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Make Your Tieflings Fiendish

You’re a tiefling. According to the Player’s Handbook in 5th edition, you are a descendent of someone who struck a pact with Asmodeus (or as of Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, one of the other archdevils), but in older editions of the game ‘tiefling’ just meant you were fiend-descended. Any fiend. As cambions are canonically half-fiend individuals, it follows that tieflings, as humanoids and no longer fiends, would be quarter-fiends or less, meaning a grandparent was a fiend. So I started thinking about what a tiefling would look like as a descendant of any fiend from the Monster Manual, and here we are. Maybe you wanted something a little stranger, a little less humanoid, or maybe you just wanted to think about how you might not want to be a human with an exciting palette swap and some horns. Granted, there are some of those in here, but they’re minority. What if your grandparent was a…

Cambion? You’re a bit watered down. Brick-red skin and the barest stumps of horns, maybe a tail, just wrapped down your leg as it isn’t long enough to wear through your trousers. Comely thing, though, like as not, if you’re incubus or succubus-bred. Might even have the stumps of wings on you, if you get unlucky, leaving you bent-backed. If you’re one of Graz’zt’s lot, you’re not some misshapen freak, though- got the look of your father about you, black-skinned with smooth dark hair and six fingers to a hand.

Balor Demon? You’re likely a big one. Brawny or thick through the stomach and trunk, with a red tint to your skin, either strong or faint. If you’ve horns, they’re straight out the sides of your temples, and if your grandparent’s blood runs strong, your eyes and throat might glow like a fire burns within. Your hair’s light, white or blonde or gray, and it’s quite the mane- it tangles and snarls, never cooperating and breaking combs.

Barlgura Demon? You’re built broad across the shoulders, with fiery red hair and dark skin, maybe as dark as a bruise, maybe as dark as a human might get. Your face still shows your grandparent’s mark, with a prominent brow and broad jaw, maybe even a bit of an underbite. Your legs are likely a bit on the short side, but your torso makes up the difference. There’s a grace to you, smooth and swinging steps.

Chasme Demon? You’re probably not lovely to look at. Bruise-colored blue skin, a nose like a beak, and maybe as much as a pair of dark compound eyes tell the tale of your blood. You’ve a high hairline, receding being the polite way to put it. However, between segmented limbs and freakishly flexible joints, you’re like as not as fast as you are strong. If you have wing stumps, they’re barely noticeable- if you have wings, they’re easy enough to tuck under a shirt, and too weak to carry you anyway. More than anything, your voice drones and buzzes- might be hypnotic and fascinating, or it might be boring and monotone.

Dretch Demon? You’re a stump of a thing, with skin like sludge on a bad day or olives on a good one. Balding from teenagerhood with a face like a brick wall slapped you, short and stout is the way of your life. However, that stature hides muscle, and despite your stoutness, you have the power and speed of a larger tiefling.

Glabrezu Demon? You’re big, built with a narrow waist and broad shoulders. If you’ve horns, they sweep up and back from your brow, and if you have fangs, they’re longer on your bottom jaw. Your arms are huge and you might have fused fingers or huge black nails, but either way you’ve your grandparent’s main arms. If you have a second set of arms, and you may, they’re short and useless, and you’d better wrap them around yourself or get them lopped off. Your skin is rust or brick-colored on your back.

Goristro Demon? You’re huge, with hunched shoulders and a stout back. Your head bows, either from the shape of your spine of the bunch of your shoulder. If you’re not furred in brick-colored hair, your own mane grows long and thick down the back of your neck. Your feet are certainly cloven hooves, and your teeth sharp and long. You very definitely have horns, and they sweep out and forward like a bull’s or minotaur’s. Getting lost feels like something that happens to other people, not to you.

Hezrou Demon? You have a face like a toad, wide-eyed and wide-mouthed, with broad, flat teeth. Your abdomen’s stout and wide, and your thighs are thick and muscled. Your skin’s rusty red and warty, pebbled at best, and you might stand almost as wide as you do tall. Toads are survivors though, and you likely are too. Scars aplenty are lost in your pebbled hide, and those that can be seen are the most impressive of the lot.

Manes Demon? You look like a rotting corpse. Bald, lumpy and misshapen, your grandparent did you few favors by managing to reproduce.

Marilith Demon? Your body is likely long and sinuous, and you have patches of scales here and there. If your grandparent’s blood flows strong, your legs are scaled from hip to toe. If it flows stronger still, you might’ve been born with vestigial arms of your own, second and third pairs sprouting from the sides of your ribs. Your coordination is stunning, and you are likely as not ambidextrous.

Nalfeshnee Demon? You have a face like a brick, long and square with a lantern jaw and a low brow. You’re probably furred about the forearms and shins, and might even have cloven hooves for feet. If you’ve a tail, it’s like a rat’s, long and thin and best worn wrapped around your leg under your trousers. You’re built broad, not necessarily muscular but big, potentially with fat. Nauseating light plays over your features whenever you try to put the scare on someone.

Quasit Demon? You’re not tall, and may even be Small sized. You have a face only slightly less ratlike than your ancestor’s, with big black eyes and pointed ears. Your horns are tall and curve gently out and back in, like a set of parenthesis. Your skin’s likely either dark green or pale fishbelly white or both, darker on your back and lighter on the stomach. If you have a tail, it’s long and sinuous, and probably too lively to keep in your trousers- it demands to wave free of its own accord.

Shadow Demon? Your skin is midnight black or the subtle dark purple of deep shadow, and you may seem indistinct about the edges in the dark. You’re slender and tall, stretched like a shadow in a light, and your fingers likely taper to sharp, bony nails. Your horns, if you have them, are high and curve gently back from your forehead for a bit, before taking a sharp curve backward.

Vrock Demon? Your head is bald and bony, not horned so much as barbed about the crown. Your nose is long and hooked, and your limbs gangly and lean. Your skin is likely some shade of bluish-violet or some variation thereof, and you may have dirty grey or white feathers forming a cowl about your shoulders and neck. You likely smell musty, and your voice barks and screeches rather than flowing smoothly.

Yochlol Demon? Your appearance might be many different ways. If you’re fortunate, you have the look of the drow about you, with a slight frame, dark skin, and light hair; only a faint, waxy yellow tint to your eyes might bely your heritage. However, if you’re less fortunate, you take after your grandparent in their natural form. In this case, you’re a crude, misshapen creature, with limbs of different lengths and waxy yellow skin. Your eyes are red, but one or the other may dim with age. In either case, spiders flock to you for reasons beyond your explanation.

Barbed Devil? You’re a slender creature, with long limbs and a long, sinuous tail. Like your forebear, you likely have dark olive-green skin, large ears, and larger than usual hands. If you have your grandfather’s barbs, they are short, more like additional fingernails jutting from here and there on your skin, and they may prove to be more a nuisance than protection or distinction.

Bearded Devil? Your main feature, naturally, is your beard. It’s thick and tangled, barbed and twisted. It has a tendency to writhe of its own accord, and binding it down may be the only way to stop it from doing so. Your skin is a dark purple, and you have the sort of grizzled constitution that a soldier should- the lean and hardened look of one who survives hardship as a matter of course.

Bone Devil? You’re stark and emaciated, both in appearance and perhaps in temperament. Your skin is likely pale and sits tight against your bones; if you are strong, you’re wiry and lean, not bulky. Your tail, if you have one, is long and skeletal, and is capped by a barb like a scorpion’s. Long, fearsome teeth and drawn, even sharp and pointed cheekbones lend your face a striking aspect.

Chain Devil? Your skin, where it can be seen and is unmarked, is a burnt orange or red color. However, little of it is unmarked, as you were born with the marks of your ancestor’s chains- scars and burns as though your flesh has been chafed and lashed by chains, even if you have never felt their touch. You might feel inclined to cover your face at all times, another vestige of your ancestor’s influence.

Erinyes Devil? You could be mistaken for aasimar. The only indications to the otherwise are the cruelty in your face- rather than warmth and compassion, the lines of your jaw, your cheeks, and your brow bespeak a contempt even if you do not feel it. Your skin is one of many hues, but it’s unblemished and smooth, and your features symmetrical and your hair fine and rich. Your eyes betray you- blood red irises indicate your true grandparent.

Horned Devil? You’re most impressive for your horns. Broad and curving out and to the sides, they bely your ancestor’s nature. Your skin is mustard-yellow to dark tan, and you’re well-muscled and proportioned, with little fat. Your tail is long and slender, with a hooked barb at the tip- it’s too dull to be used in combat, but it proclaims your heritage. You have shoulders muscled for wings and may even have vestigial ones in true- if so, they’re likely cumbersome to wear beneath armor.

Ice Devil? You have either a cold bluish tint to your skin or the exoskeleton of a great insect- you’re always a little unnaturally cool to the touch either way. Your eyes are orange, either all the way through or only in the iris, and if it’s all the way through there’s a chance they’re compound like an insect’s eyes. Your legs may have an extra joint, a second knee bending the other direction; if so, your movements often have a sudden, jerking quality similar to that of a hunting insect on the prowl.

Imp Devil? You’re not tall, and may even be Small sized. Your skin is a bright red, and you are slender and perhaps slightly hunched under the weight of a wing’s worth of muscle in the shoulder. Your tail is segmented and ends in a sting like a scorpion, but it’s likely a small thing, and either vestigial or to be wrapped around your leg. Your eyes are yellow, and your horns short and pointed straight out from your forehead.

Lemure Devil? Your aspect is similar to that of a person-shaped candle, melted. You are likely hairless, and your skin has a rippled, waxy texture as though you have been a severe burn victim. You lack noteworthy definition across your neck and joints, resulting in a truly unfortunately blobby-looking person. Your grandparent reproducing was a mistake.

Pit Fiend? You are built for power, towering taller than average for your mortal parent’s race. Your horns are swept backward from the sides of your head, making you look pretty streamlined. Your skin’s pebbly and a rich red, and you’ve the same slightly hump-backed look of a lot of tieflings whose grandparent has wings. It doesn’t bother anyone none. If your grandparent’s blood really shows, you don’t have hair at all, the back of your head instead tapering into a particularly heavily ridged spine.

Spined Devil? You’ve got long, sleek spines or quills instead of or in addition to your hair. You’re slightly built, perhaps even thin or gangly, and your skin is somewhere between a very light lavender and a deep purple. Your eyes are fiery red or orange, and your mouth is wide and has two sets of extra slender canines.

Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu? You’re tricky to tell apart from a gnoll, because the only thing gnolls mate with instead of eating is other gnolls. The giveaway is your eyes- intelligent, not filled with madness. It’s a minor miracle you were born and a bigger one you survived long enough to be viable.

Night Hag? Your bruise-colored skin and long, wavy black hair are the most obvious signs of your different parentage. It takes getting quite close to you to spot the other differences: the remnants (or presence) of warts or blemishes on otherwise clear skin, a severely hooked nose, a mouthful of sharp and crooked teeth, and varying eye colors from red to yellow and all in between. Your nails might be really made of iron, or that might just be their natural color.

Hell Hound? You’ve got a dog head. Doberman-like is common, but so is only approximately like a normal dog; in either case, your eyes, throat, and the insides of your mouth and nostrils glow with faint orange light. Your hair is likely naturally short, dark, and wiry, and your toenails grow long and tough enough from pawed feet to use for traction. Your body is built long and lean like a distance runner, and if you have a tail it’s short and powerful, good for keeping your balance.

Nightmare? Your face is decidedly equine; even if you don’t have a literal horse head, you do have a long face with wide eyes. Your feet are hoofed like a horse’s, and your legs are especially hairy. As your skin is dark blue to black and your hair is bright like a flame, it stands out like a sore thumb. You’re built to cover a lot of ground very quickly, with a stout core and powerful legs.

Rakshasa? Your hands are likely abnormal in some way; whether they’re fully backward-facing like your grandparent’s, have thumbs on the wrong sides, or are simply double-jointed can vary. That aside, you might be mistaken for tabaxi, if your grandparent was the most typical sort of rakshasa. Your voice is smooth and pleasing to the ear, and you’re covered in patches of skin like your ancestor’s- fur if mammalian, scales if reptilian, and so on. Your feet likely match those of your animal semblance.

Succubus/Incubus? You appear almost entirely human, but your fiendish blood shows subtly in your attractiveness, which is certainly unnatural and borders on disturbing. Allure aside, the truth of your heritage is probably easiest to spot in the eyes- your eyes are subtly unusual in some way, be it a different coloration, unusual pupil shape, colored sclera, or some other aberration.

Arcanaloth Yugoloth? You’re furry, and have a keen look in your eyes that might make people think you’re up to something. Scheming face, for sure. You’re likely not full-on jackal-headed, but close-set eyes, a sharp nose, and a small mouth with a crooked grin suggest something’s up, and the patches of bristly golden fur tell their own story. You smell faintly of parchment.

Mezzoloth Yugoloth? You’re short and hunched, with purplish skin that reveals itself to be slightly resistant to the touch if it isn’t outright chitinous. Certainly you have your ancestor’s mouth, a chaos of mandibles and breath that smells strongly of chlorine. The hunched back isn’t for wings- there is a second set of shoulders there, even if you had to have the useless arms lopped off so you could wear normal shirts. Your feet might only have two toes, and your hands might be just two fingers opposing a thumb.

Nycaloth Yugoloth? You’re built broad, thick through the middle, shoulders, and thighs. Big boned would be polite but accurate- you mightn’t have worked a day in your life, but there’s a lazy bulk to the trunk of you. Your face isn’t too bad, with short straight horns up from your brow and wide, bat-like ears. Your skin is, though, a color between green and yellow that somehow is reminiscent of illness. If you have the stumps of wings, they’re too prominent to wear under a shirt- if you don’t, instead you might have bony black spurs all over your shoulders just like your ancestor.

Ultroloth Yugoloth? You’re easily mistaken for a doppelganger or changeling, with an ill-defined nose, a small mouth with thin lips, and large, yellow eyes. Whether you share your ancestor’s grey skin tone or not, you look noticeably inhuman. If you have hair, it’s light and fine; if not, your skin is smooth and unmarked, and always glistens faintly. If you try to convince someone of something, your eyes shine with a soothing light that’s oddly hypnotic- a remnant of a much more powerful ability your ancestor had.

See the second post here and the third post here.

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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Make Your Tieflings Fiendish (2)

Huh, that was unexpected. People liked the freaks with full-blooded fiends for grandparents. Well, Volo’s Guide to Monsters has some fiends in it too, so what if your grandparent was a…

Barghest? You’re a hairy one. Not everywhere, mind; just a big mane in some shade of gray, from dust to gunpowder, maybe a little extra on your arms and legs. Not your face, though; can’t grow a beard to save your life, nor to hide that snout or those canines. You’re built broad through the chest and shoulders, not necessarily bulky but big, and your eyes are an unmistakable lime-green. You might hate goblins, or love them, but you definitely have some feelings about them that tend toward the predatory. Fire feels like a trap to you, for reasons impossible to vocalize.

Babau Demon? You’re lanky as they come, long and thin even if you’re not tall, which you likely are. Your face and hands are skeletally thin or bony, hollow through the cheeks. If you’ve a tail, it’s stumpy and vestigial; if you’ve a horn, it curves straight up and over your head from your crown like a scorpion’s stinger. Likely as not there’s little hair to hide you, and your skin is on the dark side, if not utterly charcoal-black. Your eyes are light, grey or blue or green so washed out it’s hard to tell, and your gaze sends a shiver down the spine.

Maw Demon? Your mouth is a horror of long, sharp teeth; you probably lisp or hiss quite badly around your mouthful of knives. If you’re lucky, it doesn’t open straight up your face, ruining any chance you had to have a nose. If you’re not…well, who needs good looks? Your entire head and neck are built around that mouth, making you thick-necked and broad across the shoulders. Overall you’re likely short and stout to match so it doesn’t look out of place, with leathery skin some bluish-green. Your appetite appears to be bottomless, and you’ve probably never known a stomachache.

Shoosuva Demon? You look sick, or mangy, with patchy pale fur standing out against skin an unpleasant bruise color- blue-black, purple, or a fading, unhealthy yellow. You’ve no horns, but a set of spurs runs down your spine, making wearing armor and shirts tricky but not impossible. It’s the tail that really stands out, though, long and covered in bony burrs with a hard nail at the end- too long to hide under clothes, and too animated besides. Your face has something lean and hungry about it, and your eyes are either a normal amount of terribly bloodshot or solid red through the iris and sclera.

Devourer? Your ribcage is dreadful, a forest of extra bones that stick out no matter your attempts to hide them beneath fat and muscle. If your grandparent’s blood runs too true, you had a twin, once; their remains reach out from your chest, as subtle as a knot of bone like a skull on your sternum or as grotesque as a whole, small arm clawing forth as if escaping. The rest of you’s little to write home about; skin like a corpse, balding young if you have hair at all, and gnarls of spare bone at your elbows and knees give you a decidedly skeletal look.

Draegloth? You’re a bit watered down, huh? Night-black skin, pointed ears, and a lithe grace mark you as drow-descended, but the vestigial limbs coming from your ribs and the carnivore’s teeth tell all that there’s more to you than that. Certainly you’ve paws for feet, and if you don’t have a mane of long, silvery hair that grows down onto your back and shoulders, your hair is at least the right color and grows wherever it pleases. Your nails are tough to trim and grow quickly, but almost sharp enough to cut with.

Tanarukk? If you’re not a tanarukk yourself, you could be mistaken for one. You’re built big and broad like an orc, with huge horns that curve from behind your ears around forward. You might have thorny scales or smaller horns all over your body, or you may not; but in either case they’d be sprouting from slate-gray skin spotted with patches of course hair. Your temper is a beast that you struggle with, but unlike your grandparent you can reign it in- if you choose to.

Vargouille? Your most telling feature is your ears; they go beyond batlike into wing-like, and may need to be tied back so they don’t interfere with daily life. Your head looks like the best-developed part of you; you were likely born with fused or missing fingers or toes and ill-defined joints and musculature, as if your body below the neck just wasn’t as important as your face. You might be fanged or not, horned or not (and if you are, they’re barely nubs), and tentacled or not. If you have tentacles, they take your hair’s place, and might even prove a substitute for a full beard.

See the original post here and the third post here.

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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Make Your Tieflings Fiendish (3)

The final part of the project, for now. Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes gave us a huge assortment of fiends to work with, so what if your grandparent was one of them? I’m leaving off the demon lords and unique or archdevils on the basis of their being unique individuals, but that still leaves an absolute bestiary’s worth. So, what if your fiendish grandparent was a…

Akilith Demon? You’re either weedy and thin or absolutely massive, bulky like you grew to fill the space around you. Your skin looks greenish and mossy somehow, and always seems to glisten with a thin sheen of sweat that leaves a sharp chemical smell in the air. If you’re lucky you’re proportioned like the mortal side; if not, your limbs might be different lengths as though they grew until they couldn’t fit. Your eyes are likely stark red, and you may have a useless extra one or two spotted about.

Armanite Demon? You might be easily mistaken for a centaur; if you are, your lower body is tawny and hardy, and your hooves seep with something dark and ichorous; you may or may not leave a trail wherever you trot. If you haven’t your grandparent’s hindquarters, your legs are certainly still equine, powerful and muscled through the thigh and ending in a dark hoof. Your horns curve out from your temples and back to meet near the crown of your head.

Bulezau Demon? Your face is likely goatlike, with some mix of long pointed ears, horizontal pupils, a thick ruff about your neck, and a billy’s beard and horns. You’re wiry no matter your strength, and your cloven hooved feet find natural purchase on sheer surfaces. If you got the worst of your grandparent, you’re given to taking ill, and often show the marks of some illness or other- boils, scars, pox marks, and other such features mar your greyish, pallid skin.

Dybbuk Demon? You’ve the look of a rotting corpse about you, or worse show your grandparent’s true face. If you’ve the corpse, you look dead walking, bloated or shriveled to nothing like a body well on its way to decomposition, with the coloration to match. If you were less lucky, you look like your grandparent in their own form- a ghastly pallor tints your skin, which might even be translucent to show the working parts beneath. Your hair is long and grows thin and tangled, forming natural dreadlocks or tendrils. You’re far too flexible in either case, with hypermobile joints all over your body.

Maurezhi Demon? Your skin hangs slightly loose on your frame, as if it were too large for you. While this is strange to look upon at rest, you can pull and contort it into shape, giving you a fair range of flexibility with your features. Your teeth are hard to hide, though; stout, bone-cracking things, and too many for your mortal parent’s side to account.

Molydeus Demon? You tower over your mortal parents’ kind, with skin the red of fresh blood or new red earth, and you’re solidly built, thick through the trunk, thighs, and shoulders. Below the neck, you’ve little hair; above it, your face is nearly hidden behind a thick gray wolf’s coat of fur, and you might even have the snout and nose to go with it. The beginnings of a second head sprouts from one collarbone- either the barest peek of a snake’s snout, or the whole first foot of a serpent body, long enough to wear tied as a necklace and withered to uselessness.

Nabassu Demon? Your inky-black skin is scaly and lustrous like an oil slick. Glowing yellow eyes and short horned nubs leave little doubt of your heritage, and your shoulders are thick with the muscle to support the vestigial wings or remains thereof. You have a hunger in you for something hard to name, and demons and some other tieflings feel a momentary chill looking upon your face.

Rutterkin Demon? You were a mistake, and you look it. While your body isn’t as twisted, random, and nonsensical as your ancestor’s, it’s still just wrong to look at- arms with extra joints, mismatched limbs, odd lumps and twists in your skin and bone, and misplaced fingers, teeth, nails, and non-functioning eyes tell the tale of your abyssal heritage loudly. You grow little hair, and your skin varies wildly in color across your body, as if your sculptor couldn’t decide what would be the most fitting tone.

Sibriex Demon? Your head is the best-developed part of you, and that’s not a good thing. Your mouth is uneven, your nose crooked, and your eyes heterochromatic if they’re not even more distinctly differentiated by mismatched size, shape, or pupil type. Bloated and misshapen, you bear the marks on your flesh of chains that you’ve never worn. Boils, spurs, discolorations, and random patches of thick, coarse hair litter your whole body randomly, and below the neck your body feels like an afterthought, added on after the artist’s work was done on your head. Fused fingers and toes, uneven limb lengths, loose flaps of skin, misplaced bits of nail or scale, and a generally varying skin color mean that even if you have siblings of the same ancestor, you look little alike.

Wastrilith Demon? Your most striking feature are the spined fins sprouting from your head like a lionfish in place of hair. They’re scattered across your body, down your spine especially and perhaps at your elbows and knees. Your skin is hairless, scaly and a sick lavender-maroon shade, and your hands have thick yellow nails that run to claws if you’re not careful to keep them trimmed. You might have webbed hands or fused fingers. You’re built long and lithe, with bulky back muscles and shoulders that make you a natural swimmer.

Abishai Devil? You could be mistaken for chromatic dragonborn, but your arms are too long, almost to your knees, and you’re far too lean to be a full-blood dragonborn. You have bulky back muscles as though you were meant to have wings, but if you do, they’re useless for flight, and mostly get in the way. Your tail, if you have one, is long and active. Rather than proper hair, you might have a head full of tendrils forming a messy mop about your shoulders.

Amnizu Devil? Your rubbery pea-soup green skin is the greatest mark of your ancestry. Your mouth is perhaps a bit wide for your mortal parent’s side, and you can’t grow any hair at all, but otherwise you could easily be mistaken for any other mortal. It’s your bearing that sets you apart- you radiate authority like someone in a position of power, and your demeanor seems effortlessly, seemingly supernaturally charming.

Merregon Devil? You’re built like a soldier, tall and sturdy with a straight spine and dark gray skin. Your face is oddly ill-defined, as though someone didn’t care to give you real facial features, but it sits well because you have an instinctive urge to cover your face. Your voice is soft and may be ill-used- your grandparent’s blood leaves you with a distinctly nonverbal tendency for communication.

Narzugon Devil? You were born to the saddle, and your body tells the story ably. You’re small and light like a jockey, and you likely have bow legs and have since you were born. Your skin is an ashen color and your eyes the red of flame, and if you’ve a tail or horns, they’re stubby and ill-defined. When you ride, you draw the eye, a subtle hint of your grandparent’s command.

Nupperibo Devil? Your grandparent did you few favors by managing to reproduce. Your head is tiny in proportion to your body, and you have the kind of broad, clumsy bone structure that makes it difficult to move. Flies and other buzzing insects find you appealing, and so you are constantly bothered by them. You’re nearsighted, hard of hearing, or both, but your senses of smell and taste are sharp as a blade, which helps you fill your endless hunger.

Orthon Devil? You are built like a barrel, with a thick torso and matching arms and legs- indeed, you are almost as wide as you are tall, with thick, elephantine legs and arms like tree trunks. Your skin is ashen or sallow but basically a normal human skin tone, and you grow little hair. Your most dominating facial feature is your tusks- your lower canines are long enough to protrude from your jaw when your mouth is closed, and you have an underbite.

Howler? Your face is fairly skeletal; naturally lighter skin covers your face, making your eyes and mouth stand out. Your eyes are like as not black through the sclera and red in the iris. Your throat is a dark, sullen red and you may even have a throat pouch you can use to make your voice really boom or carry. The rest of you is top-heavy, with stout shoulders, a narrow waist, powerful thighs, and a short, naked tail it’s best to wear wrapped around your waist. You’ve no hair, but may have a line of thin spines from the crown of your head down your back.

Canoloth Yugoloth? Your features are fairly bestial, from back-bent knees like a dog’s to a distinct snout and thick jaw full of stout, sharp teeth. Your most distinct feature is your tongue, which is at least a foot long and is covered in small thorny protrusions; your sense of taste is supernaturally acute. Your skin is stark crimson, a muddy yellow, or somewhere in between. Built like a bulldog, with a thick neck, stout shoulders, and barrel-like body, you’re not large so much as you are wide, almost as wide as tall.

Dhergoloth Yugoloth? You have more arms than you ought to. Not working ones, mind, your fiendish blood doesn’t run strong enough for that, so arms three through five are an encumbrance rather than a blessing, and must be worn under clothes or lopped off to keep them out of the way. Your shoulders and torso are oddly shaped to account for the extras, sort of a lumpy, squashed pentagram. Your skin’s an olive-green color and faintly iridescent if not chitinous. While you’ve no horns and little hair, hiding your pure red compound eyes is a challenge. Thankfully you probably didn’t end up with mandibles.

Hydroloth Yugoloth? Your skin is pebbled and rough like a toad’s, and that same look marks your face, which is wide and set on a neck that seems too short and wide. The effect overall is that you have no neck, and your wide mouth and broadly-set eyes add to the toad-like look. Your fingers and toes are webbed and long, and your thighs are thick as tree trunks to spur long jumps. Your memory is excellent, bordering on photographic, and you sometimes wake from dreams of lying on the bottom of a dark river, feeling comforted.

Merrenoloth Yugoloth? You’re a gaunt one, and pale too. Your face is sunken, with hollow cheeks, deep-set eyes, and drawn lips, giving you a profoundly skeletal look. If you grow hair, it’s only around the sides, never on the top of your head, although a long but thin moustache or beard grows naturally. You never get seasick, and the feel of planks under your feet, swaying gently with current or tide, feels more natural than the motionlessness of solid ground.

Oinoloth Yugoloth? Your skin, already an unhealthy bruise color, is often pocked with boils or buboes, which while harmless to you are unsettling to others. You otherwise always seem ill somehow, with a persistent cough, constant sweat, or low fever. You have horns that curl out and forward slightly from your temples, and your nails are long and a natural crimson color- they also grow like weeds, forcing you to chew or clip them constantly.

Yagnoloth Yugoloth? You’re distinctly lopsided to look at- the fact of the matter is that one arm is much larger and stronger than the other. Curiously, it’s not the one you use for writing- that hand is small and delicate, slender for fine work like writing contracts. Whatever the case, your shoulder and pectoral on the larger side are similarly bulkier, which may lend your torso a bit of an unnatural twist.

See the original post here and the second post here.

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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finally completed my dnd quiz! featuring a mix and match of 30 races and 14 classes, discover who you would be in the forgotten realms! i'd be a satyr artificer :)

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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Dnd people,

I’m in a potential game breaking build mood. The idea for a shifter bladesinger with the outlander background is in my mind currently. I have a few ideas on how I could maximize aspects of this character. This character would be for a campaign where odd builds are accepted.

Speed: Mobile feat, swiftstride, bladesong, haste for 120ft and two attacks potentially

Durability: Beasthide, bladesong, mage armor, studded leather, for like 18 plus shield for reactionary 23

Shutdown: Wildhunt, other stuff (I haven’t really thought this one out yet)

Thoughts? Suggestions?

#dnd #dnd help #dungeons and dragons #bladesinger #build help

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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Geriviar Huge giant, neutral evil Armor Class 19 (natural armor) Hit Points 229 (17d12 + 119) Speed 50 ft. Str 27, Dex 12, Con 24, Int 11, Wis 17, Cha 18 Damage Immunities fire, poison, thunder Damage Resistances bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks not made of adamantine Condition Immunities charmed, frightened Senses passive Perception 13 Languages Giant Challenge 19 (22000 XP) Prodigious Leap. The geriviar’s long jump is up to 50 feet and its high jump is up to 30 feet, with or without a running start. Regeneration. The geriviar regains 10 hit points at the start of its turn. If the geriviar takes acid or cold damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of the geriviar’s next turn. The geriviar dies only if it starts its turn with 0 hit points and doesn’t regenerate. Siege Monster. The geriviar deals double damage to objects and structures. Sprint. Whenever the geriviar takes the Dash action, it can move up to twice its speed. Actions Multiattack. The geriviar uses its Exploding Nodules if it is able to. It then makes four slam attacks. Slam. Melee Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 21 (3d8+8) bludgeoning damage. Exploding Nodules (Recharge 4-6). The geriviar fires two nodules from its back, each of which explode in a 10-foot radius within 60 feet of the geriviar and within 30 feet of each other. Each creature in the area must make a DC 23 Dexterity saving throw, taking 17 (5d6) piercing damage and 17 (5d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. Rock. Ranged Weapon Attack: +14 to hit, range 60/360 ft., one target. Hit: 24 (3d10+8) bludgeoning damage. If the target is a Large or smaller creature, it must succeed on a DC 22 Strength saving throw or be knocked 10 feet away from the geriviar, and fall prone.

These nomadic, territorial giants tend to prefer desolate mountains or swamps for their lands, living alone or in small families. Rarely do more than ten of these giants congregate in any one place; a mercy, given how deadly they are. They hate buildings or any permanent structure, and seek to destroy them. Some believe they are a race bred in the ancient past to serve as siege monsters for some long-forgotten empire. They keep few possessions. Geriviars stand between 25 and 30 feet tall and weigh up to twelve tons.

Originally from the Monster Manual III.

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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Dnd People,

My warlock has hit level 2 so naturally I’m thinking about their pact boon. Since I’m usually a dm I’d love to get the chance to have a pseudodragon familiar with pact of the chain. However our cleric doesn’t have spare the dying so pact of the tome would make the most sense to pick up for utility’s sake. Should I follow my heart or head on this one?

Party composition is:

Fighter, Barbarian, Stars Druid, War Cleric/Ranger, Celestial Warlock

(I’m playing in a modified dragon of icespire peak if that helps (no spoilers pls))

#dnd #dnd help #dungeons and dragons #warlock help

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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I can't get over how pretty dichroic glass is. It's like condensed stained glass.

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base-the-dm · 1 year

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(Check the link for the post itself! Here’s a screenshot of the same content available in the page, though)

Wizards of the Coast has finally made an official statement about the new OGL, and as expected, it’s an attempt to douse the fire with sweet corpo speak. So, here’s some key points about it, so we don’t forget what actually happened.

They repeated thorough the letter that this was to avoid bigoted content. About three times. Don’t let them lie to you: This was NEVER about preventing bigoted content. (In fact, please remember that WOTC released the hadozee on 2022, and has a lot of unresolved sexual harassment case allegations)

They also mentioned the NFT thing. Again: This is another buzzword, given how nowadays most people dislike NFTs openly. It was NEVER about preventing NFTs

Most importantly: They are blatantly lying about the leaked OGL being “up to revision” and them having planned “to accept community feedback”. The leaked OGL was sent as it is to implied third parties, alongside with contracts. THEY FULLY PLANNED TO HAVE PEOPLE SIGN IT AS IT WAS.

They have been saying they’ll backpedal on some of the choices. DO NOT BELIEVE THEM until we see an actual readable OGL of whatever changes they are promising. They are trying to, desperately, calm down the storm.

KEEP pushing, in fact. Keep unsuscribing from DnD Beyond. Do not buy their products, don’t watch the movie, etc. If this PR stunt makes people suddenly calm down, they’ll try to get away with the OGL as it is.

Also, here’s some segments I want to highlight, just to show how thoroughly filled with horseshit they are:

And third, we wanted to ensure that the OGL is for the content creator, the homebrewer, the aspiring designer, our players, and the community—not major corporations to use for their own commercial and promotional purpose.

This one is probably a jab at Paizo, but they certainly didn’t care about all the third parties affected by this. The “aspiring designer”, the “homebrewer”, the “content creator” are all people who probably have a foot in the industry and are working with smaller TTRPG companies, or third parties. Most third parties have a very limited number of employees (or quite literally consist of just one person), and hire freelancers as needed. These were quite literally the most hurt by this new OGL. Let’s not forget they were content trying to put an end to that.

It also will not include the license back provision that some people were afraid was a means for us to steal work. That thought never crossed our minds. Under any new OGL, you will own the content you create. We won’t. Any language we put down will be crystal clear and unequivocal on that point. The license back language was intended to protect us and our partners from creators who incorrectly allege that we steal their work simply because of coincidental similarities.

They made a section in the OGL that allowed them to steal content. Of course, they are claiming that is not true now, as it would give them a bad image. And yet, they have the nerve to claim they are just defending themselves when they release copied content.

Finally, we’d appreciate the chance to make this right. We love D&D’s devoted players and the creators who take them on so many incredible adventures. We won’t let you down.

This is obviously that sweet corpo speak that ties everything together. They never wanted to make this right: Again, the leaked full OGL was never a draft. They were ready to fuck the entire community over (and still are, most probably) over a greedy cash grab. Do noT forget, and do not relent now: The fight is not over.

We don’t need a “compromise” over the new OGL. I wouldn’t care if they applied this new OGL exclusively to OneDnD, but there is still a lot of people who have built a living operating under 5e’s OGL, and they should NOT be taking that from people.

(As always, reblog for awareness!)

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