Let's talk about Tieflings.
Do you like/dislike them?
Have you read anything interesting about them story-wise?
How do you use them as NPC's in game?
>>47768230
Just don't play with edgy teenagers who think "demon blood" means they can make an anime character and you'll be fine.
I'm not really big on the whole "religious" aspects of demons and their powers, but I do find Tieflings make excellent "outcast" characters. Not the edgy super-badass loner types, but the types who end up becoming bandit or street thieves because society's distrust of them makes it impossible to earn a living any other way.
Whatever you do, either as a player or a GM, don't just use their race as an excuse to give them free powers like they're some kind of comic book heroes.
Yea, they look dope.
Not yet.
Either outcasts, like >>47768253 said, or guys with strong will, overcoming insecurities and mistrust
>>47768230
I like that there's an acknowledgement that half fiends can have kids. I dislike how they fail to acknowledge that there are more than fiends and angels crossed with humans out there and how at present there is nothing other than tieflings, if a fiend tainted bloodline can exist then there should also be one for everything else.
>>47768230
Mongrel race descended from those with unholy blood.
Thankfully the taint doesn't last more than a generation or two.
inb4 "muh true planescape tieflings"
>>47768230
I liked them better when every tiefling looked different.
>>47770259
>if a fiend tainted bloodline can exist then there should also be one for everything else.
But there is.
ALIGNMENT
- Good: Aasimar
- Evil: Tiefling
- Law: Zenythri
- Chaos: Chaond
The aasimar is of course in the 5E DMG. and tieflings in the 5E PHB. Zenythri and chaonds are mentioned in 3E's Monster Manual II (though I believe they date from 2E's Planescape originally). They are rarer than aasimar or tieflings, however, because the emblematic creatures of Law and Chaos - modrons and slaadi, respectively - reproduce very differently from from humanoids.
ELEMENTAL
- Air: Air genasi
- Earth: Earth genasi
- Fire: Fire genasi
- Water: Water genasi
Detailed most recently in 5E's Princes of the Apocalypse, but they were totally a thing in 4E, 3E, and 2E as well. Like the alignment-based planetouched, I'm pretty sure they ultimately originate from 2E's Planescape. Anyway, these beings tend to result from mortals coupling with genies or other beings of the Elemental planes.
>>47768230
I think the new uniform design is boring and unappealing.
I'm pretty amused by Tieflings with stereotypical "good" names. So far my group has had two Tieflings, one called Angel as a nickname and the other actually named Melody.
We like Tieflings, but don't really play them often.
i like monsterous races (with a grain of salt, ofcourse) and i've played a few tieflings.
one was a stereotypical bard that came for a least to say shady family that activly worshipped the patron/ source of their demonic blood, to the point where he had a large tattoo of her symbol on her chest
im currently playing a tiefling warlock in a setting that's supposed to be a crossing between bloodborne/curse of strahd set in a megacity of sorts, with him being fat, greedy, gluttonus and fairly unpleasant
>>47770367
You are correct so I will clarify my points.
In 3.5 there was a Half-Fiend/Angel template so whatever race you wanted to be was reflected in your character but if you wanted to be anything but a human descend plane touched you needed to hope that it was in one of the books you had access to or that the GM would agree to a home brew.
In 5e even humans get sub races so covering the whole range in the PHB would have been easy but instead we get aasimar in the DMG and none of the others.
It just seems to me that they could have done it better.
>>47768230
I have a soft spot for them; I have however lumped them into the beastial races of my setting. Gnolls, orcs, Ibixians, and such.
There, they are the more direct descendants of the demons unleashed in the last war (magic nuke got used, fucked up the balance of the planes, etc.). So while they are mortal, and certainly fearsome looking, they are also tainted with powerful magic from another world.
Sounds a bit edgy, so far in play in the game theyre very flavorful and self-explanatory to the pcs. I feel you really need ot put an event in your game world that makes their presence make sense. not just "born to a witch under a dark moon" but actually "demons fucked some mortals and sired kin"
I didn't care much for them until the 4e take. Bael Turath was the most interesting thing D&D did with them and got me to actually give a shit about them as a legit race.
I don't get the attraction to the randomly rolled tiefling traits thing. Once the novelty wears off they're just another half breed race. Smelling bad and having goat eyes isn't a replacement for having a place in the setting
I like the original incarnation of tieflings. I dislike the homogenized horned people look.
>>47770389
>>47770367
There's no reason you can't have them look however you want them to
>>47770594
>In 5e even humans get sub races
They do?
>>47768230
My setting can get big on "root out the devil and drive his followers to salvation, or death".
I encourage players not to settle on Tieflings due to their demonic heritage and appearance (because having god-fearing peasants react to a literal devil as if it's a literal devil is being a shit GM I guess) causing problems.
Tieflings as bandits and outcasts work. I've also featured a few, good aligned Tieflings as associates if certain Nun/Nursing Orders. They were themselves saved by the church and now work on the front lines, doing the Lord's work.
I've had one player insist on a Tiefling Fighter (later classing into Paladin) who was orphaned to a local abbey. He grew up a charge of the Abbess (who wanted, but never had children of her own) until she took ill one winter and later died. He left shortly after, amidst rumor he was ultimately cursed. Believing this, he was on a quest to purify himself and seek atonement for his "mother's" death.
>>47771576
Leaning a little heavy on the Jesus juice there anon
>>47771467
But "Do you like presented material?" is a more meaningful question to answer than "Do you like material you have revised to suite your tastes?".
>>47768230
>>47768253
Fuck do I hate tieflings. The worst kinds of players get attracted to them. Not just edgelords, but people who have to be a special snowflake or a misunderstood victim, and also little kids who aren't edgy but still feel the need to do it for some reason. The group I'm in has three teenagers who don't know each other and each one of them independently rolled up a tiefling.
>>47768230
>dislike
The horns, they look stupid.
And then thematically, are they half-demons? A tenth-demons? One drop of demon?
Who even wants to play a demon anyway.
I don't get it.
Also the name, anything with "ling" is awful.
I like the homogeneous look. Fight me.
>>47771591
Every game I've ever played has retarded amounts of deities and by the 5th or 6th sessions no one remembers Thurmagurd the God of The Forge and his wife Whatshername. So I went with a monotheistic setting...
Then my players said "why not call NotJesus, Jesus and be done with it?" So here we are. Unfortunately that also meant my players wanted to be associated with certain Catholic Orders (We have a Paladin and Cleric with the Order of Saint John) which left me to read up on medieval Catholicism. Not going to lie, shit was/is fascinating.
I do want to make a Hellboy like character one day, minus the fist of an angry God. Picture him having a grim and morbid sense of humor and a deep appreciation for both socratic irony and comical irony.
>>47771840
neat
>>47768253
this and >>47771373
Also
In a low fantasy setting I find tieflings and aasimar make for a decent alternative to elves and dwarves in terms of demihuman races. They are sort of fantasy style mutants that pop up here and there in traditional myths. You don't need to build new kingdoms or societies around them since they're just a sub-group of humans. At most you can add a few inbred tribes of tieflings or chivalric family of assimar or whatever other clan alignment races you want.
But generally they are treated as odd people, who by virtue of existing hint at larger, stranger forces at work.
>>47772011
>race of half-demons descended from creatures which literally came out of Hell
>low fantasy
>>47772011
>low fantasy
>replace mundane nonhumans with literal demonspawn and angelic descendants
>>47768230
The most interesting thing i ever did with a tiefling was run it as an edgy teenager in a genuinely evil party, and slowly realize that he didn't actually want to be evil.
>>47772609
>mfw the half-demon is the most well adjusted party member.
>>47770594
>>47771478
No, they don't. I don't know what he's talking about. The PHB does go a little bit into human ethnicities in Faerûn, but they have no mechanical effect, they just list off typical appearance and names (i.e., Mulhorandi humans look Egyptian and are probably named something like Imhotep).
>>47768230
I still wish that they looked more like their 2E equivalents which weren't all bright red and didn't all have horns. They can certainly be interesting as normal people though, and enjoy them along with Aasimars immensely at providing different flavors of humans to the game.
>>47772116
>>47772117
Having some overt fantasy elements doesn't make a setting high fantasy. Have some imagination
>>47772968
The nature of tieflings is pretty grounded in high fantasy, anon. It's pretty hard to sell your story as low fantasy when you have actual demonpeople running around and living in slum societies.
Basically, the crazier your player races are, the harder it is for me to buy it as low fantasy. And tieflings are about as crazy as you can get before you start making Naga and Ents playable.
>>47768230
I like 2e/3e/pf Tieflings. I want all manner of crossblooded types though.
I don't like 4e style Tieflings.
>>47768230
Naruto: The Race
>>47773046
Counterargument!
My setting has the elves, humans and Dwarves in a low-magic, simple late medieval society. Magic is possible, but requires heavy investment to make wonders work. Not every man can become a god, and not every mage is omnipotent
BUT
Theres a land torn up by the last war, brimming with magic. It's lands are full of demons and warlocks and elementals AND TIEFLINGS. And theres a war brewing where the magic is starting to roil.
Is my setting low fantasy or high?
The PC's are all bent towards low magic and some tech. But theres clear fantastic elements in the game.
I assume its gritty lower fantasy, with big scary things. What do you call it?
>>47773380
Where does most of the game take place? In tiefling land it's high fanatasy elsewhere it's low. By definition it's all high fantasy if your setting isn't earth.
>>47773046
So the Arthurian Mythology is High Fantasy? I mean, Merlin is Half-Demon.
>>47773380
> every man can become a god, and not every mage is omnipotent
Is not the qualifier for High Fantasy. High Fantasy is the integration of fantastical elements to a great degree, where you can constantly feel its influence in most elements of the world. LotR is high fantasy, because magic is omnipresent even if it's subtle and mysterious. ASoIaF is high fantasy turned low fantasy, because the fantastical elements--dragons, White Walkers, R'hllor, are isolated elements which are treated as huge deals in the setting because no one's ever really seen that shit in a really long time.
If magic and fantastical things like tieflings are something every knows exists and is on a large enough scale to where there's an entire region of it all happening in a hodgepodge of genre conventions then I'd say your setting is high fantasy. Gritty high fantasy, but still high fantasy.
>>47773297
Wut?
>>47773423
>By definition it's all high fantasy if your setting isn't earth.
What is Shanarra, by Terry Brooks?
Or Game of Thrones?
Theyre not on earth, but by no means is it always ALL MAGIC ALL DAY ERRDAY
>>47768230
I want to play a succubus blood tiefling who tries to resist becoming a whore or slave.
>>47773425
Also possibly a time traveler.
I've never liked Tieflings.
I have a hard time imagining that a pseudo-medieval society would allow such creatures to live.
Maybe the Witcher has forever poisoned me to Modern American Egalitarian fantasy settings.
>>47772116
>>47772117
I was referring to the original take on tieflings and aasimar not the big-ass ram horns and dinosaur tail kind. Caliban style guys that could pass for slightly malformed or unusually perfect humans.
Also, from what I remember, tiefling and aasimar are not half demons or angels. They are mortals with a very distant taint in their lineage. In low fantasy setting this could reference a forgotten age when there was loads of magical shit going on, now the most evidence of those crazy times is a dude with pointy teeth and weird eyes.
Or it could be the old tale of a family being really good/shitty so their first born turned out super pretty/ kind of fucked up. Could be slight divine intervention or just too much or too little inbreeding. Most likely dad was a hedge-wizard with irradiated balls.
Basically they are meant to be used as fantasy stand-ins for mutants, but I think I already said that.
Ether way at least the alignment alternate races serve some purpose in the greater cosmology. Elves and dwarves in low-fantasy usually feel really tacked on, especially if they are purely mundane. Why not have other civilisations of humans, what purpose is there to using Tolkien's races? Theological conflicts are classic in legends, stories of cursed families or girls with witcharks were things that people used to take seriously. Dudes with pointy ears marching armies around, less so.
>>47773460
High fantasy, because they aren't earth. That's the definition.
>>47773907
Being of elven blood was one of the things people used to take seriously too. Dudes with pointy ears marching armies around would be serious business
>>47768230
I like playing off multiple Tieflings against each other, showing the differences between them as people by how each reacts to their shared predicament.
>>47768230
I like them as lawyers, politicians, businessmen, loan-sharks, dealers, and crooks. Real scum-of-the-earth types hanging out in the background. You don't find a lot of them cracking skulls for a living though. Since they're generally smart and good with people, they gravitate toward roles that reward those qualities.
They would get a reputation for ruthlessness and cunning in their dealings, as they can often be found preying on vulnerable people. Most people figure it's their devil blood that makes them such brilliant manipulators, some think it's the look that disarms ordinary folk. Whatever the case, it makes their kind at the same time disliked and respected.
Also, I like them with deep red skin, like the devil himself. Long black claws, huge rough horns, and sharp teeth. There's no mistaking a tiefling for a normal person.
>>47778340
>Also, I like them with deep red skin, like the devil himself. Long black claws, huge rough horns, and sharp teeth. There's no mistaking a tiefling for a normal person.
By which I mean pic related
>>47768230
their fine as long as they aren't used as a synonym for big breasted demon lady or animu self insert.
They're like Drow in that they have to deal with racism but less faggy than Drow.
>>47770367
>sex with a modron
>>47772968
>Having some overt fantasy elements doesn't make a setting high fantasy.
Yes it does.
I like them but I find it hard to accept them fitting in with homogenous societies and I also find it hard to believe a whole society of them makes sense.
I don't understand why tieflings as a rule would be more numerous. You'd think a baby with cloven feet and horns would pretty much be killed on the spot, that flat out screams "angry mob at your doorstep every time there's something in need of scapegoating
>>47780550
>more numerous.
More numerous than aasimar/genasi*
>>47780550
In the 4e take they come from an empire that spanned most of the known world. They were the ones calling the shots until it came crashing down, and as such everyone is just sort of used to having them around. Nobody particularly likes them but they're prolific enough that they don't get lynched unless things get really bad.
