It's an interesting idea to have a tiefling that did manage to find a loving home growing up but still had to be aware of how they were different. It creates an interesting flavor of bitterness centered around a knowledge one was genuinely loved and a need to prove that love was not a mistake.
I'm playing my first D&D game with some friends and made a Tiefling Rogue. Being the worldbuilding nerd I am I had to look into the lore and I came out with him having been raised by a single (tiefling) mother who became a healer in an attempt to prove that she was not a threat. But tieflings still faced discrimination and when my character wanted to flee their city and look for somewhere that would be safer for them his mother refused. They ended up separated because he ran off and eventually joined a thieves guild for a secure source of food and work. I'm really proud of the backstory I set up for him and my DM seems to really like it too. I can't imagine not considering ancestry and culture in a character's backstory.
It really does sound like a great backstory: considerate of the ancestry's lore and specific enough that if explains well who the character is and why, but also open-ended enough to leave a world of explorable possibilities that the DM can tie into the campaign's story
My tiefling bard character was based on the following writing prompt: [A woman makes a deal with a demon to have his child in exchange for immortality, then sells her firstborn to a witch for unimaginable riches. After the birth, the mother leaves the child with the witch (druid) for her and demon to fight over. You, a half-demon, have grown up under shared custody.] Only difference is, her father and adopted mother have a FANTASTIC relationship as they raise this girl and she's loved deeply by them, even if society isn't a big fan. She just knows she can't change everyone's minds and tries to build her own status as a talented musician and not let the stereotypes of her ancestry or her class get the better of her. So far, she's been doing very well and I've had a lot of fun developing her character more.
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD I found it while browsing on Reddit. I find similar ones on Tumblr as well. The second paragraph in the original comment was my own interpretation of how I would have written the story in general.
I'm glad it ressonated with someone. I don't like to use race because not only it doesn't make any sense biologically but it's also very negatively charged. I actually have Matt Colville to thank for the word. The "species" they are using in One D&D is a step in the right direction but I don't know... it seems too scientific to me...
Currently writing up a teifling wizard who has two human parents who are part of a devil worshipping cult so obviously infernal runs in the mix somewhere. She thinks they're fools and meets a benevolent witch who lives gardening and cooking and is loved by the locals. She leads by example and the teifling is inspired ✨️
My character Akta is a tiefling paladin, she is more so thought of as a paladin during game play but I’ve been thinking of her backstory and how her being a tiefling affected /shaped her destiny in being a paladin. I’m so excited to come up with a story for her. I like to think she doesn’t struggle much with demonic inclinations from having demon blood tho lol
I'm very late to the party but thank you for this. I'm very much a newcomer to DnD but in preparation for Baldur's Gate 3 I decided to lean into it and write a back story for my proposed Tiefling Rogue character. In particular I was unsure about parentage so it's reassuring to hear that a Tiefling can be the product of two unsuspecting humans as that fits my ideas perfectly. At least I got the idea of "me against the world" right as I thought that would be a psychological outcome of growing up as an outsider in a human society.
Are you kidding? Thank you for helping to keep the video relevant after all this time :D Just as a side note, for when you delve more into D&D, don't forget that you can always articulate with your DM if you want a certain character concept that challenges or even goes against the game lore, there is always room for outliers in this game. And even if the DM doesn't want that kind of character, usually bribery with pizza works wonders!
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD Thank you, for now I'm just a player of videogames rather than tabletop so I have the luxury of doing pretty much whatever I want. However I wanted to show some respect for the lore and traditions of a nearly 50 year old game. I find pizza is the answer to many situations 😄.
Im about to.finish my first Baldurs Gate 3 playthrough and I really enjoyrd having Karlach in my party and helping the tieflings in the druid grove. Now Im doing a tiefling druid and am learning even more about tieflings.
Karlach is one of my favorite characters in that game :D All the other tieflings are also quite well made, it really capitalizes on all the discrimination drama to enhance the depth of their story!
Hmmmmm.... just started the vid, my tiefling illusionist rogue wad raised by her loving grandma with a very accepting town. Acts like a certain pink pony, but in sense like jinx (CougH).... Good or nah?
Interesting video, but now i want to hear more about your settings tiefling nation. Is there a video about that, too? The tiefling in one of my parties is an orphan who was raised by human barbarians in Rashemen and always had the urge to proove himself even though noone else ever expected him to. He wrote a few pages about his past and I really like it. The homebrew adventure hook for our Curse of Strahd campaign dealt a lot with racism, which is how he developed a bond with the drow pc and a family of travelling vistani who later brought them to Barovia.
Not yet, but I might make one in the near future, if that's something people would like to hear about. I took a lot of inspiration from the exodus, as a group of heavily persecuted fled a fantasy-asia-inspired empire in order to find somewhere safe for their people, and after crossing a desert finally started what would soon be the beginning of an empire. From there, word got around, and tieflings from all over started flocking to that oasis of safety. And all seemed well... but Asmodeus was kind of a big help in the initial tieflings' escape... and if Lannisters always pay their debts, then devils most certainly collect them.
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD They sure do. Sounds interesting, I often like disenfranchised people's histories a lot in RPGs even if that's a somewhat overutilitized trope. Rising out of oppression may also be used quite a lot, but I do like that one, too. If done in an interesting way most tropes can be very powerful for storytelling and worldbuildin. They wouldn't be tropes otherwise. Looking forward to hearing more about Arcadia and Thanks for the info!
currently preparing my first big dnd session and working on my characters background. Not knowing a lot yet about dnd lore I was really unsure if I had a good idea but after your video I think I made the right choice. My idea was to play a tiefling druid. Born from human parents and outcast from not only them but everyone else, who found peace and harmony in nature. Having a deep connection to wildlife beause they are the first living things to not judge them for their appearence.. I am very open for suggestions if someone reads this. as I said I still have much to learn but I try ^^
Your idea sounds really good already, and the personality traits seem really well grounded in the life experience! But don't forget these are little more than mere suggestions to deepen character design. Ultimately, play with whatever you think will be the most fun. As you learn more about the game, you will organically get more interested and invested in trying different and more complex characters. Once you get bit by that bug, sky's the limit :)
I wound up creating a whole lore and cultural legacy for tieflings in my home game setting. I diverged pretty far from the bog-standard tieflings and downplayed their Forgotten Realms lore regarding infernal heritage. I made them a diaspora-struck people with ancient roots and no known homeland, who've become itenirate peoples through most of the inhabited continents of my setting. As a result they have a complex cultural history, norms, and tradition, including a strong tendancy towards clannish, inward-looking society, focused on survival, oral history, and a strong faith in a neutral deity who watches over those who wander. I wanted to wander away from the generic woobie archetype for them, and give them some real depth. I kept virtue names, but tied it to a religious ritual, and as such, non-devout ones don't have virtue names. They're still a widely scorned, stereotyped people (at least on the continent where our current game is set), but have found niches in winder society as workers in the background---servants, merchants, SWers, entertainers, sellswords, and a variety of other professions at the margins of society, living in either enclaves in cities, or as wandering caravan/traveling troupes. They have pretty distinct clothing, eating habits (I made them into obligate carnivores), cleanliness culture, and a distinct language (which few know how to read/write, and instead use concentric symbology similar to helraldry on their clothing, armor, and buildings that are closer to ideograms than language). In our setting, they're NOT humans. Their tails are prehensile, their spines have different vertebrae (to account for that), and complex rituals regarding the grooming of their horns. Even 'tiefling' is basically a slur in this setting, an exonym used by outsiders, rather than their cultural name, Vishkarin ("wandering folk"), their endonym.
This is amazing. To think you went the extra mile of actually envisioning their distinct anatomy to the point of specifying the supranumerary vertebrae. The tieflings in my setting are already pretty distinct, but I think I might steal this from you as inspiration for another homebrewed ancestry :D
My Tiefling warlock was born to normal humans (who actually accepted their child as he was, but his father was quite severe because he did not want his son to become as bad as some people think of Tieflings) and also subject to racism - going so far that a gang of racist thugs tried to hunt him down and kill him. This was the moment when he made his pact - and then fled the town because he killed one of these thugs in self-defense with his new Hellish powers. He is neutral in alignment, but tries to be a hero despite his pact - his part of a bargain is to send evil souls to the Hells for his patron to use, and being an adventurer is a great way to encounter plenty of evil people. My HC is that Tieflings with their fire resistance are enjoying warm climates and heat - imagine how awful Barovia feels to him. He is the one who always sits right beside the fireplace or campfire, needs almost boiling water for his bath etc. We seem to have had the same idea in this regard. But he finally found himself a group of friends who are accepting him (=the party) and probably even the love of his life (our bard), and he is very grateful for that and is in turn very loyal to them.
You actually gave me a great idea for a twist on a Strahd campaign: imagine there is a tiefling faction that wants to take him down not because of concepts of good and evil, but because of a biological need to reclaim a more temperate weather? What if they're also evil? What will they do about the power vacuum once Strahd is defeated?
I like the idea that tieflings are the result of infernal pacts made in the past. And now that this fiendish blood is in the world, the world rejects them. And even if they don’t have a powerful tendency toward evil, which I believe they SHOULD, their rejection by society would cause them to resent the greater human society. Their numbers would grow, they discover a messiah, and Eventually lead to a rebellion that topples the empire of the gods. Seems like a very long game scheme by Asmodeus.
Anyone else here doesn’t play dnd but likes the stories and lore of the universe? And it’s 100% because I just don’t feel like playing the game my self… yeah definitely not because I don’t have Friends to play with… 👍 yeah
In an universe where devils, demons, magic and curses exist, the concept of a tiefling being mistreated only based on prejudice is kinda childish. Every tiefling should be cursed and driven to being evil by design of their existence, not society, and actually being good should be a central point of a PC storyline, a struggle for sure. Having demon blood inside you should have consequences, and not all brushed under the "society" umbrella. We in the real world can blame "society" and play the discrimination card, but tieflings devil and demons cannot.
Yeah I favor this also, maybe introduce the Sanity mechanic based off Intelligence, where "regretting a major choice" always happens if what you did was considered "good" but any events involving others who are non-hostile (like torture/injury) instead of causing a stress effect actually let you resolve minor/major stress effects you currently have. This way it becomes a biological/inherent challenge to behave like a good person and stay functional, which you must balance with keeping the party from chasing you off like the fiend you are.
@@XianHaos Not really, because there can't be a "good" devil. It's like being a good rap*st, there no such thing. At most you can be a good devil spawn who constantly fight to suppress the urge to go full evil, but you can't just be good like it's natural and totally normal.
@@XianHaos Nope, depends on traditions, so sometimes she's a evil demon and sometimes she's a good god. But not both at the same time, surely never a "good demon"
![[#2024MAMA] G-DRAGON - 무제(Untitled, 2014)+POWER+HOME SWEET HOME+뱅뱅뱅+FANTASTIC BABY | Mnet 241123 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ox29z5Nf1Uk/mqdefault.jpg)
It's an interesting idea to have a tiefling that did manage to find a loving home growing up but still had to be aware of how they were different. It creates an interesting flavor of bitterness centered around a knowledge one was genuinely loved and a need to prove that love was not a mistake.
Right? XD
home made hot sauce made by a Tiefling could be almost deadly to anyone that doesn't have fire resistance
I'm playing my first D&D game with some friends and made a Tiefling Rogue. Being the worldbuilding nerd I am I had to look into the lore and I came out with him having been raised by a single (tiefling) mother who became a healer in an attempt to prove that she was not a threat. But tieflings still faced discrimination and when my character wanted to flee their city and look for somewhere that would be safer for them his mother refused. They ended up separated because he ran off and eventually joined a thieves guild for a secure source of food and work.
I'm really proud of the backstory I set up for him and my DM seems to really like it too. I can't imagine not considering ancestry and culture in a character's backstory.
It really does sound like a great backstory: considerate of the ancestry's lore and specific enough that if explains well who the character is and why, but also open-ended enough to leave a world of explorable possibilities that the DM can tie into the campaign's story
My tiefling bard character was based on the following writing prompt: [A woman makes a deal with a demon to have his child in exchange for immortality, then sells her firstborn to a witch for unimaginable riches. After the birth, the mother leaves the child with the witch (druid) for her and demon to fight over. You, a half-demon, have grown up under shared custody.]
Only difference is, her father and adopted mother have a FANTASTIC relationship as they raise this girl and she's loved deeply by them, even if society isn't a big fan. She just knows she can't change everyone's minds and tries to build her own status as a talented musician and not let the stereotypes of her ancestry or her class get the better of her. So far, she's been doing very well and I've had a lot of fun developing her character more.
That's a fantastic concept, the prompt really set you up for excellence there. Where did you find it? Or did you came up with it yourself?
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD I found it while browsing on Reddit. I find similar ones on Tumblr as well. The second paragraph in the original comment was my own interpretation of how I would have written the story in general.
“The Druid’s Call” novel confirms 5E tieflings can be born to normal humans.
I like that you call it ancestry and not by the terms D&D uses or plans to use in One D&D.
I'm glad it ressonated with someone. I don't like to use race because not only it doesn't make any sense biologically but it's also very negatively charged. I actually have Matt Colville to thank for the word. The "species" they are using in One D&D is a step in the right direction but I don't know... it seems too scientific to me...
Currently writing up a teifling wizard who has two human parents who are part of a devil worshipping cult so obviously infernal runs in the mix somewhere. She thinks they're fools and meets a benevolent witch who lives gardening and cooking and is loved by the locals. She leads by example and the teifling is inspired ✨️
I'd read a book around such a character!
My character Akta is a tiefling paladin, she is more so thought of as a paladin during game play but I’ve been thinking of her backstory and how her being a tiefling affected /shaped her destiny in being a paladin. I’m so excited to come up with a story for her. I like to think she doesn’t struggle much with demonic inclinations from having demon blood tho lol
I'm very late to the party but thank you for this. I'm very much a newcomer to DnD but in preparation for Baldur's Gate 3 I decided to lean into it and write a back story for my proposed Tiefling Rogue character. In particular I was unsure about parentage so it's reassuring to hear that a Tiefling can be the product of two unsuspecting humans as that fits my ideas perfectly. At least I got the idea of "me against the world" right as I thought that would be a psychological outcome of growing up as an outsider in a human society.
Are you kidding? Thank you for helping to keep the video relevant after all this time :D
Just as a side note, for when you delve more into D&D, don't forget that you can always articulate with your DM if you want a certain character concept that challenges or even goes against the game lore, there is always room for outliers in this game. And even if the DM doesn't want that kind of character, usually bribery with pizza works wonders!
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD Thank you, for now I'm just a player of videogames rather than tabletop so I have the luxury of doing pretty much whatever I want. However I wanted to show some respect for the lore and traditions of a nearly 50 year old game. I find pizza is the answer to many situations 😄.
Mine is a tiefling priest with a troumatic back story cuz his family was made of all necromancers mages
Ive been working on a Levistus tribe of Snow Tieflings its a pretty fun group of nomads.
i had a funny idea of a christian tiefling but honestly im gonna have to do some mad math for that to work
Im about to.finish my first Baldurs Gate 3 playthrough and I really enjoyrd having Karlach in my party and helping the tieflings in the druid grove.
Now Im doing a tiefling druid and am learning even more about tieflings.
Karlach is one of my favorite characters in that game :D All the other tieflings are also quite well made, it really capitalizes on all the discrimination drama to enhance the depth of their story!
Hmmmmm.... just started the vid, my tiefling illusionist rogue wad raised by her loving grandma with a very accepting town. Acts like a certain pink pony, but in sense like jinx (CougH).... Good or nah?
Interesting video, but now i want to hear more about your settings tiefling nation. Is there a video about that, too?
The tiefling in one of my parties is an orphan who was raised by human barbarians in Rashemen and always had the urge to proove himself even though noone else ever expected him to. He wrote a few pages about his past and I really like it. The homebrew adventure hook for our Curse of Strahd campaign dealt a lot with racism, which is how he developed a bond with the drow pc and a family of travelling vistani who later brought them to Barovia.
Not yet, but I might make one in the near future, if that's something people would like to hear about. I took a lot of inspiration from the exodus, as a group of heavily persecuted fled a fantasy-asia-inspired empire in order to find somewhere safe for their people, and after crossing a desert finally started what would soon be the beginning of an empire. From there, word got around, and tieflings from all over started flocking to that oasis of safety. And all seemed well... but Asmodeus was kind of a big help in the initial tieflings' escape... and if Lannisters always pay their debts, then devils most certainly collect them.
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD They sure do. Sounds interesting, I often like disenfranchised people's histories a lot in RPGs even if that's a somewhat overutilitized trope. Rising out of oppression may also be used quite a lot, but I do like that one, too. If done in an interesting way most tropes can be very powerful for storytelling and worldbuildin. They wouldn't be tropes otherwise.
Looking forward to hearing more about Arcadia and Thanks for the info!
currently preparing my first big dnd session and working on my characters background. Not knowing a lot yet about dnd lore I was really unsure if I had a good idea but after your video I think I made the right choice. My idea was to play a tiefling druid. Born from human parents and outcast from not only them but everyone else, who found peace and harmony in nature. Having a deep connection to wildlife beause they are the first living things to not judge them for their appearence.. I am very open for suggestions if someone reads this. as I said I still have much to learn but I try ^^
Your idea sounds really good already, and the personality traits seem really well grounded in the life experience! But don't forget these are little more than mere suggestions to deepen character design. Ultimately, play with whatever you think will be the most fun. As you learn more about the game, you will organically get more interested and invested in trying different and more complex characters. Once you get bit by that bug, sky's the limit :)
I wound up creating a whole lore and cultural legacy for tieflings in my home game setting. I diverged pretty far from the bog-standard tieflings and downplayed their Forgotten Realms lore regarding infernal heritage. I made them a diaspora-struck people with ancient roots and no known homeland, who've become itenirate peoples through most of the inhabited continents of my setting. As a result they have a complex cultural history, norms, and tradition, including a strong tendancy towards clannish, inward-looking society, focused on survival, oral history, and a strong faith in a neutral deity who watches over those who wander. I wanted to wander away from the generic woobie archetype for them, and give them some real depth. I kept virtue names, but tied it to a religious ritual, and as such, non-devout ones don't have virtue names. They're still a widely scorned, stereotyped people (at least on the continent where our current game is set), but have found niches in winder society as workers in the background---servants, merchants, SWers, entertainers, sellswords, and a variety of other professions at the margins of society, living in either enclaves in cities, or as wandering caravan/traveling troupes. They have pretty distinct clothing, eating habits (I made them into obligate carnivores), cleanliness culture, and a distinct language (which few know how to read/write, and instead use concentric symbology similar to helraldry on their clothing, armor, and buildings that are closer to ideograms than language). In our setting, they're NOT humans. Their tails are prehensile, their spines have different vertebrae (to account for that), and complex rituals regarding the grooming of their horns. Even 'tiefling' is basically a slur in this setting, an exonym used by outsiders, rather than their cultural name, Vishkarin ("wandering folk"), their endonym.
This is amazing. To think you went the extra mile of actually envisioning their distinct anatomy to the point of specifying the supranumerary vertebrae. The tieflings in my setting are already pretty distinct, but I think I might steal this from you as inspiration for another homebrewed ancestry :D
@@TheFirstArcadianDnD I'm glad you like what I envisioned!
Both Tieflings and Aasimars were playable races in 3.0.
proof?
@@mooo_cow The "Races of Destiny" sourcebook
In regards to baldurs gate 3, what does anyone think of a dark urge tiefling fiend warlock? Would it work with the lore?
My Tiefling warlock was born to normal humans (who actually accepted their child as he was, but his father was quite severe because he did not want his son to become as bad as some people think of Tieflings) and also subject to racism - going so far that a gang of racist thugs tried to hunt him down and kill him. This was the moment when he made his pact - and then fled the town because he killed one of these thugs in self-defense with his new Hellish powers.
He is neutral in alignment, but tries to be a hero despite his pact - his part of a bargain is to send evil souls to the Hells for his patron to use, and being an adventurer is a great way to encounter plenty of evil people.
My HC is that Tieflings with their fire resistance are enjoying warm climates and heat - imagine how awful Barovia feels to him. He is the one who always sits right beside the fireplace or campfire, needs almost boiling water for his bath etc. We seem to have had the same idea in this regard.
But he finally found himself a group of friends who are accepting him (=the party) and probably even the love of his life (our bard), and he is very grateful for that and is in turn very loyal to them.
You actually gave me a great idea for a twist on a Strahd campaign: imagine there is a tiefling faction that wants to take him down not because of concepts of good and evil, but because of a biological need to reclaim a more temperate weather? What if they're also evil? What will they do about the power vacuum once Strahd is defeated?
I like the idea that tieflings are the result of infernal pacts made in the past. And now that this fiendish blood is in the world, the world rejects them. And even if they don’t have a powerful tendency toward evil, which I believe they SHOULD, their rejection by society would cause them to resent the greater human society. Their numbers would grow, they discover a messiah, and Eventually lead to a rebellion that topples the empire of the gods. Seems like a very long game scheme by Asmodeus.
And we all know Asmodeus plays the long game
Anyone else here doesn’t play dnd but likes the stories and lore of the universe? And it’s 100% because I just don’t feel like playing the game my self… yeah definitely not because I don’t have Friends to play with… 👍 yeah
What would you give a yugaloth tiefling
So basically an asian immigrant in the 90’s 😂
This has more true to it the comedic effect might suggest
Not even remotely close
In an universe where devils, demons, magic and curses exist, the concept of a tiefling being mistreated only based on prejudice is kinda childish.
Every tiefling should be cursed and driven to being evil by design of their existence, not society, and actually being good should be a central point of a PC storyline, a struggle for sure.
Having demon blood inside you should have consequences, and not all brushed under the "society" umbrella.
We in the real world can blame "society" and play the discrimination card, but tieflings devil and demons cannot.
Yeah I favor this also, maybe introduce the Sanity mechanic based off Intelligence, where "regretting a major choice" always happens if what you did was considered "good" but any events involving others who are non-hostile (like torture/injury) instead of causing a stress effect actually let you resolve minor/major stress effects you currently have. This way it becomes a biological/inherent challenge to behave like a good person and stay functional, which you must balance with keeping the party from chasing you off like the fiend you are.
In a world with evil gods/celestials, it makes sense to have good demons/devils. As above, so below.
@@XianHaos Not really, because there can't be a "good" devil.
It's like being a good rap*st, there no such thing.
At most you can be a good devil spawn who constantly fight to suppress the urge to go full evil, but you can't just be good like it's natural and totally normal.
@@seileen1234 - on the contrary; Kishimojin is a good demon; she protects children and mothers.
@@XianHaos Nope, depends on traditions, so sometimes she's a evil demon and sometimes she's a good god.
But not both at the same time, surely never a "good demon"