacy of Strength would be one Popeye arm (or worse) on an otherwise normal-looking body, with a loss of Intelligence (the opposite of strength). Legacy of Armour, Spikes, Plant Form etc comes with a loss of Charisma. Etc. Ability point loss is 2d4 when the legacy manifests (once the caliban reaches adulthood).

Anyway you get the gist of it. There are some conversions for this out there for 3E and 5E, so it shouldn't be hard to find if you want to look into it a bit more.

And if you really want to throw a bone to your player then you can include a very specific way in which the curse is neutralised (or at least temporarily), just like cinnabryl. Though as it is Ravenloft I'd make it some sort of moral dilemma more often than not. Maybe the caliban is "cured" when near a particular holy relic that is prominently displayed by a particular church. Does the PC steal this relic (and thus desecrate the church) to finally be freed from their curse?

Maybe the "heirloom" their loving guardian gave them when they first started out on their adventuring career is keeping their curse and its manifestation in check, and if or when the object is lost or stolen...

Caliban as a race, term, and curse for me. Let the player decide and go with it.

2E: http://www.pandius.com/curseleg.html

Note: looks like the Red Steel boxed set is not available on DmsGuild/DriveThruRPG for some reason. Odd.

3E: Dragon Issue 315

5E: various fan musings online