Tiefling

To be greeted with stares and whispers, to suffer violence and insult on the street, to see mistrust and fear in every eye: this is the lot of the tiefling. - Templar of Absolution

Tieflings owe their demonic appearance to a pact struck generations ago, that infused the essence of Asmodeus-overlord of the Nine Hells-into their bloodlines. Their appearance and their nature are not their fault but the result of an ancient sin, for which they and their children and their children's children will always be held accountable.

Basic Information

Biological Traits

Tieflings are derived from human bloodlines, and in the broadest possible sense, they still look human. However, their infernal heritage has left a clear imprint on their appearance.

Tieflings have large horns that take any of a variety of shapes: some have curling horns like a ram, others have straight and tall horns like a gazelle's, and some spiral upward like an antelopes' horns.

They have thick tails, four to five feet long, which lash or coil around their legs when they get upset or nervous. Their canine teeth are sharply pointed, and their eyes are solid colors-black, red, white, silver, or gold-with no visible selera or pupil.

Their skin tones cover the full range of human coloration, but also include various shades of red. Their hair, cascading down from behind their horns, is usually dark, from black or brown to dark red, blue, or purple.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Tieflings will usually adopt the naming traditions of the culture the dwell in or are born into. Many tieflings are bastard children, or illegitimate offspring, so are not able to take a family name. This leads many to adopt nicknames that people give them, or even create names of their own.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Like other races that were the result of the breeding of two or more others, tieflings have no true culture they could call their own. However, there were many archetypal features of tieflings that were not necessarily innate. This include their attitude regarding their heritage, and while some tieflings embrace it, others are repulsed by it, forging the two most common stereotypes of tieflings.

The former tieflings, who were proud of their fiendish past, were often fascinated by the dark and sinister events that touched the world, but were not necessarily evil or inclined to perpetuate them. Some tieflings of this type choose to use their knowledge of evil and their own fiendish abilities to thwart these dark plots and schemes. Others seek to learn more and to emulate these evil deeds.

Other tieflings are ashamed or even frightened of their heritage and wish only to escape the shadow that lurks over them as a result. Some do this through constantly doing good, as though to make up for the evil that begot them. Others instead hide and try to go unnoticed as they pass through the world, preferring to be ignored and forgotten than notice what makes them a target because of their past.

Regardless of their motivations, tieflings often distrust one another, sometimes even casting the same preconceptions on one another that others do on them. In spite of this, many secretly desire to have another tiefling nearby, if only to experience some small kind of kinship. Some of these tieflings gather as partners-in-crime, while others are sought out by good tieflings who hope to redeem others of their race.

History

All Tieflings can be traced back to the village of @VILLAGENAMEHERE

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Tieflings, in general, don't get along well with the other races of the world and are slow to trust others of any race, even their own. Of all the common races, tieflings felt the most kinship with half-orcs, who were similarly a target of revulsion and hate.