Since the pc gnoll thread turned out good let's have one for tieflings.
How would you play a tiefling? What appearance, characteristics, personalities, and ambitions would you give your PC?
I have all tiefling players roll on a random mutation table for physical characteristics.
Okay just gonna post a TL;DR of my current tiefling character
My tiefling is extremely ambitious. His horns are quite small and his skin tone is human-like, so he was able to hide his tieflingness quite well when he was younger (Extreme racism against tieflings in specific areas of our country), but he wanted to become a great scientist, specializing in the area of otherworldly magic. After going to the best college in the known world, he easily graduated and started his studies, mainly studying old books in forgotten languages and ancient artifacts. Eventually he found a tablet made from pure amethyst, encrusted with odd letters made from marble. He started studying it, but when he finally started to get somewhere, it was discovered he was a tiefling, and he immediately got banned from the school and the libraries.
One of the librarians however, liked him a lot, and hid him in one of the many secret rooms in the school, Anne Frank style. Brought him food for several years and the likes. Now my character had finally found some sort of key to the inscriptions in the tablet, and started actually deciphering it. When reading the first sentence, he got into some kind of trance, entered the other world, somehow managed to unleash part of an eldritch abomination within his own body. After returning back, this part of the creature had somehow granted him powerful forms of magic. Other cults heard of this, so now he's traveling around to stop the cults from laying hands on the tablet.
Either play the classic "I know my people are known for being huge dicks and evil scumbags, but I'm different yada yada" or a tiefling whose primary obsession is rolling in dough. Preferably through dickish methods
>>43858386
What else do you force your players to do, you sicko faggot?
>>43859741
You think that's bad? I make my tiefling (and aasimar, and other planetouched) playersroll to determine their progenitor's plane of origin to decide physical characteristics and granted powers
>>43859883
>>43859949
Use Ctrl+S to make quick spoiler tags
>>43860011
Hey, didn't know that worked. Awesome. Sadly, doesn't help when posting from a phone, but thanks all the same.
>3.5
>Playing a Tiefling Rogue/Sorc
>Best friend is going to play an Aasimar Bard/Cleric
>Notice that we both put down that we spent time at some sort of adventuring college in our bio
>Decide we were roommates
>Best of friends and jokingly racist at each other
>Endlessly throwing jabs and banter at each other, rest of the party thinks it's hilarious
>Always have each others backs when some local decides to break out the pitchforks
>Secretly closet homo for that aasimar booty because it's extra sacrilegious
>Local druids hate the both of us because we're "extra unnatural"
>They try placing a death curse on the party
>Easily make the fort roll
>Most of the party makes it.
>Aasimer bro doesn't. Dies a slow, miserable death.
>It negates resurrection because the GM is a dick.
>Burn down the druid forest
>Burn down the druids
>Burn down everything
>Became the demon they always feared I would become
>Another campaign in the same setting, years later
>Druids are all but an extinct "profession" due to what the locals call a demonic curse
>My character apparently went on slaughtering druids everywhere for the rest of his life and became some kind of nightmarish legend.
>>43857718
For my next character I'm thinking of a rouge or monk tiefling who dreams of becoming top info broker and setting up a network of spies in every nook and cranny. Calm in the most unfavorable situations, thinking and analyzing the quickest solution.
That's what I have so far
>>43857718
Like this
>>43857718
I've considered making a Div tiefling sorcerer with the Div bloodline whose only motivation is his inborn desire to break and ruin shit.
That, or a momma's boy who constantly asks his Akhash mother for advice.
>>43860412
Poor aasimar bro ;_;
>>43860889
Dang it I kinda want to see the full version.
Also does anyone know of any games/books (third party or not) that allow for more specific demonic/fiendish attributes, depending on what type of otherworldy ancestor the character has?
>>43857718
Go figure, I've got two tieflings in my current campaign and I think they show well the two main routes you can take with this race.
First one played by my brother, Feral Tiefling Ranger. Since he roleplays him having a strong Roman accent to somehow distinguish his speech pattern from human's, it leads the other members of the party in thinking all the people from his faraway homeland talk like this. We see no reason to rectify. Character is NG, almost too much for his own good, grew up with his (both humans, devil blood skips generations) druid parents in a druidic circle and parted to be a witcher. I mean ranger. Has an habit of getting caught into political intrigues, almost always unwillingly. Catchphrase is "I don't think I am a monster, I kill monsters. Think if I had to bring my head in a sack to get a reward?."
To summarize, he knows he is different from humans but he can't care less, so he never sees the necessity to adress it and goes on doing what feels right to him.
Second one, regular Tiefling Warlock lady from a noble family of a country riddled by civil war 24/7; player is a woman as well. Since the player has pointed out Yochlols as her ancestors, she is "drowish" in appearance and has actually a third eye on the forehead, and no horns. A rival noble found her secret out and this caused her family to kick her away, she got understendably bitter and swore to come back and take everything she deserves rightfully. Stuff happens, Undying patron sends her visions, why the fuck not, make contract. Actually has a very cool concept built around eyes, needing eyes for her patron, her arcane focus being a big eyeball, and so on.
So not necessary evil, and not brooding constantly to the point of boring edgyness, but plays well the "bitter and lonely" tiefling staple.
Men it is good when your players can do tieflings without being edgy as fuck at the table. It could have ended way worst.
i once ran a tiefling who was human colored.
when he was little, his family was sold to a wizard by a stupid and fearful angry mob.
he alone escaped and swore vengeance on the wizard.
he sawed off his horns and fashioned them into daggers.
i built him to be a mageslayer. feats and powers just for that to the point where he was kin of useless against non mages.
anyway, his motivation was pretty "imma kill that wizard"
he was a stoic guy who resented how humans and the other "normal" races treated tieflings and, to a lesser extent, half-orcs
I played an Alchemist Tiefling who owned a curio shop. He would dungeon delve just to hunt for exotic items to sell. He was mostly a nice guy but really just a neutral business man.
Anytime he would bail out a party member from peril he would charge them a service fee. Also charged a fee for any use of his wand of CLW. The party actually got really into price haggling with me and somehow became fun to do. Good times
I'm playing a tiefling right now.
A well dressed gentleman speaking in an antebellum southern accent. Warlock of the infernal pact.
Didn't know he was a tiefling until his pact forced his latent heritage to start manifesting. Pact and focus are all nail themed. Constantly uses disguise self to appear human. Doesn't actually care about being a tiefling but disguises himself because he thinks people will be more receptive to business proposals from humans. Main goal is to be the ultimate venture capitalist, it's going well. He owns a shipping industry, a couple gambling halls, a whorehouse, and has recently become high patron of a set of artisans guilds.
I like to think I play him well enough. Not all "darkness and revenge on humanity". He does have a penchant for intimidation when he thinks people are being rude.
Only Tiefling I ever played was an impossibly naive farmhand from a backwater settlement who was so far gone from the ways of the civilized world that he died about six sessions in because he literally couldn't wrap his head around the fact that he had demonic blood in his veins.
Got the guillotine still not knowing what he did wrong. I have hope for Tiefling Lenny, it was just the wrong setting to bust it out. Maybe some other time.
>>43860412
That was a neat read.
>>43860412
I like that a lot, actually. Good move on the GM's part - an homage to a memorable character from a past run that isn't entirely useless or too overbearing.
>>43857718
Just started my first DnD campaign, 5e. Not my first RPG, but it was for about half the party or more.
Rolled up a Tiefling Sorcerer - human father with Russian influences, Tiefling mother with Indian influences. PC himself talks with a thick Russian accent.
He also resents simply being made a noble by virtue of his father being a noble himself - he'd much rather earn it, much like his great-grandfather Boris did when established the barony. PC decides to be an adventurer with his newly-discovered powers (owing to his also newly-discovered draconic ancestry). His confidence is such that he has refused any and all financial assistance, though he (openly begrudgingly but secretly gratefully) accepted the services of a trio of the family's retainers.
In order to make a name for himself, he figures he must be a man of the people - quite a difficult thing for a rich person who has never spent any time among common folk. But he believes all people to be born equal, no matter the social class, race or profession.Except for him - he's special.
Guys help. One of my PC's is playing as an edgelord Tiefling and its beginning to ruin it, everything comes down to him and the paladin arguing over if they should do X or Y.
This is my first homebrew too. How do I dull the edge without robbing him of too much?
>>43863015
Maybe you could present him a situation in which it would personally benefit him to do a good thing.
>>43863015
>>43863052
This.
You'd be surprised how quickly PC's moral compasses go out the window when they stand to gain something from it. 95% of players will toss not only their character's morality, but their own personal values out the window if it gets them a magic item.
Basically draenei. None of my players want to be warlocks or deal with devils or demons, so they are purge-happy paladins.
>>43862356
>A well dressed gentleman speaking in an antebellum southern accent.
Thanks for reminding me to remember Into the Badlands Sunday night
>>43861038
http://rule34.paheal.net/post/view/1131336
I actually am playing a Tiefling character currently.
I just want to say, he's a bit edgy. Investigator in Pathfinder, likes to use Alchemist powers.
Essentially, he's a demon supremacist who thinks other beings should get under his heel because they are inferior to him. (The fact he is only half demon does not occur to him, and he would be considered scum like most of humans is not brought up). Secondly, he is a researcher and he wants to stop the blood war between demons and devils so they can take their rightful place.
Is this too edgy a character?
>>43865160
Not so long as he's got a pretty terrible wisdom score.
I've always liked Planescape's notion that Tieflings are odd and can have any appearance befitting of their extraplanar heritage-especially if a random roll is required. I also like the idea that bloodlines are tainted and every once in a while a tiefling might turn up shedding light on past sins rather than tieflings being the child of something explicitly demonic or a race of cursed humans. I think most tieflings are jaded or have a chip on their shoulder concerning how the rest of society views them, but most would want acceptance rather than revenge or domination-succeeding and becoming prominent despite their heritage or because of it, depending on their point of view.
Keeping those ideas in mind, the last tiefling I played was unexpectedly born to a powerful merchant family. She was given an education and tended for but otherwise was raised in secret and hidden from the public eye. This didn't keep her from getting into mischief herself and sneaking off for periods of time on her own. Still, she showed a knack for the family business her siblings lacked and took interest in the new technology of guns, even going so far to push her family to make a profitable investment in it. So it hurt that much more when her father told her she could never be the face of the business and sent her out to make her own fortune, which she was determined to do so she could come back and buy what should be rightfully hers. No revenge or bloody coups, just honest work and proving herself better than her 'plain' siblings.
>>43857718
While I didn't play one directly, I had a Tiefling girl as part of my warblade's backstory. I actually based her off of Osaka from Azumanga. She was a slight spacecase but a loving girl who came from a loving family.
And had a tendency to decorate her horns by tying and drying pieces of jerky or spices to them.
Somehow, despite all this, she's supposed to be a talented martial adept in her own right.
I'm playing a Tiefling in a pathfinder game, I decided to roll for my mutations, got one eye and a good swimmer.
>Known as "One Eye K.I.D"
>Uses duel revolvers. (Investigator/steel hound)
>Acts like a cowboy
>lawful cop in a town that filled with assassins
>rather not kill people (unless they're evil)
>Drew pic of K.I.D
>ctrl f "merlin"
>no results
objectively the best tiefling in any fiction
>>43857718
Going for a oni-spawned Daevic the next time I get the chance. I like the idea of playing someone who's defined by their extreme desires and the conflict of drawing strength from them but still needing to restrain them and even wanting to do so for moral reasons.
>>43857718
Having fun with one right now
He's a war orphan from a conquered magocracy who's pissed because they were a bunch of infernalists and he's pretty sure that by this point in his life he would have been ruling the nation if they hadn't been conquered
Instead he's a shitty adventurer for hire who has to kill zombies to make ends meet, and it drives him nuts. He's Neutral Evil, but it's less actual ambition to do evil and more that he's just kind of a dick who feels slighted by the world since his country's defeat meant that being a tiefling went from a fast-track to power to, well, the usual prejudice one gets when they have white hair, funky horns, and a tail.
I prefer my tieflings to be the foreign, alien, oriental types rather than the typical edgy brooders with troubled pasts. They would have knowledge of the Planes and exotic arcana, not be wholly familiar with the customs of common speaking countries, and possibly hail from another plane themselves, like the Plane of Ash. Eastern and Hindu themes are preferable.
