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 them often occurred generations earlier. The lineage 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 the same capacity to choose their fate as all other individuals of other ancestries, and while some embrace their fiendish powers, just as many reject their fiendish heritage. So, while society might reject them as an ancestry, many have become saints and heroes.
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 member of their other ancestries 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 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.
While tieflings live a similar life span to humans, many mature a few years later. They reach adulthood around 20, with middle age at 35 and old age around 53. The most venerable of this ancestry live into their 70s.
Tieflings are sexual dimorphic, with the average height of males just under six feet and females nearly half a foot shorter. Their body mass is similar, making most females weigh slightly less than males.
Society: Tieflings on the Material Plane 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 birth or chosen family. On other planes, tieflings form enclaves of their own kind. But often such enclaves are less than harmonious—the diversity of tiefling forms and philosophies can sometimes be an inherent source of conflict between members of the ancestry, and cliques and factions often form in an ever-shifting hierarchy where only the most opportunistic or devious gain advantage. Only those of common bloodlines or those who manage to divorce their worldview from the stereotype given to their ancestry manage to find true acceptance, camaraderie, and common ground among others of their kind.
Relations: Tieflings face a significant amount of prejudice from most other ancestries, who view them as fiend-spawn, seeds of evil, monsters, and lingering curses placed upon the world. Far too often, full blooded ancestries shun or marginalize them, while more mixed ones simply fear and reject them unless forced or cowed into acceptance. But half-elves, shadowlings and aasimars tend to view them as kindred spirits who are too often rejected or who do not fit into most societies by virtue of their birth. The widespread assumption that tieflings are innately like their fiendish ancestry prevents many from easily fitting into most cultures on the Material Plane except in exceedingly cosmopolitan or planar-influenced nations.
Alignment and Religion: In spite of the stereotypes about their fiendish heritage and the insidious influence of prejudice, tieflings can be of any calling. This makes them one of the more versatile of the ancestries and most strive to simply find their own way in the world. Often, they tend to adopt a very amoral, neutral view when they do make more drastic decisions. Though many others just assume that tieflings worship devils and demons, their religious views are as varied as their physical forms. Individual tieflings worship all manner of deities but they are just as likely to shun religion all together.
Adventurers: Tieflings are unlikely to integrate into the societies they call home. Drawn to the adventuring life as a method of escape, they hope to make a better life for themselves, to prove their freedom from their blood’s taint, or to punish a world that fears and rejects them. Tieflings make skilled skirmishers, powerful warriors, and especially puissant mystics as their potent blood empowers them.
Names: Allizsah, Baru, Dellisar, Indranna, Kasidra, Kilarra, Maldrek, Mellisan, Molos, Mordren, Nisha, Sarvin, Shoremoth, Temerith, Voren, Zoren