28 Chapter 1: Campaigns in tal'Dorei
As the orcs did not walk upon Exandria until after the
Calamity, half-orcs are youngest of the “civilized” mortal
races. They have no civilizations of their own, and most
are born of human and orc parents. Many half-orcs can go
their entire lives meeting only two or three other half-orcs,
and very few sire children together. Discussion of parentage
is a deadly taboo and a source of great trauma among half-
orcs—many were born from an orcish mother who captured
a human man on a raid for pleasure. A rare few, however,
are told stories by their human parent about being saved by
an orc during a raid and fleeing into the mountains to hide.
In stories like these, the compassionate orc rarely survives
long enough to see the birth of their child.Genasi
Exandria’s lands are rife with elemental power. Primordial
energy constantly flows into the world from elemental rifts
across the land, and such powerful primal powers occasion-
ally influence or alter the nature of their surroundings. This is
also true of some who have spent years in proximity to such
a source of power, and of those who travel the outer planes
long enough to find the seed of elemental power take root
within their blood. These planetouched folk now harbor the
potential to give birth to genasi, people born with facets ofthe element that altered their parents—though genasi of the
same element can also give birth to genasi children.
Though genasi still bear features resembling their
parents’ race, they have clearly become something else
entirely. Their facial features are augmented with elemen-
tal traces and subtle abilities manifest with adolescence,
becoming alien and something new altogether. While
such people are rare within Tal’Dorei, they are most
common among the Ashari due to their elemental destiny.
Those who risk living among common society often are
met with stares, ridicule, or dubious curiosity.
Each of the four genasi elements have one race most
commonly associated with them, though unusual com-
binations of parent races and genasi elements exist. The
most common parents for air genasi are halflings; for
earth genasi are dwarves; for fire genasi are tieflings; and
for water genasi are humans.Tieflings
Those who bear the mark of Hell are first met with mis-
trust, then curiosity—and in the more rural areas of
Tal’Dorei, fear. Countless scholars have delved through
thousands of years of Issylran history in search of the
origin of tieflings, to little avail. The most complete extant
answer is that, during the Age of Arcanum, a cabal of pow-
er-hungry Issylran warlocks consorted with dark entities,
and many these unions resulted in children neither wholly
human nor fiend. These children denied their ash-black-
ened fate and traveled across the world in hopes of defining
themselves through their deeds, not their nature.
The first tieflings to walk on Tal’Dorei sailed from
Issylra during the Age of Arcanum, fleeing religious zeal-
ots who believed their very existence was an abomination.
Most tieflings in Tal’Dorei refused to fight during the
Calamity—when a people have seen so much evil
from all kinds of people and even the gods, a cer-
tain nihilism inevitably takes hold. In the centuries
after the Divergence, tieflings who had grown weary
of gods and demons rejoiced; in a way, the gods’ imprison-
ment had freed them from their cursed past.
When Warren Drassig and his sons conquered the elven
lands of Gwessar, the tieflings of the continent rose in near
unanimous rebellion against the tyrant. They had seen his
kind before, they knew his methods, and they knew others
would suffer like they once did. The fear and apprehension
that surrounded tieflings diminished some when
the other people of Tal’Dorei fought
alongside them, but the tension never
fully faded. As such, most tieflings stick to the
more studied and diverse cities like Emon and
Westruun. Kymal and Stilben are not devoid of tief-
lings, and many there gleefully embrace their fiendish
ancestry, finding their calling in foul deeds and shady
business. The dwarves of Kraghammer generally
keep tieflings at arm’s length, while the
denizens of Syngorn rarely leave a tiefling
without watchful guard.