[SPOILERS] Are Bhaalspawn technically Tieflings?

Buttercheese

I mean, if you think about it. At least the human ones, elves would be Fey'ri, half-orcs would be half-tiefling-half-tanarruk (I can't find anything on other demihuman evil planetouched, I guess those happen too rarely to warrant their own name).

I have been reading up a lot on Planescape lore lately for ... reasons ... and found out that Tieflings are the offspring of basically an evil outsider, including deities. (Up to that point I thought it only counted demons, devils and night hags.)

Bhaal is an evil deity so I guess his descendants are are tieflings?
Though of course tieflings tend to be a few generations removed from their fiendish ancestor.

My own hypothesis on this is that because Bhaal's main avatar, the Slayer (the canon one, not the ones from the games, I don't know what that one is), "looked like a human male corpse with a feral face, ivory-white skin, and deep lacerations that endlessly wept black ichor that vanished before it struck anything." (From AD&D Faiths and Avatars).
So basically what he looked like in SoD. Which is still very humanoid, so there probably wouldn't be too many funky tiefling mutations going on.

But then you have cases like Sarevok who's eyes glow golden, which looks like a proper tiefling trait to me. Also the special spell-like abilities CHARNAME can gain throughout the story?

While I do try to do my research as best as possible, I am still hardly an expert, so I'd appreciate it if people could bring in some more (counter-)evidence on the matter.

Toodles ~

JumboWheat01

Bhaal is a deitiy, tieflings have devil/demons in their background. Those things are certainly powerful, but they're no god. The closest connection tieflings have to deities is during the 4e Era where Asmodeus (who became a god during that time,) said all tieflings are connected to him in some way, and thus they changed into their more stable, modern design where tieflings look quite similar to one another.

I couldn't even say that they were more like aasimar, which have celestials in their background, but once again, still not deities.

Bhaalspawn are more akin to Hercules, half-mortals who had a bit of divine kinkiness in their background. They're part god. It's probably lessened since Bhaal turned into a *insert race here* instead of just using divine power to impregnate someone.

Vallmyr

I mean, according to her research then evil deities can create tieflings. At least that seems to be the case in AD&D. As far as my 5th edition knowledge goes I can't find anything to disprove the theory.

Buttercheese

JumboWheat01 said:

Bhaal is a deitiy, tieflings have devil/demons in their background.

From 3.5's "Races of Faerûn":


Says just servant of an evil deity. Another book had a list about different deity tiefling offsprings, such as Lolth, been trying to find that one again.

Also, the halfling equivalent of Tieflings are Wispling, I was just told.

Kamigoroshi

Tieflings &Co. in AD&D Planescape weren't limited to come from human stock. Encountering a stocky dwarf-like earth ganasi was just as likely as an leany elf-like aasimar, goblin-ish fire genasi, or a gnoll tiefling whose great grandda was Yeenoghu himself. All of them had the abilities of their supernatural lineage though, with only the body shape of their parents. (Just like the god-like from PoE.)

There were even talks about aasimar with the lineage of neutral and evil deities. Think their description in either IwDII or NwN2 spoke of it.

deltago

Buttercheese said:

Vallmyr said:

I mean, according to her research then evil deities can create tieflings. At least that seems to be the case in AD&D. As far as my 5th edition knowledge goes I can't find anything to disprove the theory.

JumboWheat01 said:

Bhaal is a deitiy, tieflings have devil/demons in their background.

From 3.5's "Races of Faerûn":


Says just servant of an evil deity. Another book had a list about different deity tiefling offsprings, such as Lolth, been trying to find that one again.

Also, the halfling equivalent of Tieflings are Wispling, I was just told.

I like the research of this tremendously, the only flaw I can see is that Baldur's Gate is 2nd Edition, not later.
If 2e rules stated tieflings could come from a deity, then I'd be game to completely agree.

ThacoBell

I want to make a wispling charname now

JumboWheat01

"Wispling" makes me think that it's a halfling on a diet. Which amuses me to a degree.

ThacoBell

It looks like wispling should be fairly easy to homebrew. I just need to make a halfling with silver/gold hair. +2 dex/chr seems a little extreme for 2ed. Probably gonna dial that back.

Kamigoroshi

ThacoBell said:

It looks like wispling should be fairly easy to homebrew. I just need to make a halfling with silver/gold hair. +2 dex/chr seems a little extreme for 2ed. Probably gonna dial that back.

More like a halfing with red hair and brown skin, if Forgotten Realms wiki is to be trusted. Racial ability scores are halved when translating 3rd edition races into AD&D. Resulting in +1 DEX/CHR.

Although, I personally would still give them -2 STR to balance things out. Given that even the official AD&D tieflings had -1 STR, +1 DEX, -1 WIS and +1 CHR. If wisplings are handled differently to the standard tieflings, then I'd imagine they should be weaker. Not stronger.

ThacoBell

@Kamigoroshi At least for the 3.5e information I can find. They have silver/gold hair with pointed teeth, and are frail but surprisingly strong. I kicked back the dex/chr bonuses to 1 but kept the con penalty. I feel like reducing strength goes against the "surprisingly strong aspect" But I don't feel bad for keeping it standard, as I don't know a good way to implement the racial special abilities. Why give full penalties if I can't give full bonuses? Will definitely check your link though.

*EDIT* Looks like the D&D wiki disagrees with the Forgotten realms wiki. I wonder if they are pulling from different editions? These don't even sound like the same race.

Kamigoroshi

@ThacoBell Look at the bottom of the D&D wiki page: that 3.5th edition wispling is a homebrew variant. So of course it will differ from the official source.

Wispling apparently are only listed within the 3rd edition Fiend Folio.

ThacoBell

Kamigoroshi said:

@ThacoBell Look at the bottom of the D&D wiki page: that 3.5th edition wispling is a homebrew variant. So of course it will differ from the official source.

Wispling apparently are only listed within the 3rd edition Fiend Folio.

Huh, missed that. Man, that will make finding a portrait MUCH easier.

Vallmyr

NEVER USE D&D WIKI
It's FILLED with homebrew GARBAGE. I have the website blacklisted.

Edit: As a DM I HATE that website since players think it's legit and ask about using content there too often.

DrakeICN

Vallmyr said:

NEVER USE D&D WIKI
It's FILLED with homebrew GARBAGE. I have the website blacklisted.

Edit: As a DM I HATE that website since players think it's legit and ask about using content there too often.

Because the official stuff is NEVER stupid;
http://www.somethingawful.com/dungeons-and-dragons/epic-level-insanity/4/

ThacoBell

DrakeICN said:

Vallmyr said:

NEVER USE D&D WIKI
It's FILLED with homebrew GARBAGE. I have the website blacklisted.

Edit: As a DM I HATE that website since players think it's legit and ask about using content there too often.

Because the official stuff is NEVER stupid;
http://www.somethingawful.com/dungeons-and-dragons/epic-level-insanity/4/

Is it bad that I think thats really neat?

Notabarbiegirl

Bhaal was originally a man before attaing "godhood" So no, his offspring are not tieflings, unless he mated with a tiefling, thus the child getting the mothers race, like the rest of the kiddos, including the evil fluff near the Fire giant lair.

" the Lord of Murder, was originally a mortal and one of the Dead Three. Along with Bane and Myrkul, Bhaal took the portfolios of the ancient deity Jergal" ease of reference link: (http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Bhaal)