2025 Monster Manual to Introduce Male Versions of Hags, Medusas, and Dryads

The upcoming Monster Manual will feature artwork depicting some creatures like hags and medusas in both genders, a first for Dungeons & Dragons. In the "Everything You Need to Know" video for the upcoming Monster Manual, designers Jeremy Crawford and Wesley Schneider revealed that the new book would feature artwork portraying both male and female versions of creatures like hags, dryads, satyrs, and medusas. While there was a male medusa named Marlos Urnrayle in Princes of the Apocalypse (who had a portrait in the book) and players could make satyr PCs of either gender, this marks the first time that D&D has explicitly shown off several of these creatures as being of both male and female within a rulebook. There is no mechanical difference between male creatures and female creatures, so this is solely a change in how some monsters are presented.

In other news that actually does impact D&D mechanics, goblins are now classified as fey creatures (similar to how hobgoblins were portrayed as fey creatures in Monsters of the Multiverse) and gnolls are now classified as fiends.

Additionally, monster statblocks include potential treasure and gear options, so that DMs can reward loot when a player character inevitably searches the dead body of a creature.

The new Monster Manual will be released on February 18th, 2025.

 

[Hussar]

, so that they leave players wondering why are dryads only female?

Have you ever seen a player ever actually wonder that?

 

[Li Shenron]

Have you ever seen a player ever actually wonder that?

Yes, why?

 

[Retros_x]

why are dryads only female?

I had players asking that: "Why do they have tits if they don't reproduce?". Introducing male variants make sense because now they either a) reproduce or b) take whatever form they want

Other option would've been to make them more androgyn and genderless. But having ONE clear mammal sex is already "regular ecology", but lacking.

So yes, players wonder that, but not always for the reasons you think. They can also be just annoyed by sexy tit creatures. Its similar eye rolling material like the Asari from Mass Effect.

But in the end its just artwork with no impact on rules or worldbuilding. You can continue running Dryads as female-read, no one will stop you.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I would rather leave hags "broken" the way they have been, and try to fix the setting in other ways, than to just say there are male hags and call it a day. I also don't think it really fixes anything.

Introducing the imagery of geezers and hags having sex to produce baby hags is strangely unappealing. What does a baby hag looks like? Can we get some illustration? It will invariably lead to the question "what do we do to baby hags? Since they are always evil, is it good to kill them?" that they wanted to get rid of with orcs.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I had players asking that: "Why do they have tits if they don't reproduce?".

The lore in D&D is lacking when it comes to sexual practices of monsters, but the original lore pointed to them being fertility creatures. Hence satyrs with huge male sexual organs, and nymph is the etymology for nymphomania. They don't reproduce, but they are supposed to be recognized by humans as clearly gendered. It's clearly a feature they were created with, not the result of evolution developping tits in mammalian nymphs.

 

[Li Shenron]

I had players asking that: "Why do they have tits if they don't reproduce?". Introducing male variants make sense because now they either a) reproduce or b) take whatever form they want

Other option would've been to make them more androgyn and genderless. But having ONE clear mammal sex is already "regular ecology", but lacking.

So yes, players wonder that, but not for the reasons you think. They were just annoyed by sexy tit creatures. Its similar eye rolling material like the Asari from Mass Effect.

I really don't think that's the case. It's a fantasy game, and trying to explain everything in real-life ecology is the real "lacking" (in fantasy ideas).

Which doesn't mean that everything must be unexplained. Just that not everything must be explained.

Dryads may have tits just because. Beholders may just float. If a creature has a believable ecology then good (but then maybe it's better to make it thouroughly believable), if another creature has unexplainable features or does not even have an ecology at all, it is also good. I just don't think it's good to go into the direction of explaining everything.

But then, WotC are not probably trying to explain everything, they are trying to minimize their design costs by "filling gaps" as usual (like adding missing elements, alignments or "colors"), instead of trying hard to come up with novelty ideas.

 

[Retros_x]

I really don't think that's the case. It's a fantasy game, and trying to explain everything in real-life ecology is the real "lacking" (in fantasy ideas).

Which doesn't mean that everything must be unexplained. Just that not everything must be explained.

Dryads may have tits just because. Beholders may just float. If a creature has a believable ecology then good (but then maybe it's better to make it thouroughly believable), if another creature has unexplainable features or does not even have an ecology at all, it is also good. I just don't think it's good to go into the direction of explaining everything.

But then, WotC are not probably trying to explain everything, they are trying to minimize their design costs by "filling gaps" as usual (like adding missing elements, alignments or "colors"), instead of trying hard to come up with novelty ideas.

Ok its a fantasy game. Now they're male dryads. Just because. What fantasy was destroyed? It must not even be a biological reason. Maybe dryads copy the gender of the first humanoid they meet. Maybe they change it on a whim. Its not a detailed explanation, its just an artwork because people rolled their eyes.

 

[Minigiant]

A male hag makes no sense; the whole reason why hags are repulsive and evil is because they're based on patriarchial folklore that sees women beyond childbearing age as abject monstrosities. Introducing egalitarianism and feminism gets rid of the point.

A "male hag" is just a naughty word senator in the literal Latin translation of the term. Old men have respect in our societies.

That's why a male hag should be called a geezer and be a property occupying, xenophobic old man with a boomstick who doesn't let progress happen.

"Get off my lawn!"
Bang!
Roll initiative.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Yet we apply human morals to fictional nonhuman sentient beings all the time.

And that's a very strange thing we do. Actually, it's not that strange, it's lazy. It makes elves humans with pointy hears (and darkvision) instead of unknowable creature very close to fey in their way of thinking. As a playable race, it's much more manageable to roleplay (as in, roleplaying being you with pointy ears, if you roleplay an adventurer realistically being borne in the setting this doesn't apply to you). But it's not very rational to do that. Ilithids have a very strange reproduction and eating habits, that is incompatible with human existence, but there is no reason to think they're evil for following instinct.

If animals are also sentient, shouldn't the same judgements apply to them

I concur that we should be consistent. If cats and orcs are evil, then illithid are, too.

 

[Li Shenron]

Ok its a fantasy game. Now they're male dryads. Just because. What fantasy was destroyed?

It turns a creature with exceptional ecology into another case of not so exceptional.