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.

mariliths.png

Left 2025 Marilith / Right 2014 Marilith​
 
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Kobold Avenger said:
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.
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NO. Absolutely not. I'm not insisting that if the art doesn't show it, it doesn't exist. That's what @Maxperson is insisting. That's what I'm arguing against.

And, note, I did SPECIFY Monster Manual.
 

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Maxperson said:
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.
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Really can't take that point of view seriously. This isn't change for changes sake but rather fear of change, fear of inclusivity on the part of fans.
 



I think there's a pretty simple reason why they changed the marilith's art. All the demons in the new MM look bestial or monstrous. None of them have clearly human-like appearances. If the marilith looked more like a person, it wouldn't really match the theme they wanted for demons, from what I gather. Also, the classic marilith look is pretty similar to a yuan-ti, so maybe they wanted to make that distinction more obvious as well.
 

Teemu said:
I think there's a pretty simple reason why they changed the marilith's art. All the demons in the new MM look bestial or monstrous. None of them have clearly human-like appearances. If the marilith looked more like a person, it wouldn't really match the theme they wanted for demons, from what I gather. Also, the classic marilith look is pretty similar to a yuan-ti, so maybe they wanted to make that distinction more obvious as well.
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The only Yuan-Ti that comes close to a 2024 Marilith in terms of appearance is a Yuan-Ti Abomination. The biggest difference between the two, however, is that the latter normally lacks the additional pairs of arms. I say normally because there probably are ways in D&D to make the Yuan-Ti Abomination appear to have those additional pairs of arms. Most of them involving the Illusion or Transmutation school of magic.

Anybody's DM: Make a Perception and a Knowledge check.
 




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