D&D (2024) D&D Marilith Is Far More Bestial In 2025

The new 2025 Monster Manual has all-new art, and one major change is the depiction of the marilith. Up until now, the marilith has been depicted as a six-armed humanish female from the waist up; while in the 2025 book, the picture is far more bestial in nature.

Not only is the imagery more demonic, it also features the creature in action, simultaneously beheading, stabbing, and entwining its foes with its six arms and snake-like tail.

Left 2025 Marilith / Right 2014 Marilith​

 

[Seramus]

Really? Seems on point.
Six arms, humanoid torso, snaky below the waist. Seems very marilith to me.

The first thing on my mental recognition list for Marilith is "Looks like Kali."
Then the second thing is "Has a snake tail", but that only kicks in after the first thing.

Unrelated, here's the Marilith art from Pools of Darkness!

 

[Voadam]

The first thing on my mental recognition list for Marilith is "Looks like Kali."
Then the second thing is "Has a snake tail", but that only kicks in after the first thing.

Unrelated, here's the Marilith art from Pools of Darkness!
View attachment 397892

The purple skin makes me think a drowilith.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The purple skin makes me think a drowilith.

The marilith (named Kallistes) is behind the drow attacks in the game. She's more or less a Lolth substitute, really - associated with drow and spiders, and has her own drow and spider infested layer of the Abyss...

 

[Alzrius]

The marilith (named Kallistes) is behind the drow attacks in the game. She's more or less a Lolth substitute, really - associated with drow and spiders, and has her own drow and spider infested layer of the Abyss...

Sort of reminds me of Morag, the marilith "secretary" that Lolth had in Paul Kidd's Queen of the Demonweb Pits novel. Morag didn't have any particular drow-ish features, and was actually rather benevolent and well-ordered, causing Lolth to tease her about "acting so baatezu."

Spoiler

Morag later ended up betraying Lolth and helping the heroes kill her.

It's all non-canon, of course, but it was a lot of fun to read.

 

[Ogre Mage]

I prefer the 5E marilith art. Now it looks like they crossed a marilith with Barney.

 

[npick03]

It really does read as were-behir to me. I think its the feathery blue scales and chunky horns that throw it off. Nothing comes across as particularly ophidian.

I don't mind it not being a sexy snake lady, but if they wanted to take it in a different direction, why not a sexy snake man? Or a sexy snake androgyne?

Continuing with the marilith posting, here is Yoshitaka Amano's Marilith from Final Fantasy I.

 

[wizard71]

Is WOTC afraid of women? The marilith looks terrible and unfeminine, the dryad is a man now. We must have male Medusa just because… Why not be super conservative Wizards and just remove the female gender from every design and exclusively feature male characters or sexless characters if male characters feel out of place?
This is just groan inducing. Don’t you think part of both the appeal and the repellent nature of the marilith is that she is female? Any adventurer who underestimates her because of her charms is toast. Her wanton warmongering, utter callousness towards the suffering of others and inability to work with other stands in direct opposition to common feminine traits of empathy, compassion, cooperation and nurturing. I am not saying that these traits are exclusively feminine but seeing a very feminine looking monster acting in a completely opposite way of your mother, wife, sister, etc. is a perfect example of a demonic trope. Familiar concepts turned on their head. Too bad WOTC has to remake mariliths into bland, just like everyone else demons that blend into the crowd and offer no distinction from each other.

 

[Scribe]

The first thing on my mental recognition list for Marilith is "Looks like Kali."

Ah, I see.

 

[Maxperson]

The new 2025 Monster Manual has all-new art, and one major change is the depiction of the marilith. Up until now, the marilith has been depicted as a six-armed humanish female from the waist up; while in the 2025 book, the picture is far more bestial in nature.

Not only is the imagery more demonic, it also features the creature in action, simultaneously beheading, stabbing, and entwining its foes with its six arms and snake-like tail.

View attachment 397758
Left 2025 Marilith / Right 2014 Marilith​

I can't begin to tell you how much I dislike this new artwork for the Maralith. Not because it's a bad drawing, it's really well done, but rather because it's just not what the Maralith is.

 

[Maxperson]

Already beat you to the punch (sort of), see post #8

However, I am all for adding more variety to marilith design (demons as a whole really). The new one isn't my favorite, but it will lead demonic hordes along with the other types represented in post #8 as well. The more variety the better IMO, these are demons of chaos after all!

If you look at the 2014 demons, they are all monstrous with the exception of the Marilith. There was plenty of room for monstrous hordes of demons, while still allowing a rare exception to remain.