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<blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 4092010" data-attributes="member: 11697">People saying that alot doesn't make it true. They didn't have fiends in a book till 2 years into 2e, and they initially avoided using the terms demon and devil (but that's all they avoided). 2e had orders of magnitude more development of and exposure for the fiends, and they did in fact use the terms demons and devils (if it took them a bit to get around to it). They gave specific groups of fiends (and yes, they were still called fiends) particular racial (for lack of a better word) names to denote a common heirarchy and/or origin for their kind. It's lets you have the baatezu who migrated/fell to the 9 Hells, the ancient baatorians who were there much earlier, kytons, and even bezikiira as distinct groups all of whom are devils. Same thing with other types of fiends.Ultimately it's a case of 'my made up word for a made up race is better than your made up word for a made up race'. I prefer tiefling etc because it's inventive, it isn't hamfisted like devilborn or something like that, and names like tanar'ri etc don't automatically have the baggage of real life mythology's use of demon and devil (usually not distinguishing between them) unless you want to add that in.Edit: That said, the 4e tiefling is ugly as sin with those giant bessie the cow horns. I also don't like the 4e assumption of all tiefling's sharing a single origin, so they all have the same features. It's a real reduction in the flexibility that was one of the race's founding hallmarks: they could be descended from any sort of fiend, and oftentimes more than one contributed to their bloodline, and the traits were sporadic in their expression. Loved it. 4e really limits that with its assumptions.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Shemeska, post: 4092010, member: 11697"] People saying that alot doesn't make it true. They didn't have fiends in a book till 2 years into 2e, and they initially avoided using the terms demon and devil (but that's all they avoided). 2e had orders of magnitude more development of and exposure for the fiends, and they did in fact use the terms demons and devils (if it took them a bit to get around to it). They gave specific groups of fiends (and yes, they were still called fiends) particular racial (for lack of a better word) names to denote a common heirarchy and/or origin for their kind. It's lets you have the baatezu who migrated/fell to the 9 Hells, the ancient baatorians who were there much earlier, kytons, and even bezikiira as distinct groups all of whom are devils. Same thing with other types of fiends. Ultimately it's a case of 'my made up word for a made up race is better than your made up word for a made up race'. I prefer tiefling etc because it's inventive, it isn't hamfisted like devilborn or something like that, and names like tanar'ri etc don't automatically have the baggage of real life mythology's use of demon and devil (usually not distinguishing between them) unless you want to add that in. Edit: That said, the 4e tiefling is ugly as sin with those giant bessie the cow horns. I also don't like the 4e assumption of all tiefling's sharing a single origin, so they all have the same features. It's a real reduction in the flexibility that was one of the race's founding hallmarks: they could be descended from any sort of fiend, and oftentimes more than one contributed to their bloodline, and the traits were sporadic in their expression. Loved it. 4e really limits that with its assumptions. [/QUOTE]

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