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​

 

[dave2008]

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.

Yes, my interpretation is not literally what they said. But that quote is from a live discussion. I don't hold people 100% to comments they make ad-hoc in such situations. Nobody is perfect. With respect to the totality of their comments (Crawford and Perkins) I think my viewpoint is valid. Of course, it doesn't really mater, canon lore is pretty meaningless to me. Every since 2e introduced the Blood War I learned to reject canon as needed (actually, probably before that, but that how I remember it).

PS - I found the quote and posted it above.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

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.

It’s a roleplaying game. The idea of it even having canonicity is pretty dubious.

 

[Alzrius]

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."

Good find! I should add that I found an archive of the full statement that Perkins made, and the overall context is less helpful, since he subsequently adds:

"It can also be said that every campaign that’s ever been run in any of our published settings has its own canon. Your version of the Forgotten Realms has its own canon, which doesn’t make it any less valid than anyone else’s version. Elminster might be a lich in your Forgotten Realms campaign. Elminster might be a miniature giant space hamster in mine—both are acceptable and awesome."

So he's basically saying that everything is its own canon, separate from everything else. Which is certainly true in terms of practicality for how people run their home games, but strikes me as missing the point regarding why people care about the entire concept of "canon" to begin with.

 

[Alzrius]

It’s a roleplaying game. The idea of it even having canonicity is pretty dubious.

 

[Umbran]

It’s a roleplaying game. The idea of it even having canonicity is pretty dubious.

A specific setting might have canon. But the game itself that is expected to be used in goodness knows how many homebrews? Yeah, canon for that is a dubious notion.

Like the Pirate's Code, it's more like a guideline...

 

[Charlaquin]

Good find! I should add that I found an archive of the full statement that Perkins made, and the overall context is less helpful, since he subsequently adds:

"It can also be said that every campaign that’s ever been run in any of our published settings has its own canon. Your version of the Forgotten Realms has its own canon, which doesn’t make it any less valid than anyone else’s version. Elminster might be a lich in your Forgotten Realms campaign. Elminster might be a miniature giant space hamster in mine—both are acceptable and awesome."

So he's basically saying that everything is its own canon, separate from everything else. Which is certainly true in terms of practicality for how people run their home games, but strikes me as missing the point regarding why people care about the entire concept of "canon" to begin with.

He’s objectively correct though, which is exactly why I say canonicity doesn’t really make sense in the context of an RPG.

 

[Charlaquin]

A specific setting might have canon. But the game itself that is expected to be used in goodness knows how many homebrews? Yeah, canon for that is a dubious notion.

Like the Pirate's Code, it's more like a guideline...

Exactly

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I swear there’s some lore in an official 5e book that mentions that Fiends don’t really experience gender in the way humans do and that their relationships function differently from ours. I think it lists Belial and Fernia as an example. I could be remembering wrong, though.

 

[Echohawk]

I swear there’s some lore in an official 5e book that mentions that Fiends don’t really experience gender in the way humans do and that their relationships function differently from ours. I think it lists Belial and Fernia as an example. I could be remembering wrong, though.

You are probably thinking of this boxed text from Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes:

DEVILS AND GENDER

To a devil, gender is insignificant. Devils can’t create new life through physical means; a new devil comes into being only when a soul is corrupted or claimed in a bargain, and the gender of the mortal that provided the soul is immaterial. Devils that represent themselves to mortals are likely to adopt an appearance (including an apparent gender) that conforms with what those mortals believe to be true. Gender (and the assumptions that mortals make about it) is just another tool for devils to use to get what they want.

Devils that are known to and named by mortals often accept the gender assigned to them, but they aren’t bound by that label. Stories of the Lords of the Nine told by mortals might speak of Glasya as Asmodeus’s daughter and Belial as Fierna’s consort, but such expressions can’t encompass the complexities of the strange relationships formed by beings of immortal evil.

 

[Incenjucar]

Given how clumsy WotC can be with delicate matters, and the specific moment in time, I'm comfortable with just tossing major dimorphism and single-sex creatures with human-like secondary characteristics. It will empower more than it will dilute, and we can look at where the world is in a decade to see if the lack of dimorphism is still helpful to anyone.

I would always prefer to ADD rather than REPLACE. Expand rather than simplify. Maybe every previous marilith version is equally accurate, and they come in even more varieties than mortal humanoids do. Perhaps some have snakey arms and coils like a centipede, while others look like a bunch of mortals smashed and twisted together like clay figures.