D&D 5E Variant Tieflings

[Warpiglet]

Hello gang!

I have not posted in a good while. I have been busy curating a miniature collection and finishing a 4'x6' dungeon and '4'x6' forest for an upcoming "convention."

At any rate I started looking at all of the info about tieflings and believe I might, for the first time, want to play one.

The variants in mordenkainens are intriguing. But I am perhaps just as interested in what I read in SCAG.

They discuss variants that have 1-5 features in lieu of the big horn look from phb.

Does this suggest raw that I could play a tailless tiefling? Or perhaps one with normal human eyes?

We often just discuss appearance with dm and go with it because fun, but this seems to say I could avoid the look of ram horns with a tail entirely.

Am I reading this correctly?

 

[Rhylthar]

Yes, you do.

Different looking tieflings were quite common before 4E so why not?
Magadon Kest from the Erevis Cale novels wasn´t recognized as a tiefling on first look (only small horns and some minor other things).

 

[CleverNickName]

I once played a tiefling who appeared to be human in every way, except they had six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot. Rumor was, my family bloodline had been touched by Graz'zat long ago.

 

[Tsuga C]

Put together a character concept and run it by your DM/GM. There's no reason you shouldn't be allowed to play a tiefling of demonic, demodandic, yugolothic, or devilish descent with or without horns or a tail.

Adapt what you find in here: Pathfinder Player Companion: Blood of Fiends: Colin McComb, Hal Maclean, Paizo Staff: 9781601254238: Amazon.com: Gateway

 

[Charlaquin]

Very few DMs I’ve encountered have been sticklers for the appearance of a PC deviating from what is standard for their race. The ones I have who are probably wouldn’t be swayed by showing them SCAG. But the options in there are nice for coming up with trifling designs if your DM is amenable (which most are.)