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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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).

Hence the phrase, "all they would need to do".

 

[MGibster]

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.

It’s important to note that the word zombie is never used in 1968s Night of the Living Dead. Roger Ebert even refers to the undead as ghouls in his review: I don’t even think the word zombie appears in Dawn of the Dead.

 

[Remathilis]

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.”

Everyone knows vampires are dessicated corpses and werewolves derived their power from deals with Satan. All these aristocratic vampires and infected werewolves are corruptions of the folklore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Everyone knows vampires are dessicated corpses and werewolves derived their power from deals with Satan. All these aristocratic vampires and infected werewolves are corruptions of the folklore.

That's it! We've just got to get Anne Rice to write a book series about hags!

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

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.

I just don't think that hags should be the vehicle for inclusion. They're villains. They're evil. If inclusion is good and exclusion is bad, shouldn't we have the monsters be exclusive?

 

[Remathilis]

That's it! We've just got to get Anne Rice to write a book series about hags!

Well, bad news unless Anne Rice is also now a vampire...

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

That's it! We've just got to get Anne Rice to write a book series about hags!

Lives of the Mayfair Witches - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, bad news unless Anne Rice is also now a vampire...

If anybody is, she certainly has a leg up.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Lives of the Mayfair Witches - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Never read those. Did they have the cultural penetration of the Vampire Chronicles?

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

I don’t know what TTRPG influencers you’re consuming content from, but in my experience, they are already doing that.

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

The thing is, my ability to make new lore for gnolls in games I DM doesn’t actually help me play a gnoll PC at all, cause if I’m playing a PC I’m not the one DMing. Plus, the default lore matters because it’s what new players’ first impressions are based on. Those first impressions set baseline expectations, which creates an anchoring effect. The further custom content deviates from that anchored expectation, the more buy-in it it asks of the players to accept those changes.

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.

I think for most people who are interested in DMing, the ability to make these changes is a huge part of the appeal. Some new DMs may lack the confidence in their own game design skills to homebrew mechanics, but I think most are perfectly comfortable making up their own lore. But, again, the default still matters because it’s a shared starting point.