Base: Tiefling
Simultaneously seperated from and tied to the Material Plane, tieflings are the long-distant progeny of fiends permanently stranded on this plane by one means or another. After eons of remaining seperate from the magics of their home plane, the strength of blood of these fiends have become diluted, resulting in a race of vaguely-fiendish humanoids. Though somewhat devilish in appearance, the modern tieflings of the Weeping Reaches have embraced the Material Plane as their home, now being well-integrated into settlements and societies across the region. Though the appearance of the average tiefling could certainly be described as shocking to someone who has never seen one, the colorations and features of the average tiefling are well-known in any integrated settlement.
In ages past, tieflings were commonly described as a listless, wandering people, rarely forming groups larger than a single immediate family unit. They were a race without a homeland, without a history. Areas like the Weeping Reaches became something of a series of promised lands for the tieflings of old, places where they could truly settle down and join a community. Thousands of years later, modern tieflings have largely freed themselves of their sense of loss for a home they never knew.
Tieflings, having come to appreciate their places on the Material Plane, have also come to enjoy adding to the aesthetic value of their surroundings. Many tieflings find themselves drawn to art, music, and theatre, while others choose crafting and/or magic as a means to add to the beauty of the world around them. Few tieflings enjoy hard work or manual labor, though they will studiously and dutifully apply themselves to a given task if it is in line with their creative passions.
Tiefling appearance has become less chaotic over the last several thousand years. The ancestors of modern tieflings had a much wider range of physical features, colorations, and fiendish properties, whereas modern tieflings have a more consistent set of features. Tieflings generally stand five to six feet tall, weighing on average between 150 and 250 pounds.
The most widely-known features of tieflings include: one or more pairs of head horns, sprouting from the forehead and curling around the sides of the head; pointed ears and generally angular facial features, like a slightly pointed nose, chin, and teeth; and a thin, short tail, roughly two feet long, occasionally tipped with a spade-shaped tip. Tieflings are usually a shade of dark blue or purple in color, though, rarely, deeper red shades have been known to manifest in some tiefling family lines. Their teeth, horns, and nails are generally a few shades lighter than their skin tone, and their eyes can vary widely in color, with mismatched eye color being fairly common amongst tieflings.
Tieflings rarely create their own settlements and holdings; instead, they prefer to settle among vibrant communities and in landscapes they find beautiful to look upon. Most insular societies of the Weeping Reaches region view tieflings as curiosities, but rarely with malevolence. Though some tieflings are troublemakers, the race is general is known to be honest, if eccentric.
Given that isolated tiefling communities are nearly entirely unheard of, there is no real tiefling culture to speak of. Their long history as lost wanderers did not leave time for the development of a unique culture during their eons of existential crisis. Tieflings will usually adopt the dominant social customs, religious practice, or cultural identities of the settlements and societies around them. Though many tieflings engage in this assimilation subconsciously and without the zeal of a true believer, some tieflings completely immerse themselves in their found culture as a measure of cementing their existence to their home town.
Tieflings as a whole are not known to form lasting friendships with any specific race; individuals of different temperments tend to form relationships, be they personal, business, or other forms, with like-minded persons regardless of race, religion, wealth, or social status. Though they are not above feigning friendship to meet their own ends, less duplicitous tieflings prefer to expend their energies on the honest camraderie of true friendship.
Mischevious, troublemaking tieflings are commonly found in the company of similarly shady ratfolk, harps, and goblins; good-natured pranksters often find friendship with local vanara or kitsune. Tieflings working as crafters or artisans make excellent colleagues and teachers, as they always have a ready compliment for works that please their eyes. Though popular tiefling entertainers may have any number of fans, such tieflings often find difficulty seperating themselves from their on-stage personas in ways that enable the forging of true relationships.
Despite their fiendish heritage, tieflings can be of any alignment. A rare few can fall prey to the dark desires of their ancestry, but modern tieflings are well-grounded in their life on the Material Plane and rarely follow such dark paths. The alignment of urban tieflings typically reflect the values of their chosen communities, though there are always individual tieflings who will follow their own path, regardless of upbringing.
There are fiendish deities and abyssal pantheons scattered throughout the cosmos, but they no longer share a connection with or count worshippers among the tiefling populous of the Material Plane. Even particularly evil tieflings rarely worship their abyssal forebears, instead focusing on gods of greed, stealth, or trickery, or worshipping deities whose tenets allow the tiefling in question to follow their own selfish desires. Tieflings commonly bond with the deities and pantheons of their childhood locality, either for the sake of appearances and convention, or, more rarely, as zealous ture believers.
Truly singular tieflings, usually lone adventurers or orphaned wanderers, strive to simply find their own path forward through life, and tend to adopt a very amoral, neutral worldview. Such travelers tend to eschew religion altogether, though, occasionally, a wandering tiefling with enough potential is approached by an enterprising deity with offer of patronage in exchange for service.
While tieflings have no claim to the degree of racial wanderlust other races, such as the lynix, but a number of them still take to the roaming life of an adventurerer as a means of escape, of finding unique experiences, of accuring wealth and fame, or perhaps simply because it sounded fun at the time.
Tieflings excell at stealth and espionage, and make excellent rogues, ninjas, and swashbucklers. Due to their bloodline, many magically-inclined tieflings become sorcerers of specific power. Most tieflings prefer to stay out of melee combat, launching spells and volleys from a distance while sturdier comrades engage the enemy.
Allizsah, Baru, Dellisar, Indranna, Kasidra, Kilarra, Maldrek, Mellisan, Molos, Mordren, Nisha, Sarvin, Shoremoth, Temerith, Voren, Zoren.