Tieflings

Those who bear the mark of Hell are first met with mistrust, then curiosity—and in the more rural areas of Tal’Dorei, fear. Countless scholars have delved through thousands of years of Issylran history in search of the origin of tieflings, to little avail. The most complete extant answer is that, during the Age of Arcanum, a cabal of power-hungry Issylran warlocks consorted with dark entities, and many these unions resulted in children neither wholly human nor fiend. These children denied their ash-blackened fate and traveled across the world in hopes of defining themselves through their deeds, not their nature. 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. Most tieflings in Tal’Dorei refused to fight during the Calamity—when a people have seen so much evil from all kinds of people and even the gods, a certain nihilism inevitably takes hold. In the centuries after the Divergence, tieflings who had grown weary of gods and demons rejoiced; in a way, the gods’ imprisonment had freed them from their cursed past. When Warren Drassig and his sons conquered the elven lands of Gwessar, the tieflings of the continent rose in near unanimous rebellion against the tyrant. They had seen his kind before, they knew his methods, and they knew others would suffer like they once did. The fear and apprehension that surrounded tieflings diminished some when the other people of Tal’Dorei fought alongside them, but the tension never fully faded. As such, most tieflings stick to the more studied and diverse cities like Emon and Westruun. Kymal and Stilben are not devoid of tieflings, and many there gleefully embrace their fiendish ancestry, finding their calling in foul deeds and shady business. The dwarves of Kraghammer generally keep tieflings at arm’s length, while the denizens of Syngorn rarely leave a tiefling without watchful guard.