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​

 

[Incenjucar]

Sure, but nothing you said doesn't prevent them from fitting the idea of snake demon too. It is just a reductive way of categorizing them. More impactful than calling them female demons IMO

Me eating ice cream doesn't prevent you from mowing the lawn; it's all irrelevant.

Mariliths are not themed around being snakey. Being a strategic genius is not exactly a classic trait of any reptilians other than dragons.

They don't have poison abilities. They don't swallow things. They don't have climb or burrow or swim speeds. They don't have a scary rattle. Because this is fiction of course they can do whatever they want, but it's like one of those "alien paleontology" things where you take a hippo skull and imagine it must be some kind of horrific predator instead of a big dorky monster with a chubby snoz. A succubus has bat wings, must be a bat demon, let's make them hairy and gangly with giant ears.

Like I've said, I'm cool with them making mariliths more diverse, since their physical form frankly has very little to do with their function outside of the idea that six arms and a tail shows that they can handle seven problems at once. As long as the classic depiction* is prominent enough to carry forward instead of being functionally retconned, it's all good.

* Not the classic OUTFIT, battle boobs are silly.

 

[dave2008]

Me eating ice cream doesn't prevent you from mowing the lawn; it's all irrelevant.

Mariliths are not themed around being snakey. Being a strategic genius is not exactly a classic trait of any reptilians other than dragons.

And yuan-ti, you know the classic snake people!

But I think you are taking my comment to literally for my point. I am not talking about what the written lore of mariliths (even if the statblock rarely backs it up). I am just talking about visual association. If it part snake, people will associate it with being part snake! Thus, snake demon! I mean if you take a 6-armed human torso and stuck it on a horse, I don't think you say" "wow, what an unusual marilith!" The snake part matters IMO.

They don't have poison abilities. They don't swallow things. They don't have climb or burrow or swim speeds.

Nor does it have any abilities that make it a tactical battle genius!

 

[Incenjucar]

WotC has been turning demons into brutish beasts for awhile now.

Compare with 2E, where they had, in addition to standard tanar'ri spells and summons: animate dead, cause serious wounds, cloudkill, comprehend languages, curse, detect evil, detect magic, detect invisibility, polymorph self 7/day, project image, pyrotechnics, and telekinesis.

They were also immune to illusions and mind-effecting spells (5E at least gives them truesight). And their tail constriction could make you pass out.

The marilith has suffered pretty badly from WotC's simplifications.

Incidentally, Pathfinder makes them demons of pride, with a "commander's aura", a different set of tactical spells, and a defensive move. Different, but closer to the original themes.

 

[Maxperson]

Graz'zt is incapable of giving High Fives. But a High Six hasn't gone too well given that most don't have six fingers like Graz'zt does.

Hence why there are no longer any high five demons in existence.

 

[Hussar]

WotC has been turning demons into brutish beasts for awhile now.

Compare with 2E, where they had, in addition to standard tanar'ri spells and summons: animate dead, cause serious wounds, cloudkill, comprehend languages, curse, detect evil, detect magic, detect invisibility, polymorph self 7/day, project image, pyrotechnics, and telekinesis.

They were also immune to illusions and mind-effecting spells (5E at least gives them truesight). And their tail constriction could make you pass out.

The marilith has suffered pretty badly from WotC's simplifications.

Incidentally, Pathfinder makes them demons of pride, with a "commander's aura", a different set of tactical spells, and a defensive move. Different, but closer to the original themes.

This one theme I actually do like with how demons and devils have been shifting over the years. Demons shouldn't be "tactical geniuses". That's not what a demon does. Demons are engines of destruction, overwhelming with power and brute force. "Tactical genius" is the realm of devils (or possibly Yugoloths). Advanced planning, tactics, strategy, that sort of thing.

Why do you need a tactical genius demon to tell this wave of demons to charge forward? Demons don't really use much in the way of tactics besides, "Overwhelm with force". If the important element of a marilith is it's ability to long term strategize, then it shouldn't be a demon at all. It should be a devil.

 

[Older Beholder]

I’ve always liked a variety of artistic interpretations for each monster.
It's just more inspiring. Sometimes two different versions of a monster can create a story in itself. As someone else mentioned, you can use the new version as a final form.

Having chaotic demons with lots of mutations also just makes a lot of sense.
If this art gets turned into a miniature it could also double as a Stone Golem just as an example.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

This argument is part of why I can’t take some people on this site seriously. The same people who dismiss concerns about inclusivity as being overreacting or unnecessary discussion spend several dozen pages complaining that they got rid of the Snake Demon’s boobs.

Here’s a question, why are almost all traditionally mono-sex D&D monsters female? Banshees, Hags, Mariliths, Erinyes, Nymphs, Succubi, Harpies, and more. There are only a few male-only monsters; Satyrs and Incubi are the main ones. Do you think that’s worth examining at all?

“That’s not a Marilith,” so, the most important part of the Marilith’s identity is it’s breasts? It’s still a 6-armed demon with swords and a snake tail instead of legs.

“But they only gave one example in the art, so clearly all Mariliths look like that now!” WotC made male and female presenting versions of most of the formerly monosex monsters in the new Monster Manual, and WotC definitely doesn’t follow the rule that all monsters of the same type look the same.

Also, why is it bad that this changed? “Because that’s the way it’s always been” is not a valid argument.

 

[Parmandur]

The same people who dismiss concerns about inclusivity as being overreacting or unnecessary discussion spend several dozen pages complaining that they got rid of the Snake Demon’s boobs.

Boom, right there.

 

[Hussar]

Heh. Looking at the 2014 Marilith art, I gotta ask, exactly how did she get into that swimsuit armor? I mean, seriously, what is she wearing? And why in the heck would a demon wear clothes?

 

[Corinnguard]

Looking at the 2014 Marilith art, I gotta ask, exactly how did she get into that swimsuit armor?

Very carefully.