Tieflings are planetouched creatures native to the material plane who are mostly human, yet with the blood of demons, devils, or other evil outsiders in their veins. Also known colloquially (and somewhat pejoratively) as 'hellspawn' or 'devilblooded', they are often distrusted and feared for this evil lineage.
Appearence
Tieflings vary greatly in individual appearance from one another, depending not only on the ethnicity of the human parent but also the type of the fiendish parent. They can have horns, greatly varying skin colors, hooves for feet, tails, unusual eyes, and so on. Tieflings descended from demons, for instance, often develop asymmetrical markings or growths, while tieflings descended from divs tend to manifest various abnormalities related to their skin and those descended from rakshasas typically develop animalistic appearances. These variances mean that two tieflings born from two different fiends might have vast differences in appearance.
Origins
Though tieflings have the blood of fiendish beings, their ancestry is at least one step removed from the original introduction of that blood; the child of a union of a mortal with a fiendish being is a half-fiend, not a tiefling. Tieflings might, but not necessarily, then be born from the union of the half-fiend with another mortal being. The possibility of a tiefling birth continues to many generations after that union, even when two mortals have children, so long as one of the mortals is a direct descendant of the half-fiend. Half-fiend creatures can be of many types, but it is found that tieflings are only possibly born from humanoids.
Tieflings are fertile in their own right, and it is common for them to have children and for those children to be tieflings in turn. However, a chance also exists for the child of a tiefling couple to be an outwardly normal member of her parents' species.
Society
Tieflings are rarely welcomed in humanoid society due to their fiendish descent and outwardly fiendish appearances. As such, many tieflings live in ghettos and other undesirable areas of their settlements. Some tieflings attempt to counteract this stigma by amassing personal wealth or power, while others seek to form communities with other tieflings where they can live without needing to hide their natures. Occasionally, tieflings may associate with other marginalized or distrusted species, such as half-orcs.
Some tieflings choose to ease their solitude by adopting pets. While many animals are instinctively put off by the scent of fiendish blood, this can be overcome with sufficient training. Additionally, tieflings are known to develop affinities for specific types of animals if they are descended from a fiend associated with specific creatures. A tiefling descended from a vrock may share a bond with vultures, for example, while one descended from a tiger-like rakshasa may have one with cats.
Tieflings are rarely religious, although some seek faith to find the acceptance and affection that their lives often lack. Many tieflings who tend towards religion are driven off from good faiths by both their persecutions of tiefling-kind and by the thought of sharing an afterlife with people who despise them, leading them to the worship of evil deities or of powerful fiends. However, many revere neutral deities such as Gorum or Nethys, who value a worshipper's abilities and actions more than their race or appearance, or more open-minded good deities such as Desna. Many religious tieflings become inquisitors, distancing themselves from their persecuted past by themselves becoming the ones seeking out impurities and heresies.
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