Dragonlance Origin of a tiefling on Krynn?

[Morrus]

On of my players in my original Dragonlance Chronicles (DL1) campaign will be playing a tiefling. I’m fine with non core DL stuff being used in the game, just need to figure how to fit things in. Right now I’m thinking portal from Faerun, but is there any DL lore which might accommodate a tiefling?

 

[jmartkdr2]

What's more important to the player: the traits, the looks, or the backstory?

If it's looks and/or powers: Some minotaur ancestry and a non-heritage based explanation for the magic could do it. Are there dragons around in the time of the game? A 1/8 dragon 7/8 human might look a lot like a tiefling and could have similar powers.

If it's the devil/demon theme, I don't know. Maybe something that's not technically a fiend but could have been around like a sphinx or aberration?

 

[Burnside]

On of my players will be playing a tiefling. I’m fine with non core DL stuff being used in the game, just need to figure how to fit things in. Right now I’m thinking portal from Faerun, but is there any DL lore which might accommodate a tiefling?

Krynn does have its own iteration of the Abyss with fiends living in it - and the One D&D playtest suggests that Abyssal tieflings are or will soon be a thing. So this character's origin could be tied to that. Might be an interesting hook that the character and Takhisis have a common point of origin, so to speak.

 

[DragonBelow]

I would use the Spelljammer route, but plane travel is certainly easier to deal with. Maybe from Sigil?

 

[bloodtide]

Krynn has plenty of fiends, so saying some have mated with mortals is not a big thing at all.

If you really want a Krynn connection. The Abisai baatezu were created by Takhisis, corrupted dragon eggs to make draconians. It's not a big leap to have them make "fiend blooded humans".

 

[Maxperson]

On of my players will be playing a tiefling. I’m fine with non core DL stuff being used in the game, just need to figure how to fit things in. Right now I’m thinking portal from Faerun, but is there any DL lore which might accommodate a tiefling?

The Greygem of Gargath caused changes in some races creating the kender and dwarves out of gnomes. It could easily have altered an isolated village of humans, turning them into tieflings who then opted to remain isolated for whatever reason you determine. Also the being known as Chaos who was trapped in the g+Greygem did a number on Krynn and could have caused a resulting tiefling or three.

 

[Twiggly the Gnome]

If you really want a Krynn connection. The Abisai baatezu were created by Takhisis, corrupted dragon eggs to make draconians. It's not a big leap to have them make "fiend blooded humans".

Maybe a descendant of one of the Abbots of Misrule.

Abbots of Misrule

Abbots of Misrule are those that have a task in the Abyss to go to Krynn and dispense bad advice and terrible truths to the people. Usually assigned to an Abishai. Two of them sent Lord Toede back to Krynn in 353 AC. Lord Toede (Novel), p. 2, 303

dragonlance.fandom.com

 

[The Glen]

Probably just handwave it. Dragonlance had the fewest number of races of the major settings by Design.

 

[Zardnaar]

Krynn dies have its own version of the lower planes so I'm fine with Tieflings on Krynn personally.

No real need for planar traveller or another world origin.

 

[jgsugden]

If you don't want to add to your lore to incorporate many Tieflings broadly, consider proposing that they be a cursed human (or elf, or whatever). They did something greedy and were cursed by a divine force to take on that altered form.

You can also punt. Have them wake up with no memories, but people that remember them as a stranger who arrived fairly recently. The PC won't know why they have no memory, why they are so strange, etc... That gives you time to work them into the world in a more meaningful sense. I don't use this approach personally, but I have seen it executed well.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

depending on era of play I would just go with the child of an abyssal demon and a mortal...

 

[delericho]

Is your campaign better served with them as a unique exception, or as part of a community/family/whatever?

If they're an exception, I'd go for the planar traveller route, or perhaps even just leave it unexplained - a mystery that may or may not be resolved as things go on.

If you want a community, I'd probably steal from Zeitgeist: when the Cataclysm occurred, those priests who weren't faithful enough to be Raptured away were transformed into tieflings. They passed on their traits to their offspring, and so in the centuries since several families, some of them very well connected, have sprung up.

 

[Quartz]

but is there any DL lore which might accommodate a tiefling?

Draconians are the Dragonlance tieflings.

 

[Teemu]

They could be a unique offshoot. Like a mutant!

 

[humble minion]

Does the player have any idea about the backstory of their PC, family etc, or have they just decided they want to play a tiefling and haven't thought much beyond that yet? I'm not a Dragonlance lore guru, but there doesn't seem to be any obvious lore space for large numbers of tieflings, or tieflings as a widely-known species.

The way i'd do it personally is to say that somewhere in the distant past, one of the PCs evil ancestors made a deal with a fiend of some sort, and the fiend has maintained a connection with the family line ever since. Sort of a family demon, a bit like a guardian angel except ... not. Sometimes the family produces fiend warlocks, and maybe sometimes a child is born that has been tainted by the fiend's proximity and is basically a tiefling. the family could be corrupt nobility or insular pig farmers, anything clannish and insular. And there might be less backlash, angry mobs etc than you'd expect, too. Remember that Raistlin ran around for 6+ books with hourglass-shaped pupils and metallic-looking skin, and I can't remember any of the strangers he met commenting on it. Presumably a tiefling would be treated similarly.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Tieflings have never been explicitly ruled out out Dragonlance, since they didn't exist when the setting was created. Likewise, demons and devils are not explicitly ruled out, but tend not to be a theme the setting deals with. How important is the feel of the setting to your game?

Personally, I would suggest an X-man style mutant (Nightcrawler), or just leave their origin a complete mystery: "I'm an orphan, I don't know who my parents were." The word "tiefling" is never used.

But why does the player want to play a tiefling? If they want a devilish backstory, or a tiefling community, you might have to tell them that's not a direction you see the campaign going in.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

You can also punt. Have them wake up with no memories, but people that remember them as a stranger who arrived fairly recently. The PC won't know why they have no memory, why they are so strange, etc... That gives you time to work them into the world in a more meaningful sense. I don't use this approach personally, but I have seen it executed well.

Do they look like this by any chance?

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Remember that Raistlin ran around for 6+ books with hourglass-shaped pupils and metallic-looking skin, and I can't remember any of the strangers he met commenting on it. Presumably a tiefling would be treated similarly.

As an adjunct to this, I would add that there is no reason the people of Krynn would associate horns with evil. After all, minotaurs have horns, and they are usually okay. Which could be a problem if your player wants to be a tiefling in order to be dark and edgy. If they are going to associate anything with evil, I would suggest scaly skin.

 

[jgsugden]

Do they look like this by any chance?
View attachment 269120

Originality was used up long ago.

 

[toucanbuzz]

I can see Otik spitting out his ale when one of these walks into the Inn of the Last Home...

That out of the way, I've seen 4E proposals (when tieflings entered the literature) that tieflings are shards of Chaos, but that doesn't thematically have anything to do with DL1 and would confuse other players as to why that's important.

Perhaps tieflings are the precursor to draconians. The Dark Queen's experiments began with abishai souls into humanoid forms, but they didn't go as expected and aspects of the devils shone through. These experiments were cast aside, perhaps a thousand or so survived, as too unruly and fragile to be capable soldiers. Thanks to the decree of free will for mortals, these new life forms were not beholden to their abishai origins and some chose a less evil path. Because Krynn doesn't have stories of "devils," the appearance may be alien but passed off simply as "I'm from some island that broke off after the Cataclysm." So long as you carry your weight, the folks of Solace might get used to it.