D&D (2024) If there are no half-elves or half-orcs will there be Tieflings (half fiends)?

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Simple. Understand that a "society" is more than just 4 game mechanics.

I mean you are able to create many distinct Human societies even though they all use the same game mechanics, right? So take that knowledge and apply it to the Khoravar, even if one of your players uses the game mechanics of a Human or an Elf.

Or if that is all too much to ask... just use the Half-Elf rules from the 2014 Player's Handbook. No one is going to get mad at you for whatever you choose to do.

I don't know if it'll help or not, but I'll try:

The term "race" in D&D is more than your character's DNA. From Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, pg. 7: "Character race in the game represents your character's fantasy species, combined with certain cultural assumptions." So I'd start there, and lean into the cultural assumptions part of your character's origin. What customs and superstitions and traditions make them different? How are their religious practices different? Do they share a common mythology with their neighboring kingdom? When it comes to making distinct societies, that stuff is going to be much more important than some ability score adjustments and a bonus proficiency, IMO.

I still struggle to see how two skill proficiencies make a group "feel distinct". But, hey, apparently it does.

I expressed it poorly.

I get that there are other factors in play that shape a society and define its culture. I'm not asking "how do I make people from Breland feel distinct from people from Karrnath?", or "how do I make people from rural Breland feel different from city-slickers in Sharn?", or even "how do I make a well off Sharn socialite different from a impoverished daylaborer from the lower parts of the city?"

What I'm asking is, what distinguishes two individual characters who share the same cultural background from one another when the only meaningful difference between them is that one is human and the other Khoravar? How does the choice to make this character a Khoravar instead of a human change who and what they are, independent of other factors? Previously, that had answer - not a huge one, to be sure, but an answer nonetheless. Now the answer is "nothing, unless you go all in on the elven side of the Khoravar's ancestry", which isn't an answer so much as changing the question to "what makes an elf and a Khoravar different?" instead.

Species is a building block, one of many used to piece together both individual characters and entire societies, and the rules that the playtest currently proposes say that it's a building block that mixed-ancestry people do not get to work with beyond picking which one of their parent species they "really" represent - no matter how many generations removed those "parent species" might be.

As a minor example, albeit homebrew: Keith Baker has floated the idea that the Elven language in Eberron is innately magical in nature and that those of elven descent simply know how to speak it instinctually without needing to be taught, even automatically updating with new vocabulary as its native speakers encounter new ideas and technologies the language didn't previously have words for. Because this is fundamentally the consequence of the elven peoples' fey origins, this gift is passed through their Fey Ancestry trait, meaning that previously, all Khoravar (i.e. people of mixed human and elven lineage) could be expected to be able to speak it, because they all had the Fey Ancestry trait by virtue of their species. Humans and other non-native speakers have to learn the language as normal, and don't benefit from new vocabulary updates automatically downloading into their brain whenever an elf halfway across the world needs a word for something that has never been expressed in their language before.

With "Pick a Parent" being the way mixed-ancestry characters are assumed to be handled going forward, the assumption that Khoravar gain literally anything from the mechanical kit of the elven side of their lineage is now an all-or-nothing proposition. Want Fey Ancestry? It's now stapled to Trance, a cantrip and a couple of spells, and an elven lineage choice that costs you everything from the human side of your lineage. Want the extra human skill proficiency? You lose everything elven about your character except the cosmetic details and a modestly better ability to survive being age-drained by a ghost simply by virtue of a longer natural lifespan - which, let's be honest, is practically meaningless in 99% of actual play. How many player characters, regardless of species, end their adventuring careers by dying peacefully of old age in their sleep?

We are losing a middle-ground option that allows people like me, who want mixed-ancestry characters to at least have the option of drawing something mechanical from both sides of their character's ancestry, to lean into how the choice of character species shapes that character. Species choice does not replace things like their background, culture, religion, etc. - those are still very much factors in play, and they contribute to the final whole. But choice of species still matters when constructing a character and the idea that it should somehow matter less, especially and specifically for mixed-ancestry characters of all people, boggles my mind. Why should choosing for your character to be an elf instead of a human be more mechanically significant than choosing to be a Khoravar?

I know it's not intended to be viewed this way, but it feels like erasure, and I'm fairly convinced that the only result is that more mechanically minded players will gradually just stop playing mixed-ancestry characters at all, because it's a choice that effectively no longer means anything, like eye or hair color. The current playtest ruleset reduced mixed-ancestry to a coat of paint layered over the character's mechanical framework and nothing more - useful for roleplay if you choose to lean into it, but practically nothing else.

I know I can just use the '14 Half-Elf statblock, or wait for a third party product to tackle it, or simply homebrew it myself, but that's not the point. I don't like the prospect of a mixed-ancestry people with a shared mechanical identity being split up and filed away as nothing more than mechanically meaningless ethnicity options for their parent species, and I don't think it's a good way for D&D as a game system to go about representing such characters, especially in light of the stated goal of wanting to promote and expand such representation.

 

[Minigiant]

Tieflings are typically not half-fiends. The fiendish blood is further back in the family tree. We've heard no hints that anything is happening to tieflings.

Tiefling were retconned mostly in 4e of being people with fiends far up/down their family tree or via a fiendish ritual.

Half-fiends were made into nonplayable cambions.

 

[Corinnguard]

This is how the origin of the Tiefling was pictured back in 4e (from Wikipedia):

In the setting of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, the tieflings trace their origins to the ancient human Empire of Bael Turath. In the Empire, the noble class was completely obsessed with preserving and gaining power. Rumors of their schemes and obsession with power reached a realm called the Nine Hells, located around the Astral Sea. The devils that resided in the Nine Hells gave the ruling classes of Bael Turath visions while they slept, containing the directions for a grisly, month-long ritual that would extend their rule into eternity. The details of the ritual have been left unclear in the books from the Player's Handbook series describing the events, though it is described as being very horrible. As the ritual demanded the participation of every noble house, those that refused were wholly slaughtered. Once this was done, the ruling class began their ritual. Afterwards, devils from the Nine Hells began to appear, and the nobles gladly made pacts with them. These pacts gave power to the nobles and their descendants forever, but also gave them the devilish features of horns, non-prehensile tails, sharp teeth, and red skin. From that point forward, the former humans were the race known as the tieflings.

In 5e, Asmodeus is responsible for their origin and appearance.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I refuse to play in a world where you can't impregnate a dragon.

 

[Yaarel]

Well, they are now. But at one point, those original peoples who were altered by fiendish magic were a different species.

But that then begs the question did those initial tieflings only breed with other tieflings to create a "true lineage"? Or were there tieflings that had children with other species and at that point the fiendish magic within the blood/DNA/whatever got passed down to the children?

Humans, dwarves, halflings... they all started as humans, dwarves and halflings (in whatever myth or story brought about their existence) from the beginning and bred amongst themselves long enough to create a full species. Tieflings, aasimar, and genasi had to become themselves from a different stock to begin with.

Well, those Fiends are immaterial beings made out of thoughts and dreams. So there is no such thing as biological "breeding" with a Fiend.

In those cases where there is biological breeding, it means that the Fiend used magic to create a material biological body of flesh and blood to incarnate into. In which case, the biology and species can be whatever the Fiend wants it to be.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I refuse to play in a world where you can't impregnate a dragon.

In Mother Russia, dragon impregnate you!

 

[Horwath]

No. You MIGHT be able to make a decent argument for half-orc and half-elf and the planetouched races, but shifter isn't a half-lycanthrope, goliath isn't a half-giant, and warforged isn't a half-anything. You might as well make dwarf, elf and halfling 1st level feats!

Shifters are descendants of lycanthropes, so why descendant of every race has to have the same stats?
Shouldn't an human, elf or orc shifter be different from one another?

Goliaths are their own race, but same can be said for them. descendants of half-giants from different humanoids.

Warforged, how about, you are made from a living humanoid into warforged.
if you take this version, then you can make a campaign hook of turning someone into these "templates" as a bonus feat that they gain because of some events.

Player might become an aasimar for doing a good deed for a good deity or become a tiefling as a bargain with the devils.
Or Red wizards of Thay might turn you into a warforged for their bodyguards.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Shifters are descendants of lycanthropes

Nope. Other way around. Lycanthropy was created when the Daelkyr warped Shifters with aberrant magic.

 

[Veltharis ap Rylix]

Nope. Other way around. Lycanthropy was created when the Daelkyr warped Shifters with aberrant magic.

Eh...the Wild Heart predates the Daelkyr's presence on Eberron by eons...

But then again, Xoriat is pretty much the plane where reality is warped enough that time travel is possible, so... shrugs

 

[Remathilis]

.Warforged, how about, you are made from a living humanoid into warforged.
if you take this version, then you can make a campaign hook of turning someone into these "templates" as a bonus feat that they gain because of some events.

Those aren't warforged. Warforged are made by creation forges and have no humanoid parts. They are wood , metal and stone. What you're thinking of is Reborn from Ravenloft which fits the "made into a monster" route.

As for the rest, I'm surprised you didn't include dragonborn (half-dragons) tabaxi (half-cat), aarakroca (half-bird), yuan-ti (half-snake), tortle (half-turtle) and such into your list. They make as much sense being feats as goliaths do.