Brainstorm: Tieflings and Satyrs

[ferratus]

Hello, I had an idea early on when crafting my world that I would use Satyrs as groups of roving bands that would come out of the feywild for the purposes of rapine. I still like this notion, but the problem is with the introduction of tieflings. With tieflings you have another race with horns and cloven hooves, so I'm not sure how to use both within the world without creating a link between them.

I like the backstory I have created for my tieflings, as an ancient and decadent imperial family morphed into a band of assassins/illuminati. I also like the idea of satyrs as lusty roving bands raiding out of the feywild. I could use centaurs instead (as the ancient Greeks saw them as emblems of savage primitives), but the "old goat-ness" of the satyrs is more appealing.

So I turn to the boards. What would I do in 4e to have a prominent place in my campaign world for both races without blurring or linking the two?

 

[GreatLemur]

Do your tieflings need[/u] to have horns and hooves? When the race was first introduced in 2e, they varied widely in appearance, just as demons and devils do. It seems entirely reasonable to just redesign them as something either weirder or subtler.

 

[am181d]

It's simple:

"Along time ago, devils had sex with humans." = tieflings

"Along time ago, devils had sex with goats." = satyrs

Hmm. My parallel structure circuits seem to be failing me...

 

[Irda Ranger]

FWIW, Tieflings don't have cloven hooves. They have human feet.

Also, Tieflings are clearly of Infernal origin, not Fey. They have nothing to do with the Feywild, and their "evil" (such as it is) is a deliberate, scheming malevolence. I think that's quite different than the lusty and amoral Satyrs.

 

[ferratus]

I see what you guys are saying. Focus on the differences rather than the similarities. If tieflings have feet, then only the horns really hold the two together. So instead just shrink the horns to little stubs (or perhaps gargoyle-like brow ridges), taint the skin red, tattoo sigils on their skin, give them taloned hands and have their eyes glow red. Give them beautiful and aristocratic features. This works better for hiding the tieflings inside a larger human society anyway.

For the Satyr shrink them down in size as much as possible without changing the stats, and emphasize that they are filthy, pot-bellied, and crude.

 

[Grymar]

You could always combine them...Satyrs are the devilish fey.

Take the Tieflings stats, erase the name and write Satyr. I frankly probably like that better than actual tieflings, which I've never used and probably won't.

 

[The_Gneech]

Take the Tieflings stats, erase the name and write Satyr. I frankly probably like that better than actual tieflings, which I've never used and probably won't.

I could get behind that; I included satyrs as a playable race option in a homebrew once.

Weird how that's more palatable to me; I guess it's the classical roots or something.

-The Gneech