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Tiefling

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Tieflings are a fictional race in the Dungeons and Dragons fantasy tabletop role-playing game.

Tieflings were originally introduced as humans with demonic ancestry. A Tiefling is a being whose lineage can be traced back to some degree or another to that of a fiend or demon within the Dungeons & Dragons universe. A tiefling should not be confused with a half-fiend as half-fiends are generally half mortal being and half fiend or demon, whereas the demonic lineage of a tiefling's ancestry often lies further up the family tree. In 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, Tieflings are a non-human race whose human ancestors made a bargain with devils to increase their power.

Publication history

The name "Tiefling" was coined by Wolfgang Baur, when original Planescape designer David "Zeb" Cook asked for a Germanic-sounding word for humans with fiendish blood.[citation needed] Baur derived the name from Teufel, or "Devil" in German.[citation needed] The direct translation of Tiefling, however, would be "deepling," since tief means "deep." A closer derivation from Teufel would be teufling.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989-1999)

The tiefling was introduced in the Planescape Campaign Setting (1994)[1] with more information in the first Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix (1994)[2] and the Planewalker's Handbook (1996).[3]

Dungeons & Dragons 3.0 edition (2000-2002)

The tiefling appears in the Monster Manual for this edition (2000) under the planetouched entry.[4]

The fey'ri and tanna'ruk tieflings appeared in Monsters of Faerun (2001).[5] The tiefling is presented as a player character race for the Forgotten Realms setting in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (2001),[6] and the tiefling and fey'ri appear as player character races in Races of Faerûn (2003).[7]

Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 edition (2003-2007)

The tiefling appears in the revised Monster Manual for this edition (2003) under the planetouched entry.

The tiefling paragon was introduced in Unearthed Arcana (2004).[8]

The tiefling appears as a player character race in the Planar Handbook (2004),[9] and Races of Destiny (2004).[10]

Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition (2008-)

The tiefling appears as a player character race in the Player's Handbook for this edition (2008).[11] They also have a racial book dedicated to them in this edition.

Fictional history

The story of the humans' ascension into the Tiefling race is called the story of Emperor Bael Turath. The Empire of Bael Turath was one of the greatest in all of humankind's history. In the Empire the noble class (kings, lords, princes, etc.) were completely devoted to the preservation of their power. They were so obsessed with power and glory that they vowed to even give up their humanity for it. Bael Turath made many promises to the nobles of his lands and word reached a realm called the Nine Hells located around the Astral Sea. People of the Nine Hells began having dreams or visions of the promises that Emperor Bael Turath made. They believed these visions would help keep the Emperor and the nobles in power. The visions spoke of an evil month-long ritual that each ruling house of the Emperor must participate in to secure their power forever. Some of the houses refused to take part in the ritual because it promoted terrible deeds that all of the participants of all the houses must do. The houses that refused were destroyed and the ritual commenced. During the ritual, devils began to appear and many houses and nobles made pacts with them. These pacts not only bound the human nobles but also their descendants forever. Thus began the race known as the Tiefling.

Tiefling aspects

In earlier versions of Dungeons & Dragons, 3.5 and previous, Tieflings have any of a number of features that reference (directly or indirectly) their fiendish lineage. These include, but are not limited to, horns located on their heads, pointed sharp teeth, extra fingers, cloven hooves in place of feet, tails, and unusually colored eyes. They exude a feeling of "evil" even though their race has become civil and no longer lusts for power. Many races distrust or outright hate Tieflings seeing them as devil worshippers. Tiefling villains often live up to this reputation, whereas player characters have the choice to abandon this stereotype.

In 4th edition, tieflings are a core character race and have had their appearance altered. All tieflings possess large thick horns of various styles on their heads, non-prehensile tails approximately 4 to 5 feet in length, sharply pointed teeth, and their eyes are solid orbs of red, black, white, silver, or gold. Tiefling skin ranges through common human shades right into the reds, ranging from brick red to a ruddy tan. Tiefling hair, which starts behind their horns, ranges from dark blue to purple to red in addition to more normal human colors.

In Dungeons & Dragons version 4.0, tieflings do not associate with a specific god or gods. Their lack of faith also means paladins and clerics are seldom, if ever, found. Tieflings have no homeland and are very rare due to a long lasting war with the dragonborn, another race seen in the 4th edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Most tieflings prefer to be adventurers and rarely ever adventure with their own kin due to the prejudices of other races (people are concerned when two or more of their kind travel together).

Alignment

Unlike half-fiends, tieflings are not necessarily of evil alignments. Tieflings of all alignments exist, including good, although many take more lowbrow jobs, such as that of thieves, assassins or spies.

In a standard 3.0 and 3.5 game, Tieflings tend to have an unsettling air about them, and most people are uncomfortable around them, whether they are aware of the tiefling's unsavory ancestry or not.

In 4.0 Tieflings have the same alignments choices as any other starting character.

Tieflings in various campaign settings

Tieflings appear in a number of campaign settings, including the following notable examples:

Tieflings in the Forgotten Realms

In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, both tieflings and aasimar are more common than in other settings. Tieflings even have elven and orc counterparts (Fey'ri and Tanarruk, respectively). In the 3rd Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, less common varieties of the tiefling were introduced, including a dwarven counterpart, the Maeluth and a halfling counterpart, the Wispling.

Tieflings in Planescape

In the Planescape campaign setting, tieflings are a common race available to player characters, though they are mistrusted and reviled by many inhabitants of the planes.

Notable tieflings

Livonia Darktongue appears in the book Weapons of Legacy in 2005.

Tieflings in Urban Arcana

Tieflings are a playable race in Urban Arcana, which is based on the premise that races from Dungeons and Dragons exist on earth. Most tieflings in Urban Arcana are humans with horns, although more obvious appearances exist. To regular humans who cannot perceive shadow, they appear to be cynical humans — the horns are not visible to those unable to perceive shadow.

In other media

In the PC game Planescape: Torment the player character is joined by Annah, a tiefling fighter/thief with a rat-like tail. In Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn the tiefling bard NPC Haer'Daelis can join the party. There is the female tiefling rogue Neeshka in Neverwinter Nights II.

References

  1. ^ Cook, Zeb. Planescape Campaign Setting. (TSR, 1994)
  2. ^ Varney, Allen, ed. Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix (TSR, 1994)
  3. ^ Cook, Monte. The Planewalker's Handbook. (TSR, 1996)
  4. ^ Cook, Monte, Jonathan Tweet, and Skip Williams. Monster Manual (Wizards of the Coast, 2000)
  5. ^ Wyatt, James and Rob Heinsoo. Monstrous Compendium: Monsters of Faerûn (Wizards of the Coast, 2001)
  6. ^ Greenwood, Ed, Sean K. Reynolds, Skip Williams, and Rob Heinsoo. Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting (Wizards of the Coast, 2001)
  7. ^ Reynolds, Sean K., Forbeck, Matt, Jacobs, James, Boyd, Erik L. Races of Faerûn (Wizards of the Coast, 2003)
  8. ^ Collins, Andy, Jesse Decker, David Noonan, and Rich Redman. Unearthed Arcana (Wizards of the Coast, 2004)
  9. ^ Cordell, Bruce, Gwendolyn F.M. Kestrel. Planar Handbook (Wizards of the Coast, 2004)
  10. ^ Noonan, David, Eric Cagle, and Aaron Rosenberg. Races of Destiny. (Wizards of the Coast, 2004
  11. ^ Heinsoo, Rob, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt. Player's Handbook. (Wizards of the Coast, 2008)
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