Tiefling

Posted in RPG on 2017-06-30

Fourth edition was weird for tieflings.

1. Origins
   1. Planescape Campaign Setting (1994)
   2. Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994)
   3. The Planewalker’s Handbook (1996)
2. Development
   1. Third edition
   2. Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001)
   3. Monsters of Faerûn (2001)
   4. Races of Faerûn (2003)
   5. Fiend Folio (2003)
   6. Monster Manual, v3.5 (2003)
   7. Savage Progressions (2004)
   8. Unearthed Arcana (2004)
   9. Planar Handbook (2004)
   10. Races of Destiny (2004)
   11. Player’s Handbook, 4th edition (2008)
   12. Player’s Handbook Races: Tieflings (2010)
   13. Player’s Handbook, 5th edition (2014)
3. Opinion
   1. New vs old
   2. Tieflings and Acolyte of the Skin
   3. Tieflings in Greyhawk
4. Footnotes

Origins

Planescape Campaign Setting (1994)

The tiefling, as far as I can tell, first appeared in AD&D 2nd edition with the Planescape Campaign Setting (1994)¹, by Zeb Cook.

Originally, tieflings were described as humans with some fraction of unknown planar ancestry. They appear to be human but with a few very subtle differences², to the extent that they could be mistaken for human by someone unfamiliar with tieflings.

You find this also appears with the githzerai, who are described in this book as looking “almost exactly like humans”, except “slightly thinner and taller”. Later versions would try to make them look more different.

Tieflings are generally distrusted and feared, sometimes unreasonably, with the result that they become outcast, distrusting and generally angsty.

The tiefling’s non-human ancestor is never explicitly stated, only referred to as “something else” and “mysterious heritage”. It’s implied to be something from the lower planes, as they’re described as “plane-touched” and their alignment cannot be lawful good. Second edition tried to avoid using words like “demon” or “devil”.

The etymology of tiefling is likely to be from the German “tief”, meaning “deep” or “low”, and “-ling”, a suffix suggesting a diminutive offshoot, as in “seedling”, “halfling” or “youngling”.

Tieflings originally had a bonus to Intelligence and Charisma, but a penalty to Strength and Wisdom.

Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994)

The Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994)³ expands on the race with a monster entry.

Tieflings are described as highly variable, appearing to be human except for some difference that always gives them away, such as small horns or scales. They are quick-tempered, quick-witted, stubborn and have massive self-confidence. Half of all tieflings are ambidextrous.

They’re described as preferring dark colours, wearing tight-fitting leggings, a tunic, a long jacket or cape, and armour made from the hide of vermin from the lower planes. They’re carnivorous, and prefer raw meat and bone, and can survive on coal and ash for short periods. They’re almost always loners, but occasionally form cults of personality around a powerful tiefling.

The weirdest thing about this is that tieflings nearly all wear tight-fitting leggings. You have this race where no two are like, distributed across the planes with no culture of their own, and for no reason they all wear the same style of trousers.

The Planewalker’s Handbook (1996)

The Planewalker’s Handbook (1996)⁴ by Monte Cook makes it clear that most tieflings have no idea who or what their non-human ancestor was.⁵ It’s generally assumed to be some creature from the lower planes.

As no two tieflings are alike, this book gives a table of random attributes for character creation. The player rolls five times on the special abilities table (spell-like abilities, resistances and saving throw bonuses) and 1d4 times on an appearance table that can give things like horns, goatlike legs, unusual hair or eye colour, or side effects like casting no shadow.

This book describes another aspect of tiefling psychology: tieflings decide their own fate. Since the have no culture to tell them who they are, they decide instead to define themselves by their actions.

This book also features other types of planetouched: the aasimar (good-aligned equivalents to the tiefling, named for the aasimon, a type of angel that includes planetars and solars) and genasi (elemental planetouched).

Development

Third edition

Prior to D&D third edition, tieflings were limited to the Planescape setting. I would not be surprised if it was Monte Cook’s influence that saw its inclusion in the D&D 3.0 Monster Manual.

It may surprise players who started with D&D 4th or 5th edition that tiefling was never a core D&D race in 3rd edition. While it appeared in the Monster Manual, D&D 3e originally had no rules for using monsters as player characters.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001)

That changed when the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001) introduced the Level Adjustment system,⁶,⁷ almost certainly because people wanted to play chaotic good drow after Drizzt Do’Urden and they needed a way to balance that race’s magical abilities against standard player character races.⁸

A side-effect was that they could use this system to balance aasimar and tiefling, who were slightly too powerful in the D&D 3.0 Monster Manual to be standard races.

(As an aside, I read once that SKR admitted aasimar/tiefling weren’t worth a full +1 level adjustment, but were given one anyway to avoid massive numbers of players choosing these supposedly rare⁹ races them over the slightly weaker standard races. They couldn’t simply buff or nerf these races because they already appeared in the Monster Manual. Unfortunately, aasimar/tiefling set a benchmark for LA +1, leading to a number of underpowered races.)

Planetouched in the Forgotten Realms are explained as people with an ancestor who consorted with extraplanar visitors to Toril who came through a portal once. Tieflings are specifically explained as those descended from demons or devils. In some cases they are descended from the servant of an evil deity, in which case they bear a birthmark such as that deity’s holy symbol or some other trait.

Monsters of Faerûn (2001)

Monsters of Faerûn (2001) introduced the fey’ri (elf/demon tieflings) and tanarukk (orc/demon tieflings). This seems to be a natural extension of human-based tieflings.

The fey’ri all have visible fiendish features: batlike wings, red eyes, tails and fine scales. This is in contrast to standard tieflings who can often pass for human. The fey’ri are descendants of elves who bred with demons to strengthen their bloodlines.

The tanarukk are the result of a breeding program set up by demons who wished to produce strong foot soldiers. They have the strength of orcs and the intelligence of tieflings.

Races of Faerûn (2003)

The tieflings of the Forgotten Realms are often killed at birth, and those that survive are usually evil. They have similar life expectancy to humans.

In an uncommon feature, this book explicitly names the tieflings’ fiendish ancestors. Most common are the marilith, succubus, erinyes, gelugon, pit fiend, night hag, rakshasa, and the occasional deity or divine servant. Tieflings appear human with one or two distinguishing features that vary based on their ancestor, such as hooves for a devil or cat eyes for a rakshasa.

The fey’ri are the result of sun elves bred with succubi, while the tanarukk are orcs bred with vrocks. They are technically not considered true tieflings.

Tieflings of Faerûn can acquire wings (via a feat) and obtain other planetouched-exclusive abilities.

Fiend Folio (2003)

The Fiend Folio added the maeluth (dwarf/devil tieflings) and wispling (halfling/demon tiefling).

Maeluth are hairless, and more charismatic than normal dwarves. Wisplings have bright red hair and can magically change their appearance.

This book also added other planetouched: the mechanatrix (Mechanus) and shyft (ethereal plane). I’m not sure exactly how someone can have a mechanical creature as an ancestor.

Monster Manual, v3.5 (2003)

The D&D 3.5 revision didn’t still add tiefling to the core races, but it did add level adjustment and playable stats to many creatures, including the planetouched.

The Monster Manual describes that tieflings are usually evil, hence their poor reputation. Many are indistinguishable from humans aside from a disturbing demeanour, while only some have the tell-tale signs like horns or red eyes. They generally hide within human societies and pass as human.

A minor change from the Forgotten Realms version is that they automatically gain Infernal, the language of devils. Logically, a tiefling descended from a demon should probably speak Abyssal instead. The idea of tieflings being born already knowing a language like this appeared as a random optional trait in The Planewalker’s Handbook (1996).

The art portrays the tiefling two-weapon fighting, perhaps a reference to the AD&D 2e tiefling who is canonically ambidextrous.

Savage Progressions (2004)

Sean K Reynolds wrote a series of articles for the Wizards of the Coast website, including two featuring the tiefling. Neither adds significant lore, but they do provide mechanically useful tools for playing a tiefling in D&D 3.5.

Level-Adjusted Races ¹⁰ allows you to play a weaker version of the tiefling without level adjustment. It loses the Int +2, its elemental resistances reduce from 5 to 2, and and its darkness spell-like ability has only a 5 foot radius. At any time, the character can spend a level to regain those benefits.

Transition Classes ¹¹ provides a transition class which lets a tiefling become a half-fiend one level at a time, over the course of three levels (rather than four, since the tiefling already has +1). Since you don’t have to take all levels of the progression, you can always just take the first level and become an exceptionally strong tiefling. The existence of this class implies that there’s some ritual by which tieflings can strengthen their fiendish blood.

(Unrelated to the tiefling, but particularly cool nonetheless, is the Savage Progressions article on the lich template. This makes it plausible for a player character to become a lich without gaining LA +4 all at once. It’s probably best to do this either upon gaining 9th level spells at level 17, or after reaching level 20 and effectively progressing to epic level.)

Unearthed Arcana (2004)

This book featured the tiefling paragon class, a three-level class which allows you to take levels in “tiefling”. The benefits aren’t as major as the half-fiend transition class, but you do get normal hit dice with the paragon class, including d8 hit dice and all the good saves.

Planar Handbook (2004)

D&D 3.5 made a greater push for books to offer content for players rather than DMs, presumably to sell more books. The Planar Handbook presents several playable races, plus some additional lore on tieflings.

Tieflings are longer-lived than humans, with lifespans up to 150 years. The random starting age tables are slightly higher so that many tieflings wait another two years before becoming adventurers.

They respect other mix-breed races, but have an instinctive dislike of good-aligned races like aasimar. Tieflings of good alignment are rare.

Tieflings often teach themselves Infernal or Abyssal, but since most don’t know whether their ancestor is a demon or devil, they often learn the wrong language. This is in contrast to the idea that tieflings are supernaturally born knowing that language.

They are usually raised with a human name but give themselves an Infernal or Abyssal name, sometimes without knowing knowing its meaning.

Races of Destiny (2004)

I wasn’t greatly impressed with this book. For example, it tells us the unsurprising and obvious fact that tieflings tend to worship evil deities. In some cases it even contradicts the Planar Handbook published earlier the same year.

According to this book, tieflings are specifically the descendents of infernal creatures, meaning devils, rather than abyssal creatures or any other mysterious evil outsider. Tieflings are almost all evil, and hated by nearly every other race, with the result that they view non-tieflings as merely pawns in their schemes.

Most tieflings now have the small horns, red eyes or the like, and those who can pass completely for human are rare. Only a rare few have cloven hooves, a tail, or the like.

Tieflings supernaturally acquire the Infernal language, unlike Planar Handbook where it’s something they tend to choose to learn later in life.

Player’s Handbook, 4th edition (2008)

D&D 4th edition made massive sweeping changes to the game, both mechanically and thematically. Tieflings suddenly became a core race, and changed more radically than any other race in the game.

Tieflings now all have large horns, long tails, pointed teeth, and eyes that are solid orbs of colour. The art does not appeal to me. Horns cover the tiefling’s forehead and jut out like bony eyebrows. Male tieflings have ugly flesh beards. Despite having access to the same range of skin tones as humans, the most common colour appears to be salmon pink.

The race consists exclusively of the descendants of Bael Turath, a fallen empire whose leaders made pacts with devils and became the first tieflings. They like to wear dark colours, reds, furs, spikes and buckles, and almost exclusively wield jagged and curved blades.

Tieflings have their own names (what langauge these are in is a mystery), but a recent fad has young tieflings choose an adjective in the common language as their name, like “Poetry” or “Sorrow”.

They are slow to trust, but form strong bonds with a select few (their adventuring party); this is different to earlier editions, where they trust nobody, not even other tieflings.

Tieflings now have bonuses to Intelligence and Charisma, unlike the 3e tiefling who actually had a penalty to Charisma and favoured rogue.

Player’s Handbook Races: Tieflings (2010)

The origin story of tieflings is expanded upon here. Hundreds of nobles, including the head of nearly every noble house, took part in a month-long ritual named the Bloodfire Moon, in which they were transformed into the first tieflings.

Tieflings breed true with humans; anyone with one tiefling parent is a tiefling.

The descendants of a particular noble house suffer a curse where they sweat blood (a potentially lethal affliction) unless they execute a condemned criminal once a month. Alternatively, they can avoid this by simply wearing red.

Player’s Handbook, 5th edition (2014)

Although 5th edition returned a lot of D&D to a pre-4th edition ethos, the weird pink tieflings stay.

A notable difference is that tieflings are no longer intrinsically evil. They’re distrusted for their appearance, but their hearts are fundamentally human. They tend to respond to that distrust by redoubling their efforts to prove themselves, rather than becoming angsty loners. 5e tieflings are more positive.

5e’s tieflings are all infernal tieflings, ancestors of humans who made a pact to infuse the essence of Asmodeus into their bloodline. An Unearthed Arcana article provides a variant for the Abyssal tiefling, who gains a bonus to Constitution instead of Intelligence, among other differences.¹² This matches with the 4e tiefling who would later be given the option to choose Con instead of Int.

While they’re still a core race in 5e, tieflings are uncommon, along with dragonborn, gnome, half-elf and half-orc. Gnome’s rarity may surprise 3e players who knew it as a core race, but it was nearly cut from the PHB at one point¹³, I seem to recall for being too similar to the halfling, and put back in when Greyhawk became 3e’s core setting. Tiefling and dragonborn are uncommon because they didn’t appear as core races until 4e, and thus don’t appear heavily in most D&D settings.

Opinion

New vs old

The 4e-style tiefling really addresses two issues with the original Planescape race: it’s too visually similar to the human, and it never really explained how fiendish blood got into their ancestry when fiends don’t sexually reproduce.

The drawback is that it does away with the concept of a tiefling who can hide in human society. It’s also visually ugly. Most tieflings are depicted with salmon pink skin, flesh beards, or horns that resemble huge eyebrows.

This style of tiefling actually pre-dates fourth edition, appearing in Dungeon magazine’s Age of Worms series. The female iconic tiefling of that series has a tail and flat horns that grow sideways from her forehead.

It’s entirely possible that both types of tiefling exist. The concept can equally apply to anyone with fiendish blood, whether by parentage or ritual.

Tieflings and Acolyte of the Skin

There’s a potential link between the tiefling and D&D 3e’s Acolyte of the Skin, a prestige class introduced in Tome and Blood and reprinted in Complete Arcane.

The Acolyte of the Skin is an arcane spellcaster who uses a dark ritual to replace his skin with a living fiend, giving him a progressively fiendish appearance and power. Since this process is permanent, it’s plausible that the descendants of an Acolyte of the Skin would inherit this status.

The change in appearance depends on level, with 1st-level acolytes almost indistinguishable from humans, and 10th-level appearing significantly monstrous. Since the process is gradual and not all acolytes make the full progression, it’s possible that there’s a great variety of appearance among acolyte descendants.

This also provides a convenient explanation for why established settings suddenly gained a lot of tieflings. Most are humans who were introduced to the Ritual of Bonding to increase their power.

Tieflings in Greyhawk

Practically all of Greyhawk was written before tieflings officially became a playable race, and for most of that time the race was limited to the Planescape setting. As a result, there’s very little official lore on tieflings in Greyhawk.

One plausible answer is that tieflings always existed in Greyhawk; they just tend to look like ordinary humans. Some reached adulthood before discovering that they weren’t wholly human. A number of major human figures were in fact secretly tieflings.

A particular location for tieflings is the United Kingdom of Ahlissa, whose dealings with fiends (see Ivid the Undying) led to many power-hungry human nobles becoming tiefling by way of infernal pacts. Other tieflings were summoned as extraplanar mercenaries, and while most were banished in 586 CY during the Flight of Fiends, their offspring born on Oerth are native to this world. Many such tieflings grew up as war orphans and are old enough now to become adventurers themselves.

Footnotes