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They're called "Tieflings" but in basically all D&D cosmology hell is not located deep beneath the earth and this is widely known. Why call them that?
D&D character concept where it's a linguist who's a tinfoil hat conspiracy theorist who believes they're in a game, because their language system and naming conventions make no sense
I'm missing something here. What about the etymology of Tiefling has to do with geology or the Christian conception of hell?
"Tief" is German for "deep" so it implies they come from down below somewhere. D&D hell isn't really down below though! Or maybe I have the etymology wrong.
Looks like there's an answer for this one - it's meant to invoke "lower," not necessarily earth:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170509033800/https://www.unboundworlds.com/2014/10/a-short-history-of-tieflings/
"Baur remembered it well when I reached out by email.
“Cook was writing the Planescape campaign setting, where the tieflings first appeared. He wanted to name them after the lower planes but without being too obvious, and without necessarily tilting to the side of law or chaos,” said Baur, “so he asked me about them, whether there was a German word that might be a useful root for Hell or the Abyss.”
Baur suggested “tiefling”. Using the German word for Hell might be a problem for grammatical reasons.
“Hell has an umlaut in German,” said Baur. “I told him that the word he wanted would be something like ‘tief’, which is German for ‘deep.’ Maybe a ‘tiefling’, a creature from the depths.”
A new race was born. A creature from the deep."
