Tiefling

Tieflings

When the influence of a demon, devil, or other fiend infiltrates the bloodline of a mortal family, Tieflings are the inevitable result. The taint is long-lasting and persistent, often manifesting at birth or sometimes later in life, as a powerful, though often unwanted, boon. Tieflings carry the sinister mark of the fiendish planes upon their flesh, and their specific abilities and physical qualities vary according to their heritage. With otherworldly blood and traits to match, Tieflings are often shunned and despised out of reactionary fear.
Most Tieflings never know their fiendish sire. Generations might pass between a fiend’s direct influence and the time a Tiefling child is born. For those born to ignorant or fearful parents, childhood is particularly hard, but even those whose families accept and nurture them face fear and prejudice from society as a whole. In some cases, this rejection encourages a Tiefling to embrace the evil within their heritage, though others carve out a place and live a fulfilling life despite the challenges facing them.
Though the power of their blood calls nearly every Tiefling to fury, destruction, and wrath, even the spawn of a succubus can become a saint and the grandchild of a pit fiend an unsuspecting hero.

Physical Description

Two Tieflings, even siblings or twins, might not look similar at all, the fiendish blood running through their veins manifests inconsistently, granting them an array of fiendish traits. These variations never make a Tiefling’s appearance so strange as to obscure their ancestry, but horns, a forked tongue, a mouth of fangs, vestigial wings, a tail, or a cloven hoof in place of a foot are all common and obvious signs of their heritage. Others might possess the perpetual smell of blood, foul incenses, and brimstone.
Typically, these qualities hearken back in some way to the manner of fiend that spawned the Tiefling’s bloodline, but even then the admixture of native and fiendish blood is rarely ruled by sane, mortal laws, and the vast flexibility it produces in Tieflings is a thing of wonder, running the gamut from oddly beautiful to utterly terrible.

Playing a Tiefling

If you want a character who is supernaturally infused with sinister forces, might have a unique appearance, and can fill the role of a complicated or unexpected hero, you should play a Tiefling.
You Might...

• Have a strong sense of independence born from a life of having to rely on yourself.
• Feel a kinship with society’s underprivileged or criminal elements, or even seek positions of power on the wrong side of the law.
• Have a looser moral code or even have an innate desire to do evil.

Others Probably...

• Assume you’ve a bad omen.
• Mistake you for an evil agent of a sinister cult, a fiend worshipper, or even a fiend yourself.
• Think you have associations with powerful fiends, potentially trying to bargain with you for power of their own.

Tiefling Mechanics

• You descend from fiends or bear the mark of the fiendish realms, manifesting as some unusual feature that belies your heritage, such as horns or a tail.
• You gain the Tiefling trait. "Tieflings are planar scions descended from fiends. An ability with this trait can be used or selected only by Tieflings."
• You gain all the traits from your parental ancestry.
• You also gain low-light vision, or you gain Darkvision if your ancestry already has low-light vision.
• You can choose from Tiefling feats and feats from your ancestry whenever you gain an ancestry feat.

Height, Weight, and Ages dependent on parent race.

Pictured: A Hellhole found in eastern Nuzia, a permanent scar on the world.  Note: Portal not pictured in crevice; portal closed before the time of painting.