Tiefling

How Tieflings looked like prior to 4e.

Tieflings are a corruption-based race of Planetouched 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. Hell, the two are not mutually exclusive

2e and 3.x

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.

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

Pathfinder

Being D&D 3.75 in all but name, you can bet your ass that Pathfinder was quick to include tieflings in their list of various races. In fact, 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.)

Given that Pathfinder loves to explore the complicated side of D&D 3.5, it should be little surprise that, with their "Blood of Fiends" sourcebook, not only did they revive the idea of randomized tables of tiefling appearance traits and alternative powers, they also came up with the idea of "purebred" tieflings. These are tieflings whose fiendish ancestry isn't strong enough to make them half-fiends (and yes, PF does have specific "half-marilith" or "half-succubus" type half-fiend templates), but is still strong enough that you can recognize what kind of fiend they originated from.

Faultspawn are the offspring of Asuras, an ancestry manifested by a propensity towards reptilian features and androgyny (yes, full-fledged dickgirls too). Like their ancestors, their senses of pity and mercy tend to be stunted - at best - and they are usually bitterly misotheistic, hating the gods and those who'd worship them. Even outside of religion, they are cruel and merciless to those who hold beliefs different to their own, and tend to be emotionally abusive.

Grimspawn are the offspring of Daemons, which physically afflicts them with perpetual symptoms of illness despite being perfectly healthy or with an incurable emaciated look, and mentally makes them prone to nihilism and sadism. Grimspawn tend to take a delight in entropy and ruin, enjoying the suffering of others and the collapse of everything. At best, they tend to be goths with a propensity for giggling at funerals and disaster zones. At worse, they tend to be Joker-style omnicidal maniacs.

Foulspawn are the offspring of Demodands; like Faultspawn, they absolutely hate religion, but they have a more anarchistic bent, which tends to manifest as a desire to break even the rules of good taste and morality as well as those of society. Foulspawn stand out anyway due to being physically divergent - obscenely fat or shockingly thin, ridiculously short or alarmingly tall - but their disgusting personal habits and awful personal hygine makes them amongst the grossest of tieflings.

Pitborn are the classic Demon-blooded tieflings, marked by "chaotic" flaws that throw off their inherent symmetry (anything from having one extra finger or a differently colored eye to a vestigial twin or having half the body covered in spikes or scales), fierce tempers, and a love for destruction.

Hellspawn are, of course, the Devilish counterparts to the Pitborn; with their tendency to fit the "iconic" tiefling mold (horns, tail, funny eyes), they're perhaps one of the most common tiefling breeds, especially given Cheliax. Mentally, Hellspawn are noted for a strangely contradictory blending of traits. They are extremely ambitious, and adept at finding out what people want and sensing lies, but at the same time, they're noted for being extremely conservative and conformative in nature. Hellspawn are ambitious, but also rigid, stubborn, and prone to being OCD-freaks obsessed with their plans and schedules; they don't do so well with spontaneity. As a result, they tend to settle for just finding a niche and then making themselves comfortable in it, rather than climbing for king-of-the-hill.

Spitespawn are born from ancient unions between humans and Divs, and these corrupted genie-kids are notorious for making the ultimate false friends. See, the stereotypical Spitespawn, as its moniker suggests, can't feel pleasure or happiness. The closest they get to a true sense of fulfillment is the smug satisfaction they get when spitefully making things worse for other people. Their mutations tend to focus on deformities of the skin, with everything from weird blotches to mobile bumps that suggest insects burrowing underneath the skin. Mutated tongues are also common.

Shackleborn are descended from kytons, which makes them instantly recognizable, as their inherited sadomasochistic urges means they are invariably covered in an obscene amount of brandings, piercings and tattoos - even before one notices the scar-streak patterns or bruise-purple & blue hue to their skin, or the metal bits growing out of their flesh.

Hungerseed are the children of oni, giving them both powerful builds and powerful appetites. Bullies and hedonists, Hungerseed yearn to sate their every indulgence and grow broody if thwarted by others.

The Motherless are those rare tieflings who trace their lineage to the qlippoth, making them hideously deformed even by the standards of other tieflings. Why are they called "The Motherless"? ...You really don't want to know, trust us.

The Beastbrood are the get of rakshasas upon human lovers, tieflings whose forms betray their bestial heritage. This can vary from subtle traits to a full-on melding of man and beast, but is always weirdly alluring despite its manimal shape. Arrogant, haughty and hedonistic, the Beastbrood crave opulence and expect obedience, giving them the attitude of typical aristocrats unless forced to act otherwise.

The Pathfinder Tiefling Mutations Table

• 1 Arms: elbow spurs
• 2 Arms: oversized limb
• 3 Arms: stony forearms
• 4 Arms: tentacle-like
• 5 Arms: undersized limb
• 6 Build: emaciated
• 7 Build: hunchback
• 8 Build: obese
• 9 Build: unnaturally heavy
• 10 Build: unnaturally light
• 11 Digits: abnormally long
• 12 Digits: extra digits
• 13 Digits: extra joints
• 14 Digits: no nails
• 15 Digits: odd number
• 16 Ears: batlike
• 17 Ears: missing
• 18 Ears: piglike
• 19 Ears: pointed
• 20 Ears: other
• 21 Eyes: cyclopic
• 22 Eyes: goatlike
• 23 Eyes: glowing
• 24 Eyes: smoking
• 25 Eyes: other
• 26 Face: canine muzzle
• 27 Face: insectile mandibles
• 28 Face: missing nose
• 29 Face: underdeveloped features
• 30 Face: other
• 31 Hands: backward-bending fingers
• 32 Hands: extra thumbs
• 33 Hands: pincers
• 34 Hands: suckered
• 35 Hands: other
• 36 Head: animalistic
• 37 Head: animate hair
• 38 Head: bald
• 39 Head: malformed
• 40 Head: other
• 41 Horns: draconic
• 42 Horns: metallic
• 43 Horns: ramlike
• 44 Horns: vestigial
• 45 Horns: other
• 46 Legs: backward-bending
• 47 Legs: birdlike
• 48 Legs: cloven feet
• 49 Legs: froglike
• 50 Legs: other
• 51 Skin: feathered
• 52 Skin: loose
• 53 Skin: patterned
• 54 Skin: rotting
• 55 Skin: scaled
• 56 Skin: slimy
• 57 Skin: strangely colored
• 58 Skin: translucent
• 59 Skin: variable color
• 60 Skin: other
• 61 Tail: aquatic
• 62 Tail: fiendish
• 63 Tail: mammalian
• 64 Tail: reptilian
• 65 Tail: other
• 66 Teeth: blunt
• 67 Teeth: fanged
• 68 Teeth: metallic
• 69 Teeth: needle-like
• 70 Teeth: other
• 71 Other: androgynous
• 72 Other: antennae
• 73 Other: avian snood
• 74 Other: bleeding pores
• 75 Other: bony ridges
• 76 Other: emits strange noises
• 77 Other: exoskeleton
• 78 Other: external organ
• 79 Other: extraneous nipple
• 80 Other: eyestalks
• 81 Other: forked tongue
• 82 Other: fungal/leafy growths
• 83 Other: hermaphroditic
• 84 Other: incongruous footprints
• 85 Other: infernal glow
• 86 Other: infested
• 87 Other: inhuman voice
• 88 Other: missing joint
• 89 Other: no reflection
• 90 Other: no shadow
• 91 Other: profane birthmark
• 92 Other: smoking breath
• 93 Other: spinneret
• 94 Other: strange smell
• 95 Other: uncontrollable twitch
• 96 Other: unnatural temperature
• 97 Other: vestigial limb
• 98 Other: whistling umbilicus
• 99 Roll twice, ignore any result of 99 or higher.
• 100 Roll three times, ignore any result of 99 or higher.

4e

When 4th edition rolled around, Wizards of the Coast had a little discussion about races. The first thing they agreed upon was that gnomes were, frankly, kind of lame, and that whilst the half-orc had a certain appeal to edgelords, it generally wasn't very popular. Both of these races needed a lot more time to rework them if they were to actually be good, rather than simply being included because "muh sacred cows!" So, for one replacement, they created the Dragonborn. For the other, they decided to give promotions to one of the most favored and loved "edgy" races of all D&D; the tiefling.

But, updating it to a corebook posed a certain challenge. Namely, in a non-Sigil setting, would there really be enough demon-fuckers running around to make tieflings especially common? The succubus and marilith are hot, but they're not that easy to bang!

WoTC's decision, then, was to recreate the tiefling origin a little. In the Nentir Vale history, tieflings are the descendants of Bael Turath, an empire of humans who forged diabolic pacts with Asmodeus and his Arch-Devil underlings for the power to defeat Arkhosia, empire of the Dragonborn. This empire-wide pledge, combined with several generations of widespread warlock pacts and diabolic interbreeding (this was the edition where they made succubi into devils), resulted in the entire population being replaced by tieflings, although this wasn't enough to prevent them fighting to mutual destruction with Arkhosia, scattering the tieflings across the world.

Now, all in all, this wasn't a bad deal for them, but a rather large amount of skub erupted as a result of one key decision: their appearance. See, traditionally, tieflings were supposed to be super-variable in terms of their appearance. In practice, few people bothered going outside of the "horns, tail, hooves; use one or more as desired" paradigm for their artwork, especially in AD&D. So, WoTC decided to just go with it and give them a unified "diabolic" look, with curling horns, a long reptilian tail, crimson skin and glowing eyes. The players pissed off at this only got more pissed when the Forgotten Realms' large tiefling population was retconned into the same sort of appearance as a result of Asmodeus dicking around.

Tieflings in 4th edition are a mystic race, with +2 to Charisma and Intelligence, +2 to Bluff & Stealth checks, Medium size, 6 squares of movement, low-light vision, the racial traits Bloodhunt (+1 to attack rolls vs. bloodied foes) and Fire Resistance (reduce fire damage taken by 5+1/2 character level), and the racial power of Infernal Wrath. This encounter attack allowed you to add damage equal to your Charisma modifier if you use it whilst attacking some asshole who hit you in the previous turn. You also get a +1 bonus when using this attack, to reduce the chance of wasting it.

Essentials modded this basic formula; now it could trade the +2 Intelligence for +2 Constitution, and Infernal Wrath was altered so that, instead, you could burn a reaction once per encounter to scorch the asshole who just hit you for D6 per tier + Cha or Int mod fire damage.

4th edition also added the idea of "tiefling bloodlines", tieflings who could trace their powers by blood or pact to a specific arch-devil. This came in the form of a feat, plus some extra boosting feats, and a racial Paragon Path to amplify its powers.

Dragon Magazine #383 featured the Broken Mirror tieflings, who traced their power to Levistus and had the power to bestow ill-fortune, via their Mantle of Misfortune racial power. In crunch terms, this amounted to the ability to create a turn-long, 5-square aura as a minor action, where any enemies in the aura suffered a -2 penalty to attack rolls and you could slide them 1 square if they missed. Given 4e placed a lot of emphasis on interesting environments, there's a certain comedic potential in this. At least, if you're the kind of person who can laugh at an ogre slipping on the remnants of one of its past victims and falling headfirst into its own pit full of spikes.

Dragon Magazine #387 featured the Blightseer tieflings, who traced their power to Baalzebul and had the power to cause decay in whatever they chose to look at. This manifested as the Gaze of Ruin racial feat-power, which was a 1/encounter 10 square minor action ranged attack that could impose either Vulnerability (All) on a target, a penalty to damage rolls with its weapon, or a -2 penalty to AC, depending on what you chose to stare at.

Needless to say, although the Warlock came out in 3.5, it is 4th edition that has really pushed the tiefling/warlock racial to class matchup. However, that array of stat bonuses also makes 4e tieflings surprisingly good Paladins and Warlords, to say nothing of Sorcerers, Bards, Wizards, Ardents and Battleminds. Although not statistically a good matchup, the tiefling rogue is still a time-honored archetype, and there's even a tiefling-exclusive rogue paragon path called the Hellstalker, which gains the ability to blind others and turn itself invisible.

5e

Despite all the skub surrounding 4th edition, the tiefling as a corebook race turned out to be a popular concept, and so naturally they made the trip into the 5th edition PHB. Although still preserving the "general look" from 4e, the 5e tiefling is more explicitly variable in appearance, and even got a short list of alternate physical mutations in the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide - small horns, fangs/sharp teeth, forked tongue, catlike eyes, six fingers on each hand, goat-like legs, cloven hooves, a forked tail, leathery or scaly skin, black/red/dark blue skin color, cast no shadow, cast no reflection, and exude a smell of brimstone.

One of the differences to 4th edition is that tieflings are explicitly expected to be rarer, which is why they've returned to a more nebulous fluff closer to the AD&D original than 4e's "scions of a fallen empire".

In their original writeup, tieflings had +2 Cha, +1 Int, Medium size, 30ft base speed, Darkvision, Hellish Resistance (resistant to Fire), and Infernal Legacy (spell-like abilities; Thaumaturgy at-will, Hellish Rebuke as a 2nd level spell 1/day at 3rd level, Darkness 1/day at 5th level). However, this slowly changed.

The aforementioned SCAG gave them 4 alternative racial traits. The Feral trait changes their ability score modifier to +2 Dex/+1 Int, whilst Devil's Tongue and Winged replace the Infernal Legacy trait and Hellfire mods it. Devil's Tongue changes the tiefling's spell-like abilities to Vicious Mockery, Charm Person, and Enthrall. Hellfire changes the tiefling's spell-like abilities by replacing Hellish Rebuke with Burning Hands. And Winged, obviously enough, strips the tiefling of its spell-like abilities in exchange for the ability to fly 30 feet per round.

Then came an Unearthed Arcana article called "That Old Black Magic". As part of its discussion of demonic powers, it rewrote the tiefling into a race/subrace system. The original tiefling became the Infernal subrace, and in alternative, there was the Abyssal tiefling.

Tiefling Racial Core:

Ability Score Increase: +2 Charisma

Size: Medium

Speed: 30 feet

Vision: Darkvision

Subraces: Choose between the Infernal Tiefling and Abyssal Tiefling subraces.

Language: Common

Infernal Tiefling:

Ability Score Increase: +1 Intelligence

Hellish Resistance

Infernal Legacy

Bonus Language: Infernal

Abyssal Tiefling:

Ability Score Increase: +1 Constitution

Abyssal Fortitude: Your hit point maximum increases by half your level, rounding up.

Abyssal Arcana: You have access to an array of randomized spells; you can cast a cantrip at 1st level, a 1st level spell at 3rd level, and a 2nd level spell at 5th level. All non-cantrip spells can be cast once per long rest, and are cast with a 2nd level spell slot. Each time you take a long rest, you must roll a D6 and compare it to the Abyssal Arcana Spells table to determine what spell you will be able to cast after completing your long rest. This must be done even if you haven't cast your spells, and you cannot keep the same spell-like ability; if your result would give you the same spell as the one you are replacing, roll again until the result is different. Make a separate roll for each available spell-like ability; a 3d6 result of 5, 3, 4 would give you Spare the Dying, Magic Missile and Levitate as your spell-like abilities until you next take a long rest.

Abyssal Arcana Spells:

Result of 1: Dancing Lights for Cantrip, Burning Hands for 1st Level Spell, Alter Self for 2nd Level Spell

Result of 2: True Strike for Cantrip, Charm Person for 1st Level Spell, Darkness for 2nd Level Spell

Result of 3: Light for Cantrip, Magic Missile for 1st Level Spell, Invisibility for 2nd Level Spell

Result of 4: Message for Cantrip, Cure Wounds for 1st Level Spell, Levitate for 2nd Level Spell

Result of 5: Spare the Dying for Cantrip, Tasha's Hideous Laughter for 1st Level Spell, Mirror Image for 2nd Level Spell

Result of 6: Prestidigitation for Cantrip, Thunderwave for 1st Level Spell, Spider Climb for 2nd Level Spell