In the new campaign our table just started me and a friend decided to play twins. We don't know who our father is and our mother was a human that when pregnant was cursed to have one child of the light and one of darkness. So i'm a Tiefling that became a Cleric out of fear of the darkness and my sister is an Assimar that became a Rogue because she just assumes that she is of the light and has nothing to fear from the darkness.
So you're telling me you haven't heard of the grouchy, long suffering Tiefling Fighters who just want to do their job, get paid, and maybe enjoy a drink or a smoke?
I recently made a Celestial Pact Tiefling for a convention, and a lot of people I played with didn't like the idea of a Tiefling being a good guy. He is an ex-mercenary who has done terrible things and he made a pact with a Solar to help him find redemption. I refer to him at the Heaven-Bound Hellborn, and he's not afraid to use hellfire mixed with Lathander's light to fight evil. The angel took his horns in the deal, so he has a bit of a Hellboy look, but scrawny and wearing white robes, and personality wise he's very professional and businessman-like. I've noticed that most people (both in-game and at the table) don't like him either because he's: A. a Tiefling or B. not a "real" Tiefling.
My first character is a Tiefling Cleric of Lathander and he has this backstory of being enslaved in Calimport and persecuted for his race but more specifically his appearance and has instead channeled that into goodness to be contrary to his slavers. And I still work some trickery and wit into the social interactions that are a tiny bit at ends with the character's overall goals. But that's fun and I find the character infinitely more interesting than some chaotic rogue or evil sorcerer.
I'm currently playing an archfey warlock tiefling who loves to have fun and both him and his patron are chaotic good and extremely against slavery. I don't know why you couldn't make a good aligned tiefling... the contradictions of a character is what makes them intresting and fun to play.
I played a chaotic good, Barbarian Tiefling who despite having accidentally burned down a town (they were gonna murder the party), became a cleric with REQUIS, The God of Battle, and saved the Sword Coast. Race doesn't mean you have to fit into this box of good or evil, there are always exceptions to the normal behavior of a race.
I like this race. The reason being that character and the world have a valid reason to hate each other. Tieflings hate the world because it brands them as evil and unredeemable. The mortal races hate tieflings because they are a constant reminder of their own weakness (also at times the complete disregard the gods have for them) that they are not strong enough to deal with every situation and that they might also have to make a pact themselves in order to insure ones own survival and those they care about. Lastly the creation of the tieflings can also demonstrate the never ending hunger for power that can dwell in the hearts of all mortals and the lengths one would go to aquire it. In many cases disregarding the the cost of aquireing such power. So if anyone reads this to the end thank you for your time. Last note I just really like this race.
Tieflings in my world are exclusive to one noble family, which has kind of cascaded over the centuries. In the current time, they exist as a sort of upper class in one major kingdom, still coasting on the achievements of their once human ancestors, who became Tieflings as the result of a deal with a devil. They were the first warlocks.
That's pretty neat! I'm working on a setting where instead of having to explain how their bloodline made it from the Hells/Abyss to the surface, I've instead made them the cursed offspring of a powerful Night Hag's curse. Specifically, quite a few tieflings can trace their lineage back to one of a few cursed Aasimar, though this information is not well known. It might be fun to have a tiefling player go through a campaign thinking they are of fiendish nature, but actually discovering a celestial origin. I think a hag cursing a pair of lovers to give birth to a monstrous looking child is very fitting and, with the Night Hag specifically, the child might as well be fiendish. The curse ended up affecting almost a third of a nation including the royal bloodline which was then dethroned. Since then, tieflings have become more acceptable in the specific country and there's even rumors that the rightful heir of the dethroned bloodline might still be out there. There's also the question of why the curse originated to begin with and to what end? What is the Night Hag scheming?
Have you played a Vampire: The Masquerade game? Your tieflings remind me a lot of the vampires there and, if you're just a really good storycrafter and don't already know about that game, the wiki might be a good read for characters and mechanics.
I understand the meta distaste for tieflings. We've all run into that one player who wants to play Edgy Murphy. I do feel however that the distrust of tieflings can make for a rich character full of development and interesting character arcs.
Yep, you can be a Tiefling trying to make a living out in the realms thinking that due to the massive diversity of races that would be no problem, but then you realize that despite that diversity anything thats "new" or had ties with the Lower Planes is considered evil by default (mostly those pesky villagers) or not trustworty (mostly from the tipical good aligned). Then you start to see how you're pushed aside from the society of the little town and how even some people will asociate you with crimes that you never commited. You are the escape goat for the criminal or the smart ass merchant, and from that point you either end with a strong feeling of contempt for the society or exiled to your own wits, strenght and abilities to literaly survive in the realms. Society itself will kind of see you as a bad omen despite the good acts that you commited and the only ones that understands you and respects you for what you are (just another person trying to live day by day) could end up loosing their "privileges" right on the spot. Then some smart ass Lawfull Good Paladin and his party tracks you and your mates down in order to terminate all of you because, you're supposed to be evil criminals... the towns folk said so, with the end result of your mated being killed and you barely escaping the fight. The Paladin and his surviving mates of course, end up as heroes with a high status, but you are just a lonely soul lost in the Marches.
I've also got a tiefling paladin! He's basically an anime protagonist -- a little dumb and quick to fight, but your best friend forever if you give him a chance.
TheEnigmaticKasai mine is pretty Much a pure paladin, but with some brutal traits, like wealding a axe. She aswell wants to learn nercomany to use it against nercomaners, and punish criminals with undeath, and The worst to have their souls set in soulgems
One idea I had was for a Fiend pact Warlock, who got her power from being possessed by a Devil. She has that Haunted One background from the Strahd character options pdf, where she got possessed, and then got out of confinement. The trick is, she wasn't always a Tiefling. She used to be human. But after becoming possessed by this devil, it exerted what power it could in order to alter her. Basically, "remodeling" the vessel to suit its tastes, in one of the only avenues of direct control it had over being trapped in this body. And trapped it is, because that's what she wants. Even if she's tormented by having this capital-e EVIL being inside her, she figures that it can't go around doing harm if it's trapped. So, though she was tempted (by the devil) to kill herself, she endures in the name of the greater good. She retreated from captivity, and went to the wilderness to try and stay out of the world's way (both so she wouldn't be a danger, and so there'd be as few things that could kill her early and free the fiend). Eventually, the devil realizes that trying to get this young woman to kill herself or go out to do evil won't work. She's too strong-willed, and stopped listening to him about that stuff years ago. So, to get something moving, he went another direction. Since she was developing Warlock powers, he convinced her that she might be able to use her power for good. Hence why she became an adventurer; a means of making up, in some way, for being a vessel of damnation. Of course, if she dies along her journey, the devil gets out. On the other hand, if she survives, she'll become stronger. And because she has this devil's power, developing as a Warlock may actually increase the devil's own fiendish might, and result in him being more powerful when he finally gets free. Further, if she's out adventuring, the devil could use the opportunity to turn her evil. Not through direct temptations, but by a series of reasonable compromises, that snowball over time. As far as the devil is concerned, it wins no matter what happens. Even when the tiefling does heroic things, the devil could still leverage her career into greater acts of moral compromise, until she's become Evil herself. Letting Good happen now, to potentially help the Greater Evil. Really, leaving quiet hermitage and going to adventure might be the worst thing she could have done. And that's where the drama and/or tragedy comes in.
My favourite Tiefling I've played is the Tiefling Fighter I'm playing as for Rime of the Frost Maiden. In design, he's the most basic looking dull red Tiefling you can imagine. He's kinda grouchy, long suffering, old man in his 40s, who just wants to do his job, get paid, and sit down for a smoke, all while keeping up with the younger ones in the party to make sure they don't hurt themselves by being reckless. In short, he's a "normal guy" who just so happens to have devil blood in his veins. He's had plenty of time to become adjusted to being the "devil man", so he doesn't make a big deal of it if you don't. At the end of the day, he's just like everyone else: he pays his taxes one leg at a time.
This is the first time I've watched a video this early. It's awesome. I've always love the Tiefling race as they are so more more then just the character emo kids play. Tiefling to me are one of the best playable races for role play more so then any of the other races. Tiefling have endless possibilities which is why I think they're the coolest race ever.
I'm playing my first campaign atm in Sigil. We are only three players, one of them a tiefling and out of the five closest npcs our group know, three of them tieflings which is so funny to me, hearing they are rare in the dnd world. I think we've only met two groups of elfs so far but everywhere we go there seems to be tieflings. I guess that's what you get for getting kidnap and now lives in the center city of the universe.
My (co-DM) campaign is two sessions in and we already have 3 tieflings in our guild (with two in the party). We hadn't planned on them being populous in our setting but now we have more tieflings than full elves or dwarves so far. Looks like they aren't the odd man out here. I think it will be fun to look into our world's history and see how this came to be.
Ironically, my tiefling sorceress always charms her enemies before obliterating them. Het significant other approached her about this and asked about why she did that. "Rather have my enemies distracted than blinded by anger or bloodlust... plus the look on their face is priceless." < This is coming from a follower of Lethander lmaoooooo
I personally don't like how I see many people play Tieflings. They seem the sort of race who should be walking the line between good and evil- Iike the players handbook says, they're not overly influenced by their heritage in their behaviour, just looks. They should be on edge around other characters and can definitely have one of the most interesting dynamics between them and other PCs and NPCs, but I feel far too many people (at least, in my experience) play evil Tieflings. I don't particularly think they were meant to be evil, perhaps slightly edgy, but they really seem a more fun race to play if you go the "good but misunderstood" route, with perhaps a few bits of nefarious actions peppered in, justified by the characters' past and current situation. Maybe it's just me, but it's far more refreshing to play with, or as, Tiefling rangers and paladins, rather than the evil Tiefling warlock, which I feel has become the generic Tiefling archetype for a lot of players.
I feel you, Comrade. I made an ex-mercenary Tiefling who made a pact with a Celestial and is now on the path of redemption. I played him at a convention recently, and a lot of people gave me the stink eye.
maybe its just where I am, but I'm seeing more and more moral relativity, tossing of the alignment system, and morally grey adventurers who aren't heroes but just looting and living.
I agree i play a chaotic good tiefling who is a war cleric and it is a pretty interesting he doesnt know his mother wo is a succubus who seduced his father and so his father was put to death and he was discriminated against and abused by his church and ran away but doesnt hold a grudge its a nuture beats nature situation
Comrade Communism i play a druid tiefling who is a polite, albeit goofy and a little dumb, manners-attentive southern boy. he's chaotic good and really tries his best to extend southern hospitality to people. i love traditionally "evil" characters turned good!
Why weren't there no Aasimars right of the bat in the PHB? They are planetouched humanoids as well and usually bear a mark of their heritage (like a halo or colored skin). At least in previous editions. Why did we had to wait until Volo's?
So I am currently in the works, of making a tiefling sorcerer who is essentially he's from Pandemonium the realm of insanity. Any thoughts, suggestions, or any criticisms would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Huge tip: Don't make the fact that they look interesting and are from someplace weird the most interesting thing about them. That will lose its shine FAST. Focus on their personality and build their story around that rather than the fact that they're a tiefling.
Be sure to work that into his character. Don't just say 'he's from pandemonium' and leave it at that. How does this affect him? Does he have a sort of PTSD to violence and chaos because of it, or does it rub off on him and make him a Chaotic individual? Was he just born there, or did he live there? Just flesh out little things like that. I am DMing a group with a sorcerer from Shadowfell, and it's really great because it gives the DM a lot of opportunities to work with the story. I'd love to here how it goes.
I forgot to mention, you may also want to consider how being born in that plane may affect/give him his abilities, but a lot of that stuff is something to talk to your DM about
Please discuss dragons. I know there are people online that has gathered sources, but i want mike to discuss the lore from his professional point of view
I *greatly* prefer the older version of Tieflings which could be descended from almost any kind of fiend. The current ones who derive from the Nine Hells are incredibly disappointing and almost killed any interest I had in playing them for more than 1 or 2 characters. Then I found out about their older incarnation from Pathfinder, and my interest in them was reinvigorated like never before!
I feel like it makes no sense for planetouched to refer only to Tieflings if Tieflings now only have fiendish ancestry. I mean the planes refer to places like Shadowfell and the Celestial Realms and stuff too right? So isn't calling them planetouched a misnomer? Wouldn't other races with fancy blood also count as planetouched? BOOM! Debunked mate, debunked. XD
Was that a misspeak that "plane-touched describes those with FIENDISH ancestry"? I thought Aasimar (celestial) were also plane touched. And those with fey ancestry too. Also, what's the cannon term for fey plane-touched? Do half elves fall in that category?
Definitely a misspeak - genasi are also touched by the elemental planes. Those touched by the fey planes are rather aptly but boringly named Feytouched, and quite different from elves.
He's trying too hard to not contradict the awkward and contradictory lore changes in 4e. PHB Tieflings are assumed to be Asmodeus-tied; it's annoying that even WotC employees have trouble explaining that.
I think what he meant was "Tiefling" in 5th Ed. only applies to Infernal (9 Hells) Planetouched, and if they come out with rules for a new race of Demonic (The Abyss) Planetouched, those would have a different name, maybe "Ozar".
This guy seems to enjoy tieflings for reasons I don't think I've ever heard before. Everyone I know likes them because tiefs are like, the black sheep race. There's very little baggage and they're typically the party type. Nowhere near this dark and edgy type. Hell, I'd say in my circles they're considered the default
For the most part, people play D&D for the moments. They play for the laughs and good times. The books are written by writers and for the most part, they take their world and the races that inhabit it seriously. They just look at it from a different perspective is all. There is nothing wrong with one way or the other.
I don't understand why Tieflings are in the Players Handbook but Aasimar are not. In my experience new players who choose Teifling as their first character race end up being bad roleplayers or disruptive at the table. I hoping one day a new player may prove me wrong and roleplay a Teifling well
Sorry but making tieflings of devilish origin only, as opposed to any fiendish one, still doesn't sound like a good idea. And it is even worse when you now fail to acknowledge that "planetouched" is way broader than a fiendish origin.
I personally don't like how I see many people play Tieflings. They seem the sort of race who should be walking the line between good and evil- Iike the players handbook says, they're not overly influenced by their heritage in their behaviour, just looks. They should be on edge around other characters and can definitely have one of the most interesting dynamics between them and other PCs and NPCs, but I feel far too many people (at least, in my experience) play evil Tieflings. I don't particularly think they were meant to be evil, perhaps slightly edgy, but they really seem a more fun race to play if you go the "good but misunderstood" route, with perhaps a few bits of nefarious actions peppered in, justified by the characters past.
So I'm decently new to D&D (started watching Critical Role about a year ago) and I'm confused about the distinction between Tieflings and Cambions. The 5e MM says that Cambions are the offspring of fiends (usually but not always a succubus or incubus) and a humanoid. Which is pretty much what Tieflings are. So are Cambion a (for lack of a better term) subrace of Teifling? Or is it that Cambion are the direct offspring and Tiefling are eventual product of the mixing of the Cambion from parents from the Nine Hells (or other Devil/human combination) and other races?
Tieflings aren't necessarily of Fiendish descent. Tieflings can often come about due to the creation of a Fiendish pact; either the pact maker themself is transformed, or their offspring are.
I always felt that a Cambion was a Direct Offspring, from a real Devil or Demon and a Human. A Tiefling would be a descendant, and carry a slightly less hellish appearance, so, a grandchild (?) or further down the line. Also, aren't Cambions bound by their Alignment? They have to be Lawful Evil, but Tieflings can choose.
By fifth edition descriptions, it would rather seem that tieflings (specifically devilish blood) are a subrace of cambions (any fiendish blood). Or maybe they are just different somehow. Also, the recently published Xanathar's Guide to Everything says that some tieflings are the direct offspring of a devil.
I believe the MM says that Cambions are any evil alignment (I would assume they would take the alignment of lower plane from which they come from). But I would think they would be bound to being evil whereas tieflings have the choice of any alignment. Maybe Tieflings of a non-evil alignment would either be the result of a fiendish pact (as snowskeeper said) or enough genealogical distance from the Hells-based union to breed the natural evil out?
I’m sorry but his history is plain wrong. They were not only fiends in planescape. They were humans with any sort of planar blood. So Asimar would have been considered tieflings.
Found Tieflings so weird to me. Like how are people okay with tieflings walking around? They wouldn't be chill if an orc walked into a bar and an orc is way less outlandish than a Tiefling. To me Tieflings are in the dark elf category of races. Unplayable because they don't belong among the civil population.
The PHB states that Tieflings are mostly found in small groups in especially poor parts of towns, or in small enclaves with other minority groups. They're often criminals or adventurers because it's nearly impossible for them to get other work; the town watch often follows them around to make sure they're not doing anything suspicious, and storekeepers keep a close eye on them to make sure they aren't nicking anything. That said, Tieflings aren't inherently good or evil; their infernal heritage doesn't affect their personality in any noticeable way. If they tend towards evil, it's because they're usually pushed in that direction by others. People are suspicious of them, but not to the point where they feel the need to exterminate every last one of them. In most cases. (So yeah, a Tiefling's not going to get a job protecting a noble's child or the door to their private vault, but they might get a job protecting a caravan, or killing some underworld figure, or clearing out a dangerous den of monsters, or, y'know, assassinating a rival. Or they could find their own work.) I also dispute your premise; there are many places where an Orc could walk into a bar, although they'd have to worry about the same things a Tiefling would in that situation. Drunken people are a lot more likely to try to start a fight.
Orcs have a history of being raiding raping man-eating savages in the mountains. Tieflings do not. The only "reputation" they have is "oh gosh they're distantly related to someone evil." There are no armies of tieflings conquering or anything like that. People are afraid of them because they're scary looking and the peasants are superstitious, not based on any actual evidence the way the prejudice is with orcs. In real life the identity of your ancestors shouldn't determine who you are and how you act, so that sort of prejudice is pretty misguided.
Warlock Patrons often change the appearance of their pactmates to match their whims. Given Tieflings came about as a consequence of such a pact, I don't think it's a stretch to say that many people associate them with Warlocks bound to Fiends. Given such pacts continue to exist, and that it's unlikely that those specific changes are not in use, and that making a deal with a Fiend displays, at the very least, a spectacular lack of judgment, I don't think saying "it's prejudice based entirely on their ancestry" is entirely fair. It comes from the knowledge that some people who look like that genuinely do look like that because they made deals with fiends. The point I'm making here is that this prejudice still exists because certain elements of society (not even always Tiefling members of society) keep reinforcing it. Unlike Fighters, Wizards, Rogues, Barbarians, Clerics and Bards, it seems fairly rare for somebody to make a deal with a Warlock Patron and fail to become at least modestly exceptional, so memories of those people are going to stick around a lot longer than the memories of Tieflings saving people from burning orphanages or whatever. Especially since the Tiefling stands a chance of being blamed for setting the orphanage on fire to begin with.
Since when did tieflings come about by pacts specifically? Was that something in the video I missed? I was under the impression it was a bloodline thing, that someone mated or whatever, maybe seduced by a succubus or defiled by a fiend in the night.
It's been that way since at least 4E (don't have a PHB for anything earlier). Think it's even mentioned in this video. (That's not to say that somebody mating with a fiend _won't_ produce a Tiefling; I think the idea is that it's infernal influence in general, not one specific type of infernal influence.)
Tiefling aren't rare in Planescape. I thought this was going to talk about other settings. And in some settings, while they would be rare its not as big a deal. Like say Eberron. I've talked to Keith baker himself and in Eberron nationality matters more than race. So this guy is kinda clueless. I've just not been impressed by these new D&D gurus as I was with the older guys.
He’s not clueless- Wizards of the Coast are currently pushing the Forgotten Realms setting for D&D because it’s easier to get new people into if there’s a singular standardised campaign setting. Everything he’s said is true for that setting. He probably DOES know what it’s like in Planescape and Ebberron, he’s just talking about the current, most pertinent campaign setting 🙃
He's WRONG. A half fiend could have fiendish blood in them but they are like the direct offspring of a person mating with a demon or devil. Pathfinder did them way better. With not just demon/devil but like really weird evil outsiders as well.
