Tieflings

Humanoids of various races, whose blood is tainted by infernal powers.

## Appearance

No two tieflings look alike. Their individual appearance varies greatly from one another, depending not only on their mortal lineage but also the type of the fiendish power afflicting their blood. They posses horns and tails in different shapes. Their skin color is usually in shades of red or blue. They often have either non-visible or strange looking pupils. A tiefling's teeth are sharp or fanged and many have forked tongues. However, there are also tieflings with weaker infernal blood who are barely recognizable as one of their kind simply by appearance alone.

While the voice of a tiefling doesn't necessarily sound different than other people from of the same humanoid lineage, one can recognize a typical distortion of the voice when they scream or speak Infernal. This might be related to their ability to speak the Infernal language without harming their vocal cords like other humanoids.

## Special characteristics

Depending on their infernal lineage, tieflings have resistances similar to true fiends. Some might have organs that are less vulnerable to poison, while others can better withstand extreme temperatures such as harmful cold or contact with fire.

A tiefling can change the structure of their eyes to alternate between normal daylight vision and darkvision.

Tieflings sometimes possess innate sorcerous powers. Because of this, they are less discriminated against in places where magic is highly valued.

The appearance and many other characteristics of tieflings vary drastically. Many have one or multiple minor unnatural features, which may concern their physiology, their instincts or aura magic surrounding them. E.g., a tiefling might always smell of sulfur or have vestigial wings. Flames might flicker wherever their bare feet touch the ground, they might need to occasionally shed their skin and so on.

## Reproduction and aging

Tieflings are created in several ways:

* The most common way is for a child to be born as a tiefling. At least one of the parents must be either a tiefling or a half-fiend. Even if only one parent is a tiefling, the child will likely be born as one too. However, their infernal blood will be more diluted and their special features will be less prevalent. It would take several generations until fiendish influence is erased from a bloodline.
* Being possessed by a fiend over an extended period of time can transform a humanoid into a tiefling. Those changes remain even after the possession is cured. The possession's duration, the nature of the fiend and their behavior will determine the strength of the transformation.
* A humanoid can be transformed into a tiefling when they are exposed to special infernal powers or when they forfeit their soul to a fiend.

Independent of their origin, their average development and lifespan will remain the same as their original race.

## Society

Being a tiefling means to be constantly greeted with cautious stares and whispers in most parts of Carmia. Because of their potential ties to fiends, as well as the chance for a tiefling to be a true fiend possessing a body, causes them to be feared and distrusted by most people. Even tieflings are likely to avoid their own kind if they don't know about their origins. A false yet common believe among other races is also that tieflings lack the ability to feel sympathy or compassion just like fiends do.