Tieflings of Lingusia in Old-School Essentials

Returning to Old-School Essentials has proved very inspiring to me. I may finally have found the system that will let me return to publishing content and ideas for my campaign worlds. Here's some stuff now in fact!

Tieflings of Lingusia

   Tieflings in Lingusia are surprisingly common, an enigmatic race of men and women with clear infernal or abyssal ancestry. The exact origins of a specific tiefing depends largely on ancestry, but the following are common; these are available as optional background paths for your character:

Ancient Bloodlines of Hyrkania

   Many tieflings come from cursed families. These families, often Galonian or Hyrkanian, find that their bloodline suffers corruption every eight or nine generations, and sometimes more often, especially if a family member angers a witch or hag near birth. The suspicion is that such families may have been tainted in some way by the corruption of outsiders in the distant past. A more pragmatic expectation is that these are families descended from the era of the Old Empire and the time when the War of the Gods transpired. During that period a veritable army of demons descended upon the mortal plane, and that which the demons did not kill, they defiled. Like as not, even in families where infernal offspring were slain, the taint lingered forever more within the bloodlines themselves.

Purebloods

   Less common are pure-bloods who find that one or both parents were possessed at some point or under the influence of evil outsiders. These tiefling offspring appear unexpectedly, unless the possessors are in it for the long haul, and this can be quite a surprise to the parents (sometimes).

Dark Heritage of Kadantania

   A handful of tieflings can lay claim to the heritage of lost Kadantania. This sorcerous empire ruled for two thousand years in the Jungles of Amech, during which the repulsive sorcerers of this lost kingdom struck a pact with the infernal devils of the Nine Hells, the domain of order dominated by Set and other evil gods of order. The Kadantanians sought to emulate the power of the lost Prehunates (the ancient prehuman demigods of old), but in their hubris they dug too deep into the dark arts, condemning their entire lineage to infernal corruption. All of the old noble bloodlines of lost Kadantania touched by darkness to become tieflings. Many tiefling clans to this day claim such heritage, and a few still believe Kadantania lives on in the lost city of Ur, where fabulous inheritance and incredibly dark magic awaits them if they can but find it.

The Tieflings of Starthias

   The vile domain of Starthias along the eastern continental shores of the Bloodsea is a new proving ground, for it is here that a new era of power-seeking fools have made infernal pacts with the devils and demons demons within the last two generations, transforming their kind in to tieflings. The overlord of Starthias, the dark sorcerer-king Anharak, has encouraged his people to seek power at all costs; his exodus to the Silver Mountains in the west caused a power-gap in the kingdom, which has already come close to shattering the eastern empire with civil war.

   Tieflings from Starthias are the most dangerous of all, for their corruption is recent, and their belief in its utility as a means to an end is absolute and deeply corrupting. They lack the humility of the Kadantanian tieflings, or the fear of the bloodline-descended tieflings.

Tieflings in the Middle Kingdoms

   Life can be very hard for these half demons and half devils. Some get lucky enough to find small communities of their kind, a kindly wizard to take them in as apprentices, or a demonic parent who finds the novelty of a child too compelling to resist. Most tieflings are raised as ambivalent, hateful beings, but a few get lucky and grow up surprisingly balanced and “normal.”

   Tieflings are sometimes familiar with both their extraplanar and their mortal parents, but many can only guess at such, having been abandoned at the doorsteps of wizard’s guilds and temples by horrified peasants. Wizards love tiefling orphans; they make excellent apprentices.

Tiefling Adventurers

Tieflings in OSE are found in Carcass Crawler Issue 3, which provides an extra layer of fine detail you can draw from, as wll as a racial class. What follows is the core details needed for Lingusian tieflings, in case you do not have access to CC#3. In brief:

Prerequisites: Tieflings are cunning and have a minimum intelligence of 9

Ability modifiers: +1 DEX, -1 WIS

Languages: Common and one other (may choose Infernal or Abyssal); Lingusia does not have alignment languages.

Class Limitations: Lingusian teiflings have no level limits and may belong to any class.

Special Traits: use the expanded rules in CC#3 or choose one of these options: darkness once/day; fire resistance (1/2 damage); fiery blood (melee attackers take ½ damage dealt from a melee strike that deals HP damage).

Unholy Beings: holy water deals damage to tieflings.

Infravision: tieflings have 60’ infravision.

Tiefling Random Heritage Chart (D20):

1-4         Kadantanian Lineage

5-8         Starthian Nobility

9-12       Ancient Hyrkanian Bloodline

13-16     Pureblood

17-20     Born of foul Witchcraft and Magic