Tieflings

Simultaneously more and less than mortal, tieflings are the offspring of humans and fiends. With otherworldly blood and traits to match, tieflings are often shunned and despised out of reactionary fear. Most tieflings never know their fiendish sire, as the coupling that produced their curse occurred generations earlier. The taint is long-lasting and persistent, often manifesting at birth or sometimes later in life, as a powerful, though often unwanted, boon. Despite their fiendish appearance and netherworld origins, tieflings have a human’s capacity of choosing their fate, and while many embrace their dark heritage and side with fiendish powers, others reject their darker predilections. 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: No two tieflings look alike; the fiendish blood running through their veins manifests inconsistently, granting them an array of fiendish traits. One tiefling might appear as a human with small horns, a barbed tail, and oddly colored eyes, while another might manifest a mouth of fangs, tiny wings, and claws, and yet another 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 human 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.
Society: Tieflings on Venterra rarely create their own settlements and holdings. Instead, they live on the fringes of the land where they were born or choose to settle. Most societies view tieflings as aberrations or curses, but in cultures where there are frequent interactions with summoned fiends, and especially where the worship of demons, devils, or other evil outsiders is legal or obligatory, tieflings might be much more populous and accepted, even cherished as blessings of their fiendish overlords. Tieflings seldom see another of their own kind, and thus they usually simply adopt the culture and mannerisms of their human parents.
Relations: Tieflings face a significant amount of prejudice from most other races, who view them as fiend-spawn, seeds of evil, monsters, and lingering curses placed upon the world. Far too often, civilized races shun or marginalize them, while more monstrous ones simply fear and reject them unless forced or cowed into acceptance.

Standard Racial Traits

• Ability Score Modifiers: Tieflings are quick in body and mind, but are inherently strange and unnerving. They gain +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Charisma.
• Type: Tieflings are outsiders with the native subtype.
• Size: Tieflings are Medium creatures and thus receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Speed: Tieflings have a base speed of 30 feet.
• Languages: Tieflings begin play speaking Common and either Abyssal or Infernal. Tieflings with high intelligence scores can choose from the following: Abyssal, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, Halfling, Infernal, and Orc. See the Linguistics skill page for more information about these languages.

Defense Racial Traits

• Fiendish Resistance: Tieflings have cold resistance 5, electricity resistance 5, and fire resistance 5.

Feat and Skill Racial Traits

• Skilled: Tieflings gain a +2 racial bonus on Bluff and Stealth checks.

Magical Racial Traits

• Spell-like ability: Tieflings can use darkness once per day as a spell-like ability. The caster level for this ability equals the tiefling’s class level.

Senses Racial Traits

• Darkvision: Tieflings can see perfectly in the dark for up to 60 feet.

Other Racial Traits

• Fiendish Sorcery: Tiefling sorcerers with the Abyssal or Infernal bloodlines treat their Charisma score as 2 points higher for all sorcerer class abilities.

Origin/Ancestry

Venterra Made

Lifespan

90