Tiefling
 | |
| Tiefling | |
|---|---|
| Alignment | Any |
Not to be confused with cambions, which are half-humans, half-fiends.
Tieflings are mortals touched by the dark energies of the Lower Planes. They are perhaps the best-known planetouched.
There is much debate and superstition surrounding the origin of tieflings. Many cultures believe tieflings to be demon-spawn—either the result of a human woman becoming impregnated by a demon or a demon swapping out a human child with a demon baby.
In truth, however, tieflings occur when someone in a human's ancestry had some kind of contact with dark forces, such as a demon or a dark god. This then "corrupts" their family line, and a sort of tiefling "gene" gets passed down, generation by generation, until it is "activated" in a newborn child.
Development
The tiefling "gene," so to speak, can lay dormant across generations. It's possible—and, in fact, often the case—that tieflings are born to completely ordinary human families who've never had a tiefling in the family or haven't had one for centuries.
The "gene" can also lay dormant until later in life: many (if not most) tieflings are born looking like ordinary humans, and only around puberty do their horns come in and skin change in color.
Social status
It is unfortunately the norm for tieflings to be viewed with open hostility. The very best most tieflings can hope for is being viewed with tremendous suspicion. In Riyan, for example, tieflings are second-class citizens. In many Imrayan nations, tieflings are ostracized from society. In Alicante and Vallyra, they are killed on sight.
Types
There are many types of tieflings, including:
- Infernal tieflings, or hellspawn.
- Abyssal tieflings, or pitborn/pitspawn.
- Shackleborn, born with velstrac blood.
