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​

 

[Hussar]

Is it your contention that devils can mate with demons, but devil on devil or demon on demon is not possible? Because I've already shown a demon/devil hybrid that only has fiendish parents.

For my part, that's enough for me to see that fiends can mate with one another and produce offspring.

Sorry, missed that. Demon/devil hybrid? What's that? I know there's a number of demon/devil mixing with mortals. That's all properly mythic and all that. Still not really a sexual characteristics thing though since, often, you get stories of demons/devils mixing with mortals in their dreams, showers of golden light, that sort of thing.

For a creature that doesn't breathe, doesn't eat, doesn't have any functioning biology whatsoever, I'm thinking that it's a pretty big jump to claim that demons are actually gendered.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Half of all Armanites are born from Armanite parents, as they were more or less a species similar to Centaurs, Bariuars or Wemics but are now native to the Abyss. They are explicitly stated as having genders, often segregate themselves into herds based on gender, and tend to mate after victories producing more Armanites. Some lesser Demons also ascend into the ranks of Armanites. They were perhaps something else other than Demons before becoming corrupted, and becoming part of the hierarchy of the Tanar'ri Demons.

 

[Incenjucar]

The Cathezar from Bastion of Broken Souls is that hybrid Maxperson mentioned earlier

 

[Maxperson]

Sorry, missed that. Demon/devil hybrid? What's that? I know there's a number of demon/devil mixing with mortals. That's all properly mythic and all that. Still not really a sexual characteristics thing though since, often, you get stories of demons/devils mixing with mortals in their dreams, showers of golden light, that sort of thing.

For a creature that doesn't breathe, doesn't eat, doesn't have any functioning biology whatsoever, I'm thinking that it's a pretty big jump to claim that demons are actually gendered.

There's an official WotC adventure(I forget which edition) that has a half-chain devil(pappa)/half-marilith(momma) hybrid. It looks like a marilith that also has chains.

Where does it say that they don't breathe, eat, or have functioning biology? I'm pretty sure that they are not immune to gas attacks and never have been.

The 5e Nalfeshnee says, "They keep their larders filled with humanoids abducted from the Material Plane, then eat those creatures alive during elaborate feasts."

The 5e shadow demon says, "Shadowy Nature. A shadow demon doesn't require air, food, drink, or sleep." as a specific call out regarding those things. A call out that would be unnecessary if all demons didn't require those things.

Edit: The lore on soul larvae says demons were among the most well known for consumption of soul larvae.

 

[pemerton]

Demons and devils can talk, and so have some sort of interaction with the air around them.

In the AD&D MM they take half-damage from gas attacks, and full damage from poison. So their "biology" is complicated at best.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

With 50 years of lore about demons in D&D, it's not surprising that there's a lot of conflicting information!

You can probably find a scholar arguing for each and every interpretation, but only the DM knows what is actually true about demons in a given campaign

 

[Hussar]

Demons and devils can talk, and so have some sort of interaction with the air around them.

In the AD&D MM they take half-damage from gas attacks, and full damage from poison. So their "biology" is complicated at best.

Demons are immune to poison in 5e, so I’m not sure what gas attacks would affect them.

But yeah, this is not going to go anywhere. If were to the point where we’re actually arguing that demons have a functional biology, this is a train I’m getting off of.

 

[Hussar]

Doing a bit of digging. Descent into Avernus, in the description of Fort Knucklebone Page 80 states:

only the kenku require food, drink and sleep

So, no, demons don't have to eat, drink or sleep.

See, this is what I mean by actual citations. Instead of half remembered modules and lore from thirty or forty years ago and a specific setting.

 

[Hussar]

Oh, and since we're all about the actual lore of the game, I would point people to page 46 of the 2014 Monster Manual where it defines Demons:

Spawn of Chaos: The Abyss creates demons as extensions of iteself, spontaneously forming fiends out of filth and carnage... Other demons (such as anes) are created from mortal souls shunned or cursed by the gods or which are otherwise trapped in the Abyss.

So, can we please drop the whole notion that demons have any sort of biology?

 

[Echohawk]

So, can we please drop the whole notion that demons have any sort of biology?

But demons clearly do exhibit some of the things we would typically associate with "having some sort of biology", including having physiology, anatomy, morphology and common behavior. Those characteristics might be a result of the manifestation of the Abyss, or inherited from mortal souls from which they derive their existence, but they still have those characteristics.

Perhaps what you are asking is that we drop the notion that the biology of a demon has to conform in any way with the sort of biology that we would assume for real world creatures. And I'm fine with that. I see no reason that the abyss can't create demons that can reproduce (or not reproduce) or that have a variety of gender characteristics (or none), or that have a variety of different forms, or that conform to a common form.