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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Composer99" data-source="post: 8826743" data-attributes="member: 7030042">Tieflings: Chosen of Asmodeus[SPOILER="Mood Music"][MEDIA=youtube]SIkNWR6Y-CY[/MEDIA][/SPOILER]The Chosen of Asmodeus are mighty, but their empire faces manifold dangers and challenge - from within as from without.In the Elder Times, there were humans who abandoned the Old Faith in the face of the Powers of Chaos, turning not to the Light, but to a being known as Asmodeus. In exchange for their devotion, loyalty, and obedience - indeed, their very souls - they were granted the gift of infernal magic. This process changed their forms: they became tieflings. From their Throne City of Xalundh, these tieflings forged an empire: the Empire of Bal Kaeroth.This empire spread, conquering and subjugating the lands around it in the name of Asmodeus, and the tieflings prospered and grew many. As the empire spread, few in the lands north of the Inner Sea could foresee how they could be checked. Yet they had overstretched, and their advance slowed and was even reversed as waves of raiding nomads from The Vast, attacks by dragons from across the seas, internal strife and rebellion, and eventually the Wracking caused their retreat from many of their frontier territories. The Empress Molora III, Fist of the Almighty, dreams of retaking the Northern Marches, but for that the empire must rebuild and gather new strength.Asmodeus[SPOILER='About Asmodeus']In this setting, Asmodeus is an Ancient of Law - a powerful being of Cosmic Law.[/SPOILER]In the First Days, Asmodeus promised power to any who would serve him - the more this service is unending and unquestionable, the greater the power. For most, the price is too high to pay, but when it means victory against the Powers of Chaos, it seems not so dear after all.In the Empire, these obligations are laid out in the Tracts of the Almighty, a text that claims to provide the history of Asmodeus' work in the world and that details the rewards of those who venerate him. The Tracts also specify in great detail the hierarchy of the Empire and how the lives of those under the Empire's rule are to be governed.The Empire holds that these Tracts are the words and commands of Asmodeus himself, eternal and unchanging. There are those who might dispute this, claiming the Tracts have changed over time, but such heresy is to be stamped out, and these forgeries burned.While the first tieflings perhaps all owed their souls to Asmodeus, that has not been true of tieflings born since then. They are marked by Asmodeus, but to shackle their fate to his will requires a recommitment on their part to the pact made by their forebears. Only tieflings who choose this path are vested with greater infernal magic than is a tiefling's birthright.Few ever refer to Asmodeus by name. The faithful call him "the Almighty" at his command. Other folk usually refrain from speaking his name for fear that he can hear it spoken and curse the speaker. Among such folk he is "the Accursed", "the Great Betrayer", or "the Enemy".Common Tiefling-ismsSome common tiefling sayings:"The Almighty watches."/"The Almighty watches, indeed." (A benediction of greeting or parting among faithful tieflings; it is spoken in exactly this way by tieflings of equal stature; when tieflings of unequal stature greet or part one another, the higher-status tiefling speaks first and refers to the lower-status tiefling - "The Almighty watches you" - while the lower-status tiefling speaks second and refers to themselves - "the Almighty watches me [or us] indeed".)"The right path is obedience and loyalty - to the Almighty Asmodeus, to your Imperator, and to any set in authority above you." (This is the very first line of the Tracts of the Almighty, and is the only place where Asmodeus' name is written, and is one of very few contexts in which his name is permitted to be spoken among the faithful.)"The Almighty decrees your portion and your due." (Another quote from the Tracts, which is formally used to justify the hierarchical organisation of the Empire, and used informally to suggest someone's fate or circumstances - positive or negative - are deserved by virtue of being the will of Asmodeus.)"Faithful as the Enemy" (A saying among apostate tieflings, who view Asmodeus as the greatest of betrayers; this is a grave insult)The SubjugatedAny non-tiefling under the rule of the Empire is among the Subjugated.The Subjugated are also subject to hierarchy - a caste system that determines how they can expect to be treated by their tiefling overlords, what food and goods they are permitted to possess or consume, and what life opportunities they can gain for themselves.Broadly, this hierarchy is (top) dwarves > orcs > humans > kobolds > human-tiefling hybrids (bottom)[SPOILER='Ancestries']I'm not sure yet what PHB races will be available, much less any others, based on who's in the party. Elves will probably exist in the setting but more as individual folk who have crossed over from the lands of the fey instead of a whole people. As fey, I'm envisioning them as being seen by the tieflings as inherently tied to Chaos, and so the Empire puts any elf who falls into its clutches to death.[/SPOILER][SPOILER='Why Hybrids?']One of the players, who came up with the idea of the empire of tieflings, decided to have a human-tiefling hybrid as their ancestry, and also decided that they were the lowest folk in the empire.[/SPOILER]The tieflings usually keep communities and settlements segregated by ancestry- a town of kobolds likely won't have humans or dwarves living in it, for instance. A few tieflings might dwell briefly in a community of Subjugated on business, and Subjugated might dwell in tiefling communities as household servants or low-status labourers.No one in the Empire is, strictly speaking, enslaved, save for those sentenced to hard labour by the Empire's laws. However, no one who isn't a tiefling can hope for what passes for a good life, certainly not compared to tieflings. The Empire appropriates most of the economic and agricultural output of Subjugated settlements, and then distributes what it sees fit to those settlements, in accordance with the place of their residents in the hierarchy. Folk who take positions in the tiefling communities can hope for better food and amenities, but at the cost of always occupying the least-valued labouring roles and being continually at the beck and call of tieflings.This does create both motivation and opportunity for smuggling and black markets, as well as for revolt.Tieflings, having once been human, can interbreed with them. While tiefling-human hybrids are the lowest of the low in the Empire, no shame ever attaches to an Imperial tiefling for having such a child with a human, or for having the sort of relationship with a human that might result in a child. However, within the Empire, tieflings may not marry humans, and any tiefling-human hybrid is ineligible for any inheritance from their tiefling parent. Outside of the Empire, such mixed-ancestry folk are usually treated as tieflings are in whatever community they find themselves.The Tieflings of ParnethMany tieflings find the Empire's rule objectionable, whether for purely personal reasons or because they come to oppose it on moral grounds. Others may not care about the Empire as such but reject the veneration of Asmodeus. Such tieflings are usually known as apostates, and, faced with what might happen if their beliefs are discovered, they usually arrange to flee.Other tieflings might once have been loyal, but have been exiled for one reason or another - often for the "crime" of falling into disfavour among new rulers or, whenever a succession to a position of authority is contested, for having backed a losing side (with the winners seeing to potential threats to their power). These tieflings are called exiles.The Empire has produced many apostates and exiles over the years. Most choose to cross the Inner Sea, to put as much distance between themselves and the Empire as possible (not least because they rightly fear being hunted).The largest community of tieflings on the northern side of the Inner Sea, outside of the Empire itself, is found in the Free City of Parneth. Most tieflings live in the North Quarter, a more-or-less middle-class district known to house many of the trading costers that run out of the Free City. The most established tieflings live solidly middle-class lives, while newer ones tend to live working-class lives; few tieflings are destitute, but apart from the odd guild leader, none have yet to join the city's elite.Humans in Parneth basically treat tieflings as another sort of humans, with an exception made for anyone known to be new to town - such folk are viewed with suspicion until it seems clear they aren't Imperial spies. Apostates reject the distinct cultural practices of Bal Kaeroth, and so their descendants rarely practice them. New exiles face an adjustment - often a harsh one - to a city where they do not command any particular respect, or even notice at times, but they and their families are most likely to try to keep cultural practices from their old homes, especially commemorations of holy days; after many generations these have become opportunities for public ceremony and celebration, almost more commercial and civic than religious devotions to Asmodeus. Some apostates appreciate how Asmodeus and the Empire would disapprove of these proceedings, and find a spiteful enjoyment in them.Many tieflings of Parneth sponsor and support apostate and exile tieflings newly-arrived in town, as well as any non-tieflings or hybrid folk who manage to flee the Empire's bounds. Unfortunately, there is often a considerable overlap between the networks they have built to smuggle in contraband or smuggle out escapees, and black-market networks serving the criminal underworld of Parneth.</blockquote>

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