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.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

It’s an extension of the evil orcs debate. We’ve always been able to do whatever we want in our home campaigns, but what is presented in official material sets the standard from which home campaigns deviate. We don’t want a standard where sapient species are inherently evil monsters.

Also, hyenas are cool.

 

[dave2008]

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.

I am all for having gnoll choices and PCs. But that bolded part is a stretch to me. Gnolls...wait I misread that - never mind.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Yeah, WotC really doubled-down on their current position in 5.5, and it's hard not to see it as a way to have their cake and eat it too.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

This is really what it comes down to. You either like there being a Designated Always Evil Race, or you don’t. Now that WotC has come down definitely on orcs not being that, gnolls are next in line as the subject of the same argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Worth noting that there are many playable 5e gnolls out there already, so homebrewing isn't necessary.

 

[dave2008]

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.

And that is exactly what the default gnolls are. Similarily any heritage can be good if their personal choices and/or the weight if their culture molds them that way. It is just the default culture (not the only culture) of gnolls has lead them to be murderous fiends.

Now I must stop and get back to work!

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

And that is exactly what the default gnolls are. Similarily any heritage can be good if their personal choices and/or the weight if their culture molds them that way. It is just the default culture (not the only culture) of gnolls has lead them to be murderous fiends.

Now I must stop and get back to work!

And in game, how does it work? Once you know that the gnoll pack attacked peasants and ate them because that's what they are culturally told and a are endoctrinated since birth (humans are food source, they taste good, it's OK to eat them, plus they make fun squishy sounds when you tear their limbs off), you saved a few remaining peasants, and a few of the gnoll surrendered?

Unsexed demonic fiends created by Yeenoghu to bother innocent people, I'd have no trouble to execute.

More natural creatures, sentient, whose worldview was molded by a society that don't share the same views as our and doesn't give value to the same things? It's much more debatable whether it's a war crime.

IMHO, they removed the gnoll as much as possible from humanity so they don't generate the same problems that arose with the orcs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And that is exactly what the default gnolls are. Similarily any heritage can be good if their personal choices and/or the weight if their culture molds them that way. It is just the default culture (not the only culture) of gnolls has lead them to be murderous fiends.

Now I must stop and get back to work!

I'll let you get to work, but I do want to note that the default does not allow for the possibility of gnolls that aren't demonic monsters. The lore doesn't mention exceptions.

 

[Charlaquin]

And that is exactly what the default gnolls are. Similarily any heritage can be good if their personal choices and/or the weight if their culture molds them that way. It is just the default culture (not the only culture) of gnolls has lead them to be murderous fiends.

But that’s the thing I’m upset about; WotC is specifically shifting gnolls from humanoids to fiends and doubling down on them being depicted as inherently monstrous in 2024. It’s no longer just that their default culture is evil, it’s becoming a part of their nature. And it seems that’s being done in an attempt to avoid the same PC-ification that happened to orcs.

 

[TiQuinn]

This is really what it comes down to. You either like there being a Designated Always Evil Race, or you don’t. Now that WotC has come down definitely on orcs not being that, gnolls are next in line as the subject of the same argument.

And I’m fine with that, see value in that, but it’s up to the writers to commit to that if that’s their direction, IMO.