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]

I just prefer the older folklore personally. Good fiction, like a lot of mythology. Not really looking for hags to represent anything in particular.

The thing about symbols is that they’re there whether you look for them or not.

 

[Remathilis]

I’ve actually observed a bit of an uptick in vampire-related content depicting vampires as horrific monsters again lately. Last Voyage of the Demeter was excellent, and so was the Nosferatu remake. I especially liked how the latter kept the overt sexual allegory of the vampire, but with the vampire being a gross monster instead of a sexy young man. Highly recommend it, instant classic material.

I'm pretty sure that's a reaction to Twilight and the depiction of "my boyfriend the vampire" that was popular prior to it. But there has always been a strain of inhuman vampires in media, and the amount of Max Schreck to Bella Lugosi will ebb and flow.

 

[abirdcall]

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.

Seems to be that having male hags has prompted this discussion.

Why do male hags make you and others uncomfortable?

Maybe it is seen as a threat? You thought of women as gross and evil well now we will treat men that way.

Seems to me the most terrifying thing one can do to a man is to treat him how he treats women.

And that is what is so uncomfortable about male hags.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The thing about symbols is that they’re there whether you look for them or not.

But you don't have to explore them on your own time if you don't want to. I don't think about these things much in my engagement with gaming, and I'm fine with that.

 

[abirdcall]

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?

You are so close to the point.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

How long does it take for something to become folklore?

Some would argue that Slenderman is folklore now, it's rather recent.

 

[Aldarc]

cats snicker to themselves quietly

Michael Moorcock once described the Melniboneans as being a bit like cats in more human form.

 

[TwoSix]

WotC loves the fey, and hags are a fey staple.

Not to mention that "old women cackling over cauldrons and granting prophetic clues" is a really, really classic trope.

 

[Bae'zel]

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

Well I assumed that not enough of them are, considering the response to my earlier post saying "just change the lore if you don't like it" and that newbies won't know to do that.

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.

Hence my comment that we need more community outreach to teach differently? Ie, D&D influencers being a key source of such advice?

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.

Then look for different lore? Published lore? Pathfinder? I dunno, there must be other sources that you can use for lore while still playing with 5e rules.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Hags aren’t the vehicle for inclusion, D&D is. Moreover, if you’re going the angle of monsters as moral lessons, then having “old ugly woman” as a type of monster is not the lesson we want to be teaching. If we want villains who are exclusive as a negative example, men is not really the group we want them to be excluding.

WotC is correct here for divorcing the monster from a real world population. They are not right here for adding a deserving demographic to a monster. That nuance is vital, as framing it as the latter is the exact behavior we should strive to avoid.

No demographic deserves comparisons to monsters.