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​

 

[Bae'zel]

...and I realize that monsters can look like whatever da hell they want to look like. We should be celebrating new looks. Not pissing and moaning because something got changed.

Agreed, and besides, it's just an illustration by one illustrator. The fluff description doesn't explicitly describe them as anything except "seprentlike". That can be interpreted in many ways.

However, if past products are any indication, WotC may actually release miniatures of the Marilith that resemble the illustration. The good news is... there are Marilith miniatures and paraphernalia from dozens of other companies that you can use instead (eg I'm betting that the Pathfinder mini will not look like this, but more "traditional").

Again, I'll reiterate how much I despise the Wyvern illustration in this book. It's perhaps the single image that I actually find distractingly awful. You can bet that I'm ignoring that interpretation, even if it becomes "canon".

 

[dave2008]

Again, I'll reiterate how much I despise the Wyvern illustration in this book. It's perhaps the single image that I actually find distractingly awful. You can bet that I'm ignoring that interpretation, even if it becomes "canon".

For those that don't know, the wyvern from the 2024 MM is below. It is really doesn't seem like the same type of artist that produced the rest of the art in the book. I wasn't familar with the artist (Fury Galluzzi), but looked them up they have done a lot of interesting work (particularly for WH), so this piece just seems to be an aberration.

 

[Voadam]

PS - are you sure they are wearing gloves? Someone else thought they were constructs (thus no blood), but to me it looked like the hands are gloveless so I didn't think that made sense. I could have been mistaken though.

No, not 100% sure.

My first thought was they were flesh hands, but the decapitated spear guy's are dark and the same color as his sleeves and the sword guy behind him has dark ones as well that look like gloves. Stabbed guy on the left has a dark left hand one the same color as his sleeve and flesh colored right hand with maybe a rectangle of padding on the back of the hand. That might be flesh and not a glove. The guy being constricted on the right has a hand grabbing the coil strangling him that looks flesh colored. The flesh color on the two could be flesh hands or gloves, it is not entirely clear to me.

So again could be dead spirit warrior einheriar with outsider ectoplasmic essence instead of blood. Weird that there is none leaking from stabbed guy though.

The picture is on the top of each page of this thread so I keep referencing it and trying to figure it out.

 

[Corinnguard]

So again could be dead spirit warrior eiheriar with outsider ectoplasmic essence instead of blood. Weird that there is none leaking from stabbed guy though.

Or the individual who lost their head. We could be looking at a fight between a Marilith (a Fiend) and some Einherjar (Petitioners from Ysgard/Celestials). If so, the latter will eventually come to in Valhalla and drink and boast about the fight to their peers.

 

[Voadam]

Or the individual who lost their head.

It looks to me like there is faint glowing white essence coming out from the neck spot on the decapitated torso and from under the head and it is glowing enough to spotlight that part of the marilith body.

 

[npick03]

Again, I'll reiterate how much I despise the Wyvern illustration in this book.

2024 wyvern looks cartoony, goofy, and dumb. And...I think it's kind of adorable? I love its big dumb smile.

Agreed, and besides, it's just an illustration by one illustrator.

I kind of disagree, because this is THE Monster Manual, ostensibly released during the game's 50th anniversary. This isn't where I would expect to see variants or alternate takes on classic creatures. Elswhere in the book they are taking the opportunity to crystallize their vision for the game (the male hag and medusa, for example), which suggest to me this is going to be the new standard for the marilith moving forward.

And that's not a big deal, or even an issue really. There are 50 years worth of original recipe mariliths out there, and I don't have to use this one if I don't want to. I am just confused as to why a classic monster got such a drastic and seemingly arbitrary redesign. I'd love to hear from either the artist or wotc what prompted the change.

 

[Voadam]

For those that don't know, the wyvern from the 2024 MM is below. It is really doesn't seem like the same type of artist that produced the rest of the art in the book. I wasn't familar with the artist (Fury Galluzzi), but looked them up they have done a lot of interesting work (particularly for WH), so this piece just seems to be an aberration.

View attachment 398234

The wyvern does not quite work for me but I like the tiefling.

 

[Micah Sweet]

2024 wyvern looks cartoony, goofy, and dumb. And...I think it's kind of adorable? I love its big dumb smile.


I kind of disagree, because this is THE Monster Manual, ostensibly released during the game's 50th anniversary. This isn't where I would expect to see variants or alternate takes on classic creatures. Elswhere in the book they are taking the opportunity to crystallize their vision for the game (the male hag and medusa, for example), which suggest to me this is going to be the new standard for the marilith moving forward.

And that's not a big deal, or even an issue really. There are 50 years worth of original recipe mariliths out there, and I don't have to use this one if I don't want to. I am just confused as to why a classic monster got such a drastic and seemingly arbitrary redesign. I'd love to hear from either the artist or wotc what prompted the change.

I still don't understand why you would attempt to apply a new standard to D&D without changing the edition? Make a clean break from what's gone before if you want things to be different.

 

[TiQuinn]

I still don't understand why you would attempt to apply a new standard to D&D without changing the edition? Make a clean break from what's gone before if you want things to be different.

Because they don’t want a clean break. They just want you to buy new books.

 

[Demetrios1453]

There is no indication that the behirilith is a variation rather than a replacement.

There's no indication that it actually is a replacement and not a variation, either. There's no indication either way. While it might be claimed that as since it's the art in the MM, that indicates it's a replacement, we've seen art of other creatures that vary quite differently from their MM standards in quite a few products over time...