Tiefling Heritages
Regardless of where their fiendish blood comes from, most tieflings exhibit similar traits and abilities. The unpredictable manner in which fiendish essence combines with a mortal soul often makes it nearly impossible for the average person to tell a tiefling’s heritage simply by looking. A few tieflings, however, retain more overt ties to the particular type of fiend that first corrupted their bloodlines. A player may choose one of the following 10 heritages for her tiefling character in place of the traditional tiefling racial features. Each heritage presents new ability modifiers, spell-like abilities, and skill modifiers, as well as a pair of custom traits. Each entry also discusses the most common (though by no means ubiquitous) personality traits, physical features, and places of origin of tieflings belonging to that particular heritage.
Asura-Spawn(Faultspawn)
Lacking any sense of empathy or pity,faultspawn often abhor all ways of life but their own. They inflict severe emotional and physical pain on others, and never stop picking at the resulting psychological scars.
Asura-Spawn
Ancestry Asura
Typical Alignment LE
Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Wis, –2 Int
Alternate Skill Modifiers Appraise, Knowledge (local)
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Faultspawn gain hideous laughter as a spell-like ability.
Like their asura forebears, faultspawn revel when the gods or their worshipers fail, and take great pleasure in the defacement or destruction of churches and holy sites that don’t align with their individual viewpoints. This innate desire to taunt and ridicule people of opposing beliefs often extends beyond mere bullying, usually finding expression in the art of maiming or utterly destroying whatever their opponents hold most dear. Emotionally abusive, faultspawn steal or vandalize what others find precious, and enjoy rubbing salt in their victims’ wounds.
Physically, asura-spawn tend to have both masculine and feminine traits, their relative androgyny proving that havoc and deceit are not limited by one’s sex. A considerable number of asura-spawn are even born hermaphrodites.
Faultspawn are most common in Vudra, though following the death of Aroden a sizable number of asuras have made destructive pilgrimages to those sites where he dallied with the occasional mortal or that most clearly mark his fall. The asura-spawn of the Worldwound take particular pleasure in destroying the zealous crusaders from neighboring Mendev, while even more are born in Rahadoum, whose people share faultspawn’s loathing for the gods.
Traits
The following are race traits for faultspawn.
Arms Master: The legendary battle prowess of your ancestors ensures that you have a certain amount of innate martial skill. You take a –2 penalty on attack rolls made with weapons with which you are not proficient instead of the normal –4.
Prayer Breaker: You have an instinctive flair for causing such pain to the faithful that they temporarily lose their connection with their god. If a divine spellcaster makes a concentration check to avoid losing a spell because of an injury you caused, increase the DC of that check by +2.
Daemon-Spawn(Grimspawn)
Dreary and pessimistic, grimspawn are so enthralled by death, disease, and dilapidation that they often dedicate themselves to ending lives from behind the scenes as macabre saboteurs.
Daemon-Spawn
Ancestry Daemon
Typical Alignment NE
Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Int, –2 Wis
Alternate Skill Modifiers Disable Device, Sleight of Hand
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Grimspawn gain death knell as a spell-like ability.
Like their daemon ancestors, grimspawn have a great fascination with sickness, decay, and all the ways mortals can die. However, as mortals themselves, they have no choice but to realize they too could suffer all the scourges that blight mortal life. As a way of distancing themselves from such enraging thoughts, grimspawn spend their lives as tourists of disaster, and if unable to find a preexisting calamity in which to revel, they are happy to lend a hand.
Grimspawn typically appear unhealthy and frail. Though in actuality they are no sicklier than the average person, grimspawn often display symptoms of various diseases, such as a hacking cough, feverish body temperature, or unnaturally pale complexion, and all are painfully thin and tend to look emaciated no matter how much they eat.
Grimspawn often arise in areas beset by disease, famine,civil unrest, or war. So desperate are the peoples of these lands to replenish their numbers and forget the horrors of the past that the parents of such sickly seeming children go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive, ignorant of their daemonic taint. As their fiendish children reach adulthood, many parents come to regret their efforts.
Traits
The following are race traits for grimspawn.
Death’s Deputy: When you send opponents to death’s door, you often hurl their corpses right across its threshold. You gain a +2 trait bonus on the damage dealt for any attack that would already reduce your target to negative hit points without this trait.
Soul Eater: The act of murder allows you to draw vitality from fleeing souls. Whenever you use a coup de grace action to kill a creature (either by damage or through a failed Fortitude save), you gain a number of temporary hit points equal to half your character level (minimum 1) for 1 minute. These temporary hit points do not stack with multiple coups de grace.
Demodand-Spawn(Foulspawn)
Crude and boorish, foulspawn take a particular delight in giving offense and scandalizing polite society. They enjoy violating taboos even more than breaking laws, especially if it means degrading or repulsing an innocent.
Demodand-Spawn
Ancestry Demodand
Typical Alignment CE
Ability Modifiers +2 Con, +2 Wis, –2 Int
Alternate Skill Modifiers Intimidate, Knowledge (religion)
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Foulspawn gain bear’s endurance as a spell-like ability.
Thanks to their demodand ancestry, foulspawn have a deep and abiding hatred of religion and conventional morality. However, their sense of heresy goes much further than merely scorning the gods; foulspawn reject any code of behavior that places limits on their actions,whether such restrictions be social, legal, or divine. Their name—representing not just their disgusting personal habits and hygiene, but also their vulgarity and basic indecency—merely hints at how ruthlessly they work to corrupt and debase their surroundings.
Foulspawn always have at least one physical trait that places them far outside the norm. Whether they are grossly fat, skeletally thin, monstrously tall, or horrifically stunted,they always stand out in a crowd. All foulspawn, regardless of their appearance, have terrible standards of personal cleanliness and grooming.
Though they are somewhat more common around the Worldwound, foulspawn tend to appear in higher rates throughout all of northern Avistan. Some attribute this to a general lack of civilization and refinement, which attracts demodands and encourages intermingling between these fiends and humanoid natives. Most regard this myth as simply an unfair stereotype, however, since the fact remains that nearly every society produces foulspawn.
Traits
The following are race traits for foulspawn.
God Scorn: Your contempt for the gods and their sad little priests makes it easier to shake off the effects of their prayers. You gain a +1 trait bonus on saving throws against divine spells.
Repulsive: Your repulsiveness causes people to almost instinctively shy away from making physical contact with you. You gain a +1 trait bonus on combat maneuver checks made to overrun and reposition opponents.
Demon-Spawn(Pitborn)
Pitborn delight in destruction, especially while unleashing their havoc on what others consider valuable or precious. Perhaps because of this volatility, others tend to simply defer to pitborn, an act that often grants them the dominance they crave.
Demon-Spawn
Ancestry Demon
Typical Alignment CE
Ability Modifiers +2 Str, +2 Cha, –2 Int
Alternate Skill Modifiers Disable Device, Perception
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Pitborn gain shatter as a spell-like ability.
The easily enraged pitborn usually find smashing something the quickest way to calm back down. Of course,since pitborn gain a sense of genuine pleasure from wanton destruction, they break, rip, and rage even when in the best of moods. They revel not just in the spectacle of annihilation but also in the heady sense of power they get from ruining what others love or, even better, need. Pitborn hate the objects of their fury with a burning intensity that never truly cools no matter how much time has passed.
Born of chaos and mutation, pitborn always have at least one flaw that mars their bodies’ symmetry. Pitborn with subtler flaws like differently colored eyes, mismatched ears, an odd number of fingers, or a birthmark sprawling across one cheek can often hide or explain such traits away. Those with more prominent abnormalities like incompatible limbs, the head of a vestigial twin, or bizarre spines or scales adorning only one side of their bodies find it much more difficult to pass for normal. All pitborn take extreme offense at their disfigurements being pointed out.
Pitborn flourish in the vicinity of the Worldwound and throughout the Darklands, though much like the random,malevolent evil of their ancestors, they can arise just about anywhere in the world. A pitborn’s birth often follows some natural disaster, almost as if that catastrophe had roused such evil from a long and fitful slumber.
Traits
The following are race traits for pitborn.
Deadly Rush: When you hurl yourself against a foe with reckless abandon, you often land particularly telling blows.You gain a +2 trait bonus on critical hit confirmation rolls made as part of a charge.
Flair for Destruction: You have a talent for striking objects at their weakest points. You gain a +1 trait bonus on weapon damage rolls made against objects and constructs.
Devil-Spawn(Hellspawn)
While often rigid, stubborn, and highly focused on sticking to plans and schedules,hellspawn also have a rare talent for penetrating others’ facades. They know a lie when they hear one, and can often determine what hidden vice or secret shame motivates another.
Devil-Spawn
Ancestry Devil
Typical Alignment LE
Ability Modifiers +2 Con, +2 Wis, –2 Cha
Alternate Skill Modifiers Diplomacy, Sense Motive
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Hellspawn gain pyrotechnics as a spell-like ability.
Though as ambitious and willing to seize opportunities as they come, hellspawn are by far the most conservative and conformist of all the tiefling heritages. They tend to accept their lot in life and seldom rebel, instead finding their niches and then quietly accumulating the wealth and power they crave. Their natural talent for identifying the dark appetites of others often proves useful when trying to climb the social ladder, and hellspawn usually leave behind trails of ruined careers and broken lives in their wakes.
Hellspawn come closest to matching the stereotype of what a tiefling “should” look like. Most have horns, a tail,and eyes with an odd color or unusually shaped pupils.
Cheliax has a substantial contingent of hellspawn living within its borders. While hellspawn are a despised minority, their ability to make themselves useful has helped them spread throughout Cheliax’s network of client states, especially Isger. Chelish authorities regard hellspawn as officially expendable and scarcely hesitate to put them up on the auction block, dispersing the tieflings to any land that tolerates slavery.
Traits
The following are race traits for hellspawn.
Blood Stalker: Some infernal instinct makes it much easier for you to locate creatures whose blood you have drawn. You gain a +4 trait bonus on Survival checks made to track or follow a trail so long as you have dealt damage to the creature you are hunting within the last week.
Unearth Secrets: You have a gift for recognizing secret desires. You gain a +2 trait bonus on Sense Motive checks when trying to get a hunch that might reveal a target’s hidden vice, dark impulse, or any other craving it would not want publicly revealed.
Div-Spawn(Spitespawn)
An innate sense of jealousy and pure malice drives spitespawn to spread misery and despair. Unable to experience joy themselves, they devote their lives to promoting gloom, all the while hiding the hatefulness that lurks at their core.
Div-Spawn
Ancestry Div
Typical Alignment NE
Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Cha, –2 Int
Alternate Skill Modifiers Diplomacy, Linguistics
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Spitespawn gain misdirection as a spell-like ability.
The ultimate false friends, spitespawn never feel true pleasure or happiness. The closest they can manage is a certain measure of smug satisfaction when they drive others to frustration and despair.
Spitespawn often have a noticeable abnormality relating to their skin and, in some rare cases, their tongues.Blotches, unusual skin pigmentation, and pelts of thick hair are all subtle signs of div ancestry, but the truly deformed can sport even more bizarre traits including mobile bulges that lurk beneath the skin like burrowing insects, or unusally dry flesh that constantly sheds layers of unsightly dust.
Spitespawn are most often encountered in areas where both genies and divs are common, including the lands of Jalmeray, Katapesh, Kelesh, Qadira, and Vudra. Regardless of where they are born and raised, almost all spitespawn must travel far away from their homelands at some point,as their scams and treacheries inevitably catch up to them and force them to move on to places where they can make a fresh start and find new victims.
Traits
The following are race traits for spitespawn.
Buried Anxiety: You laugh at what makes others tremble,but are secretly disturbed by a particular sort of mundane item. Pick a specific sort of object, color, sound, or similar relatively common phenomena. You gain a +2 trait bonus on saving throws made to resist fear effects except when you can see, hear, smell, or taste that which unnerves you.
Shift the Blame: You have learned many tricks to keep yourself from facing the consequences of your misdeeds.You gain a +1 trait bonus on Bluff and Diplomacy checks made to convince someone that another person is actually at fault for your actions.
Kyton-Spawn(Shackleborn)
Shackleborn are fascinated by mutilation and torture. Though they prefer to practice their cruel art on others, they accept that sometimes the wheel must turn and greet their own moments of anguish and confinement with an odd serenity.
Kyton-Spawn
Ancestry Kyton
Typical Alignment LE
Ability Modifiers +2 Con, +2 Cha, –2 Wis
Alternate Skill Modifiers Escape Artist, Intimidate
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Shackleborn gain web as a spelllike ability.
Like their kyton ancestors, shackleborn possess a reckless cruelty that makes them truly terrifying when they get the upper hand in a dispute. They embrace agony as an essential truth, and believe submitting to pain is the ultimate destiny of all living things. Shackleborn seldom kill an opponent if given a chance to capture one alive, and they rarely go anywhere without tools to bind and torture victims.
Shackleborn are often born with their skin already mutilated, a garish embroidery of white and purple scars covering their flesh from head to toe. Though this certainly makes them stand out, normally only the most discerning and well-traveled passersby connect these persons with kytons. The irresistible allure of pain compels shackleborn to add to their collection of scars as they age, and many graduate to branding, piercing, and tattooing over time.
Cheliax plays host to a respectable number of shackleborn.Nidal boasts a number of kyton-born as well; the native Kuthites regard the shadowy tieflings as gifts from their dark patron. Rumors, never confirmed, claim that the priests of Razmir sometimes employ kyton torturers to persuade doubtful acolytes, and their carnal appetites have supposedly produced a small colony of shackleborn trained from birth to serve the living god.
Traits
The following are race traits for shackleborn.
Chain Master: Your fiendish ancestry has granted you unnatural skill with the chain, and your enemies know to stay away when you wield it as a weapon. You gain a +2 trait bonus on combat maneuver checks made to trip opponents with a spiked chain or whip.
Pain Artist: Some trace of your kyton heritage makes people realize you are capable of anything, especially when they are bound and at your mercy. You gain a +2 trait bonus on Intimidate checks made against helpless creatures.
Oni-Spawn(Hungerseed)
Endowed with brawny muscles and thick bones, hungerseed always seem poised to explode into some larger, more powerful form, and have a voracious appetite for sensory pleasures and carnal delights.
Oni-Spawn
Ancestry Oni
Typical Alignment LE
Ability Modifiers +2 Str, +2 Wis, –2 Cha
Alternate Skill Modifiers Disguise, Intimidate
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Hungerseed gain alter self as a spelllike ability.
Oni-spawn are natural bullies who prefer to use threats and force to get what they want rather than persuasion or tact. At best, such brashness tends to win them lackeys rather than actual friends. If thwarted by someone more powerful, hungerseed brood and bide their time, waiting for the perfect moment to stage a bloody rematch. Onispawn always hunger for more bodily pleasures; they share the voracious appetites of their fiendish antecedents, and take immense delight in experiences of the flesh, whether that means food, sex, violence, or other tactile sensations.
Hungerseed are usually extremely tall and bulky when compared to untainted humans. Similar to their oni ancestors, they appear ready to burst out of their flesh into some more monstrous form. When hungerseed experience strong emotions, their muscles bulge and shift, almost seeming to expand as they hold themselves back. Some individuals possess tusks that protrude from their mouths,and young hungerseed often delight in using their powerful teeth to rip into living birds or other small animals.
Though hungerseed appear all across Golarion,especially in the wilder regions, they are most common in Tian Xia, the homeland of the oni. Belkzen and Cheliax also have a scattering of oni-spawn in their midst, usually descendants of ogre magi mercenaries and warlords.
Traits
The following are race traits for hungerseed.
Big Boned: Your ancestors’ great size has gifted you with an exceptionally sturdy frame. You gain a +1 trait bonus on combat maneuver checks made to overrun opponents, as well as a +1 trait bonus to your CMD against trip attempts.
Superior Clutch: Your hands not only are bigger than normal, but also have a strong grip useful for wielding large weapons. You gain a +1 trait bonus on damage rolls when using weapons intended for creatures of a larger size.
Qlippoth-Spawn(the Motherless)
No woman survives the birth of a babe whose qlippoth ancestry has emerged. At best, qlippoth-spawn rip their mothers apart during labor. At worst, they tear themselves out even earlier.
Qlippoth-Spawn
Ancestry Qlippoth
Typical Alignment CE
Ability Modifiers +2 Str, +2 Wis, –2 Int
Alternate Skill Modifiers Escape Artist,Survival
Alternate Spell-Like Ability The motherless gain blur as a spelllike ability.
Like their qlippoth forebears, the motherless instinctively despise mortals and their sins, but rather than turning them toward a path of virtue, such scorn instead drives qlippoth-spawn toward bitterness and cynicism. By their reckoning, hypocrisy and sin rule the mortal heart, and thus all mortals deserve little more than extinction. Jaded and leery loners, they see treachery and deceit behind every action, and prefer to stab others in the back before they themselves are betrayed. Perhaps because they have never felt the bond between a mother and her child, qlippoth-spawn are almost always incapable of love, trust, or affection.
The motherless always display their bizarre deformities at birth. Covered in barbed tentacles, oozing tumors,crudely shaped and stunted appendages, pieces of carapace, or other defects that seem more appropriate for insects and other lower life forms, those who survive their early years learn the true meaning of rejection.
One of the rarest of all the tiefling heritages, the motherless tend to arise in clusters of half a dozen or so births occurring over roughly the same time period in a village or town. Such infestations are as quick to dissipate as they are to appear, and while somewhat more common near the Worldwound, such outbreaks are still infrequent.
Traits
The following are race traits for the motherless.
Repel Sin: You have an instinctive revulsion for the sins that led to the rise of demons and subsequent downfall of qlippoth. You gain a +2 trait bonus on saving throws made against spells and effects with the evil descriptor.
Vile Kiss: You have learned how to exploit the natural disgust you provoke when in close proximity to others.You gain a +2 trait bonus on combat maneuver checks to perform a dirty trick combat maneuver for the purpose of making your opponent sickened.
Rakshasa-Spawn(Beastbrood)
Beastbrood regard themselves as deserving of appreciation and opulence. Through deceit and sheer willpower, they often achieve privileged stations in society.
Rakshasa-Spawn
Ancestry Rakshasa
Typical Alignment LE
Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Cha, –2 Wis
Alternate Skill Modifiers Disguise,Sense Motive
Alternate Spell-Like Ability Beastbrood gain detect thoughts as a spell-like ability.
Like their rakshasa ancestors, beastbrood have a taste for luxury and the finer things in life. Predisposed toward arrogance, beastbrood believe that they innately deserve affluence and find any station below that of royalty beneath them. Despite their haughty demeanor, beastbrood typically possess a natural charm that actually causes others to often grant them the deference they consider their birthright. Unless playing a role, beastbrood always act like aristocrats,and usually, they get treated as such.
Beastbrood usually develop their distinctive traits after childhood, often sometime during adolescence. Such attributes usually hint at an animalistic nature, including slit pupils, fangs, or coats of fur. Unlike most tieflings, beastbrood rarely feel a sense of isolation. Even their bestial features, sleek and well groomed, usually grant them a feral glamor instead of leading to revulsion.
Beastbrood are most common in Vudra, where rakshasas are more prevalent, but many leave their homeland for better prospects abroad as soon as possible. Vudran folklore has far too many stories about rakshasas to allow their half-blooded offspring to achieve the lavish lifestyle they seek, and most Vudrans oust beastbrood as soon as they are discovered. In other lands, where they are regarded as merely novel instead of cultural bugaboos, beastbrood find it much easier to attain the opulence they crave.
Traits
The following are race traits for beastbrood.
Bent Body: While nothing is actually reversed, your bones and limbs are slightly out of alignment. You gain a +2 trait bonus to CMD when resisting grapple attempts.
Tough Skin: You retain a small amount of your ancestors’unyielding skin. You gain a +1 trait bonus to AC when opponents attempt to confirm critical hits with either bludgeoning or slashing weapons.
