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]

BTW, yes, autocorrect changed my Balor to Ballot. Not sure what a Balrog is in D&D.

But, again, where is this notion that the Monster Manual is showing the default? And, even if that's true, the artistic renditions of virtually every creature has varied hugely over time. How is this different?

I guess all goblins are male. After all, that's the "default" image. And the images only show what 90% of the species is. Anything that's not in the art is a tiny minority after all.

 

[Maxperson]

BTW, yes, autocorrect changed my Balor to Ballot. Not sure what a Balrog is in D&D.

But, again, where is this notion that the Monster Manual is showing the default? And, even if that's true, the artistic renditions of virtually every creature has varied hugely over time. How is this different?

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I guess all goblins are male. After all, that's the "default" image. And the images only show what 90% of the species is. Anything that's not in the art is a tiny minority after all.

Every last owlbear is a mix of owl and bear. Every last doppleganger is alien looking, except maybe 4e. That's not the 3e picture by the way. The one below is. Every last gold dragon is gold and dragonish. Every last goblin has the same basic traits. All of those examples work with the same bounds from 1e to 5e. Marilith does not.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

Again, we're back to cherry picking. The lore that EVERYONE IS INSISTING MUST BE FOLLOWED, states that demons can be any gender. The art NEVER shows this. NO matter what, all demons are shown as a single gender. Regardless of what that demon looks like, it is always drawn as a single gender. That some demons can't be determined is besides the point. Why are you insisting we talk about Vrocks when, as you say, gender would be almost impossible to determine, while ignoring the demon types where gender should be very obvious?

So now you're insisting that because the art doesn't show it, it doesn't exist?

Not counting those 1 line stat line summaries when they decided to give a brief overview of some place and mentioned someones gender as being female, despite the art only showing male examples of a species.

And 5e has shown at least one female Goblin in the art, I can definitely confirm the Goblin picture for the PC Goblins in Monsters of the Multiverse is a female Goblin.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

So now you're insisting that because the art doesn't show it, it doesn't exist?

Not counting those 1 line stat line summaries when they decided to give a brief overview of some place and mentioned someones gender as being female, despite the art only showing male examples of a species.

And 5e has shown at least one female Goblin in the art, I can definitely confirm the Goblin picture for the PC Goblins in Monsters of the Multiverse is a female Goblin.

No they are doing the opposite.

 

[Dire Bare]

BTW, yes, autocorrect changed my Balor to Ballot. Not sure what a Balrog is in D&D.

But, again, where is this notion that the Monster Manual is showing the default? And, even if that's true, the artistic renditions of virtually every creature has varied hugely over time. How is this different?

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I guess all goblins are male. After all, that's the "default" image. And the images only show what 90% of the species is. Anything that's not in the art is a tiny minority after all.

Again, while I favor the updated marilith in the 2025 MM, this isn't an argument I can get behind either. Each of these creatures have seen drift in design over the 50 years of D&D, but don't really fundamentally change. The biggest "lore change" seen in the above art is, do gold dragons have wings and how serpentine are they? To my eyes, at least.

You are correct that goblins, and many other creatures, usually show only (mostly?) males in the art, both in the MM books but also in supplements. And this is a problem too, IMO. But with goblins being presented as natural creatures of the material plane, it is a reasonable assumption that we have males, females and kids. Plus, it's been supported pretty well in the lore, if not the art.

I'm not sure it's been explicitly stated anywhere that mariliths are all female . . . but demons being spiritual creatures of the planes, it's easier to assume that all mariliths are all female based on the presentation in the art. But . . . unless it is stated in the monster entry, it's certainly reasonable to assume that some mariliths are male. And I'm sure many DMs over the years have made that assumption, or decided on their own way before 2025 to have the possibility of male mariliths in their game. (Same goes with medusae, hags, etc)

But ultimately, why labor to point out seemingly inconsistent arguments against the new marilith . . . when all of this is subjective to personal taste? Yes, some of the more conservative "don't change my marilith" arguments aren't super logical and boil down to 1) preference for tradition over change and 2) rejection of (the need for) increased inclusivity in the game . . . I think it kinda begins and ends there.

I prefer tradition over change (usually), but feel very much that D&D needs to adapt to the times and become significantly more inclusive. So, I'm stoked over these types of changes that, to me, are lore "tweaks" (as opposed to substantive changes) and go a lot of distance in making the game more inclusive.

But I have a lot of friends who, like some posters here, struggle to accept the inclusivity issues of the game and really, really, REALLY value canon and tradition. Their insistence that, "well, it's always been this way and should stay this way" I find weak and . . . well, I feel that's all the work that needs done in the argument. One "side" isn't ready for change for inclusivity's sake, and the other "side" is . . . hence the post count well over 1K with no real progress in the argument on either "side".

 

[Maxperson]

But I have a lot of friends who, like some posters here, struggle to accept the inclusivity issues of the game and really, really, REALLY value canon and tradition. Their insistence that, "well, it's always been this way and should stay this way" I find weak and . . . well, I feel that's all the work that needs done in the argument. One "side" isn't ready for change for inclusivity's sake, and the other "side" is . . . hence the post count well over 1K with no real progress in the argument on either "side".

That's not it for a lot of us. You can have inclusivity without every single species having both male and female. It's okay for all male species, all female species, and species with both. Just make the all male and all female species roughly equal in number and it would be inclusive.

What a lot of us are objecting to is change for the sake of change, which isn't being inclusive.

 

[Dire Bare]

That's not it for a lot of us. You can have inclusivity without every single species having both male and female. It's okay for all male species, all female species, and species with both. Just make the all male and all female species roughly equal in number and it would be inclusive.

What a lot of us are objecting to is change for the sake of change, which isn't being inclusive.

Ah, but it isn't "change for the sake of change" now, is it? It's change you don't like, but there is very much a reason for the change.

 

[Maxperson]

Ah, but it isn't "change for the sake of change" now, is it? It's change you don't like, but there is very much a reason for the change.

No, it really is for the sake of change. They didn't make the marilith inclusive, because they didn't include any gender. Instead they just arbitrarily changed it to exclude all genders. They removed the lore mentioning female, removed female from the art, and then changed it to be monstrous instead of male. It's just a thing, now.

 

[Echohawk]

They didn't make the marilith inclusive, because they didn't include any gender. Instead they just arbitrarily changed it to exclude all genders. They removed the lore mentioning female, removed female from the art, and then changed it to be monstrous instead of male. It's just a thing, now.

What you are describing here is exactly the removal of the marilith's previous gender-bias. Having both male and female examples of a thing is certainly not the only approach to inclusivity. For example, referring to a "manhole" alternately as "manhole" and "womanhole" would be silly. Referring to it as a "utility hole" removes the gender bias. Perhaps that's the intention here -- remove the gendered nature of mariliths entirely and, as this thread title suggests, make them more bestial in nature. (Do I like that approach? Not particularly. Does it respect past lore? Not really. Is it a valid approach to inclusivity? Absolutely.)

 

[Maxperson]

What you are describing here is exactly the removal of the marilith's previous gender-bias. Having both male and female examples of a thing is certainly not the only approach to inclusivity. For example, referring to a "manhole" alternately as "manhole" and "womanhole" would be silly. Referring to it as a "utility hole" removes the gender bias. Perhaps that's the intention here -- remove the gendered nature of mariliths entirely and, as this thread title suggests, make them more bestial in nature. (Do I like that approach? Not particularly. Does it respect past lore? Not really. Is it a valid approach to inclusivity? Absolutely.)

Nobody who played the game was excluded by the way mariliths were depicted. Nobody new has been included. It's different, but not inclusive.