[RPG] What did Tieflings look like before Asmodeus “claimed” them

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The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide says in its section on tieflings (p. 118) that during the Time of Troubles, Asmodeus ascended to godhood and (with some help) "claimed" all tieflings as his own.

However, the way they put it makes it sound as if tiefling were their own race before Asmodeus "claimed" them. Is there any official material on what they looked like before then?

Best Answer

Almost human, with a variety of fiendish traits.

Before D&D 4th edition, tieflings were simply the descendents of humans and evil extraplanar beings, such as demons or devils. 4e retconned them to be humans who had acquired devil-like features in a pact for power with Asmodeus.

AD&D 2e

When tieflings were introduced in AD&D 2nd edition, they were originally humans with a mysterious fraction of otherplanar ancestry. This was implied to be that of a demon or devil, but it was not explicitly stated, and most tieflings were wanderers and orphans who did not know their own ancestry. The Planescape Campaign Setting (1994) describes them thus:

A shadow of knife-edge in their face, a little too much fire in their eyes, a scent of ash in their presence – all these things and more describe a tiefling. No planar would mistake a tiefling for a human, and most primes make the mistake only once.

The Planewalker's Handbook (1996) expounded on their origins, and gave the tieflings a variety of traits:

Obviously human and "something-else" crossbreeds, the "somethinge-else" in the tieflings' case is usually lower-planar ...

Because of their varied backgrounds, it's possible, and even likely, that not all tieflings possess the same innate powers and appearances ... To randomly generate special physical characteristics, roll on the "Tiefling Appearance" table 1d4 times for each newly created tiefling player character.

Examples of traits include fangs, small horns, pointed teeth, unusually colored hair, eyes or skin; a tail, goatlike legs, small feathers, spiny ridges, or fur. In other words, they were humans who had some feature normally associated with their ancestor, who was a demon, devil or similar evil outsider.

D&D 3e

Tieflings in 3e were described in the 3.5 Monster Manual (p.210) as appearing very human:

This being looks like a human, but it has a faintly disturbing demeanor about it and a wicked gleam in its eyes. Short horns sprout from its forehead. ...

Aside from a demeanor that many find disturbing, many tieflings are indistinguishable from humans. Others have small horns, pointed teeth, red eyes, a whiff of brimstone about them, or even cloven feet. No two tieflings are the same.

In other words, tieflings prior to being "claimed" by Asmodeus generally looked human, enough so to pass for human at a glance, but closer examination would reveal some trait like small horns or red eyes. Many looked sufficiently human to even pass as human.

Related Solutions

[RPG] How strong is the tiefling’s Infernal Legacy trait, and what should I consider when homebrewing a racial trait that replaces it

In Unearthed Arcana: That Old Black Magic (2015), they playtested a Tiefling Variant with an Abyssal Tiefling subrace. The Abyssal Tiefling gets this Abyssal Arcana trait instead of the original Infernal Legacy trait:

Abyssal Arcana. Each time you finish a long rest, you gain the ability to cast cantrips and spells randomly determined from a short list. At 1st level, you can cast a cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can also cast a 1st-level spell. At 5th level, you can cast a 2nd-level spell.

You can cast a spell gained from this trait only once until you complete your next long rest. You can cast a cantrip gained from this trait at will, as normal. For 1st-level spells whose effect changes if cast using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you cast the spell as if using a 2nd-level slot. Spells of 2nd level are cast as if using a 2nd-level slot.

At the end of each long rest, you lose the cantrips and spells previously granted by this feature, even if you did not cast them. You replace those cantrips and spells by rolling for new ones on the Abyssal Arcana Spells table. Roll separately for each cantrip and spell. If you roll the same spell or cantrip you gained at the end of your previous long rest, roll again until you get a different result.

Abyssal Arcana Spells

d6 1st Level 3rd Level 5th Level

1 Dancing lights Burning hands Alter self

2 True strike Charm person Darkness

3 Light Magic missile Invisibility

4 Message Cure wounds Levitate

5 Spare the dying Tasha’s hideous laughter Mirror image

6 Prestidigitation Thunderwave Spider climb

d6	1st Level	3rd Level	5th Level
1	Dancing lights	Burning hands	Alter self
2	True strike	Charm person	Darkness
3	Light	Magic missile	Invisibility
4	Message	Cure wounds	Levitate
5	Spare the dying	Tasha’s hideous laughter	Mirror image
6	Prestidigitation	Thunderwave	Spider climb

I would assume that homebrew could trust this list to be at least somewhat balanced as possible spell replacements, since it made it to UA. However, keep in mind that UA is not strictly canon, but rather playtest material from WotC game designers.

In that regard, the Infernal Legacy trait looks a lot like a Dragonmark (from Unearthed Arcana: Eberron (v1.1)) or the Magic Initiate feat (PHB, p. 168). You could also skin one of those feats into a racial ability, as a homebrew that wouldn't deviate too much from the rules.

And completely RAW, you could always do a Feral Tiefling with the Devil's Tongue trait (SCAG, p. 118), too.

[RPG] What’s the difference between a Tiefling and a Cambion

XGtE is optional

It's important to remember that most of XGtE's content comprises optional rules, and this particular section on character generation is no exception. In fact, the opening on page 61 explicitly states:

IDEAS, NOT RULES

Even though these pages are full of tables and die rolls, they don’t make up a rules system — in fact, the opposite is true. You can use as much or as little of this material as you desire, and you can make decisions in any order you want.

Stretching that a little, we could infer it to mean that despite what might be implied by the options presented here, none of it should be taken as informing the actual rules of the game. It definitely doesn't help that this section of Xanathar's does contradict the racial history given for tieflings in their own description in the PHB. But if we want to take the content as presented and try and make it work, we could consider the variability of genetic expression.

All cambions are half-fiends (but not all half-fiends are cambions)

Simply put, though a cambion is a half-fiend and is always the result of union between a fiend and a humanoid, the union of a fiend and a humanoid does not always result in a cambion. Sometimes, when a devil and a humanoid procreate, perhaps the result looks more like a tiefling.

To draw a crude analogy to the real world, children of mixed race parents can vary wildly between strongly expressing the racial characteristics of one or the other parent or appearing somewhere in between - depending on exactly what random bits of genetics get passed on and in which combination. It's not even unusual for children from the same parents to appear to be completely different races!

Obviously the genetics of a fantasy world are much more complicated than ours could conceivably be (especially when you allow for magical factors). It is not much of a stretch to imagine that the children of a devil/humanoid pairing may sometimes express much more of their fiendish heritage (producing a cambion) and sometimes less (producing a tiefling).

What's the difference?

The general difference between a tiefling and a cambion is that a cambion is a very strong expression of fiendish ancestry that perhaps you can only get with one directly fiendish parent, but a tiefling is a much lesser expression of such ancestry which can also occur in descendants far removed from the original fiendish influence.