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​

 

[Vincent55]

yes well i think i will just stick with the other one and ignore this and most all of what they have altered of late.

 

[dave2008]

3) Yes, the dryad and the medusa are both male and female which is silly. There was no reason for it. Why haven't other exclusively female antagonists like the banshee and the hags especially received this treatment?

Actually, you are wrong about the banshee too:

 

[Parmandur]

Actually, you are wrong about the banshee too:
View attachment 398024

Yup, WotC wanted to eliminate every mono-gendered Monster. Good riddance.

 

[dave2008]

Which is a very colorful bit of lore that fits in well with the nature of demons, but which WotC doesn't consider canon anymore:

Not exactly. It hasn't been mentioned in 5e, that just means there is no 5e stance on this lore. 5e doesn't say anything about demon sex or gender, does that mean canonically 5e's stance is demons have no sex or gender? While that would actually make sense, all it really means is that there is no 5e canon on this subject.

Also, per WotC, it is still canon for the edition in which the lore was developed.

 

[Alzrius]

Not exactly. It hasn't been mentioned in 5e, that just means there is no 5e stance on this lore. 5e doesn't say anything about demon sex or gender, does that mean canonically 5e's stance is demons have no sex or gender? While that would actually make sense, all it really means is that there is no 5e canon on this subject.

Which means that the text from that 2E book isn't canon.

Also, per WotC, it is still canon for the edition in which the lore was developed.

Can you cite a source on that? Because as far as I can find, WotC's statement doesn't discriminate between editions. It just says that "Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014, we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

If anything, the plural use of "games" seems to suggest that it's not canonical to any D&D game, regardless of edition.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thank you for your response Charlaquin. While I appreciate the correspondence, I must confess I disagree with you here on several ponts. Please forgive my poor editing as that is not my strong suit but I will attempt to address my disagreements with your responses where applicable point by point.

No problem

1) The point of femineity being a positive or a negative for the marilith is not the point I was making. According to D&D previous lore they exclusively had a feminine upper appearance. No marilith I have seen portrayed in print or art for the Dungeons & Dragons universe has ever been presented as anything other than explicitly female from the top up persepective has ever been depicted and it seems silly to do so now, especially if the main point is simply why not? It is a creature that does not have a reproductive system so the abyss does not need to make logical sense in its monsters and the Abyss has no desire for symmetry. Therefore there is no reason for the Abyss to spawn male mariliths just because.

Everything is new until it’s not. “We’ve never done it that way before” is never a good reason not to do something a new way.

2) I think WOTC is afraid of drawing women because they take great pains to be risk adverse. Everyone is pretty bland

WOTC is certainly very risk-averse, but that’s not keeping them from depicting women. There are tons of men, women, and people with androgynous features throughout the art in the books.

3) Yes, the dryad and the medusa are both male and female which is silly. There was no reason for it. Why haven't other exclusively female antagonists like the banshee and the hags especially received this treatment?

They have. Clearly you haven’t actually looked through the book yourself if you didn’t know that. I would suggest that whoever you’re getting your information from is not a very reliable source if they led you to believe otherwise.

4) I am glad you agree with me that simply drawing male or androgynes characters would suck. I feel female characters, npcs and monsters should be represented. I also feel they do not need to be patronizingly drawn as male characters to be acceptable. Male female, trans and non-binary characters all welcome in a fantasy setting.

And there are plenty of all of the above depicted throughout the books.

5) I am not afraid of women at all. Any person should be an equal antagonist in a fantasy setting where magic levels the playing field with brute strength. I think women can be just as dangerous as men without having to fall back on the male reliance of physical strength.

I don’t really have anything to say in response to this, but I left this part of your post in so as not to create any impression that I am misrepresenting you.

 

[dave2008]

Which means that the text from that 2E book isn't canon.

That is not how I read it, but that is one way to view it. I personally take the viewpoint that old lore is valid in 5e until contradicted by new 5e lore. I think that also agrees with statements from WotC. Whether valid = canon or not is not relevant to me.

Can you cite a source on that? Because as far as I can find, WotC's statement doesn't discriminate between editions. It just says that "Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014, we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

If anything, the plural use of "games" seems to suggest that it's not canonical to any D&D game, regardless of edition.

If you asked a year or two ago I definitely could. IIRC those posted about what is canon have been taken down. Unfortunately I am not good at using the way back machine. I will give a few minutes and see if I can find them.

 

[Parmandur]

That is not how I read it, but that is one way to view it. I personally take the viewpoint that old lore is valid in 5e until contradicted by new 5e lore. I think that also agrees with statements from WotC. Whether valid = canon or not is not relevant to me.

If you asked a year or two ago I definitely could. IIRC those posted about what is canon have been taken down. Unfortunately I am not good at using the way back machine. I will give a few minutes and see if I can find them.

I mean, all Lore are just options presented to take or leave. WotC doesn't police it or something.

 

[Alzrius]

That is not how I read it, but that is one way to view it. I personally take the viewpoint that old lore is valid in 5e until contradicted by new 5e lore. I think that also agrees with statements from WotC. Whether valid = canon or not is not relevant to me.

I disagree that the idea of "old edition material is still canon if the 5E lore is silent on it" agrees with WotC's statement. When they say that "if it hasn't appeared in a book since 2014, we don't consider it canon for the games," that seems pretty straightforward in saying that everything from before 2014 is no longer canon, regardless of whether or not it's a subject that 5E has subsequently broached.

If you asked a year or two ago I definitely could. IIRC those posted about what is canon have been taken down. Unfortunately I am not good at using the way back machine. I will give a few minutes and see if I can find them.

I for one hope that you can. The sweeping de-canonization of everything prior to the year when 5E was published always struck me as extremely drastic and wildly overbroad on WotC's part, so hopefully there's some instance of them walking it back that I missed.

 

[dave2008]

Which means that the text from that 2E book isn't canon.

Can you cite a source on that? Because as far as I can find, WotC's statement doesn't discriminate between editions. It just says that "Basically, our stance is that if it has not appeared in a book since 2014, we don’t consider it canonical for the games."

If anything, the plural use of "games" seems to suggest that it's not canonical to any D&D game, regardless of edition.

Not the original source, but second hand reporting: Forgotten Realms Wiki: Canon

Here is the relevant quote by Chris Perkins:
"Every edition of the roleplaying game has its own canon as well. In other words, something that might have been treated as canonical in one edition is not necessarily canonical in another."