Tieflings in Mystara
Joe Mason
http://thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=507#p4841)
A while ago we were talking about adapting Tieflings to Mystara, and
the consensus was that if you didn't want to modify the world to make
them a major part of it, you could still allow them as a player option
by saying that the Tiefling homeland is off in one of the unmapped
areas, and any player that wants to play a Tiefling is a wanderer far
from home.
But over the weekend I read over the 4e adventures in Dungeon #155,
and I realized that new 4e adventures are going to be chock full of
Tieflings, often treated as unremarkable members of society, so
treating them this way means you give up all chance of using new
material (or at least it will be a lot of extra work to adapt). So I
think it would be worthwhile to come up with a better defined role for
Tieflings in Mystara.
The obvious thing to do is duplicate the standard Tiefling background
with the names changed, by adding a new fallen human empire. The
problem with this is that Mystara already has several fallen human
empires, so adding another one is a lot of duplication, especially if
"this one's where the Tieflings come from" is the only hook. Another
problem is that just dropping the standard 4e flavor into Mystara
unchanged doesn't make very good use of the setting.
Here's a suggestion for a standard Tiefling with a Mystaran twist:
We know that the Nithian Empire extended a long way south and west of
modern Ylaruam. Let's say that it also extended north over what's now
the Heldann Freeholds, perhaps even as far as southern Norwold. This
area was called Sakaria (from the RW Sakkara, but softened slightly to
make the Nithian connection less obvious). As the worship of death
spread over Nithia, it took hold in Sakaria as well, but before the
end the local rulers and priests rebelled and turned away from the
death cult. The Immortals' curse fell on Nithia, obliterating the
empire and all memory of it, but Sakaria was spared. The Sakarians
memories were modified by the Immortal spell so that as far as anyone
could remember the Heldann area was the seat of the independant
Sakarian Empire, not merely a Nithian province.
However, Ranivorus was angered that his followers had abandoned him in
order to save themselves, and enacted his own spell on the Sakarians,
cursing their bodies to twist into bestial and demonic forms. The
Sakarian Empire lasted a generation longer than the Nithian, but
Ranivorus' curse caused it too to fall. Nowadays the ruins of an
ancient civilization dot the Heldann Freeholds, and local legend says
that it was once a powerful empire which was cursed because it
abandoned its gods. The farmers and herdsmen who live there now shun
these ruins, and point to this, and to the plight of the local
Tiefling population as an example of the folly of submitting to a
ruler's yoke. (Once the Heldannic Knights gain power they will
doubtless start a systematic campaign to explore and plunder them.)
Mystaran Tieflings are based in the Heldann Freeholds, where they are
able to live apart from others, but after the fall of Sakaria many
moved away from the area hoping to escape the curse and established
settlements throughout the rest of the Known World. This history means
that gnolls and other worshippers of Ranivorus are a special enemy of
"apostate" Tieflings, but Ranivorus is constantly trying to corrupt
them and lead them back into the fold so there are many who follow
him. It also adds some nice colour to the Heldann area, with modern
independant folk settling between and among the relics of an ancient
civilization. It provides another point of entry into the Nithian
mystery, whose main problem has always been that if the Immortals
really obliterated all memory of it how can players find out the
history of any relics they find - now they can find connections to the
Sakarian Empire, whose fate is well known, and then discover that this
was really just a small part of a much larger empire. And it gives the
Tieflings a better connection to existing Mystaran concepts.
I came up with this while making notes on adapting the adventure
Heathen, which takes place in the default 4E setting: a borderlands
area of scattered towns where there was once a human empire. This
background works well for both Tieflings in general and this adventure
in particular, so adopting will give a good path to adapting any 4E
material that uses the "fallen empire of Nerath" as a background
detail" - set it in the Heldann Freeholds and use the Sakarian Empire
as a replacement for Nerath.
A second option uses even more Mystaran concepts - use Diaboli
instead. They can have the same stats as 4e Tieflings, but the
background is that several years ago (long enough for them to become
known but not too common) a large clan of Diaboli was driven from
their home by a great crisis, so dire that the only way to escape it
forever was to flee not just their home plane but their home universe.
In a harrowing journey they managed to cross the dimensional barrier
and settle on Mystara. We know that Diabolus explorers are
occasionally found in the Astral Plane and the Outer Planes, so they
know how to cross from the Dimension of Nightmares to our world, and
they fit many of the Tiefling characteristics - they look like demons,
but they aren't evil although they have an alien viewpoint and are
easily misunderstood. Since Diaboli find inhabitants of our world just
as frightening as we find them, the psychology of a Diabolus
adventurer would be intriguingly different from a Tiefling, but they
still fill much the same role - shunned and distrusted by the
superstitious, but enough of them have proved themselves heroic that
most people know they aren't evil demons despite their looks.
This definitely gives a uniquely Mystaran twist on the "Tiefling", but
it doesn't really explain why Diaboli would have spread throughout the
Known World instead of staying in one community after arriving on
Mystara. Perhaps several rival clans were all forced to flee through
the same portal and as soon as they arrived, their hatred of each
other forced them to spread out and put a lot of distance between
them. They may also have wanted to move away from their arrival point
(which they would have kept strictly secret from this world's
inhabitants) in case their mysterious enemy followed them through.
Also Diaboli have an urge to explore (or at least, enough of one that
they send exploration parties into this dimension) so they may have
been driven to explore this new world despite the benefits of keeping
to themselves in isolated communities.
Bonus points if the Diabolus landfall was far to the north, in the
Wyrmsteeth Range, and was accompanied by a trauma which caused many of
the indigenous dragonborn to move south as well, explaining their
presence in the Known World too.
Siroh
my approach is similar to the first one, that does bring up an
interesting point. Superficially, tieflings and diaboli resemble each
other. They have the same number of limbs, and they both have horns
and a deep skin tone that is nothing like that of the other mortal
races. Would a Diaboli look at a Tiefling as only slightly repulsive,
or do they literally see things in Mystara differently, causing them
to reject all native lifeforms as scary simply because to them, they
are. As if a great illusion lies over everything and warps the
impression given.
I must admit I went with the easy road for both Tieflings and
Dragonborn. They were created by Immortals (the former, by the Great
One, the latter by corrupting humans). I put the Dragonborn in Brun
and the Tieflings in Davania. At the height of their empires the
Tieflings sought to put strongholds in Brun, but soon encountered the
Dragonborn, and they had a cataclysmic war leading to their mutual
fall. The empires were moved to the Hollow World, but scattered
pockets of the people survived (much how there are people of Alphatian
ancestry who were living in colonies). I left the names of the empires
the same primarily because it allows more stuff to be slotted into the
game from official stories without contradiction, and I don't have to
convert that part of a module when I do it.
On Jul 9, 11:43 am, "Joe Mason" <j...@notcharles.ca> wrote:
> (Also posted on the Piazza athttp://thepiazza.org.uk/bb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=507#p4841)