New marilith/balor pictures

[War Golem]

Don't care for either of the new renderings too much.

I can live with the Balor, but the Marilith is not to my liking at all. I much prefer the "classic" D&D look.

I thought this module cover had one of the best color pictures of a marilith I've see yet: Black Ice Well Cover

 

[Voadam]

I don't like either of the the new ones.

Of those anime ones the mage is pretty cool, and the mariliths in cutesy dresses are pretty funny.

I like Simon Moon's Avatar best though.

 

[Gregor]

I like the Marilith that Helm is fighting in Faiths and Pantheons. The new one on the WOTC site just looks strange....almost like a Yuan-Ti. The art is still cool though. I wish I could draw.

Cheers

 

[Dr. Harry]

I think the balor looks pretty cool, but those huge side-of-the-head horns aren't that asthetically pleasing. They should go.

As for the marilith...what is it with modern WotC art having certain monsters look all emaciated? I know the "thin" look is in, but this is taking it too far...first that poor displacer beast, now the marilith.

It is interesting to me how much of D&D's history is denying Tolkien's influence (e.g., halflings - hobbits in the first printing, orcs, treants). I have never considered the balor a rip-off of the balrog (pretty quintessential demon), but does anyone else see any resemblence between this and Peter Jackson's vision of them in the LotR movies?

 

[Voadam]

Balor is a nemesis figure from Celtic myth, he has a giant evil(baleful) eye.

 

[Dr. Harry]

Balor is a nemesis figure from Celtic myth, he has a giant evil(baleful) eye.

Quite so, and I believe he had to have his eyelid held open in battle by a staff - a little different than the Type-VI Demon.

 

[WizarDru]

The Balor of celtic myth is a Formorian wizard, eventually slain by the Demon-God Crom-Cruach. He doesn't bear much resemblance to the D&D Balor/Type VI demon. The D&D balor, however, resembles the Balrog in spades.

It's not that D&D 'stole' from Tolkien...it's just that they absorbed material from many different sources, sometimes the same as Tolkien, sometimes from Tolkien himself and often times from unrelated sources. The magic was from Vance, obviously, the races borrowed from Tolkien, many world setting concepts from Howard and Lieber, and so on.

The only time it sounds silly is when they try to deny any influence at all, or even only just a tangential relationship. LotR was a major influence, and many things in D&D come straight from it. But it helps to keep in mind that many other things don't.

 

[JeffB]

Well, the Balor IS a "rip-off' of the Balrog. Ever since the order from Tolkien Enterprise back in '75 or '76 that told TSR they couldn't use the word "Balrog".

That being said, I noticed the similarity to Peter Jackon's, but that basic image has been around for decades in various pieces of art depicting the LotR.

Oh, and to the question...

Balor good

Marilith very bad..

The cover of Necromancer Games' Demons & Devils or the pic of that MonkeyGod Module are much better representations to my eyes.

{mild rant}I really don't understand why WOTC is trying SO HARD artistically to tear the classic images down..the images that were pioneered by D&D....That would be like Lucas re-doing Darth Vader "Yes, I know he USED to be all black, and had a big helmet, but now he's sorta-kinda blue, and has just a small helmet where you can actually see his eyes and face!.. Cool huh?"{end mild rant}

Sigh...

 

[Arnwyn]

Big thumbs-down on the Marilith, IMO.

 

[Samnell]

The pics don't bother me that much, but I wonder about the marilith's pose. It looks like she's sitting on the toilet. Now there's an encounter that could only come off a random roll.

00: Marilith sitting on a toilet reading the reptile issue of Zoobooks.