How common are tieflings in your setting?

Exactly! There shouldn't be enough tieflings to form a playable race, if anything they should be a rare, 1 level adjusted splatbook option and/or a template you can barter for instead of/while negotiating a warlock pact.

It varies wildly from place to place. In the kingdoms along the eastern coast, where the dominant church bans any and all non-violent contact with demons, tieflings are summarily executed when found. In other parts of the world, they are tolerated as the natural result of centuries of practicing demonology plus the human urge to bone everything. In a handful of fringe cults they are seen as touched by the divine in the same way that an aasimar is, just the chaotic version to the aasimar's order.

Or you can go the Point of Light way, making them humans that made a pact with devils eons ago and became cursed

>reeeeeeeee stop playing what I don't like!
The sheer autism in this thread is staggering

And they haven't been killed yet because? Seriously we're describing a race that would be hunted and killed at every opportunity by everyone capable of doing so.

Because not everyone is a genocidal dickhead like you maybe?

Relax dude, I'm not telling people not to play them, we're just talking about their numbers and such. Have an oni blooded tiefling.

I'm not a genocidal dickhead and I'm not saying that I'd want them dead. I'm saying that in a world with medieval religious people that are comparatively frequently attacked by demons and devils, a nation of people who made a pact with Asmodeus would have the shit crusaded out of them and their descendants would be on the run for the rest of their lives.

Considering the PC's just wrapped up a decade long war, that they instigated, between celestial and fiends using the plane we were on as battlefield aasimar and tieflings are now fairly common pretty much everywhere even if they are young.

Because they made the pact when they were one of the strongest empire in the world
Because most Tieflings have no link with devils anymore
Because

Because Wrong link, sorry

Due to planar influence or interbreeding? And how do you think the cultures of your world will be shaped by this in the years to come?

In my default setting: no tieflings. None of the other "plane-touched" races as well. No angels, demons, infernals and so on. And gods are about as real and as powerful as Allah or Odin are in the real world.

Well, it's a low-magic setting, so those things just don't fit.

Rare to the point of being unheard of, but not non-existent. It is very difficult for demons to travel to the mortal plane. Most demons pay little to no attention to humans, and of those that do, most are not humanoids. Of the very few that are, it can happen, but usually it occurs when the demon becomes stuck (or was exiled) and ends up trying to make a life away from home.

Of all the planetouched, tieflings actually make the most sense to me as to their being more common.

It’s because of devil rape.

Interbreeding. It was full War in Heaven for 10 years, our plane was just the battlefield for it all, but soldiers need recreation regardless of their species so plenty of places had "visitors" drop in for anything a traveler would need or want and sometimes that included tipping a barmaid or the bard.
As for how it's effecting the various cultures right now it's too early to say and something that will be addressed next campaign but more than one Not!Vatican is hoovering up the aasimar of their deity/s and tiefling kids are disappearing off the streets.

The obliteration of a large and powerful nation of people without interbreeding with them in the process is generally rare. And when it comes to killing off entire peoples, the usual culprit is disease, not intentional action like crusading. It's just really hard to keep people focused on a goal like that for the long period of time that it would require. Sure, you'll get pogroms and stuff like that in local areas every so often, but you'll also get people who are just more interested in doing other things rather than traveling long distances to settle a thousand year old grudge. Apathy is a powerful force.

True! Good point, I did not take apathy into account.

There is a Race that is kinda inspired by them visually, but they are bit different I guess. When I understand it correctly the Tieflings are normally somehow demonic corrupted peoble or offspring of humans and fiends, here they are just a bunch of mutated halfelves. They all live in the Underground, a bit like the Skaven, beneath a great Desert and tap into the groundwater (One of the Reasons why the Peoble on the Surfaces live in so shitty circumstances).

Fiends are more likely to do bad things like rape, are more willing to be summoned, and entire varieties of them are based on sexuality.
Sexuality is a taboo in many religious groups, so celestial creatures are often more "pure". Think of unicorns and virgins.
The most common elementals are incompatible with mortal mating, and genasi are often as comfortable on their native plane as they are on the material.
All of them are fine, but Tieflings being more common has a sense of naturalness to it.

Ironically your skaven elves bear a lot more similarity to the original elven myths than d&d elves proper in some ways.

You make a lot of sense and I would like you to keep talking please.

That wasn't on purpose, now that I am thinking about it. I good more into thinking "What if the Falmer weren't inbreed mongrels. But I guess, it pretty muchs fits since the world is actually flat and kinda Midgard and Heaven/Order and Hell/Chaos just represent the crown and root of Ygdrassil and their "Sphaeric Magnetism" I guess you could call it, prevents all the worlds off spilling into space. Funnily enough, the actual Peoble of Svartalheim are the Night/Dark Elves who go a bit into the Eldritch Evil Type and created Vampirism as a way to control their slaves.

Tieflings only exist in D&D.

Correct!

From a character perspective, Tieflings obviously appeal to edgelords but more importantly, they fulfill the unlikely hero archetype in perhaps the most literal fashion. Drizzt is a popular character concept because he breaks free from his dark and evil roots to become a goodly heroic individual, and Tieflings ful that sane niche.
Good campaigns are the most common, even if individual characters come in their own flavors, the goal of most games is heroic.
Playing an archetype, but superficially against the grain is highly appealing to most roleplayers. As such, playing a straight good Aasimar is less interesting than a god Tiefling, particularly since the latter gives you more freedom to err in the wrong direction on occasion.
In that vein, Aasimar represent a strict moral code, at least at an entry level, while Tieflings represent a certain level of freedom.
Genasi are more of a mixed bag, but in western cultures the lack of Christian based iconography and origins makes them less well known, and some of their origins are downright restrictive, Djinn being correlated with slavery.

>Same with Drow variant Elves and Dragonborn.

I mean, they are pretty big in FR and FR is the main setting for 5e. I'd concider it weirder if main races were not actually in the corebook for the setting.

Svartalfheim means black elf home, so yeah.

Yeah, but from what I know the Schwarzelfen (Black Elves) from the Nordic Mytholgy are closer to beeing the Dwarfes of the "Setting". Mythology is weird.

I hated them when 4e turned them all into one thing. Each one of them being unique was core to what the tiefling was.

I personally haven't had a problem banning drow and other races from certain games when they don't fit the setting so I can't complain about manchildren crying.

>Late 19th century Russian interior
>Tieflings
A... what?

Wait what?

Tieflings aren't half demons. Not even fucking quarter demons.

They're "someone in your lineage hung around demons for a bit, a long time ago"

How common are Tieflings anyways?

Depends on the Edition.
Earlier Editions had tieflings be direct descendants and results of mortals and fiends banging whereas 4th(?) Edition is where your bit came in where all you had to do was be around them too long or make a pact for power.

Depends where you're looking. Some places nobody even knew they existed and some nations had them in what seemed like the same percentage as blacks in America before the SpellPlague hit though the latter was considered an oddly large amount.

I use the statline but fluff them as something else. Boom.

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.

>Earlier Editions had tieflings be direct descendants and results of mortals and fiends banging whereas 4
Tielfings were never direct descendants of fiends. Those are half fiends.

For that matter, even if they were familiar with fiends, why would they see tieflings and immediately think that's what they were? Most fiends look nothing like that.
They absolutely were. The difference between a tiefling and half-fiend was how far back the boning happened

This is how my dm plays it but I picked one anyway, and got the warlock disguise self invocation. Now every campaign is cloak and dagger for me.

Those are 1st genners or some weird deal that doesn't adequately explain why one is a half-fiend and the other is merely planetouched.
Either way tieflings are Planetouched and Planetouched are entities who can trace their lineage back to their namesake(celestial, fiend, or elemental).
Doesn't matter how far back it was what matters is Tieflings are a direct result of a human and fiend having a kid.

>Why do common peasants immediately think of devils/demons when they see a tiefling?
Because the local cleric told them that, and those guys have Persuasion as class proficiency.

Now stop asking stupid questions and bring more firewood for the pyre.

>a world with medieval religious people
Does not exist in D&D. D&D describes a world of very active polytheism that has had so many Romes rise and fall no one is counting anymore and weird peoples and monsters are coming out of your ass. Ye nameless hamlet #702 isn't going to oppress their local tiefling because they need all hands available to fend off landsharks and gigantic acid-spitting worms in the spring.

No, but that’s a shit opinion for people with little imagination.

I'd have to find it again but the excuse was they just look "fiendish" so there must be some natural association our brains make with glowing eyes(predators in the night?), horns, and red skin.

The local cleric of what god, now? Probably some agriculture god.

Christianity, this is not. Demons and devils are irrelevant to your typical D&D agriculture god's religion.

Fey though? Fey are a LOT more common to your average village.

Canonically #702-ynh won't oppress their local tiefling because once they get past the exterior looks tieflings are naturally cunning and with personal allure.
Basically they have Bad Boy aura so people tend to like what they find under the evil looking hide.

That's true for a lot of european folklore. The lines between elves, fey, dwarves, gnomes and more can be quite blurry.

Kinda makes sense for a human-centric setting where those supernatural entities only have occasional contact with humans. Doesn't work so well in the usual modern fantasy setting where they all live (more or less) happily and close together.

Doesn't matter which god, unless it's one of those goody "redemption doesn't require death" ones. Tieflings, by their appearance alone, make for a good "others" especially because they are so uncommon. And a good, public show of force paired with a nice public execution of the "evil" is good for morale, better for the standing of the clergy, and doesn't hurt anyone (at least not anyone that matters).

This the meme that D&D resembles medieval Europe needs to fucking die in a goddamn ditch. The similarities begin and end in that there were fuckers in armor running around, that's it.
>good, public show of force paired with a nice public execution of the "evil" is good for morale,
And then the Cleric falls for killing an innocent person out of convenience/just to raise morale. People in D&D would no the difference between a tiefling and a goddamn demon because that difference can save your life and fucking soul.

The local cleric of Not!Vatican #3065-12 who worship one of the settings deities or multiple. The cleric if he's good at his job has fit their paganistic agri god into the lore of the church at large like the clergyman of old were wont to do and now the church has a new flock of sheep to slowly spiral inward and away from their old ways.
You worship agri-god#27002? Says right here in this book of mine that he was one of -insert deity-'s angels. What's that? You can't read? Well I'll read it for you then! And know that every word is the truth of -insert deity-!

>Most peasants hardly know what a devil or a demon is
>People in D&D would no the difference between a tiefling and a goddamn demon because that difference can save your life and fucking soul.
You do realise both can't be true, right?

Will they kill any dragonborn who sets foot in the village too?

Why is there a local cleric of the fake Vatican in some random village?

Why is there a fake Vatican? Christianity, this is not.

Not at all, because my setting doesn't have demons in it.

Although sufficiently skilled Dark mages can /create/ demons. They're quite transient though, because despite being squamous eldritch abominations, they still operate via normal (magical) physics, which does wonders for their respiro-circulatory systems.

Because this is DnD not medieval europe. The gods are very real and above that mortals KNOW they're real and their priesthood can physically demonstrate that fact. Church's would naturally be more ubiquitous and powerful as a result and there'd be more reason for them to spread to those uneducated in the ways as it could quite literally save their actual proven to exist souls and maybe it's even required that they do so by their chosen deity.

Dragonborn are harder to justify, because (as opposed to Tieflings) they tend to not be evil. A village won't have the resources necessary to do so, so unless the cleric is already corrupted in some way, dragonborn are rather safe. In a rich town or city though, some place which can afford someone who can cast 3rd level cleric spells, I can totally see a "testing chamber" or similar created with a Glyph of Warding (triggered by evil alignment) to be used by the church. If you refuse the testing, you're clearly evil.

excusez-moi, cyкa блять?

D&D religion barely mentions "saving souls." Not every religion is Catholicism
It's very simple, D&D IS medieval Europe when I need an excuse to do shitty things to people. It is NOT medieval Europe when that would require me to learn something or not be a murderhobo

>unless it's one of those goody "redemption doesn't require death" ones

Common enough that the colonial government had put out a bounty on their heads.

Uncommon enough that people don't suspect them being around the bend.

And thus, one of the first things my tiefling player had to do was get a magical disguise amulet from her mentor so she didn't get lynched in public.

I refuse on the grounds I won't have my honor impugned upon by a faction of cowards.

>They don't fit in a lot of settings,
>PHB race

READ THE FUCKING PHB! IT SAYS TIEFLINGS. It says right in the side bar where Dragonborns are being described: the following races are fairly rare, assuming they exist at all within as setting".

I'm saying that the excuses for religious spread is more concrete in DnD because the gods are actually demonstratably real.

What was the point of putting them in the PHB anyway? Shouldn't putting a race in the PHB be to signal, "These are the most common races, and should be your go-tos?"

I'd assume the former is more likely to be true, unless an incursion of hellspawn has suddenly made everyone violently aware of what fiends are.

The same reason why Tieflings went from weird mutants to sexy red-skinned humanoids with horns and tail.

Because Mearls has a hard on for Warlocks and the two pair together nicely.

Ok, but then what does any of that have to do with tieflings? What canon not!Catholic god requires you to kill innocent people?

Both 4e and 5e go this way, I don't know why the devil rape keeps getting insisted upon as their true identity. Both editions that put them in core rightfully didn't use it.

>You do realise both can't be true, right?
Yes because gods there struggles and the planes are real fucking phenomnae in a fantasy setting, and killing someone because you're retarded gets you demon raped to death. It would be in a region's and the public safety's best interest to know what fiends actually are beyond "that there bad thing" because knowing there abilities and forms is actually helpful and could save lives. That's the kinda shit you would actually find in holy texts.
Soemthing being in the players handbook means it's in the players handbook. Nothing else. It has nothing to do with how "rare" something should be in the world.

They're there as popular races people would expect and want to see, but the book did bother to distinguish between common races you'll see in any setting with uncommon that a GM could easily strike out for a reason.

I imagine there being much less unified religion in this world. More of individual villages having their own pantheons they worship. In huge cities you might see more of what you're talking about, but I don't think that a link to fiendish heritage is exactly damning enough to be a kill on sight sort of thing. Being an outcast because few people really fully trust you makes more sense.

Very well then.

twentieth level characters and nineth level spells are freaking rare too, but they're still in the player's handbook.

Relatively common, they form semi-nomadic warbands on the frontiers of the empires/kingdoms. They may own fealty to the king/emperor.

Oh no, I'm the other user saying people will have some sort of religious basis to support "looks like a demon" mentality. Canonically tieflings get some minor prejudice for their looks and I'm claiming the reason why is due to religious teachings being widespread even podunks would have some idea what constitutes demon/fiend traits. Also canonically once people get past the exterior tieflings exude a sort of "personal allure" coupled with natural cunning(not evil just crafty) so people tend to like them as individuals assuming they don't have character traits that make them unlikable.
Nameless Hamlet would probably just go "you're not half bad for a fiendling!" At worst for prejudice assuming they still don't understand the difference.

>I imagine there being much less unified religion in this world. More of individual villages having their own pantheons they worship.
Not in a world/universe where relgions are knowalby true and gods will make it very, very fucking clear when your praticing heresies against them.

Those "pagan" religions are most likely legitimate deities who will also most likely spread awareness about other planar denizens. Because the knowledge and abiltiy to enact their will is kinda dependent on some of that knowledge. The only religion this wouldn't be the case with is tribal ancestor/druidic spirit worship.

>No one seems to acknowledge that they're half-demons
That's because they aren't.

Minor prejudice? This is the first sentence about the race in the 5e PHB:
> To be greeted with stares and whispers, to suffer violence and insult on the street, to see mistrust and fear in every eye: this is the lot of the tiefling.

What should Tiefling culture and behavior be like? If they're discriminated against, wouldn't they band together and form communities and villages for collective self defense?

I recall earlier editions being less openly hostile.

>special snowflake races
>ever
kys

What if after demonic invasion tieflings are the norm and pure humans are special?

Earlier edition acknowledged that you're playing someone who can exterminate smaller settlements on their own. Newer edition either try to tug at heartstrings with the poor oppressed minority spiel or they try to justify themselves to obnoxious assburgers like

I would like to see them done RIGHT again.

>you will never get to be a tiefling

Sure you can!

That's not cute, though. You need to be cute. We're talking only the most advanced medical and cosmetic science. CRISPR, robotic augmentations, and even artificially grown transplanted body parts.

YOU can be the qt tiefling boy/girl you've always dreamed of soon enough. Science is incredible!

I changed it so tieflings in my setting are majority goat people with about ten percent being more humanoid, so that turns down most interest in being sexy tiefling.