By Galactic standards, Calians were primitive and did not understand Basic; however, they did have repulsorcraft and blasters.
They were capable of entering ryastraad, a battle madness similar to that of Wookiees. The Calians reached peace with the neighboring T'Syriél only after long years of war. The Calians were attacked by the Galactic Empire, which bombarded a Calian city. The Calians ousted the Empire from Shiva IV with the help of Leia Organa.
Compared with baseline Humans such as Leia Organa (left), Calians such as Ygal Delois (right) had a distinctive red tan.
Calians were baseline Humans from the world of Shiva IV. Most of them shared the unique racial characteristic of having tanned red skin and dark hair. However, a few Calians such as Jain Havero had blond hair and a peach-colored complexion, which made them stand among the crowd. On top of that, a vast majority of Calians were slender and muscular.
Calians wore revealing, if garish outfits.
Contrary to many other Human cultures, the people of Shiva IV carried very little in the way of personal equipment. The Calians did not wear many layers and pieces of cloth. All males wore a type of harness that left most of their chest exposed and a knee-length loincloth attached at the waist by an ornated belt. Both sexes were fond of jewelry and ornaments. Males were clean shaven and wore their hair short, while females wore them long. Due to their isolation, the Calians did not normally speak Galactic Basic Standard, the most prevalent language in the galaxy, using a language of their own instead.
The Calian species was created by writer Chris Claremont and penciler Walter Simonson for a two-issue story arc of the Star Wars Marvel series, made of Star Wars (1977) 53 and Star Wars (1977) 54. Those stories were made to recycle unused art for the canceled Marvel Comics series John Carter, Warlord of Mars, which was based on Edgar Rice Burroughs's space-fantasy warlord John Carter of Mars. Because of that, the Calians share many similarities with the Red Martians from Rice Burrough's works. Both species have a reddish copper skintone, dark hair and walk around scantily clad.
- The Essential Reader's Companion