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.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I would sooner but a monster book with only art and no statblocks!

That would be interested to be priced as well. Stat and lore book, art book, combo book. Since they are doing digitized edition anyway, it's not like there would be a lot of overhead?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean I am a huge fan of gnolls, I just like them as murderous unrelenting fiends mostly. With some exceptions of course.

As I see it, any heritage can be murderous unrelenting fiends if their personal choices and/or the weight if their culture molds them that way. And/or if they're being controlled.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That would be interested to be priced as well. Stat and lore book, art book, combo book. Since they are doing digitized edition anyway, it's not like there would be a lot of overhead?

My preference for RPG art is functional and subordinate to the text. Lots of fancy art simply isn't an effective selling point for me.

 

[Bae'zel]

You know what's cool about D&D? Or any fantasy RPG for that matter?

You can change the lore to suit your tastes.

Want Gnolls to be a "natural", non-demonic race? Want good Gnolls and happy Gnoll villages with cute Gnoll children who peacefully live alongside other folks from other species? You can do that.

I mean, look at D&D itself: the Forgotten Realms vs. Eberron vs. Ravenloft vs. Greyhawk vs. Dark Sun... all have slightly different takes, right?

Who the hell cares what WotC have declared as their official setting ideas on certain humanoids? Change it. Make your own settings where things are different. Or adapt the Forgotten Realms or Mystara to your own tastes.

Actually I think that WotC, and TSR for that matter, have always said "do what you will, make up your own $#!t".

I don't fully understand the debate here.

 

[TiQuinn]

I mean I am a huge fan of gnolls, I just like them as murderous unrelenting fiends mostly. With some exceptions of course.

Yeah, gnolls have largely replaced orcs in my mind as the “evil, rampaging” monsters, and to keep that locked in, I wouldn’t allow them as a playable species. That’s my preference.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

As I see it, any heritage can be murderous unrelenting fiends if their personal choices and/or the weight if their culture molds them that way. And/or if they're being controlled.

Is a German 17 years old intern raised in Nazi Germany evil for doing accounting for a concentration camp? That's the question that need to be answered in real life, but certainly too deep for most groups. I feel the "weight of the culture" is safely downplayed. If you're from Menzoberranzan, you're evil, even if you behead people for fun only because it's what you have been taught all your life that it is an acceptable, and even expected, thing to do.

Two generation ago, most adult male would smoke, including teachers in shcool (depending on your country, it might not have happened where you're from). Were all teachers evil for exposing youngsters to passive smoking (and school restaurant for serving them a glass of wine?) It was just that "smoking/drinking is a thing you do".

We have lots of discussion about species that are "always evil" even if they don't actually act evil individually, so when one is doing evil, I guess most group would treat it as evil and not try to apply sociological considerations.

 

[Micah Sweet]

You know what's cool about D&D? Or any fantasy RPG for that matter?

You can change the lore to suit your tastes.

Want Gnolls to be a "natural", non-demonic race? Want good Gnolls and happy Gnoll villages with cute Gnoll children who peacefully live alongside other folks from other species? You can do that.

I mean, look at D&D itself: the Forgotten Realms vs. Eberron vs. Ravenloft vs. Greyhawk vs. Dark Sun... all have slightly different takes, right?

Who the hell cares what WotC have declared as their official setting ideas on certain humanoids? Change it. Make your own settings where things are different. Or adapt the Forgotten Realms or Mystara to your own tastes.

Actually I think that WotC, and TSR for that matter, have always said "do what you will, make up your own $#!t".

I don't fully understand the debate here.

I suspect a number of folks don't want to have to constantly explain how their view differs from the heavily-marketed official line, or resents how that "official standard" influences other publishers. That second one describes me anyway, but I'm trying to get over it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I mean I am a huge fan of gnolls, I just like them as murderous unrelenting fiends mostly. With some exceptions of course.

But you already have that. And I’m not opposed to that being how gnolls are typically depicted, so long as they aren’t exclusively that. Gnolls are a step further removed from real-life bigotry than orcs are, but they are still a sapient species native to the material plane who have a culture and babies and all that jazz. making them inherently evil has the same fundamental problems as making orcs inherently evil does, and changing their creature type to fiends to dodge that issue is just snubbing those of us who want to be able to play gnoll characters.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You know what's cool about D&D? Or any fantasy RPG for that matter?

You can change the lore to suit your tastes.

Want Gnolls to be a "natural", non-demonic race? Want good Gnolls and happy Gnoll villages with cute Gnoll children who peacefully live alongside other folks from other species? You can do that.

I mean, look at D&D itself: the Forgotten Realms vs. Eberron vs. Ravenloft vs. Greyhawk vs. Dark Sun... all have slightly different takes, right?

Who the hell cares what WotC have declared as their official setting ideas on certain humanoids? Change it. Make your own settings where things are different. Or adapt the Forgotten Realms or Mystara to your own tastes.

Actually I think that WotC, and TSR for that matter, have always said "do what you will, make up your own $#!t".

I don't fully understand the debate here.

Sure, but lore affects the rules sometimes. For example we are unlikely to get rules for playable PC gnolls if in the lore gnolls are irredeemably evil fiends.

Now one can of course homebrew such rules but that’s quite a bit work and not everyone is confident in their rule design skills.

 

[dave2008]

That would be interested to be priced as well. Stat and lore book, art book, combo book. Since they are doing digitized edition anyway, it's not like there would be a lot of overhead?

For a professional design company there is a lot more overhead than you would think