I think if anything Tieflings might have a lot of trouble with spicy food. It's a "chemical agonist" that directly stimulates pain and temperature sensors to create the sensation heat without actually generating any heat. Fire resistance wouldn't protect them, because a hot pepper doesn't actually burn you. (They don't resist poison or acid or similar) Tieflings wouldn't experience a sensation of burning or heat even if they stuck their hand in the fireplace. They'd have no context or other experience with that sensation to help them cope. Stuff like chugging still-boiling tea, though.
I agree capsaicin is what makes peppers "hot" and is a poison by definition. Tieflings do not resist poison and therefore should suffer peppers the same as humans. You could use this in an interesting role playing way though. Perhaps a character that would scratch their skin and apply hot pepper oil to the abrasions and hold that area to an open flame to get an approximation of how non-fiendish characters experience heat; that could be a way to portray a Tiefling that wishes to be a different race like Human or Elf, a self loathing character.
There is a tiefling feat called Infernal Constitution, and it gives your Tiefling a +1 to con and resistance to poison and ice damage with advantage on poison saving throws.........
Won't lie, they are my favorite race. Not sure if its the horns, the corrupted origins, the sheer amount of customization or lore... I dunno I just love tieflings to death
it has a charm similar to an anti-hero, with the instinct to desire to do evil, teetering on the fine line between good and evil is a crowd favorite in character traits.
Same. My DM even permits a dagger like attack with the blade on the tail, and a nonlethal skull bash. Personally, I like the fact that they're born among humans, basically *are* humans, but are just different from everybody they are around.
I’d like to imagine the “resistant to fire” thing manifesting as the tiefling almost always feeling *just a little bit* too cold to be comfortable. So they might be guilty of that stereotypical “old people” habit of wearing multiple layers or heavy clothing in the middle of a blisteringly hot summer day. If there’s an source of heat close by, like a fireplace or an oven, they might feel the urge to get as close as possible. On the flip side of this, they might harbor an unusually fierce dislike for cold or wet climates, because those types of environs would only serve to exacerbate the feeling of never being warm enough. If they see stormclouds moving in, they might well become visibly irritated. If they’re stuck somewhere during winter, they might even slip into abject misery.
So basically they're southerners in the US. it's 70F (21C) outside? "It's freezing! I need my coat!" It's 100F (37C) outside? "What are you complaining about? This is nice."
the culture of tieflings you described is exactly what my dm did. We were invited to a feast in the desert by tieflings and we had to make a constitution check to see how well we handled the spice. some of us ended up eating our own rations at the feast.
I like the idea of a Chaotic Good Tiefling paladin that does, a hero who believes that your ancestors shouldn't define you and dislikes monarchs as they where just given there power. Also I find the idea of a of a champion of good looking like a demon or devil.
hellboy made me love tieflings as a character concept. Like x-men characters who can use supernatural powers for good or bad. My favourite character is a tiefling warlock who uses fiendish powers for good deeds and pays the price for it. Like trying to redeem themselves for being born different even with the world at their throats.
I'm thinking of a more petite tiefling with curled goat horns, longer doe like ears, and horizontal oval pupils, and a short goat's tail. A very adorable wizard with all his books and hornrimed glasses
Laura Bailey's Campaign 2 character from Critical Role is a blue tiefling (cleric) with small ram horns. She's adorable. cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/009/161/756/large/noah-warner-pastryfiendjester-criticalrole.jpg?1517450910
My first dnd character that lasted more then one session was a teiphling monk. He was a kind slightly crazy old man who suffered a lot of abuse as a child. His horns were cut off when he was 8 by his adoptive parents. He goes around doing good deeds especially helping children but the growing level of his senile nature makes things fun at times.
I had to pause for a moment just to laugh when I realized what that opening song was. Well done, well done. Oh, cool thing for my tiefling necromancer: She recently discovered her fiendish progenitor (a rahkshassa named Shaitan), and learned it was her grandfather who had made the pact that resulted in her fiendish traits. She's had to be talked down a few times now from trying to kill him.
The best way to hide a classic looking tiefling paladin with the least amount of effort is to cover them up in armour and when said person completely trusts them, they reveal their fiendish heritage, and hope said person doesn't notice the big tail that they have.
My tiefling bard uses thaumaturgy to make acoustic instruments sound like their electric equivalents. He also has hollow bones and a prehensile tail that can pay a second instrument. He's pretty neat.
I also have a Tiefling bard. He uses an Oud as his instrument. He is always trying to help and promote justice but keeps on accidentally screwing up and making things worse. Things like playing a song to buff his party, but the enemies are also buffed, or accidentally killing or even helping a villain when he wants to keep them alive and let them redeem themselves.
He used a magic mirror to make himself blue because he thought people hated his people for the red skin. Nevertheless, only a single member of his party wants him in and encourages his efforts. Every misstep confirms to everyone else that he's simply a demon destined for evil and it leaves him in a constant struggle to prove himself to the world.
One of my favorite things about them is naming them. I had a 5e tiefling rogue named Malephast Caynaan who was a street performer. Campaign got shut down before he could do much due to drama and I never got to do his intro as "Malephast THE INCONCEIVABLE!!!". It was gonna be a trip, man. I still have his mini and I need to get him into a different campaign and let him live his life out. Another character sheet to add to the file of potentials...
Cambion, actually. He is the son of a demon lord by a human woman and does inheret some of his father's place in the world. He may choose to be a good person and defend the world but he does have the ability to leverage his fiendish lineage and powers should he desire to. Not a corruption but a true heir to his father's throne.
The Brimstone Angel novel series by Erin M Evans gives a perfect insight into what it's like to be a Tiefling in the Forgotten Realms, not to mention it's a good book series.
I can see it being really fun playing a lawful neutral character that is basically hellboy with all of hellboys problems because of his looks but benefits from their power like fire resistance just like in the comics and movies
Makes me imagine this: *Dragon breathes fire* Tiefling-Monk: "Fuck off!" *flips the bird to the dragon* *Fires passes over the Monk and after it dissolves you see him lying on the ground* Tiefling-Monk: "I might have overestimated my fire resistence"
I know a lot depends on like the dm and what they’re trying to do with the campaign, but I’m just curious if it always “has to be” a deal made “a hundred years ago.” What if I had a character that started human, and ended up making a deal and then themselves slowly started becoming a teifling? Just an idea I’ve been playing around with, with a character of mine.
The idea is that the fiendish corruption cannot affect the body of the progenitor immediately but is carried onward to any descendants whom are more mutable in this regard. Think of it as a fiendish pact warlock taken to eleven. The nature of the pact leaving a mark that doesn't fade with successive generations. As more than a few warlocks do mutate because of their pact I can see a slow, maybe incomplete, transformation happening.
I think of it as selling your offsprings happiness. Or their shot at a normal life. I could see this especially if your character was very attached to their looks and thus resented the transformation.
Here's an idea: a teifling artificer/wizard whose magic and creations are always being noted as "the demonic dark arts" by the teams paladen even though they're using the same kind of magic that everyone else is using.
I'm not too fond of default Tieflings being creatures of hellish descent, rather than giving you the choice between the Nine Hells, or the Abyss. I much prefer the chaotic freedom of Demons, over the lawful tyranny of Devils.
This video was great and interesting. I'm not slamming the logic here.This is just a side note if your going for some sort of cultural realism. The "Heat" From things like ghost chile peppers is a chemical sort of response your body has to the juice of the pepper. It is as much to heat as. . . for lack of a closer comparison what acid is to fire. You liken it to heat when in fact it is a chemical burn. So a tiefling would have about as much trouble with peppers as a human. It's possibly the only concept of heat that really hurts they'll ever have in the realm of food. That being said a tiefling could definitely eat food straight off the pan where most people would have to let it cool down.
My favorite thaumaturgy was walking into an official audience chamber (like a throne room, but it was a council, not a king), trying to be a badass. When I entered, the light retreated closer to the torches and my shadow went in four directions, regardless of the light angle, reaching toward the darker corners. Nothing too dramatic, like the room actually getting dark, but dimming noticeably.
In the Forgotten Realms novels, Asmodeus uses 13 devil descended warlocks that he held pacts with to eradicate all non-devilish tieflings. That's why all the Tieflings of 4th edition are devil descended.
I have a tiefling shadow monk named Jinko that I made a couple of months after this video first came out. This video ended up being helping a lot with my background. She's a light ashy blue with faintly incandescent amber eyes, and her horns resemble the antlers of pronghorns. She calls Asmodeus "Great Grandpappy". In my DM's setting, the first main city - New Eldham - had a large ghetto where tieflings aren't uncommon so she grew up as a street urchin. She had a human father and a human passing mother. He walked out on them years ago and left them penniless, so Jinko had to step up and steal food for the family. That landed her in prison where she met her master in the way of the shadow. She gets out of prison and looks to caravan guard duty to earn coin legitimately. She's on her first job when she meets the rest of the party in the crafting village of Great Oak, renown for their wineries and bowyers. She's Neutral good, and always tries to resolve an issue peacefully, but as expected the locals are lacking for entertainment. In the tavern they start making snide remarks towards her, she tries to defuse the situation, she fumbles. Luckily, no one dies. She finds looks for work while waiting for the caravan to finish trading (because I assumed that would make it easier to find the other members of the party). We all finally meet and are put to task ridding the town of a goblin threat. We do that, it's fun, and Jinko tries to spare one of the poor goblins. It works. He is a goblin with IBS named Toots (we had to make con saves every time he was frightened to endure the overpowering odor). Sadly, he wasn't long for this world. We left him tied to a tree while investigating some gnolls on the way back to New Eldham, and some unfortunate wolfes tried to eat him. Because tieflings don't find death as terrible, Jinko extracted a vile of Essence of Toots. She was still sad. At some point on the road to New Eldham we run into the plot and start working for the artifact hunter Dag and his traveling companion Captain Abvhi. They're level 6 or 7, we're level 2 or 3. After that, tons of kenku ambush us. Jinko spares one because even monsters don't just deserve death, this was a big issue with the party because everyone was concerned it would kill us in our sleep. Kenku are experts at forgery, and it turns out that they also don't like dying (who knew?). Once we get back to the city, we're put up in a cheap old tavern. It's basically empty. Why? Friggin ghosts. We offer to investigate, turn's out he murdered his wife. We confront him, he runs, our wizard blows him up. Jinko looks for the deed and gets a transfer of ownership form forged by the kenku in exchange for it's freedom. Boom. She runs a legitimate Tavern called The Crackling Antler and uses it as a hub and neutral ground to get kids off the street. We've been playing this campaign monthly for over two years now, so a lot more happens after that, like her meeting her father, and speaking frog, and the Deck of Many Things. This is probably too many words for a youtube comment anyways, but this has been a really fun campaign so far, and I'd love to go into more detail.
Thank you for bringing so much insight into these creatures with the ecology series. I love this game and learning the ecology behind these creatures allows me to enjoy it even more. AJ you are AWESOME!! :)
If people keep saying that, I am in danger of starting to believe it.. don't worry, I have close friends who helpfully keep my ego in check on a regular basis ;D Thanks Brandon!
I made a lawful good tiefling paladin. I haven't played her yet but I like the story I made. When she was very little, she was adopted by an order of holy knights. They treated her with kindness as it is their belief that a tiefling should be made a force of good instead of letting them fall to evil or waste a life by slaying them. She went through a rather cloistered childhood and in adolescence, was trained vigorously to fight evil creatures within the fortress walls and was inspired to take up the oath of a paladin when she witnessed the peity and devotion of her adoptive father in prayer. As a flaw and point of curiosity/humor she is rather naive. She is zealous in combat which leads to humorous moments of her screaming "slay all of the the vile devils!" and such... seemingly oblivious to how ironic that is given her considerably hellish appearance and fondness for fire magic. She is also irritated by being mistreated for her appearance as she was honored by the knights who raised her. She is not totally oblivious to the occasionally less legal actions of city folk. She was taught to do what good she can but that she cannot afford to chase every rat who steals. However, this conscious restraint is not very subtle and it's easy to tell she's seen trouble when she gets quiet, stiff, and starts answering questions a little too sharply. Finally, she tends to wear her armor a lot whenever she can. She mistakenly believes this to be a sign of vigilance. In reality... the knights were looking out for her and told her to keep it on so she wouldn't be harrassed or attacked for her obvious fiendish appearance. She still hasn't realized this and just thinks it's a symbolic act...
Hi AJ, you'd asked in video if anyone had the SCAG and could post details on what it contained tiefling-wise, and it doesn't seem anyone has, so I'll lay a bit down here. There's only a couple columns of info, most of it generic, but they offer some ideas for variants, with the notion that not all tieflings are of the blood of Asmodeus. There are a few options for appearance, many of which you touch base on from previous editions. Horns, fangs, six fingers, cat eyes, etc. The intention is a die roll determines the number of the alternate traits a player can add. Feral: + 1 INT, +2 DEX, replaces the standard ability score increase. There are also three other mutually exclusive traits. Devils's Tongue: At certain levels gain vicious mockery, charm person and enthrall. Hellfire: Cast burning hands. (Replaces hellish rebuke.) Winged: Bat like wings, flying speed of 30 ft. (Replaces the Infernal Legacy trait.) And that about sums it up.
I'd just like to point out that the demon-halfings demon-orcs and devil-dwarves aren't tieflings, they are more akin to a cambion and are inherently evil (Unlike a tiefling). Otherwise, Great video!
Aj please comment back but that being said there is one one form of a half tiefling and its in 2nd ed ad&d with the help of dragon magazine. half-dragons in 2nd edition at the age of puberty their inherent features and traits take over whatever their main race is so if the parent for obscure reason was a tiefling the child would be a tiefling but as it matured it would gain all of the half dragon features does being a half dragon and half tiefling
I am an old Grognard, having played "D&D" since it was a three-book set called "Chainmail", and IMO Greyhawk is the best and only campaign setting. So, when updating to 5e I had the issue of Tiefling and Dragonborn to wrestle with. I find the "they would be considered monsters and immediately murdered" argument to be lazy and unimaginative. I made Tiefling a bloodcurse on the Suel race. Short version is that before Glasya got tied down in Malbolge she made a visit to Oerth and had a tryst with a pre-Invoked Devastation princeling. He ended up "breaking her heart", which roughly translates as he found a way out of his contract with her before she could collect. She honored her end as it was written, giving him power and position, but in revenge she placed a curse on his line and gave him the libido to spread it. Generations later the first Tiefling appeared. The Suel mania about bloodline purity stems in no small part from this, but as Tiefling are only born into "pure Suel" bloodlines this program is actually working against them. As a general rule Tiefling are not born, they become. Think Marvel mutants and hormones. The extremely rare one that is born does not last long owing to either being left out in the elements to die of exposure, or simply murdered outright. When the transformation occurs varies widely with those happening early being abandoned or sold into slavery, and those happening later on committing suicide or running away. Most Tiefling come from the Scarlet Brotherhood, and having one born into your family will get the mother removed from the breeding program there. Again, as the curse is carried by the father, this does not solve their problem. Tiefling cannot have children with another Tiefling, nor with orcs or elves. Children born of Tiefling and non-Suel parentage are always human, and either male or female can create a Tiefling (roughly 20% chance) if their partner is pure-Suel. Tiefling are exceptionally rare, and nearly all of them are adventuring classes of some type. There is a small enclave of a dozen or so living in Greyhawk, most large cities outside of Suel control have one individual living there, and there is rumored to be a village in the Hellfurnaces where a couple dozen live in seclusion with their families. Suspicion and fear are the usual reaction they will get no matter where they live outside the enclave, but lets be honest, in a world where a dragon can swoop in and devour your village, actual demons pop up occasionally to steal your sons and daughters, and even gods have been known to walk Oerth, seeing a humanoid with dark skin and horns is hardly “the strangest thing I saw this week”. In the interim Glasya has gone from aggrieved to deeply amused and plotting. As with everything among the infernal she is now figuring out how to turn this to her advantage. She knows that when she finally moves on her father’s throne she will need an army, and a large cohort of battle hardened and adventurous “children” could be the game changing power play she needs. When she calls them they will have to answer, and even the most noble and good among them are still doomed. Tiefling found on other Prime Planes are the result of Glasya expanding the program, or adventurers plane traveling there and remaining. How making more Tiefling on other planes works is to be determined later. Dragonborn are just giant Kobolds, and a topic for another video.
My fav to play so much room to play with.. So many combos you can have. Any human crossed with ANY TYPE of outsider is tiefling combos are insane seen a human/Rak tiefling
When a mommy Aasimar and Daddy Tiefling love each other very much, they get a visit from a Lantern Archon, who brings them a baby in a large white diaper sheet and leaves it on the front porch. The offspring will either be a Tiefling, or an Aasimar, or appear normal, but their offspring will carry the trait of either being a Tiefling or an Aasimar, but only one or the other, never both.
The baby will probably be a Tiefling because Aasimar genes are recessive. So, what you'd get is a lineage of Tieflings that periodically produces an Aasimar for no obvious reason.
Once again, brilliant. Playing a Teifling Paladin (Crown) right now and loving it. Descendant of the mating between a human and an Erinyes, so he's typically cold, martial, and a stickler for rules. Really enjoying adding depth as the campaign unfolds. I surprise myself with just how much fun this race can be, and how complex they are.
I now want to create a Tiefling character, that looks like a normal human, with the only visible signs of their heritage being unusual eyes and the shadow of a devil. Like, their shadow acts exactly as a shadow should, but it sports horns and a tail, maybe glowing eyes. That could also give them a nice little quirk: they don't let their face express any emotion they don't want to be known, but that mastery doesn't extend to their shadow. So if they're happy or excited, their facial expression is still neutral, but if they stand right, you can see their shadow wagging with its tail.
Thank you for this video. It introduced me to the idea of Fey'Ri. I don't play D&D but I had been looking for a way to justify creating a backstory for a red skinned burly elf type charcter(s) in the game Dragon's Dogma. Balor crossed with Sun Elves to create a 'strain' of Fey'Ri is exactly what I was looking for. Large, tall, red skinned, blue dreadlocked, pointed eared, Magik Archer and Mystick Knight, Fire and Lightning focused characters. I had already read about sun elves and had tried looking into things like fire giants to see if crossbreeds were a thing, but had no luck. Fey'Ri are almost perfect for this.
All the more reason to turn the trope on its head! A happy-go-lucky tiefling who grew up in a loving and supportive family and is just so delightfully oblivious to prejudice that they bring people around to liking them through sheer sweetness.
Head scarves, long skirts, and celestially bound Warlocks my dude lmao, sure the pact might give you a rash, but it keeps your eyes from being completely red
I love the teifling. My standard character is a teifling sorcerer. I always play them as creepy and different. I'll eat raw meat, set fire all willy nilly and have a temper. Living up to devilish blood in every way
The history of teifling orgins is often shrouded in mystery. The lore ive heard was they were once fae that had two different parents. Like troll+elf, or fairy + nymph. Since you werent one or another you had no tribe to be accepted in. You had no nation to I.D as. Then one day some demonic prince came into power and claimed those half breed outcasts as his own. When he did this their appearances changed to be similar to his but not completely. This is why you see such a variety in teiflings appearances. 2 horns, 4 horns, bipedal feet, or goat legs. My teifling is a gold dragon bloodline sorcerer.
still trying to get into never winter but teiflings are my favorite race next to dwarves. so learning lore over them and game may help me enjoy it more
I noticed an improvement on the quality of your videos, the sound, noises even images ( not random images at random times hehe) It would be awesome to "Remaster"some of your older videos of dragons etc. Keep up the good work!
I had a Tiefling Cyclops cleric of death, named Death who was CN and the dm put him in a tomb in a coffin and the other players opened the sarcophagus and stabbed him to death before reviving him and makeing him agree to basically be a slave, it had also been roughly 10,000 years since he was imprisoned and he was very out of touch, his Int was also sub-brick level of 6, but he was wise af at 18 Wiz
For my most recent campaign, I allowed a player to modify the stats of a tiefling so that she could play a "succubus." (Tweaked the Infernal Legacy trait, the succubus kiss was modeled on the _chill touch_ cantrip, _charm person_ and _alter self_ as the spell-like abilities.) The succubus tiefling character was a warlock with the Celestial patron from Xanathar's Guide.
My character is a light cleric who's adopted older brother is a teifling bard. because of this the cleric has a strong hatred of discrimination of race,and is just as likely to attack a nother cleric discriminating a teifling child as he would a dragon
Slight correction maybe wrong though. But I am pretty sure Tieflings are not biologically more drawn to evil. But many become evil due to the poor treatment they receive growing up. So I think it's more cultural
Tiefling is a german word it translates to: deep one.. Tief=deef , ling= a person charterized through (trait or characteristic) cringe-ling,(a person who is cringe) happy-ling ( a person who is always happy) you get the idea
I love tieflings. I'm currently playing one who has basically been rejected his entire life. He had no parents, no home, no friends, nothing, and now he's found a group of other weirdos who accept him regardless of his appearance and closed off disposition. Despite his quietness and admittedly rocky start with two of them, he would much rather that he dies instead of one of them because he fears being alone in the world again.
This was probably already commented on, but Tieflings were in 3.5 in the MM as the plane touched with the Aasimar. They were a +1 level adjustment or some such if I recall correctly.
If you have poison resistance I can imagine there are lots of meals a Tiefling would eat that would sicken or kill another race. Like potato leafs. if there is a tiefling farmer without much food he can eat them and be fine. A human can't. Then over time it becomes part of his culture then his families and so on. (Not sure if potato leafs would be good if it would not kill us just a random example)
Not sure about the rumor is true or not, but the highest reported number of people at a given time to get medical aid from .. bacteria .. gut infections are at city yearly Cheese conventions. One or eight strains of cheese bacteria is one thing, but a few dozen mixing in your gut Is it still a .. poison ?
If you want some extra inspiration for spicing up a tiefling, ‘The Planeswalker’s Handbook’ for the Planescape setting has a table of random traits for tiefling that i quite enjoy. Talk to your dm about it first, but it has stuff like random spells, appearances, and quirks. You can also find it by searching Planescape Tiefling Table
Here's a concept, a character from a line of noble tiefling warriors that cover their horns with the stereotypical "Viking" horned helmet. Basically the tradition of wearing such a helm stretches so far back, when a tiefling entered the family tree, nobody noticed. Perhaps it's even a point of trust "We don't normally share this with outsiders but...."
17:40 There's a real big difference between caliente and picante. Fire is one thing. Peppers are another. They don't fall under the same category when considering resistance to fire.
Very helpful. Thank you. I'm trying to get back into d&d and I've got a thought for a tiefling character. A barbaric bard (or Bardbarian as my friend said) that goes by Conan Drumn. I'm having trouble with the bloodlines and it seems everything I come across has a new line. Any suggestions? I have in mind to make him a pun-welding conundrum.
I'm thinking of making a Tiefling Rogue/bard entertainer/assassin. He owns a popular tavern as a front for his assassin broker business. Everybody loves him as long as he's serving drinks and singing songs, but they look at him with distrust when he's outside. Mostly, he takes it in stride, but once in a while it kinda gets to him.
Been thinking of a tiefling forge master [blacksmith] due to their resistance to fire. Seems like it'd be a lot of fun to build weapons with little caution. Light toasting over a full burn. Not to mention, having her smoke and putting out the cigarettes on her skin cause she won't feel it? Rad. Not to mention a semi tragic backstory that follows her devilish background... Thanks for more info so I have a lot of information to work withm
Actually the old edition talking about them having fiendish ancestors is true to the original tieflings. Tieflings as a pc is completely different from their original appearance because tieflings were more like a random mutation caused by demonic or devilish ancestory
the one thing that 4e did core wise that I do not like the most, is that they made tieflings their own race instead of plane touched like they were previously
Honestly, I liked that tieflings started having a unified look from 4E onwards. Prior to that, we were told that they had random combinations of fiendish traits, but we were shown a single racial stat block. Later materials might come along and let you trade out something for a random trait on a d100 chart, but the afterthought nature of it wasn't satisfying to me. So 4E taking a playable race with a single racial stat block and making them have the same look made all the sense in the world to me. Ditto 5E that AFAICT lets this race still look like a distinct race (for the most part).
I'm currently running a tieflinig in my group. Its a draconic blood line (white dragon) sorcerer and mistakenly believes her magic is her infernal heritage taking hold. She actually spends more time in prayer and in the temple than either the parties cleric and paladin combined. Every time she goes (what she believes is overboard) she begs the cleric to pray with her for forgiveness. Behind her back, the party describes her as 'heaven's devil'
My friend always gets pissed at me for the way I draw my tieflings. They never look the same and I always bend some trait out of the book. I have one tiefling with mottled skin so she has normal skin tone, and spotched with purple
If memory serves it's in the sword coast adventure guide that they explained the Asmodeus thing. When he ascended to god status he enforced his portfolio and forced a change on all Tieflings making all of them that were in existence at that time of his blood line. Since that moment though other tieflings have been born that are not from his blood. Which is why the sword coast guide has fiend blood and other tieflings in it.
The text says during the Spellplague Asmodeus consumed Azuth and then with a coven of warlocks, the Toril thirteen, he preformed a right where in he claimed all Teiflings as his own. He had help from warlocks where Moradin had help from his own pantheon of gods and they just split souls to increase Dwarven birth rates. While similar I'd say Moradin did something that just made more dwarves where Asmodeus literally rewrote the beings of all Teiflings.
Yes, but it also explains the sudden increase in their numbers, pushing them from a niche race in 3.5 to full blown ones in 4th and 5th eds. As some demons and devils use Tieflings as a cats paw on the prime material plane. If suddenly all of your progeny was stolen by someone else you might decide to go make more to have those ties restored. Which the book explains as new variants on the tieflings the feral, devil's tongue, Hellfire, and winged sub races. Or as it puts it "Tieflings in Faerun generally have the racial traits of Tieflings in the player handbook, except that those not descended from Asmodeous might exhibit different qualities." It then goes on to list the fore mentioned variants. I love the race, and I love what you're doing. If you ever run out of ideas I'd love to see someone tackle the idea of the reincarnate spell and if it has a true change on your nature or not.
In a campaign that has more of a focus on Demons would it be reasonable for a tiefling to be singled out by demons as an object of scorn over and above other characters? If so could this be used to "out" tiefling that looks more normal?
Wow, that's pretty practical. And when he has a human aprentice. Human: "How can I get the bread out of the oven? I don't see any mittens or other stuff around?" Tief-baker: "Don't be a wuss, just pull it out!" Human: "You do know it's scorching hot, don't you?" Tief-baker: "What does hot mean?" *Trollface* Human: =_=
I started with AD&D, got heavily invested in 3rd edition, totally skipped 4th, and now can’t watch a video or make even a casual internet search for anything d&d related without getting 5th shoved in my face. The prominence of teiflings in today’s d&d came as no surprise. 3rd and 3.5 were lousy with them. Sure, they weren’t in the PHB, but the old 3rd edition MM had them and the 3.5 MM gave stats for making them PCs. The FR Campaign Setting featured them as a playable race, alongside assimar and genasi, before introducing ways to play fey’ri or tanarukk. Also Dungeon magazine at the time featured many teifling npcs in several of their adventures and I remember of at least one representing a player character in the artwork of many issues. Granted they were not as popular as today, and they tended to feature more as villains than heroes or even good aligned npcs, but they were there aplenty.
I think my favorite wizard character was a Tiefling, he looked really human aside from small slightly curved horns that barely poked out of his curly hair. The only noteworthy things about the campaign with him I remember is that once he slept through a fight (I failed the perception check every time) so our Halfling rogue drew on his face with his own pen and ink, and another time he and the party's cleric of Lathander got kicked out of an elf bar. (Cleric was preaching. I was just standing nearby and clearly with him and not an elf.) I've run played a few more Teifling rogues, I love them. As NPCs when I was the DM there was a brother and sister pair of Tieflings, sister was a mage of some kind (sorcerer? I don't remember) and the brother was a rogue and member of the thieve's guild. Names were Mist and Shadow. They were allies of a more powerful NPC, the sister was actually his student as well I think, so maybe wizard.
I think if anything Tieflings might have a lot of trouble with spicy food. It's a "chemical agonist" that directly stimulates pain and temperature sensors to create the sensation heat without actually generating any heat.
Fire resistance wouldn't protect them, because a hot pepper doesn't actually burn you. (They don't resist poison or acid or similar) Tieflings wouldn't experience a sensation of burning or heat even if they stuck their hand in the fireplace. They'd have no context or other experience with that sensation to help them cope.
Stuff like chugging still-boiling tea, though.
Tieflings might like spicy food. They can't feel hot so the novelty of the sensation might lure them to over seasoning their food.
They can feel fire, just not as much.
Clever
I agree capsaicin is what makes peppers "hot" and is a poison by definition. Tieflings do not resist poison and therefore should suffer peppers the same as humans. You could use this in an interesting role playing way though. Perhaps a character that would scratch their skin and apply hot pepper oil to the abrasions and hold that area to an open flame to get an approximation of how non-fiendish characters experience heat; that could be a way to portray a Tiefling that wishes to be a different race like Human or Elf, a self loathing character.
There is a tiefling feat called Infernal Constitution, and it gives your Tiefling a +1 to con and resistance to poison and ice damage with advantage on poison saving throws.........
Nice Funfact: Tiefling is a german Name. It means Deep ones or Deeplings.
Good to know! Thanks Stefan :)
that sounds like a Chinese meal with emotional depth.
Dammit Dagon xD
Not only that - 'Devil' in German is 'Teufel', which at some point in the middle ages was 'Tievel'.
Dude that's ... pretty deep
It sounds like someone needs to open Xavier's School for Gifted Tieflings.
@Leopoldo Burgoa
What the hell you Jibba-Jabbering about?
Won't lie, they are my favorite race. Not sure if its the horns, the corrupted origins, the sheer amount of customization or lore... I dunno I just love tieflings to death
it has a charm similar to an anti-hero, with the instinct to desire to do evil, teetering on the fine line between good and evil is a crowd favorite in character traits.
Me too, bro.
I like their tails ❤
Same my friends get so mad cuz I always play tieflings my dnd knowledge is very lopsided towards tieflings
Same. My DM even permits a dagger like attack with the blade on the tail, and a nonlethal skull bash.
Personally, I like the fact that they're born among humans, basically *are* humans, but are just different from everybody they are around.
Resistance to fire? Guild of tiefling water mages. they're the Fire Brigade.
Would be a nice plot device :D
a tiefling fireman .
@@brotheralaric7177 Thanks for the character idea
Neat idea.
@@ericthered2963 q
Tiefling Paladin: Hey kids, we found a way to make Paladins interesting!
Yes I love the idea
You could do a redemtion arc or the goal could be to prove that the teifluling isnt unholy.
Pffft! I made my paladin as an angry nun.
You talkin' mad shit for someone in crusading distance.
ay paladins are cool
What if they learn infernal from their dreams... like, devils visit them in their sleep or they can channel into the hell's.
That is absolutely a valid story line that the DM can instigate for any Tiefling character or NPC.
dope theory
i usually role play it as the knowledge of the language being instinctual, like, the tieflings just *know* the language even if they've never heard it
I’d like to imagine the “resistant to fire” thing manifesting as the tiefling almost always feeling *just a little bit* too cold to be comfortable. So they might be guilty of that stereotypical “old people” habit of wearing multiple layers or heavy clothing in the middle of a blisteringly hot summer day. If there’s an source of heat close by, like a fireplace or an oven, they might feel the urge to get as close as possible.
On the flip side of this, they might harbor an unusually fierce dislike for cold or wet climates, because those types of environs would only serve to exacerbate the feeling of never being warm enough. If they see stormclouds moving in, they might well become visibly irritated. If they’re stuck somewhere during winter, they might even slip into abject misery.
I would use this idea if my teifling wasn't always underwater😂
My dude this isn't a tiefling. This is me. I loathe the cold. Even seeing snow on TV makes me uncomfortable.
Kind of a way to excuse what's become popular: excessive fashion accessories. Cloaks, hoods, capes, frills, gimmicks...
So basically they're southerners in the US.
it's 70F (21C) outside? "It's freezing! I need my coat!"
It's 100F (37C) outside? "What are you complaining about? This is nice."
@@TonySamedi “BuT iT’s A dRy HeAt!”
the culture of tieflings you described is exactly what my dm did. We were invited to a feast in the desert by tieflings and we had to make a constitution check to see how well we handled the spice. some of us ended up eating our own rations at the feast.
I like the idea of a Chaotic Good Tiefling paladin that does, a hero who believes that your ancestors shouldn't define you and dislikes monarchs as they where just given there power. Also I find the idea of a of a champion of good looking like a demon or devil.
Dude my character is pretty much the same
Did you mean: *Goliath Fighter?*
Hellboy is that you?
hellboy made me love tieflings as a character concept. Like x-men characters who can use supernatural powers for good or bad. My favourite character is a tiefling warlock who uses fiendish powers for good deeds and pays the price for it. Like trying to redeem themselves for being born different even with the world at their throats.
Makos?
Milivoje Milovic what is that
He's a tiefling warlock
Night Crawler I would classify as a Tiefling Assassin Rogue.
Tim Hartley I’d say he fills more the role of a horizon walker ranger due to the sheer amount of teleports they have access too
I'm thinking of a more petite tiefling with curled goat horns, longer doe like ears, and horizontal oval pupils, and a short goat's tail. A very adorable wizard with all his books and hornrimed glasses
Laura Bailey's Campaign 2 character from Critical Role is a blue tiefling (cleric) with small ram horns. She's adorable.
cdna.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/009/161/756/large/noah-warner-pastryfiendjester-criticalrole.jpg?1517450910
Phoenix Rosen With a Lupin girlfriend?
I'd be the human bard in the party going: "Hah, Gaaaaay!" at every occasion.
I feel like those different type of tiefling deserve their own video you can call it the tiefling series
My first dnd character that lasted more then one session was a teiphling monk. He was a kind slightly crazy old man who suffered a lot of abuse as a child. His horns were cut off when he was 8 by his adoptive parents. He goes around doing good deeds especially helping children but the growing level of his senile nature makes things fun at times.
I had to pause for a moment just to laugh when I realized what that opening song was. Well done, well done.
Oh, cool thing for my tiefling necromancer: She recently discovered her fiendish progenitor (a rahkshassa named Shaitan), and learned it was her grandfather who had made the pact that resulted in her fiendish traits. She's had to be talked down a few times now from trying to kill him.
Another little thing you might get a chuckle out of: “Shaitan” is basically the Muslim word for Satan.
The best way to hide a classic looking tiefling paladin with the least amount of effort is to cover them up in armour and when said person completely trusts them, they reveal their fiendish heritage, and hope said person doesn't notice the big tail that they have.
My tiefling bard uses thaumaturgy to make acoustic instruments sound like their electric equivalents. He also has hollow bones and a prehensile tail that can pay a second instrument. He's pretty neat.
There are no end of devious uses for a prehensile tail ;)
I also have a Tiefling bard. He uses an Oud as his instrument.
He is always trying to help and promote justice but keeps on accidentally screwing up and making things worse. Things like playing a song to buff his party, but the enemies are also buffed, or accidentally killing or even helping a villain when he wants to keep them alive and let them redeem themselves.
He used a magic mirror to make himself blue because he thought people hated his people for the red skin. Nevertheless, only a single member of his party wants him in and encourages his efforts. Every misstep confirms to everyone else that he's simply a demon destined for evil and it leaves him in a constant struggle to prove himself to the world.
My Tiefling bard uses the bagpipes and is kind of brash towards newcomers, and he has a disposition to try to impress his allies
I forgot to give my teifling a tail
One of my favorite things about them is naming them. I had a 5e tiefling rogue named Malephast Caynaan who was a street performer. Campaign got shut down before he could do much due to drama and I never got to do his intro as "Malephast THE INCONCEIVABLE!!!". It was gonna be a trip, man. I still have his mini and I need to get him into a different campaign and let him live his life out. Another character sheet to add to the file of potentials...
Five years later I hope you found someone to play with
Mollymauk is my favorite kind of tiefling. One that embraces standing out, and enjoys life to the fullest.
Ya know, if ya think about it.....Hellboy is technically a Tiefling lol
Cambion, actually. He is the son of a demon lord by a human woman and does inheret some of his father's place in the world. He may choose to be a good person and defend the world but he does have the ability to leverage his fiendish lineage and powers should he desire to. Not a corruption but a true heir to his father's throne.
The Brimstone Angel novel series by Erin M Evans gives a perfect insight into what it's like to be a Tiefling in the Forgotten Realms, not to mention it's a good book series.
Karshoj! I’ve found someone else who likes those books. I’m rereading them right now, damn good reads, even if it can get a bit soap opera-e at times.
I like the idea of a tiefling looking human at first but gradually becoming more and more fiendish looking as they grow up.
I can see it being really fun playing a lawful neutral character that is basically hellboy with all of hellboys problems because of his looks but benefits from their power like fire resistance just like in the comics and movies
I guess I should've finished the whole video before I made this comment since you obviously saw this possibility too
Makes me imagine this:
*Dragon breathes fire*
Tiefling-Monk: "Fuck off!" *flips the bird to the dragon*
*Fires passes over the Monk and after it dissolves you see him lying on the ground*
Tiefling-Monk: "I might have overestimated my fire resistence"
Tieflings remind me a lot of the dark elves from Skyrim. Similar backstroy, similar behavior, similar culture, and fire resistance
I would’ve thought that was more Drow
I know a lot depends on like the dm and what they’re trying to do with the campaign, but I’m just curious if it always “has to be” a deal made “a hundred years ago.”
What if I had a character that started human, and ended up making a deal and then themselves slowly started becoming a teifling? Just an idea I’ve been playing around with, with a character of mine.
Or there’s something that happens to her that awakens the teifling bloodline within her and that’s what makes her start to turn.
The idea is that the fiendish corruption cannot affect the body of the progenitor immediately but is carried onward to any descendants whom are more mutable in this regard. Think of it as a fiendish pact warlock taken to eleven. The nature of the pact leaving a mark that doesn't fade with successive generations. As more than a few warlocks do mutate because of their pact I can see a slow, maybe incomplete, transformation happening.
I think of it as selling your offsprings happiness. Or their shot at a normal life.
I could see this especially if your character was very attached to their looks and thus resented the transformation.
Here's an idea: a teifling artificer/wizard whose magic and creations are always being noted as "the demonic dark arts" by the teams paladen even though they're using the same kind of magic that everyone else is using.
I'm not too fond of default Tieflings being creatures of hellish descent, rather than giving you the choice between the Nine Hells, or the Abyss. I much prefer the chaotic freedom of Demons, over the lawful tyranny of Devils.
Then step right up my friend, I have the player race for you.. the Gnoll!
They eat people!
I want to play a gnoll
I prefer the cthulhu mythos of them as a Nyarlathotep creation to help spread chaos.
Tieflings in second edition and 3.x could be descended from Tanar'ri (demons), Yugoloths, or Baatezu (Devils).
This video was great and interesting.
I'm not slamming the logic here.This is just a side note if your going for some sort of cultural realism.
The "Heat" From things like ghost chile peppers is a chemical sort of response your body has to the juice of the pepper. It is as much to heat as. . . for lack of a closer comparison what acid is to fire.
You liken it to heat when in fact it is a chemical burn.
So a tiefling would have about as much trouble with peppers as a human. It's possibly the only concept of heat that really hurts they'll ever have in the realm of food.
That being said a tiefling could definitely eat food straight off the pan where most people would have to let it cool down.
My favorite thaumaturgy was walking into an official audience chamber (like a throne room, but it was a council, not a king), trying to be a badass. When I entered, the light retreated closer to the torches and my shadow went in four directions, regardless of the light angle, reaching toward the darker corners. Nothing too dramatic, like the room actually getting dark, but dimming noticeably.
In the Forgotten Realms novels, Asmodeus uses 13 devil descended warlocks that he held pacts with to eradicate all non-devilish tieflings. That's why all the Tieflings of 4th edition are devil descended.
I have a tiefling shadow monk named Jinko that I made a couple of months after this video first came out. This video ended up being helping a lot with my background. She's a light ashy blue with faintly incandescent amber eyes, and her horns resemble the antlers of pronghorns. She calls Asmodeus "Great Grandpappy".
In my DM's setting, the first main city - New Eldham - had a large ghetto where tieflings aren't uncommon so she grew up as a street urchin. She had a human father and a human passing mother. He walked out on them years ago and left them penniless, so Jinko had to step up and steal food for the family. That landed her in prison where she met her master in the way of the shadow. She gets out of prison and looks to caravan guard duty to earn coin legitimately.
She's on her first job when she meets the rest of the party in the crafting village of Great Oak, renown for their wineries and bowyers.
She's Neutral good, and always tries to resolve an issue peacefully, but as expected the locals are lacking for entertainment. In the tavern they start making snide remarks towards her, she tries to defuse the situation, she fumbles. Luckily, no one dies.
She finds looks for work while waiting for the caravan to finish trading (because I assumed that would make it easier to find the other members of the party).
We all finally meet and are put to task ridding the town of a goblin threat.
We do that, it's fun, and Jinko tries to spare one of the poor goblins. It works. He is a goblin with IBS named Toots (we had to make con saves every time he was frightened to endure the overpowering odor). Sadly, he wasn't long for this world. We left him tied to a tree while investigating some gnolls on the way back to New Eldham, and some unfortunate wolfes tried to eat him. Because tieflings don't find death as terrible, Jinko extracted a vile of Essence of Toots. She was still sad.
At some point on the road to New Eldham we run into the plot and start working for the artifact hunter Dag and his traveling companion Captain Abvhi. They're level 6 or 7, we're level 2 or 3.
After that, tons of kenku ambush us. Jinko spares one because even monsters don't just deserve death, this was a big issue with the party because everyone was concerned it would kill us in our sleep. Kenku are experts at forgery, and it turns out that they also don't like dying (who knew?).
Once we get back to the city, we're put up in a cheap old tavern. It's basically empty. Why? Friggin ghosts. We offer to investigate, turn's out he murdered his wife. We confront him, he runs, our wizard blows him up. Jinko looks for the deed and gets a transfer of ownership form forged by the kenku in exchange for it's freedom.
Boom. She runs a legitimate Tavern called The Crackling Antler and uses it as a hub and neutral ground to get kids off the street.
We've been playing this campaign monthly for over two years now, so a lot more happens after that, like her meeting her father, and speaking frog, and the Deck of Many Things. This is probably too many words for a youtube comment anyways, but this has been a really fun campaign so far, and I'd love to go into more detail.
Thank you for bringing so much insight into these creatures with the ecology series. I love this game and learning the ecology behind these creatures allows me to enjoy it even more. AJ you are AWESOME!! :)
If people keep saying that, I am in danger of starting to believe it.. don't worry, I have close friends who helpfully keep my ego in check on a regular basis ;D Thanks Brandon!
I made a lawful good tiefling paladin. I haven't played her yet but I like the story I made. When she was very little, she was adopted by an order of holy knights. They treated her with kindness as it is their belief that a tiefling should be made a force of good instead of letting them fall to evil or waste a life by slaying them. She went through a rather cloistered childhood and in adolescence, was trained vigorously to fight evil creatures within the fortress walls and was inspired to take up the oath of a paladin when she witnessed the peity and devotion of her adoptive father in prayer. As a flaw and point of curiosity/humor she is rather naive. She is zealous in combat which leads to humorous moments of her screaming "slay all of the the vile devils!" and such... seemingly oblivious to how ironic that is given her considerably hellish appearance and fondness for fire magic. She is also irritated by being mistreated for her appearance as she was honored by the knights who raised her. She is not totally oblivious to the occasionally less legal actions of city folk. She was taught to do what good she can but that she cannot afford to chase every rat who steals. However, this conscious restraint is not very subtle and it's easy to tell she's seen trouble when she gets quiet, stiff, and starts answering questions a little too sharply. Finally, she tends to wear her armor a lot whenever she can. She mistakenly believes this to be a sign of vigilance. In reality... the knights were looking out for her and told her to keep it on so she wouldn't be harrassed or attacked for her obvious fiendish appearance. She still hasn't realized this and just thinks it's a symbolic act...
*opens video*
*devil went down to Georgia intensifies*
21:27
(Casts Thaumaturgy)
"DO NOT TAKE ME FOR SOME CONJURER OF CHEAP TRICKS!!!"
(Crosses fingers and rolls Charisma.)
Hi AJ, you'd asked in video if anyone had the SCAG and could post details on what it contained tiefling-wise, and it doesn't seem anyone has, so I'll lay a bit down here.
There's only a couple columns of info, most of it generic, but they offer some ideas for variants, with the notion that not all tieflings are of the blood of Asmodeus. There are a few options for appearance, many of which you touch base on from previous editions. Horns, fangs, six fingers, cat eyes, etc. The intention is a die roll determines the number of the alternate traits a player can add.
Feral: + 1 INT, +2 DEX, replaces the standard ability score increase.
There are also three other mutually exclusive traits.
Devils's Tongue: At certain levels gain vicious mockery, charm person and enthrall.
Hellfire: Cast burning hands. (Replaces hellish rebuke.)
Winged: Bat like wings, flying speed of 30 ft. (Replaces the Infernal Legacy trait.)
And that about sums it up.
Thanks Scott!
I'd just like to point out that the demon-halfings demon-orcs and devil-dwarves aren't tieflings, they are more akin to a cambion and are inherently evil (Unlike a tiefling). Otherwise, Great video!
Aj please comment back but that being said there is one one form of a half tiefling and its in 2nd ed ad&d with the help of dragon magazine. half-dragons in 2nd edition at the age of puberty their inherent features and traits take over whatever their main race is so if the parent for obscure reason was a tiefling the child would be a tiefling but as it matured it would gain all of the half dragon features does being a half dragon and half tiefling
Oh interesting! So they are born looking like an ordinary Tiefling and then when adolescence hits, they start to become half dragons.
@@AJPickett yep thats right. Love the show btw!!! I watch episodes daily and thanks for all d&d info!!
Sounds like the Tiefling has a lot of convenient features for any blacksmith or firefighter ^_^
Or cooks and bakers
I am an old Grognard, having played "D&D" since it was a three-book set called "Chainmail", and IMO Greyhawk is the best and only campaign setting. So, when updating to 5e I had the issue of Tiefling and Dragonborn to wrestle with. I find the "they would be considered monsters and immediately murdered" argument to be lazy and unimaginative. I made Tiefling a bloodcurse on the Suel race. Short version is that before Glasya got tied down in Malbolge she made a visit to Oerth and had a tryst with a pre-Invoked Devastation princeling. He ended up "breaking her heart", which roughly translates as he found a way out of his contract with her before she could collect. She honored her end as it was written, giving him power and position, but in revenge she placed a curse on his line and gave him the libido to spread it. Generations later the first Tiefling appeared. The Suel mania about bloodline purity stems in no small part from this, but as Tiefling are only born into "pure Suel" bloodlines this program is actually working against them.
As a general rule Tiefling are not born, they become. Think Marvel mutants and hormones. The extremely rare one that is born does not last long owing to either being left out in the elements to die of exposure, or simply murdered outright. When the transformation occurs varies widely with those happening early being abandoned or sold into slavery, and those happening later on committing suicide or running away. Most Tiefling come from the Scarlet Brotherhood, and having one born into your family will get the mother removed from the breeding program there. Again, as the curse is carried by the father, this does not solve their problem.
Tiefling cannot have children with another Tiefling, nor with orcs or elves. Children born of Tiefling and non-Suel parentage are always human, and either male or female can create a Tiefling (roughly 20% chance) if their partner is pure-Suel. Tiefling are exceptionally rare, and nearly all of them are adventuring classes of some type. There is a small enclave of a dozen or so living in Greyhawk, most large cities outside of Suel control have one individual living there, and there is rumored to be a village in the Hellfurnaces where a couple dozen live in seclusion with their families. Suspicion and fear are the usual reaction they will get no matter where they live outside the enclave, but lets be honest, in a world where a dragon can swoop in and devour your village, actual demons pop up occasionally to steal your sons and daughters, and even gods have been known to walk Oerth, seeing a humanoid with dark skin and horns is hardly “the strangest thing I saw this week”.
In the interim Glasya has gone from aggrieved to deeply amused and plotting. As with everything among the infernal she is now figuring out how to turn this to her advantage. She knows that when she finally moves on her father’s throne she will need an army, and a large cohort of battle hardened and adventurous “children” could be the game changing power play she needs. When she calls them they will have to answer, and even the most noble and good among them are still doomed. Tiefling found on other Prime Planes are the result of Glasya expanding the program, or adventurers plane traveling there and remaining. How making more Tiefling on other planes works is to be determined later.
Dragonborn are just giant Kobolds, and a topic for another video.
Excellent worldbuilding within the established setting, making it your own. Very good!
@@AJPickett thank you! Been working my way through all your videos. Excellent work.
My fav to play so much room to play with.. So many combos you can have. Any human crossed with ANY TYPE of outsider is tiefling combos are insane seen a human/Rak tiefling
What happens when a tiefling and aasimar have kids together?
When a mommy Aasimar and Daddy Tiefling love each other very much, they get a visit from a Lantern Archon, who brings them a baby in a large white diaper sheet and leaves it on the front porch.
The offspring will either be a Tiefling, or an Aasimar, or appear normal, but their offspring will carry the trait of either being a Tiefling or an Aasimar, but only one or the other, never both.
A tiefling with the appearance of an aasimar or an aasimar with the appearance of a tiefling. both are more interesting.
Tf? *Goes to find Aasimar lore*
Too many races now!
The baby will probably be a Tiefling because Aasimar genes are recessive. So, what you'd get is a lineage of Tieflings that periodically produces an Aasimar for no obvious reason.
Have a friend who made a Tiefling Celestial-Blooded Sorcerer for Pathfinder with THIS being his origin story. Aasimar dad, Tiefling mom. 🤷🏾♂️
Once again, brilliant.
Playing a Teifling Paladin (Crown) right now and loving it. Descendant of the mating between a human and an Erinyes, so he's typically cold, martial, and a stickler for rules.
Really enjoying adding depth as the campaign unfolds. I surprise myself with just how much fun this race can be, and how complex they are.
Mike Gould I thought that would produce a cambion.
I now want to create a Tiefling character, that looks like a normal human, with the only visible signs of their heritage being unusual eyes and the shadow of a devil.
Like, their shadow acts exactly as a shadow should, but it sports horns and a tail, maybe glowing eyes.
That could also give them a nice little quirk: they don't let their face express any emotion they don't want to be known, but that mastery doesn't extend to their shadow. So if they're happy or excited, their facial expression is still neutral, but if they stand right, you can see their shadow wagging with its tail.
Thank you for this video. It introduced me to the idea of Fey'Ri. I don't play D&D but I had been looking for a way to justify creating a backstory for a red skinned burly elf type charcter(s) in the game Dragon's Dogma.
Balor crossed with Sun Elves to create a 'strain' of Fey'Ri is exactly what I was looking for.
Large, tall, red skinned, blue dreadlocked, pointed eared, Magik Archer and Mystick Knight, Fire and Lightning focused characters.
I had already read about sun elves and had tried looking into things like fire giants to see if crossbreeds were a thing, but had no luck.
Fey'Ri are almost perfect for this.
I always have my Tieflings love spicy food too!
I love Tieflings, but ffs... they are catnip for edgelords.
This is true
i enjoy the race thoroughly. i also enjoy beach vollyball, rainbows and sunshine. enjoying a specific D&D race does not a clique make, my dood
@@Atamosk-bu7zt Also True.
Lol
All the more reason to turn the trope on its head! A happy-go-lucky tiefling who grew up in a loving and supportive family and is just so delightfully oblivious to prejudice that they bring people around to liking them through sheer sweetness.
I actually really enjoyed this video. You gave me a lot of things to consider & possibly expand for my planned Celestial Warlock Tiefling!
Head scarves, long skirts, and celestially bound Warlocks my dude lmao, sure the pact might give you a rash, but it keeps your eyes from being completely red
I love the teifling. My standard character is a teifling sorcerer. I always play them as creepy and different. I'll eat raw meat, set fire all willy nilly and have a temper. Living up to devilish blood in every way
The history of teifling orgins is often shrouded in mystery. The lore ive heard was they were once fae that had two different parents. Like troll+elf, or fairy + nymph. Since you werent one or another you had no tribe to be accepted in. You had no nation to I.D as. Then one day some demonic prince came into power and claimed those half breed outcasts as his own. When he did this their appearances changed to be similar to his but not completely. This is why you see such a variety in teiflings appearances. 2 horns, 4 horns, bipedal feet, or goat legs. My teifling is a gold dragon bloodline sorcerer.
still trying to get into never winter but teiflings are my favorite race next to dwarves. so learning lore over them and game may help me enjoy it more
I think Jester has made Tieflings MUCH more popular.
Kalenz I mean zarah and molly did the old devils work too XD
4:52 I love Neeshka from Neverwinter Nights 2! I wish EA gave Obsidian enough time to fully complete the game to make her a romanceable character.
I noticed an improvement on the quality of your videos, the sound, noises even images ( not random images at random times hehe) It would be awesome to "Remaster"some of your older videos of dragons etc. Keep up the good work!
Kyser Ortega yeah, I have pondered that idea.
I had a Tiefling Cyclops cleric of death, named Death who was CN and the dm put him in a tomb in a coffin and the other players opened the sarcophagus and stabbed him to death before reviving him and makeing him agree to basically be a slave, it had also been roughly 10,000 years since he was imprisoned and he was very out of touch, his Int was also sub-brick level of 6, but he was wise af at 18 Wiz
I didn't make him btw, the DM made him and laughed the entire 20 minutes it took to make him, he was very sad
For my most recent campaign, I allowed a player to modify the stats of a tiefling so that she could play a "succubus." (Tweaked the Infernal Legacy trait, the succubus kiss was modeled on the _chill touch_ cantrip, _charm person_ and _alter self_ as the spell-like abilities.) The succubus tiefling character was a warlock with the Celestial patron from Xanathar's Guide.
The Planescape setting in 2nd Edition AD&D had a table where you could randomly roll your Tiefling traits. It made for some really interesting looks.
www.ekkaia.org/rpg/dnd/ps/tiefling.pdf also see www.rilmani.org/timaresh/Appearance_of_Tieflings
Perfect timing. I'm painting a tiefling for my campaign right now.
Mannly reminds me, I have a bunch of cultists I need to get some paint on.
I would so love listings of the art you use. Like in a Google doc or something. You find some truly amazing and inspiring work.
My character is a light cleric who's adopted older brother is a teifling bard. because of this the cleric has a strong hatred of discrimination of race,and is just as likely to attack a nother cleric discriminating a teifling child as he would a dragon
Pathfinder also has some options for Tieflings if you look through the books and find them
I need to find a forgotten realm Group now. I would love to play a Yugoloth based Tiefling.
Are they what Blizzard got their ideas for their Drenai designs?
Well, there are certainly more similarities than there are differences.
Slight correction maybe wrong though. But I am pretty sure Tieflings are not biologically more drawn to evil. But many become evil due to the poor treatment they receive growing up. So I think it's more cultural
You're probably quite right.
I love the idea of an old adventurer opening a tiefling orphanage and it's just a pack of toddlers with fire and thaumatrugy power, ABESOLUTE CHAOD
I Love this one! First PC I ever had was a Halfling Thief in 1st edition! No Power back then but he specialised in speed rather than strength!
Good CLEAR narration and substance!👍
I don't think I would want to play this race but I did find this video fascinating
Tiefling is a german word it translates to: deep one.. Tief=deef , ling= a person charterized through (trait or characteristic) cringe-ling,(a person who is cringe) happy-ling ( a person who is always happy) you get the idea
I love tieflings. I'm currently playing one who has basically been rejected his entire life. He had no parents, no home, no friends, nothing, and now he's found a group of other weirdos who accept him regardless of his appearance and closed off disposition. Despite his quietness and admittedly rocky start with two of them, he would much rather that he dies instead of one of them because he fears being alone in the world again.
The idea of suffering as spice in live food is brilliant.
This was probably already commented on, but Tieflings were in 3.5 in the MM as the plane touched with the Aasimar. They were a +1 level adjustment or some such if I recall correctly.
Quite right.
If you have poison resistance I can imagine there are lots of meals a Tiefling would eat that would sicken or kill another race. Like potato leafs. if there is a tiefling farmer without much food he can eat them and be fine. A human can't. Then over time it becomes part of his culture then his families and so on. (Not sure if potato leafs would be good if it would not kill us just a random example)
Yeah, be very careful around their mushroom stew.
Not sure about the rumor is true or not, but the highest reported number of people at a given time to get medical aid from .. bacteria .. gut infections are at city yearly Cheese conventions. One or eight strains of cheese bacteria is one thing, but a few dozen mixing in your gut Is it still a .. poison ?
If you want some extra inspiration for spicing up a tiefling, ‘The Planeswalker’s Handbook’ for the Planescape setting has a table of random traits for tiefling that i quite enjoy. Talk to your dm about it first, but it has stuff like random spells, appearances, and quirks. You can also find it by searching Planescape Tiefling Table
Here's a concept, a character from a line of noble tiefling warriors that cover their horns with the stereotypical "Viking" horned helmet. Basically the tradition of wearing such a helm stretches so far back, when a tiefling entered the family tree, nobody noticed. Perhaps it's even a point of trust "We don't normally share this with outsiders but...."
17:40 There's a real big difference between caliente and picante. Fire is one thing. Peppers are another. They don't fall under the same category when considering resistance to fire.
Very helpful. Thank you. I'm trying to get back into d&d and I've got a thought for a tiefling character. A barbaric bard (or Bardbarian as my friend said) that goes by Conan Drumn. I'm having trouble with the bloodlines and it seems everything I come across has a new line. Any suggestions? I have in mind to make him a pun-welding conundrum.
Bardbarian who speaks in a German accent with a penchant for doing crime, so he could be a _con un(d) drum_ ?
Tiefling were in 3.5 just i a monster player race(had to get stats from monster manual, like half dragons.)
I have played an infernal Tiefling warlock for about 7 years lol. Good times
I usually throw the lower around parentage out the window, I typically have the parent be either a Hellfire Wyrm or a Powerful Abishai
In my game, Tiefling horns are like fingerprints, no two are exactly alike.
I love this idea.
I'm thinking of making a Tiefling Rogue/bard entertainer/assassin. He owns a popular tavern as a front for his assassin broker business. Everybody loves him as long as he's serving drinks and singing songs, but they look at him with distrust when he's outside. Mostly, he takes it in stride, but once in a while it kinda gets to him.
Been thinking of a tiefling forge master [blacksmith] due to their resistance to fire. Seems like it'd be a lot of fun to build weapons with little caution. Light toasting over a full burn. Not to mention, having her smoke and putting out the cigarettes on her skin cause she won't feel it? Rad. Not to mention a semi tragic backstory that follows her devilish background... Thanks for more info so I have a lot of information to work withm
Actually the old edition talking about them having fiendish ancestors is true to the original tieflings. Tieflings as a pc is completely different from their original appearance because tieflings were more like a random mutation caused by demonic or devilish ancestory
Always reminds me of Annah in Planescape: Torment. Our girl paved the way.
this video showcases several Tiefling variants i never new existed
the one thing that 4e did core wise that I do not like the most, is that they made tieflings their own race instead of plane touched like they were previously
I definitely was that person that was like “whoa, where did they come from”
I played as one in 2nd edition(obviously adapted/weakened) but very fun nonetheless! Back story and role play was super super fun!
Honestly, I liked that tieflings started having a unified look from 4E onwards. Prior to that, we were told that they had random combinations of fiendish traits, but we were shown a single racial stat block. Later materials might come along and let you trade out something for a random trait on a d100 chart, but the afterthought nature of it wasn't satisfying to me. So 4E taking a playable race with a single racial stat block and making them have the same look made all the sense in the world to me. Ditto 5E that AFAICT lets this race still look like a distinct race (for the most part).
I'm currently running a tieflinig in my group. Its a draconic blood line (white dragon) sorcerer and mistakenly believes her magic is her infernal heritage taking hold. She actually spends more time in prayer and in the temple than either the parties cleric and paladin combined. Every time she goes (what she believes is overboard) she begs the cleric to pray with her for forgiveness. Behind her back, the party describes her as 'heaven's devil'
My friend always gets pissed at me for the way I draw my tieflings. They never look the same and I always bend some trait out of the book. I have one tiefling with mottled skin so she has normal skin tone, and spotched with purple
If memory serves it's in the sword coast adventure guide that they explained the Asmodeus thing. When he ascended to god status he enforced his portfolio and forced a change on all Tieflings making all of them that were in existence at that time of his blood line. Since that moment though other tieflings have been born that are not from his blood. Which is why the sword coast guide has fiend blood and other tieflings in it.
Aha, thank you very much! So it really is quite like the Thunder Blessing of Moradin, kind of.
The text says during the Spellplague Asmodeus consumed Azuth and then with a coven of warlocks, the Toril thirteen, he preformed a right where in he claimed all Teiflings as his own. He had help from warlocks where Moradin had help from his own pantheon of gods and they just split souls to increase Dwarven birth rates. While similar I'd say Moradin did something that just made more dwarves where Asmodeus literally rewrote the beings of all Teiflings.
Quite a raw deal for those Tieflings.
Yes, but it also explains the sudden increase in their numbers, pushing them from a niche race in 3.5 to full blown ones in 4th and 5th eds. As some demons and devils use Tieflings as a cats paw on the prime material plane. If suddenly all of your progeny was stolen by someone else you might decide to go make more to have those ties restored.
Which the book explains as new variants on the tieflings the feral, devil's tongue, Hellfire, and winged sub races. Or as it puts it "Tieflings in Faerun generally have the racial traits of Tieflings in the player handbook, except that those not descended from Asmodeous might exhibit different qualities." It then goes on to list the fore mentioned variants.
I love the race, and I love what you're doing. If you ever run out of ideas I'd love to see someone tackle the idea of the reincarnate spell and if it has a true change on your nature or not.
In a campaign that has more of a focus on Demons would it be reasonable for a tiefling to be singled out by demons as an object of scorn over and above other characters? If so could this be used to "out" tiefling that looks more normal?
It certainly would.
Tiefling were in 3.5
Is a quarter demon/devil considered a tiefling, or half-cambeon?
Hmmm, I'm leaning towards Tiefling
I had a tiefling baker npc in a game that would just reach into the oven barehanded and never get burnt.
Wow, that's pretty practical.
And when he has a human aprentice.
Human: "How can I get the bread out of the oven? I don't see any mittens or other stuff around?"
Tief-baker: "Don't be a wuss, just pull it out!"
Human: "You do know it's scorching hot, don't you?"
Tief-baker: "What does hot mean?" *Trollface*
Human: =_=
I started with AD&D, got heavily invested in 3rd edition, totally skipped 4th, and now can’t watch a video or make even a casual internet search for anything d&d related without getting 5th shoved in my face. The prominence of teiflings in today’s d&d came as no surprise. 3rd and 3.5 were lousy with them. Sure, they weren’t in the PHB, but the old 3rd edition MM had them and the 3.5 MM gave stats for making them PCs. The FR Campaign Setting featured them as a playable race, alongside assimar and genasi, before introducing ways to play fey’ri or tanarukk. Also Dungeon magazine at the time featured many teifling npcs in several of their adventures and I remember of at least one representing a player character in the artwork of many issues.
Granted they were not as popular as today, and they tended to feature more as villains than heroes or even good aligned npcs, but they were there aplenty.
I think my favorite wizard character was a Tiefling, he looked really human aside from small slightly curved horns that barely poked out of his curly hair. The only noteworthy things about the campaign with him I remember is that once he slept through a fight (I failed the perception check every time) so our Halfling rogue drew on his face with his own pen and ink, and another time he and the party's cleric of Lathander got kicked out of an elf bar. (Cleric was preaching. I was just standing nearby and clearly with him and not an elf.) I've run played a few more Teifling rogues, I love them. As NPCs when I was the DM there was a brother and sister pair of Tieflings, sister was a mage of some kind (sorcerer? I don't remember) and the brother was a rogue and member of the thieve's guild. Names were Mist and Shadow. They were allies of a more powerful NPC, the sister was actually his student as well I think, so maybe wizard.