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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6332070" data-attributes="member: 2067">Did you miss where I used the word "historical"?That's not a really accurate view on the PS tiefling, I'm afraid. Their introduction states thus: "It's not advisable to ask a tiefling about his or her ancestors, the answer wouldn't likely be pleasant. Part human, and part something else, tieflings are the orphans of the planes. They can be described as humans who've been plane-touched."Which is super-duper vague. Humans who have been altered somewhere in their ancestry by something unpleasant on the planes. They get a little more specific in the Planewalker's Handbook, but only a little: "Obviously human and 'something-else' crossbreeds, the 'something else' in the tieflings' case is usually assumed to be lower-planar." And then under the Role-Playing section: "So what if somewhere in your family's distant past one of them was a fiend or other such being?"All of which just points to the idea that people don't trust them because of their nature, not necessarily because of their deeds or the deeds of their ancestors. You *know* a Turathi tiefling's ancestors bartered for power with the D&D version of Satan. You can go to the place where they did it and fight the evil that lingers there. A PS tiefling's ancestors may have been innocent victims or may have been deceived by illusions or charms or may have been unwitting experiments. Or they may have bartered for power with the D&D version of Satan, too, but because of their explicit lack of culture and outcast nature, that really doesn't matter anymore to a PS tiefling PC -- whatever barter happened left no real lasting effects aside from their existence. You can go to the place where that might've happened, but the pact wasn't particularly notable in the grand scheme of things, so most folks don't even remember it. I'm cool with low Charisma tieflings who got the short end of the charismatic evil stick and have trouble with confidence and persuasion and attracting followers and the like -- a tiefling whose sulfurous odor leads to weak self-confidence, whose flash of red in their eyes was an embarrassment, whose Vrok ancestry left them sqwaking like a bird whenever they're nervous.I'm cool with tieflings tending toward evil, the typical teifling giving into their lower-planar taint, making the heroic tiefling all the more remarkable and distinct.I'm also cool with darkly charismatic silver-tongued deceivers who are held in terrified-but-interested awe by people who mistrust their questionable heritage. And with generally-Unaligned tieflings who are the victims of pure societal exclusion.They all fit under that umbrella of "orphans of the planes."I'm also cool with pulpy evil magic devil-people with a lost empire, I just don't recognize that narrative as the particular tiefling narrative I'm fond of. Those creatures are not the cultureless outcasts with vague and indecipherable ancestry that get abandoned at birth in the nearest alleyway. It's a different story. Not really worse, just different, not what I'm looking for when I'm looking to play a tiefling.</blockquote>

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