Tieflings

Unless you play in a Planescape-tier setting where there are extraplanar portals/crossings to the Nine Hells and the Abyss everywhere you look, why do common peasants immediately think of devils/demons when they see a tiefling, and then use that as an excuse to ostracize tieflings?

Your common peasant probably worships an agriculture god whose teachings include nothing on fiends, let alone what fiends look like, because those are irrelevant to your typical D&D agriculture god's religion. Christianity with "scary" drawings of unholy beings, this is not. Most peasants hardly know what a devil or a demon is.

Your typical village probably encounters much more fey like pixies, dryads, satyrs, and nymphs. Someone who walks in with goat horns is probably going to be called some kind of satyr or satyr-spawn. A scaly tail, maybe some draconic blood in there too.

For that matter, anyone who walks in with lupine features is going to be harassed because werewolves are evil, and anyone who strolls in with ursine features will be hailed as a hero because werebears are good.

Never really thought about it like that.

Because they're uncanny. They're like humans, but they have animal features and a dark, scary 'aura'. They think demon because they look semi-human, but aren't an elf or dwarf or even an orc, so they must have some sort of weird mutation or dark magic influence or something.
People have been making redhead jokes since forever over basically fucking nothing, so how much more likely is it that the glowering guy with the sunken eyes and actual fucking horns and can also do magic for some reason gets cast as 'yeah he's been fucked up by some dark power'. Plus, when the one person that knows what a tiefling is says they're related to demons/devils, that basically seals their fate.

But tieflings have hellish red skin, scary monocolored eyes, demon tails and they smell like sulfur. I wouldn't confuse one for a satyr, ever.

>Something in DnD is utterly retarded and makes no sense!

Obligatory "Have you tried not playing DnD?" reply.

A thread died for this topic.
Luckily it was probably some shitty "stat me" topic.

>an unpopular or max post thread died for this

ftfy

It's not so much confusing it for a satyr as much as "huh, that's one funky satyr"

>red skin
Citation needed.

Really? This is how I’ve always seen it!

Literally came to post this but you beat me to it.

I'm not even part of the DnD hate train, but if you're complaining about problems with DnD, fucking PLAY SOMETHING ELSE. Gorramn this is getting old.

Tieflings in Planescape do NOT all look alike. In fact, not all even have horns or cloven hooves or tails.

Those are just the lucky ones.

If you actually go back to the 2nd Edition D&D the Planewalker's Handbook, you don't automatically get visible racial traits when rolling a tiefling. You roll on a table for your demonic traits. These do include horns, tail, etc. It also includes...
>Body covered in striped markings
>Spiny ridge on back
>Scaly skin
>Rotting odor surrounds body
>Ashy odor surrounds body
>Sulfuric odor surrounds body
>Presence causes unease in NPCs. Reactions at -4
>body casts no shadow
>Touch inflicts 1 point of damage due to cold body temperature
>Touch inflicts 1 point of damage due to high body heat
>Skin exudes ashy grit
>Prolonged touch withers normal plants
>roll on this table twice
>roll on this table three times

Trust me. There was a very good reason tieflings were feared by ANY commonfolk.
Only recently, and because the lucky tieflings were given the most spotlight, did they become inexplicably handsome/beautiful as well as hated and feared.
They kept the "muh demonic heritage" drama and yet suffer zero drawbacks in the new editions. Actually robs them of real character, in my opinion.

That's nice.

>2e tieflings
That's nice, but we're talking about post-2e tieflings.

Annah is best girl.

OP didn't say anything about the edition, slut.

This never made sense even in Planescape, because people were generally savvy about the "rules" of the planes, and people should know better than to think that tieflings are even predisposed towards evil...

>people should know better than to think that tieflings are even predisposed towards evil
Maybe you'd know that if you've spent a few years in Sigil. That's not exactly common knowledge.

Look at literally every art of tieflings from 4e, PF or 5e.
>B-b-but in muh 2e
Nobody cares, grandpa.

Good points. But I wouldn't allow Tieflings if there wasn't a precedence for horned demons and devils being known about.

For some people, the alienation and being ostracized is part of the appeal of playing a tiefling. It helps them get their victim complex on. Yes, even the ones that will lose their shit and act indignified upon encountering such treatment. They actually live for that moment. It makes things sweeter when they feel justified in their over-reaction of killing the offender and then burning down the entire town for being so racist.

I've found Drow players are the same way alot of the time.

Also guys who insist on playing female characters in settings where being a woman is dangerous.

Yup, exactly. This guy gets it.

I like playing female characters because I want to create characters who would be my ideal wife/daughter

You sick weirdo fuck.

Why can't you be like the rest of us and play female characters you just want to fuck silly?

>settings where being a woman is dangerous.
I can't wait for you to start talking about -4 Str, being designed for giving birth and women getting raped the moment they step outside, and then some about "realism".

Being a woman shouldn't be more "dangerous" than being a man. Most would say being captured as a sex slave with the chance to escape is better than just being dead. Worst case scenario is your opponents believe in equal treatment of the sexes and will just kill you.

For what it's worth, I don't actually run those kinds of games myself, but I've been invited to them before and accepted the invitations to broaden my horizons beyond just DnD.

The variant of this argument that I saw suggested that the dragonborn were much more likely to get that treatment, because your average person hasn’t heard anything about demons or devils but has almost certainly heard of the utter ruin dragons visit on smaller towns.

Additionally, it was suggested that devils, at least, are likely to keep their word, even though you’re likely to get screwed over if you make deals with one. They are thus more predictable than werewolves or dragons.

I always liked the Planescape tieflings and I have no idea why they got changed.

Why not?

me too user

Yeah it's not as if there currently is a movement on all social media centered around how women are sexually exploited. Which they would not be to the same degree if they were the stronger sex.

Absolutely right my man. Same as those darkies wouldn't ah been enslaved had it not been ordained by gawd himself

In every setting that has dragonborn, they are pretty much always listed as having had a massive ancient empire at one time, indicating that they were probably a fairly common sight outside this empire. There are probably stories and drawings and tapestries that depict these dragonborn, and seeing one is like seeing a redhead, uncommon but plausible. In addition, one of the major gods is a literal dragon whose domains basically cover the protection of communities and is probably enshrined in the same temple that has their grain god.

Hell, if anything seeing one enter town is probably a good omen, especially if they bear the sign of Bahamut himself.

The #metoo movement was originally about women who were exploited by men who held power. Not by men who didn't hold power. Dummy.

And the niggers, like all slaves ever, were enslaved because people more powerful than them wanted it that way.

>not playing a tiefling paladin who forgives all those who mistreat him and strives to be as righteous as he can be

are you from /pol/ by any chance?

>Depends on the setting
How easy is it for a demon/devil/horny outsider to come over and fuck someone and get her knocked up or something? How often does it happen? Is this a well-known thing? Or did it just happen a lot in the past and now there's a bunch of them that walk around because they transmit their demon blood to their kids so unless it's thinned out a lot they'll keep those traits?

Or is it like "modern" D&D tieflings who are just descendants of an ancient empire where they got cursed with demon cooties and can't get rid of it because reasons? How much of this ancient drama is known and how much superstition goes around it?

How evident is this demon blood and what does it cause? If it just makes you look like the pic in the OP and there's no strong superstition about it it might as well be like being a redhead in a place where they're uncommon. Heck some people might just find the horns cute, or quirky, it really depends on how many different races and general "exotic" stuff people deal with, including magic and adventurers and whatnot.

In a dark, gritty setting a la Warhammer where having the wrong hair colour can mean getting persecuted than having horns would most certainly spell doom for you, but in a high fantasy setting if this is grounds for racism and social stigma you actually need to come up with a reason for it yourself. Might be simply "They're devil spawn and this is well-known because [reasons]".

Also
>Depends on the setting

Never been there my friend
I just recognize power. Not saying that might makes right, more like saying might enables rule.

Peasants who dont know about tieflings should call them "Orgies" because theyre a mix of three things

So you are telling me that only D&D gives you the option of playing races like Tieflings. Huh, how about that. D&D is way cooler than I thought.

Well, there's GURPS. You could definitely play a tiefling in that system.