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​

 

[Imaro]

Right, corebook lore has changed in specific ways at different points which causes frictions with people who have been using prior corebook lore.

We see this in most edition changes.

I guess I'm trying to understand where an expectation of continuity even came from and why it's still a complaint after all this time...

Edit: You're stating above continuity never existed... so why complain about something that has never been the case.

 

[Incenjucar]

We do not know what this marilith has under their scales, or if there even is anything down there. We don't know their pronouns, if they have any.

Earlier depictions of mariliths presented the juxtaposition of a powerful feminine, very human-ish figure over a powerful and flexible monsterous form. This, along with their focus on strategy made them an exceptional contrast with the rest of the demons, and made them a foil to the balors, who had a more masculine build and were as subtle as a wrecking ball.

Mariliths are to Athena what Balors are to Ares. The human-like top half made it easier to think of them as a creature capable of coiling down with a bunch of books and maps and drawing up plans, even if that is very anthropocentric. It's frankly a shame we don't have much art of them nerding it up over a bunch of grid maps - even the Planescape art was more focused on the hawtness factor over the literal Genius Strategists trying to coordinate an army of demons.

 

[Voadam]

I guess I'm trying to understand where an expectation of continuity even came from and why it's still a complaint after all this time...

Edit: You're stating above continuity never existed... so why complain about something that has never been the case.

There has never been complete continuity. There has always been a lot of continuity though.

Discontinuity always causes some friction that some don't like. That does not change with repetition.

Why expect people to not complain about changes they don't like?

 

[npick03]

The funny thing is some of the same people up in arms about changes to the Marilth lore also criticize WotC constantly for not being more creative or taking bigger chances...

Make it make sense??

I guess I am one of those people (less up in arms, more nonplussed). I want them to take bigger creative risks, and they have in a lot of places. There are a lot of redesigns in the new monster manual that look really cool. The nalfeshnee in particular got a major glow up.

For me, the new marilith design is one of the few flops in the book. It lacks what made the old marilith interesting, and doesn't replace it with anything. I don't care about gender or "hotness", I would just prefer an evocative design. If they are going to change an iconic monster so drastically, I would prefer a better finished product than what we got.

But it isn't really a big deal for me. Most of the art is amazing, I can just pretend I do not see the Very Angry Caterpillar.

Edit: Trying to get my point across without using a certain word, I would prefer to see a marilith design that serves Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent.

 

[Maxperson]

I find this description interesting given the picture that goes with it - I wouldn't call it attractive (subjective) or human (objectively not human). So in these cases, what is the primary source, the written or the art?

View attachment 398146

The phrase "whatever floats your boat" comes to mind. Maybe the designer and/or artist is into that look.

But, yeah. That's not so attractive to me. Perhaps there is some variation like with human women and that one rolled low for charisma.

 

[Reynard]

Thinking about it, I wish they had given us male, female and nonbinary representations of all the vaguely humanoid monsters in the MM. I want a thot balor and a seductively androgynous vrock, dammit.

 

[Maxperson]

I have been looking and participating in this thread mostly out of curiosity. I am not really bothered by how the Marilith looks in 5.5. I believe that WoTC had a particular reason for making them look this way compared to how they looked in previous editions. But I also believe that WoTC isn't going to come right out and say why they did what they did. So, we're all left rolling Insight checks over and over again. Anyhow, it's not like we're forbidden from using their past appearances in an adventure.

As for this conflict, I'll continue to watch it play out. I have seen and participated in worse conflicts than this.

Yeah. This is really a discussion with two sides who don't agree or at least don't agree entirely. This isn't really a conflict.

 

[Maxperson]

To be clear, I was talking about the conflict in the 3.5e MM that has text describing the Marilith torso as an attractive human female when the art is neither attractive (subjective) nor human (apparently scaled skin and definitely pointy elf-like ears). In this case, should a D&D scholar assume the text is correct and the art wrong, or vice versa. I say scholar, because for game play purposes it doesn't make a lick of difference.

As a D&D scholar, I'd go with the text. Text is written by the designer, so should be truer to the intent than an artist who is trying to draw the intent of another.

 

[dave2008]

As a D&D scholar, I'd go with the text. Text is written by the designer, so should be truer to the intent than an artist who is trying to draw the intent of another.

That is generally my thought as well. Though I do think that art, in general, has more impact than text.

 

[Maxperson]

The whole lore thing outside of an actual setting, which the 5e '24 core books don't have, is hard for me to grasp. I assumed almost everybody homebrewed their monster lore, using what they wanted from the books as is or for inspiration and changing what they don't...

Is corebook lore really a major thing in the wider playerbase?

The core books have the default lore. Let's take the Magmin from the 5e MM. Part of their lore is that they appear in the material plane only when summoned.

Most of the time I just go with the default lore, unless the FR setting has altered it. Sometimes, however, I will alter the lore. Perhaps instead of having to be summoned, I decide that they also live in the calderas of volcanos.

I very much prefer to have the default lore in place, because I really don't want to have to write a full lore writeup every time I want to use a new monster. I either want to use the default they provide, or perhaps modify it a little to make it fit in my campaign. My creative time is better spent on other things than coming up with all of the lore.