Sorry, I'm tired and a little burned out, and I'm responding more waspishly than I should.
Take care of yourself first and foremost, Ni. Don't overclock yourself for the sake of analysing computter game
. I saw you mentioning similar in another thread and even though I think you are some of the most insightful regulars on here I do hope you don't wear yourself down.
Tieflings aren't hellspawn - that's a racial slur. They are born on the material plane (generally), and are 'spawned' by mortal parents; elves, humans, dwarves, halflings etc., not by any hell-born creature. They *might* have a fiendish ancestor somewhere back along the line; *probably*, even. They don't necessarily have one... This is because they are plane-touched, and not fiends. Plane-touching can come about in a variety of ways, and direct siring and interbreeding is only one of them. If you don't know (and you won't in most cases), then by all means be cautious, but don't make assumptions. Almost no tiefling alive today decided to become one. Most were born that way with no say in the matter. It has no bearing on their individual personality or propensities towards good and evil, save in the way they are often treated (without just cause, usually) by ignorant or racist people. Characterising a tiefling as hellspawn is just a derogatory, and not something anyone who considers themselves a good person should engage in.
This feels like semantics to me, whether a fiend is personally involved in the origin of the bloodline or whether it's because of mystical circumstances they're still spawned by the Lower Planes and thus fit the descriptor of hellspawn.
I also feel that even if it's wrongheaded per se it's not relatable to racism and ignorance as in real world hate and ignorance when in-setting characters think of Tieflings as hellspawn or fiendish. Regardless of the individuals themelves Tieflings do bear a mark of the hells on them and people who can recognise that should fear and shun them. Anything else just completely dissolves the narrative of Tieflings being stigmatized and othered.
Yes, they are supposed to be less common; current world events explain the reason they aren't, right now. IT is true ,and an interesting aspect, theat they are often thought about as a race of peopl , but they aren't, truly.... they're just people who, by virtue of their existence don't have any kind of unified culture or history. A tiefling born to elven parents and raised by them would have elven values and customs, and halfling-born tiefling would have halfling culture and custom. Tieflings abandoned or raised from orphanhood often have no cultural background or norms at all, save those they developed in whatever city they grew up in. These would be interesting conversations and character-building explorations to go through - these are the kinds of things that should show up in racial dialogue tags. Not one-off racially-motivated remarks or insults.
It would have been interesting if Larian had treated the Tieflings group as less like a nation and more like a community that's come together out of necessity where the some of people weren't even Tieflings before the events of Escape From New Dis City (if I understand things correctly). Less person-being-tired-of-casual-racism rolling their eyes about people in Elturel not treating them well (as if the people of Elturel had not just been through a major hell-related trauma) and more person-expressing-their-own-trauma-of-suddenly-becoming-Tieflinated, and if there were non-tiefling humans there who had found themselves exiled because they'd rather stay with their relatives than abandon them, and fractures between Old Blood Tieflings who were a community before the events and New Blood people who have become part of it since the Descent.
My favourite Tieflings (aside from Mattis obviously), on a related note, are the three friends arguing about whether they should stay or make their own way to BG; simply because they are the only example of drama or conflict within the group -- the only people that make the group seem
alive.
The 'no matter how small' is the objectionable part; an imp is just an imp. I'd be far more concerned about someone I saw traveling the darkened streets of baldur's gate with a pacted red cap in tow ready to break some kneecaps, than I would a mage with an imp carrying their books. An imp is not the worst of the worst, and using one is not equivalent to wearing a sign saying that you're friends with terrorists. Someone commanding higher-order fiends would definitely be worthy of concern. Imps, not so much.
I definitely disagree. Of course imps are just imps and only arch-devils are arch-devils -- but this is almost literally degrees in hell. Cavorting with fiends should worry and scare people. Showing up with one in tow should yield you glares, hushed whispers, cold shoulders, and bad reputation.
On Topic:
The reason people react badly to you summoning is becuase it's treated in the game design as an aggressive or hostile action, and people don't like you doing it near them. Non-standard summons also cause comments, but the attitude strikes come from summoning too close to a person's general proximity, or from a character seeing you do so to someone else. At least, that has been my experience of it so far. You get the same attitude strikes from throwing a damaging AoE spell close to an NPC, but not hitting them with it, I believe.
This is a very good point, and I do think you hit the head of the nail on what's happening.
