So Much Art From the 2025 Monster Manual

Here's some preview art from the 2025 Monster Manual, courtesy of Wizards of the Coast's "Everything You Need to Know Video" on the new book.

A classic Faceless Stalker:

A demon of some kind:

Arch-Hags:

Some kobolds:

A Nalfeshnee, perhaps?

A revenant:

Blue dracolich:

Death Knight:

Death tyrant:

Chimera:

Githyanki (with the central warrior recreating a classic pose):

A mummy lord:

A marrow:

A balrog balor:

Mimics:

While I'm tempted to say a tressym, this actually might be a new sphinx design:

Bone fiend:

Sladd:

Rust monster:

Platinum(?) dragon:

Bronze dragon:

Hezrou, perhaps?

Fire giant, not Karlach:

Cloud giants:

Zombies:

Red dragon:

Hags (including a male hag):

Dryads (including a male dryad):

Horned devil:

Incubus and succubus:

Vampires:

Vampire:

Colossus:

Spirit naga:

Copper dragon:

White dragon:

Blue dragon:

Gold dragon:

Black dragon:

 

[Paul Farquhar]

My personal gripe with the current art is that it's all so.... washed-out. (Well, not ALL of it, but most.)
It lacks dynamic range. The darkest shades are still just medium-dark greys, and the lightest tints are often still far away from pure white. And if you convert these images correctly to greyscale they become quite unreadable as everything is just a hazy grey.
And the art also strangely lacks texture. It looks like it's all been painted with the same few default soft Photoshop brushes. It lacks "punch", imho.

I think the contrast is low because they are taken from the video rather than the original art.

 

[Uta-napishti]

I think this is a silver dragon, not a blue one.

Indeed.

Also I submit "Drylad" as the term for a male Dryad.

 

[Uta-napishti]

Sure, we do. Kobolds are to Dragonborn as Halflings are to Humans.

At least the 5.5e Kobold is better-looking than the PF2 Kobold.

Sorry to disagree but this is an AWESOME kobold! Unlike the MM24 ones above it exudes both aggresiveness and small size, which are the two essential kobold traits.

 

[Dire Bare]

I know D&D has a long history of being goofy with mythological beings, but sphinxes are so clearly defined in the public's imagination -- there's a wonder of the world that's a giant statue of a lion with a woman's face -- that this feels like a particularly dumb choice, comparable to deciding that angels are actually just celestial birds. Sure, it's close, but clearly wrong.

While the art varies . . . modern D&D sphinxes tend to be lions with leonine/humanoid faces. Not really a huge stretch from just human faces. And variations on that theme have a long history in D&D too, with some sphinxes being more cat-like overall, and others with all sorts of crazy combos, including an alligator-head!

To each their own, but I dig the current design. My only hope is that we ditch the gendered "andro" and "gyno" sphinxes, and just have male and female sphinxes. Kinda surprised the 2014 books still had those . . .

EDIT: Should probably read the entire thread before replying . . . others covered the history of D&D sphinx art much better than I ever could . . .

 

[Dire Bare]

Unfortunately DnD Sphinx has had leonod features since 3e, its gotten progressively worse.
These new ones look like Disney versions (although the first one looks like its coming home after a rough night out drinking)
View attachment 391578

Thanks for the art retrospective on sphinxes!

Again, to each their own . . . but we have a few posters seemingly confusing "I don't care for this" with "This is objectively awful as everyone knows".

Personally, I dig the current more leonine design of D&D sphinxes and find the idea of it going "against" mythology as a silly concern. However, I prefer sphinxes to be a bit more alien, starting with the idea of a cat-like being with a human-ish head and then making it weirder, more mysterious. Just big winged cats with normal-ish looking human heads? No thanks! Even if wearing a pharoah's nemes headdress.

 

[Uta-napishti]

I think the art teased here is mostly fantastic. Despite the generally high level, I HAVE had two gripes with the art in 2024 that in my opinion will make it look dated. Only the first is really a problem here:
1) Washes and layers over / obscuring the main image... Seriously it's gonna look dated fast how many of the images have an effect added on top of smoke, or noise or vague runes or have the a mask that makes colors washed / faded / tinted strangely.
2) The presence of glowing power sparkles / runes / ghost figures sweeping through the air from everyone's hands / weapons as shorthand for "I CAN MAGIC!". This seems to be less of a factor here and in the DMG, and more of a problem in books focusing on character options -- Including the 2024 PHB, but really becoming a problem since Tasha's. In fact, It's almost jarring to see the odd character illustration that doesn't have "MAGIC" spurting from some part of them. What, a hero facing off against a troll? Hold on, she just has a mace and a torch, but doesn't have an aura or anything? Let's not miss this opportunity to add some glowing green skull spirits of her death god patron swirling out of her weapon so she looks properly heroic!

 

[Reynard]

Sure, we do. Kobolds are to Dragonborn as Halflings are to Humans.

At least the 5.5e Kobold is better-looking than the PF2 Kobold.

Yeah. This is a cool looking monster, but not a kobold. I actually think this design would work for troglodytes with a couple tweaks.

 

[Michael Blackett]

What if that platinum dragon pic is in actual fact the Steel/Greyhawk dragon?

 

[Michael Blackett]

Could the Platinum Dragon pic actually be a Steel/Greyhawk dragon?

Scales look possibly burnished blue. Breath weapon looks like noxious gas cloud.

 

[Michael Blackett]

Could the Platinum Dragon pic actually be a Steel/Greyhawk dragon?

Scales look possibly burnished blue. Breath weapon looks like noxious gas cloud.

Sorry posted sane question twice.