Tiefling

How Tieflings looked like prior to 4e.

A corruption-touched race from Dungeons & Dragons, with a lineage stretching all the way back to 2e's Planescape setting, where they were one of the three initially released races for the setting, alongside the githzerai and the bariaur. In contrast to their mostly-forgotten kinsfolk, they have had a huge impact on D&D and been quite decently supported ever since, becoming core races in the 4th and 5th editions. It has to be said, this may be due to their fluff being rather supportive of mary sue-players.

One of the recurring themes of Tieflings is that others find them inherently unsettling. They tend to have Charisma bonuses (representing either their superior ability to intimidate others or the fact that everybody wants to bang the horned chicks, depending on who you ask).

2e, 3.x, Pathfinder

Tieflings are mortals whose lineage is tainted by the blood or essence of a fiend - demon, devil, daemon, whatever - at some remote point in their ancestry. Not an actual fiend's kid, mind, (those are either alu-fiends or cambion, depending on the gender), but one of their descendants. Basically, if a humanoid half-fiend has a kid, it'll probably be a tiefling, and after that the fiendish blood can also skip a few generations. Sometimes, it naturally occurs due to fiendish pacts, either in the pact-ee or their descendants.

In general, tieflings are presumed to be either unable to figure out what sort of fiend was their ancestor, or just inherently prone to fiendish mutation. As a result, their physical displays of fiendhood and their ability modifiers have often had sizeable - we're talking D100 tables, here - random tables to roll on, depending on edition and sourcebook.

That said, there is a little support for more "pureblooded" or "recognizable" tieflings. Pathfinder has a whole sourcebook called Blood of Fiends which features not only the inevitable "random tiefling power/appearance" tables, but also details on all of the various kinds of tiefling that can be spawned from specific classes of fiend - demon, devil, daemon, demodand, rakshasa, oni, kyton, etc. Additionally, tieflings are one of only two non-core races usable in officially-sponsored play (the other being the aasimar), and are common in-setting around both the nation of Cheliax (whose demon-summoning ways creates lots of them and whose Nazi-esque human-supremacist social policy discriminates against them) and around the Worldwound. (You, uh... you don't want to know what goes on around the Worldwound.)

Naturally, this lineage begged for grid-filling in the form of the aasimar (celestials) and genasi (elementals), though 3.5 would go another step by adding in "planetouched" races to reflect the outsiders of the Morally Neutral planes too.

Though officially all tieflings can spring from all manner of humanoid races, most writeups tend to either focus on the human tieflings or make it so that the twisting influence of their fiendish blood defines them "more" than their parents being non-fiends. That said, 3.5 Forgotten Realms did do up the Tanar'rukk (orc-descended tieflings) and the Fey'ri (elf/succubus tieflings).

The Legendary Tiefling Tables

The 2e tiefling first appeared in the "Player's Companion" component to the Planescape Campaign Setting boxed set. There, it was handled fairly simply; +1s to Int and Cha, -1s to Str and Wis, Infravision 60 feet, halving damage from Cold, +2 bonus to saving throws versus Fire, Electricity and Poison, and the ability to cast Darkness (15ft radius) once per day. Then "The Planeswalker's Handbook" introduced the legendary Tiefling customization tables, where you sacrifice the spell-like ability, cold resistance and saving throws bonus to make 5 rolls on a D100 Tiefling Abilities table and 1d4 rolls on a D100 Tiefling Appearance table. Gaze in awe at the potential combinations of traits your munchkin special snowflake could have possessed!

Tiefling Abilities

• 01-03: Blur 1/day
• 04-06: Charm Person 1/day
• 07-09: Chill Touch 1/day
• 10-12: Comprehend Languages 1/day
• 13-15: Darkness (15ft radius) 1/day
• 16-18: Detect Good/Evil 2/day
• 19-21: Detect Magic 3/day
• 22-24: ESP 1/day
• 25-27: Invisibility 2/week
• 28-30: Know Alignment 1/day
• 31-33: Mirror Image 1/day
• 34-36: Misdirection 1/day
• 37-39: Pyrotechnics 3/week
• 40-42: Suggestion 1/week
• 43-45: Summon Swarm 1/week
• 46-48: Vampiric Touch 1/week
• 49-51: Whispering Wind 1/day
• 52-55: Half damage from Fire
• 56-59: Half damage from Cold
• 60-63: Half damage from Electricity
• 64-67: Half damage from Acid
• 68-75: Infravision to 120 feet
• 76-79: +2 Saving Throw vs. Fire
• 80-83: +2 Saving Throw vs. Electricity
• 84-87: +2 Saving Throw vs. Poison
• 88-91: +2 Saving Throw vs. Cold
• 92-95: +2 Saving Throw vs. Acid
• 96: +2 Saving Throw vs. Petrification, Polymorph & Paralysis
• 97: +2 Saving Throw vs. Rod/Staff/Wand
• 98: +2 Saving Throw vs. Spell
• 99: Roll twice, rerolling results above 95
• 00: Roll three times, rerolling results above 95

Tiefling Appearance

• 01-04: Small horns on forehead
• 05-06: Small horns on temples
• 07: Single horn on forehead
• 08-09: Long, thin face
• 10: Fangs
• 11: All teeth are pointed
• 12: Forked tongue
• 13–14: Pointed ears
• 15: Fanlike ears
• 16: Extremely long nose
• 17: Very small (almost unnoticeable) nose
• 18: Extremely long eyelashes
• 19-21: Red eyes
• 22-23: Black eyes (no whites)
• 24: Feline eyes
• 25-26: Extremely deep-set eyes
• 27-28: Green hair
• 29-30: Blue hair
• 31: Multicolored hair
• 32-33: Six fingers (including thumb)
• 34-35: Three fingers (including thumb)
• 36-37: Black fingernails
• 38-39: Red fingernails
• 40-41: Fingers one inch longer than normal
• 42: Arms six inches longer than normal
• 43: Legs six inches longer than normal
• 44-46: Horselike legs
• 47-49: Goatlike legs
• 50-52: Goatlike hooves
• 53-55: Long, thin tail
• 56-57: Horselike tail
• 58-59: Lizardlike tail
• 60-62: Spiny ridge on back
• 63-65: Spiny ridges all over body
• 66-68: Hairless body
• 69-71: Body covered in short fur or long hair
• 72-73: Body covered in striped markings
• 74-75: Extremely greasy skin
• 76-80: Scaly skin
• 81-83: Leathery skin
• 84: Small feathers rather than hair on 10-100% of body
• 85: Green-tinted skin
• 86: Blue–tinted skin
• 87: Red-tinted skin
• 88-89: Special side effect – roll on the Tiefling Special Side Effects table
• 90-94: Roll twice, rerolling rolls above 89
• 95-00: Roll three times, rerolling rolls above 89

Tiefling Special Side Effects

• 01-10: Ashy odor surrounds body
• 11-15: Sulfurous surrounds body
• 16-20: Rotting odor surrounds body
• 21-25: Skin exudes ashy grit
• 26-30: Body casts no shadow
• 31-33: Body has no reflection in mirror
• 34-40: Susceptible to spells such as Spirit Wrack and Cacofiend
• 41-45: Tanar’ri react toward tiefling as though the tiefling were a baatezu
• 46-50: Baatezu react toward tiefling as though the tiefling were a tanar’ri
• 51-60: Presence causes unease in animals
• 61-65: Presence causes unease in NPCs, reactions at -4
• 66-70: Prolonged touch withers normal plants
• 71-75: Fingers treated as claws (1d4/1d3 damage)
• 76-80: Touch inflicts 1 point of Fire damage due to high body heat
• 81-85: Touch inflicts 1 point of Cold damage due to cold body temperature
• 86-90: Odd skin composition results in base AC of 1d6+3
• 91: Cannot reproduce
• 92: Holy water inflicts 1d6 damage
• 93: Exposure to direct sunlight inflicts 1 point of damage per round
• 94: Cannot enter “holy” areas
• 95: Harmed only by magical or silver weapons
• 96-00: Intuitively speaks the language of one fiendish race

4e & 5e

In 4e D&D, tiefling popularity was recognized and so WoTC decided to dump one of the less popular player races (or so they thought, anyway), the gnome, and make it a core race. But they figured that a race based on "your granddaddy/mommy was a monster from the Lower Planes" wouldn't really be that common. So, instead, they redesigned their tieflings to be the magically corrupted descendants of an evil empire that embraced diabolism and loyalty to Asmodeus to hold onto their power. When their empire fell, they were left scattered and corrupted into the tieflings. As part of this, they got redesigned to a more unified look, with reddish skin, glowing eyes, tails and horns, to make them appropriately "devilish", as opposed to the more grab-bag look of editions past.

D&D Next more or less follows in 4e's footsteps, though it's a bit vaguer on the details as to how they were corrupted and more explicit on the fact that the look of their tails and horns are variable. In celebration of this, the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide added a list of optional physical traits a tiefling could display, and gave several alternate racial traits; Dex bonus instead of Charisma, trading Hellish Rebuke for Burning Hands, trading its fiery spell-like abilities for mind-controlling ones, or trading its spell-like abilities for flight.

Although the Warlock came out in 3.5, it is 4th edition that has really pushed the tiefling/warlock racial to class matchup.