Marilith [True Tanar'ri]

A marilith has the body of a beautiful six-armed woman above the waist and the green-scaled coils of a giant snake below. She wears rich jewelry, holds a different ornate weapon in each hand, and speaks by telepathy.

Never surprised, a marilith loves melee despite her strategist's mind. She studies a fight first, exploiting terrain, obstacles and enemy weaknesses, then strikes with all six arms and her tail. Her favored arms are exotic swords and axes chosen by the DM: 90% magical, and 15% of those special. Losing one sends her on a determined hunt to get it back.

A tail hit coils the victim for 4d6 crushing damage, repeated automatically each round, with a Constitution check each round to stay conscious. Anyone with Strength below 15 cannot escape; stronger victims have 10% per round for each point above 14.

Weapons of +1 or less cannot harm her, and she is immune to illusions and mind-affecting magic. Beyond the tanar'ri basics she can use telekinesis, project image, pyrotechnics, cloudkill, animate dead, comprehend languages, detect evil, detect invisibility, detect magic, polymorph self (7/day), curse (reverse of bless) and cause serious wounds. Hourly she may try to gate 1 true, 1-4 greater, 1-6 lesser or 2-20 least tanar'ri (35%).

If balors fuel the war, mariliths are its minds, planning battles and trying to coordinate the true tanar'ri below the balors, a nearly hopeless task among chaotic fiends. They scorn the glabrezu's quiet corruption as a child's game and sabotage them when possible, and would destroy them outright if the balors did not value their methods.

Mariliths secretly believe they are the real engine of the endless war between demons and devils and that balors lead only through brute strength. They may be correct, but no one contests a balor's power.