D&D (2024) D&D Marilith Is Far More Bestial In 2025

Hussar said:

Funnily enough, I read the Monstrous Manual from 2e and it actually switches between "she" and "it" in the same entry.

Gotta love consistency.

Click to expand...

I can check the pronouns in the earlier sources.

Hussar said:

Funnily enough, I read the Monstrous Manual from 2e and it actually switches between "she" and "it" in the same entry.

Gotta love consistency.

Click to expand...

It refers to mariliths as female from the waist up. Calls them "her" three times and "it" once. There is no "she." It's pretty clear that the "it" is a mistake.

pemerton said:

I can check the pronouns in the earlier sources.

Click to expand...

1e doesn't use any pronouns other than they. It calls them female demons with a female torso and then stops. In one instance it says, "these creatures."

Maxperson said:

It refers to mariliths as female from the waist up. Calls them "her" three times and "it" once. There is no "she." It's pretty clear that the "it" is a mistake.

Click to expand...

Funnily enough, 3.5 Monster Manual calls them "it" as well.

"A marilith holds a longsword in each of its six hands... it weighs about 4000 pounds".

But, I guess that's just a mistake too. Refers to Marilith as "it " throughout the description.

The 3.0 Monster Manual also refers to Marilith as "it".

Maxperson said:

It refers to mariliths as female from the waist up. Calls them "her" three times and "it" once. There is no "she." It's pretty clear that the "it" is a mistake.

Click to expand...

To be clear, the book says they "appear" as "half humanoid" and then describes that upper half as female. I think both of those words are doing some work:

From the 2e Monstrous Compendium:
"Mariliths appear as half snake, half humanoid. From the waist down, these creatures have the bodies of giant snakes, with huge, green, scaly coils. Above the waist they are beautiful, comely females. Besides the obvious snake body, the feature that identifies a marilith is its six arms."

That suggests to me that the bottom half and the top half are neither snake nor female, but simply "appear" like they are. Which is how I always understood it myself. I am not trying to win any arguments, I just thought it was interesting the 2e MC spelled out my thoughts pretty well. Though I had some of the MC binders back in the day, I didn't really use it and have no idea if I even looked at the marilith (I do remember the horrible drawing of the balor though).

Gender identity is going to be individual in any case.

There's no certainty that the feminine secondary sex characteristics actually map to reproductive organs, nor that they conform to the reproductive binary.

From a historical perspective, we can probably assume that mariliths in official works are either functionally sexless but feminine or cisgender women in all or most previous depictions.

However, previous lore has clearly outlined potential for variance.

Adding the potential for different top shapes doesn't cause problems in itself, nor does it require that previous depictions are invalidated.

However, if the plan IS to retcon them for whatever reason, this picture being in the MM is how they would introduce such a change.

pemerton said:

Eldritch Wizardry and the original Monster Manual.

Both describe Type V demons as "female demons".

Click to expand...

I'd say 2e and 3e as well

MC8: "Terrible to behold, these creatures appear as half snake, half humanoid. From the waist down, these creatures have the bodies of giant snakes, with huge, green, scaly coils. From the waist up, they are beautiful, comely females. Besides the obvious snake body, the feature that gives away the true nature of this tanar'ri is her six arms."

Monstrous Manual is mostly the same description: "Terrible to behold, these creatures have the bodies of giant snakes, with huge, green, scaly coils. From the waist up, they are beautiful, comely females. Besides her obvious snake body, the feature that gives away the true nature of this tanar'ri is her six arms."

Planescape MC: "Mariliths appear as half snake, half humanoid. From the waist down, these creatures have the bodies of giant snakes, with huge, green, scaly coils. Above the waist they are beautiful, comely females."

3.0 MM: "Mariliths appear as giant snakes from the waist down with green, scaly coils, and attractive female humanoids above the waist."

3.5 MM "This large, otherworldly entity appears to be an attractive female human with six arms—at least from her head to her waist. From the waist down, the creature has the body of a massive snake with green, scaly coils."

4e is the first edition to not include such a reference in the monster entry text, leaving most physical description to the art as is 4e's wont.

4e MM: "THIS SIX-ARMED, SERPENTINE TERROR"

Monster Vault: "The serpentine, six-armed marilith"

Hussar said:

Funnily enough, 3.5 Monster Manual calls them "it" as well.

"A marilith holds a longsword in each of its six hands... it weighs about 4000 pounds".

But, I guess that's just a mistake too. Refers to Marilith as "it " throughout the description.

The 3.0 Monster Manual also refers to Marilith as "it".

Click to expand...

No idea since you said 2e, so I looked at 2e. However, countless are the times I've heard "It bit me" or "it's looking my way" or... when talking about animals that have gender.

Using "it" isn't really any sort of evidence that the mariliths are not female.

What is the goal of the current line of discussion? Is it just to vent? Because nobody is moving from their entrenched views, and the image still exists and it's not going away.

Pelor, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Named Marilith NPCs in Planescape 2e had the female indicator beside their name so it's not like they're gender less, some NPCs in PS got the "⊘" symbol for non-binary but it was never applied to any name Marilith NPC, but it was used for other creatures like Shadow Demons and at least a few celestials.

Though I still stand by the entry in Face of Evil about Demons in general being of any gender or sex, and being able to change it, and that the same also applies Mariliths as well.

3e shows that certain Demon Lords can influence what their minions and followers look like, so that can also apply to Mariliths being different from the default MM entry. I imagine that Jubilex's Mariliths would all be slimy and look like their melting.

They did after say that Lillendi which some could say are the Celestial counterparts of Mariliths (in that they're both humanoids with lower bodies of snakes) do have many who are male gendered, despite Lillendi generally being depicted as female.

Some would argue that those consideration were written into the Lillendi since they're a 2e creation which was more forward-thinking, while they've generally tried to leave the Marilith same until recently.