How Does This Work? What Is This? And? This Document Is by No Means Meant to Be Hard and Fast And, This Means a Tiefling Can Be Anything
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How Does This Work? What is this? And? This document is by no means meant to be hard and fast And, this means a Tiefling can be anything. rules for worldbuilding canon regarding Tieflings or for Would you argue that perhaps it seems far-fetched to have Tiefling character creation. a mostly-human Tiefling produce offspring with, say, a This document is merely an attempt to expand the Centaur, when such a feat seems ludicrous for a traditional possibilities of what Tieflings can be. human? I have gathered all of the officially sanctioned choices for You would be correct. character races from the most common sources in 5th However, improbable is not impossible. And this guide is Edition at the time of publication and created an expanded meant to help push the improbable even closer to possible. list of choices of physical traits for Tieflings. These expanded choices are an attempt to include the possibility of ancestries other than human in the Tiefling pantheon. Using This Guide The next few pages contain two different sources for you to use - "Trait Tables" and "Pre-Generated Tables". I have narrowed the traits down to physical characteristics Sources that are easily observed and most notable at a glance. Subtler I have not included the Acquisitions Incorporated traits, such as fangs or sharped teeth, forked tails, peculiar or Locathah Rising source books, despite their scents, or lack of shadows or reflections are not addressed presence in the official sourcebook lists, as their here. scope is limited and specific. The Trait Tables contain the options I have pooled together than I believe can be used as physical markings of a more varied ancestry for your Tiefling. They are meant to be used as reference or as roll tables to randomly determine the physical characteristics of your Tiefling. Some traits have obvious parallels to the natural world, and Why? their presence would very strongly indicate one ancestry over The Player's Handbook describes Tieflings of Infernal another (e.g. webbed feet and w-shape pupils would only heritage, and later publications such as Sword Coast occur in aquatic or amphibian races), while others would be Adventurer's Guide and the unofficial Unearthed Arcana common amongst many races and would only indicate a releases expanded "default" Tieflings to include the Feral more complex ancestry. Tiefling and an alternative Abyssal heritage, as well. The Pre-Generated Tables are my interpretation of what I While these Tieflings are perfectly suitable as described, I see as an appropriate configuration of traits for a particular found the number of "official" options for a Tiefling's physical ancestry. They are meant to be used when you need a Tiefling traits to be lacking somewhat. For one, I found the definition to reflect a particular origin - i.e. look appropriate to their of what a Tiefling is to be somewhat contradictory. non-human parent. I have left color variations off of these tables, as all of the various possible combinations of color would be difficult to An Argument for Tiefling list, and a strictly genetic interpretation of color would be Tieflings are said to be humans with fiendish heritage, and as beyond of scope of what I am familiar with or capable of, such Tieflings are always human. This, however, is a limited given the number of races included here. reading. Tieflings are, by definition, individuals whose bloodlines originated with humans that made pacts with fiends and manifested the Tieflings we see today. However, what of the children of Tieflings? If all Tiefling bloodlines were once human, then an argument could be made that they would produce offspring as a human would as well. While it is well-known that Tieflings "breed true" - that the child of a Tiefling will always manifest the characteristics of their fiendish heritage - this doesn't account for the human aspect of their ancestry. If huSamplemans may sire half-elves and half-orcs, then a fiendish file human - a Tiefling - may sire fiendish half-elves and fiendish half-orcs - half-elf Tieflings and half-orc Tieflings. 3 Trait Tables These tables are for rolling random traits of your tiefling; the number of tables you roll on can be a random number itself. Horns Wings A Note: d30 Horn Type d2 Wing Type For ease of use and understanding, "normal" here is 1 Varies 1 Yes understood to be synonymous with the default appearance of tieflings, e.g. the circular pupils, a relatively thin, winding tail, 2 Tibetan Antelope 2 No five-toed feet, and unusually colored but human-textured skin 3 Addax of Asmodean tieflings. 4 Red Hartebeest Skin Regarding horns, natural variation is assumed and the 5 Water Buffalo d4 Skin Type examples given here are a general outline of horn shapes. 'Varies' is meant to denote the ability for the horns to change 6 Markhor 1 Normal style and shape, either at will or spontaneously. 7 Oribi 2 Leathery 8 Ankole-Watusi 3 Furred 9 Jacob Sheep 4 Scaled 10 Grant's Gazelle 11 Giant Eland Tail d4 Tail Style 12 Mouflon 1 Normal On Horns: 13 Bharal The number of horn types listed is a reflection of the number 2 Thick 14 Blackbuck of different races listed in the official sourcebooks. I wanted 3 Short 15 Scimitar Oryx each race to have their own distinct-looking horns, while also 4 None allowing for a breadth of variation even among randomly- 16 Springbok generated Tieflings. 17 Gerenuk Eyes 18 Takin d6 Pupil Style 19 Muskox 1 Normal 20 Caribou 2 Vertical 21 Black Wildebeest 3 Crescent 22 Highland Cattle 4 Horizontal 23 Tamaraw 5 W-Shape 24 Saiga 6 Beaded 25 Hartebeest 26 Chousingha Feet 27 Argali d5 Foot Style 28 Impala 1 Normal 29 Lowland Anoa 2 Hooves 30 Goitered Gazelle 3 Claws 4 Webbed Sample5 Digitigrade file 4 Pre-Generated Tables Eberron: Rising from the Last War Changeling Sub-Race Horn Skin Wings Tail Feet Pupil Source Changeling Varies Varies Optional Varies Claws Varies ERftLW Kalashtar Sub-Race Horn Skin Wings Tail Feet Pupil Source Kalashtar Tibetan Antelope Normal Optional Normal Normal Crescent ERftLW Shifter Sub-Race Horn Skin Wings Tail Feet Pupil Source Beasthide Varies Leathery No Thick Hooves Horizontal ERftLW Longtooth Varies Furred No Normal Digitigrade Normal ERftLW Swiftstride Varies Furred No Normal Digitigrade Vertical ERftLW Wildhunt Varies Normal Yes Normal Claws Normal ERftLW Elemental Evil Aarakocra Sub-Race Horn Skin Wings Tail Feet Pupil Source SampleAarakocra Addax Normal Yes Thick Claws Nfileormal EE *See note on pg. 4 'Trait Tables' regarding usage of 'Normal' 5.