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.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That is I think a popular reason for making folklore: because you can't copyright the real kind.

How on earth would WotC copyright or trademark “male hags/old witches?” They’re likely doing this for sensitivity reasons. Not trademark reasons.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Which can’t happen as long as people only ever respond to new takes on folklore with “but that’s not what the old folklore was like!” At a certain point you have to be willing to make the changes you want to see in the world. Some will go along with you and some won’t, but for sure nothing will change if you never try. Be vocal about the things you are passionate about, so others who share that passion can hear it and add their voices to yours. That’s how things “develop organically from the folk.”

Also, be prepared for your changes not to be adopted by others for a long time, if ever. Organic is no guarantee of success.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Which can’t happen as long as people respond to new ideas with “but that’s not what the old folklore was like!” At a certain point you have to be willing to make the changes you want to see in the world. Some will go along with you and some won’t, but for sure nothing will change if you never try. Be vocal about the things you are passionate about, so others who share that passion can hear it and add their voices to yours. That’s how things “develop organically from the folk.”

But they're not doing anything unique with male hags other than... having male hags. They're not engaging with the inherent gender transgression of such an identity. They're not making male hags into statements on patriarchy.

No one complained that George Romero's zombies had little to nothing to do with the folkloric zombies of voodoo... because Night of the Living Dead was a well made, artful, innovative film with plenty to say. From everything we know about the upcoming monster manual, that is not the case with male hags, nor is it with other traditionally feminine monsters like medusae or dryads.

 

[Micah Sweet]

How on earth would WotC copyright or trademark “male hags/old witches?” They’re likely doing this for sensitivity reasons. Not trademark reasons.

Maybe, but all they would need to do is come with an "original" name for male hags and boom! Copyrightable material. It apparently worked for GW.

It breaks down not to sensitivity or trademark, but profitability IMO.

 

[Epic Meepo]

The maedar's existence was merely a reversal of the ability to petrify to being able to depetrify, which I don't think is that mechanically unique, and there was never much of a lore explanation for that either (unless at some point some creative author decided to publish something in Dragon), other than perhaps a very simplistic "if medusae are female and maedars are male than clearly they would be opposites of each other in ability."

The 2e Monstrous Compendium entry for maedars explained the reason for their petrification reversal powers. It was a hunting strategy. A medusa would petrify and shatter a victim, and a maedar would then turn the chunks of stone into edible chunks of meat.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The 2e Monstrous Compendium entry for maedars explained the reason for their petrification reversal powers. It was a hunting strategy. A medusa would petrify and shatter a victim, and a maedar would then turn the chunks of stone into edible chunks of meat.

Yup. You don't have to like the lore, but it's there regardless.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Effectively, if people are bothered by the fact that "only hags and women and only women are hags", remember that these are monsters we're talking about. From the Latin "Monstrum", or "show", which is also found in the modern word "Demonstrate." Monsters demonstrate something about our insecurities to us.

If the hag makes people uncomfortable, double down on that. They're not supposed to make us comfortable. They're supposed to make us confront something about ourselves; why we see old women as gross and evil magical things.

 

[Bae'zel]

I think that TTRPG influencers need to encourage and propagate the idea that people can make up their own settings and folklore for their games. That they dont' HAVE to stick with official published works by WotC.

Even baby step methods (eg, make Gnolls a neutral-good race, change the fluff of Monks, omit certain themes etc...).

We won't get that messaging from corporations, who want us to buy their pre-packaged settings and source books. It has to be communicated by the community.

Eventually, more players, even newbies, will instinctively feel confident in saying "hm I don't like that aspect of lore, I'm gonna change that at my table". That shouldn't be some elaborate mystery.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Maybe, but all they would need to do is come with an "original" name for male hags and boom! Copyrightable material. It apparently worked for GW.

But they didn’t do that. In fact, they did the exact oppose of that with getting rid of Maedar in favor of just making Male Medusas without a unique name (which wasn’t even a change made by this book, there’s a Male Medusa as one of the primary antagonists in Princes of the Apocalypse, which came out nearly 10 years ago).

 

[Charlaquin]

But they're not doing anything unique with male hags other than... having male hags. They're not engaging with the inherent gender transgression of such an identity. They're not making male hags into statements on patriarchy.

No one complained that George Romero's zombies had little to nothing to do with the folkloric zombies of voodoo... because Night of the Living Dead was a well made, artful, innovative film with plenty to say. From everything we know about the upcoming monster manual, that is not the case with male hags, nor is it with other traditionally feminine monsters like medusae or dryads.

Oh, most definitely. But, like, what else do we expect from D&D? Male hags in the monster manual probably isn’t going to spur on some massive pop cultural shift like Night of the Living Dead. But it is a gesture at gender inclusiveness, which is not nothing. Even a hollow gesture helps contribute to the broader normalization of inclusive practices. I’ll take male hags over harlot tables any day of the week.