Tieflings are derived from human bloodlines and so they look like humans. Nevertheless, their infernal heritage has left a clear marker on their appearance. People tend to be suspicious of tieflings, assuming that their infernal heritage has left its mark on their personality and morality, not just their appearance. Imagine walking in the streets of Beverly Hills and everyone has an eye on you.
The grocery storekeeper thinking you will do away with their goods irrespective of the installed CCTV cameras, the bartender thinking you will take three shots of Vodka and argue you have taken just one, You get the point. It is an insanely worthless life to live, you would already have figured out.
And so you now have to watch your back every minute and constantly thinking about what others think about you. So sad. This is the life of the Tieflings. Their appearance and their nature are not their direct doing, but the result of ancient sin, for which they, their children, and their children’s children will always be held accountable.
The reality, though, is that a tiefling’s bloodline does not affect his or her personality to any reasonable extent. Years of dealing with mistrust do leave their mark on most tieflings. However, they respond to it in different ways. Some choose to live up to the wicked stereotype, but others are virtuous.
Most are simply very aware of how people respond to them and treat people the way they are treated. Having gone through this life of mistrust throughout their youth, a Tiefling often develops the ability to overcome prejudice through charm, intimidation, or body shaming.
Appearance
They have thick tails, four to five feet long, which lash or coil around their legs when they get upset or nervous. They possess relatively large horns that vary in shape. For some, they have curling horns like the ram, others have straight and tall horns like a gazelle’s, and some spiral upward like an antelopes’ horns.
Their skin tones cover the full range of human coloration but also include various shades of red. Their hair, cascading down from behind their horns, is usually dark, from black or brown to dark red, blue, or purple.
Tiefling Features
As a result of their Infernal descent, Tieflings share certain racial features
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2.
Age: Since Tieflings are humanoids derivatives, they mature at the same rate as humans but live a few years longer.
Alignment: Tieflings might not have a natural tendency toward evil, but many of them end up there. Evil or not, an independent nature inclines many tieflings toward a chaotic alignment.
Size: Tieflings are about the same size and build as humans. Your size is Medium.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Darkvision: Your infernal heritage enables you to have superior vision in dark and dim conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You cannot discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.
Hellish Resistance: You have resistance to fire damage.
Infernal Legacy: You know the Thaumaturgy cantrip. Once you reach the 3rd level, you can cast the Hellish Rebuke spell once as a 2nd-level spell. Once you reach 5th level, you can also cast the Darkness spell once. Just like others, you must finish a long rest to cast these spells again with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Infernal obviously.
Standard Tiefling
Ability Score Increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2.
Variant Tiefling
The Dungeon Master “DM” may permit the following variants for your tiefling character, although Devil’s Tongue, Hellfire, and Winged are mutually exclusive.
Feral: Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Dexterity score increases by 2. This trait replaces the Ability Score Increase trait.
Devil’s Tongue: You know the Vicous Mockery cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the Charm Person spell as a 2nd-level spell once with this trait. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the Enthrall spell once with this trait. You must finish a long rest to cast these spells once again with this trait. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for them. This trait replaces the Infernal Legacy trait.
Hellfire: Once you reach the 3rd level, you can cast the Burning Hands to spell once per day as a 2nd-level spell. This trait replaces the Hellish Rebuke spell of the Infernal Legacy trait.
Winged: You have bat-like wings sprouting from your shoulder blades. You have a flying speed of 30 feet. This trait replaces the Infernal Legacy trait.
Tiefling Names
Tiefling names usaually fall into three categories based on
- When Tieflings are born into cultures that are different from theirs, they tend to absorb that culture, and their names reflect that culture.
- Since Tieflings have an Infernal bloodline, some have names derived from the infernal language passed down through generations, that reflect their fiendish heritage.
- Some younger tieflings, striving to find a place in the world, adopt a name that signifies a virtue or other concept and then try to embody that concept. For some, the chosen name is a noble quest. For others, it’s a grim destiny.
Male given Infernal Names: Akmenos, Barakas, Damakos, Iados, Kairon, Leucis, Melech, Ekemon, Mordai, Morthos, Pelaios, Amnon, Skamos, Therai
Female given Infernal Names: Orianna, Akta, Anakis, Ea, Kallista, Lerissa, Makaria, Nemeia, Bryseis, Criella, Damaia,Phelaia, Rieta
Virtue given Names: These names are subjective. They are given based on the personality and special innate abilities that a particular Tiefling possesses. Art, Carrion, Chant, Creed, Despair, Excellence, Fear, Glory, Hope, Ideal, Music, Nowhere, Open, Poetry, Quest, Random, Reverence, Sorrow, Temerity, Torment, Weary
Distinctions between Tieflings and Feral tieflings:
Often times, I have been asked the difference between Tieflings and Feral Tieflings. It is like asking what the difference is between a standard human and a variant human; beyond the stat changes, nothing is different about the race per se. The flavor difference is up to you. You’re just replacing racial traits and nothing more.
However, simply put; Feral Tiefling is a variant of the Tiefling. Instead of boosting charisma and intelligence, you boost dexterity and intelligence. You can flavor this however you’d like (e.g., compared to a typical Tiefling, you’re less chatty and more animalistic), but beyond that, there’s not much to it. So Technically there is no difference except the score increases.
Suspicion
Tieflings lives in batches of small minorities generally located around human cities. They look out for the roughest busiest places in those places. A tiefling will prefer to live in Los Angeles over living in Iowa. The issues of mistrusting other characters are legendary. However, when a Tiefling trust anyone, the other members of the family follows suit.
Variants and Sub-races
Thanks to the variants presented in Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide and the sub-races presented in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, the Tiefling has the longest list of sub-race options of any published race, totaling an impressive 14 individual sub-races and variants. These options make Tieflings very flexible and useful in an impressively large number of builds.
Nevertheless, irrespective of your chosen variant, Tieflings are a very good race to put in your campaign because their ability score increase is good, they have resistance to the most common type of non-weapon damage, and their inborn spell-casting offers a wide variety of useful options depending on your sub-race.
Tieflings are the only race with both variants and subraces. The reasons behind this aren’t perfectly distinct, but it has something to do with the introduction of sub-races in later supplements of the race. Some guides suggest that the Feral Tieflings are compatible with the other published variants while others suggest that with the sole permission of the DM, you can use a variant alongside a subrace. The nuances here are quite subtle.