Tieflings

Though Tal’Dorei was once awash with fell legends claiming to detail the evil origin of tieflings, the more progressive parts of the realm have long since stomped out such ugly myths. Still, many folk can’t help but show surprise the first time they see a person with horns curling from their brow, gleaming eyes of a single solid color, and lustrous, brightly hued skin of red, purple, or blue.
Scholars have scoured thousands of years of Issylran history in search of the origin of tieflings, to little avail. The most complete extant records suggest that during the Age of Arcanum, a cabal of power-hungry Issylran warlocks consorted with extraplanar entities, and that many of these unions resulted in children who shared the qualities of human and fiend. These progeny of the Lower Planes eventually came to break away from that origin to become a people unto themselves.
The first tieflings to walk on Tal’Dorei sailed from Issylra during the Age of Arcanum, fleeing religious zealots who believed their very existence was an abomination. Many tieflings in Tal’Dorei refused to fight during the Calamity, embracing a nihilism which said that if the world could reject their kind, perhaps it was better to just let it burn. Yet the world and the tieflings survived.
In the centuries after the Divergence, tieflings who had grown weary of gods and demons rejoiced, feeling that the gods’ imprisonment had effectively freed them from their cursed past. As such, when Warren Drassig and his sons conquered the elven lands of Gwessar, countless tieflings rose in rebellion against the tyrant. They had seen his kind before, they knew his methods, and they knew others would suffer as they once had.

Tiefling Children

Tieflings who form a union always have tiefling children, and most tieflings belong firmly to that ancient ancestry. Yet to this day, any humanoid—whether famous hero or common farmer—who makes a deal with fiends might give rise to children, grandchildren, or even more distant descendants born with the horns, eyes, and colorful skin of a tiefling.
Perhaps the most famous tiefling born in the past generation is Gwendolyn de Rolo, the youngest daughter of the renowned heroes Percival and Vex’ahlia de Rolo of Whitestone. It is an open secret in the city-state that Percival had dealings with fiends as a young man. Yet though none of the rumors have precisely pinpointed the nature of Percival’s supernatural bargain, all who know Gwendolyn agree that she is the sweetest and most innocent de Rolo to roam the halls of Castle Whitestone in many years.