Kaminah - About Tieflings by a Tiefling

Tieflings are the result of a fiend, like demons, yugoloths, devils and evil deities, who bred with humans. Often-times within a human family tree a tiefling doesn't even show up for generations and can be a surprise if it had not been known about the ancestors.

While tieflings generally are known to be cunning and full of personal allure, people tend to feel unsettled and uncomfortable around them.

Most tieflings could look entirely human, others had one or more physical characteristics. They include horns, prehensile tails, pointed teeth, eyes with solid orbs of either black, red, white, silver or gold. Sometimes more unusual features showed such as sulfurous odor, cloven feet or very uncomfortable auras. Skin could be into the reddish hues past human colors, and hair could be more blue, red or purple.

In general, tieflings had better reflexes than humans and had natural talents for thievery and hiding.

Due to their appearance, most tieflings were either killed at birth or never reached adulthood, unless being borne with only subtle features, or to those parents who either did not care or had cruel intentions.

When it comes to bloodlines of tieflings, the physical appearance mostly depended on the exact ancestry, and could be many generations removed or lay dormant. So tieflings could also have forked tongues, leathery or scaly skin, smell of brimstone, unusual warm flesh and so on. Tieflings sired by Rakshasa might have furred skin or feline eyes, or ones sired by the god Mask tended to cast no reflections, or shadows.

Usually Tieflings only had one or two of any of the described features, though.

It must be noted that, just like humans, tieflings could have all sorts of alignments and were not always evil. However most were more capable of guile and had an innate resistance to heat and a hint of bloodlust that gave them an edge in combat. Tieflings in general always had a potential for rage and potential evil, and some could even learn to unlock their fiendish potential further, sprouting wings such as those borne by many fiends.

As with any race that could trace back to more than one race in their ancestry, and especially because of their different appearance and potential for evil, many tieflings knew they were different from an early age. Not only did they look different, they also tended to have strange urges and desires due to their ancestry and were usually not raised with love like humans might. Thus they usually tended to be bitter individuals who expected rejection from all around them and also tended to be distrusting and self-reliant.

Tieflings had no culture of their own nor a homeland of their own, so some embraced their heritage and were actually proud of it, while others felt ashamed and frightened.

As varied as tieflings were, so were their religious believes. Most commonly though they worshiped Asmodeus, Beshaba, Cyric, Gargauth, Mask and Shar, for example.

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