Tiefling

Tiefling
Alignment	Any

Tieflings (TEE-flingz), also known as darkbloods, are humans "touched" in some way by the energies of the negative planes. Often this means a familial curse, an infernal pact by an ancestor, birth in a negative plane, or a demonic ancestor.

Tieflings are not half-fiends; a half-fiend is a cambion.

Tieflings are often misidentified as demons and shunned, persecuted, or even outright killed. Although they are often regarded as evil, tieflings have the same range of moral character as regular humans.

Appearance of traits

Tieflings are often born looking like regular humans, until they reach a certain age (the most common ages are four, early teens, and late teens), at which point their "tiefling gene" is triggered and their tiefling traits manifest. It is speculated that the tiefling's "guardian" (i.e., the tiefling's fiendish ancestor, the fiendish patron of the tiefling's ancestor, or the fiend who cursed the family line) watches the tiefling child and triggers the transformation at the opportune time.

It is thought that fiendish guardians tend to avoid triggering the appearance of tiefling traits at birth, since often what then follows is the child and mother are both killed. However, this observation may just be survivorship bias.