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.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Remember when Monster Manuals were interesting to read and full of ideas.

I remember when Monster Manuals were full of pencil drawings of boobies.

 

[Charlaquin]

Spiders make better bad guys.

Then ants? I gotta disagree there. Spiders look more intimidating but ant behavior is way more alien and scary. I mean, that’s a huge part of why every scifi and fantasy bug monster’s behavior ends up getting based on that of ants.

And it's weird to see where everyone draws their line in the sand. (Except for me. I am the standard by which all others are judged.) Some people argue it's fantasy and we can do whatever we want. In a world with flying dragons it seems odd to draw the line at eusocial spiders. But like I said, I guess we all draw our line in the sand somewhere. (Again, I am the standard by which all others are judged.)

I mean, it is fantasy and you can do whatever you want. I just think animals are weird and interesting enough to make cool fantasy creatures without having to deviate very far from reality.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Actually naked mole rat inspired mammalian eusocial monsters would be pretty sick too.

We have those, they are called gnomes.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Who cares if a monster is male or female. They are just constructs that equal a bag of xp, or get you closer to a milestone.

DM: You meet a wolly elephant, ready to charge, as you wander through the terrible blizzard of the Icewind Dale....
Players: WAIT, is it a she-elephant or a he-elephant?
DM: What? It's about to charge
Players: That's important. Can we roll Perception? Or is it Animal Handling?
DM: It runs toward you...
Players: "I cast Unresistible Guts Explosion on him." rolls 18 Now that he's dead, let's examine it more thoroughly. Was it a he or a she elephant?
DM: and you really have no clue on why it's difficult to find DMs these days?


But TBH, it actually mattered a few times.

1. I had an alien race (it was in the long-forgotten days of 2023, we had races back then) whose elite where sexless cloned in vats, while the mindless slaves reproduced sexually. When interacting with them, asking if they were man or woman resulted in a fun roleplay with the alien being insulted. And the players understanding why later.

2. In a murder mystery I had, I made a prop with a letter from the mastermind who sent an assassin, and it revealed the culprit's sex thanks to grammar (does not work in English as well as it is either too obvious (her majesty/his majesty) or doesn't appear at all). I had carefully written the text so it was long enough to not make it obvious and carefully wrote to avoid situations where the grammatical gender of the writer would be revealed except once.

But those are odd cases.

 

[dave2008]

Remember when Monster Manuals were interesting to read and full of ideas.

Yes, I mean it came out in 2014. I'm old, but my mind is not that far gone yet!

 

[dave2008]

I mean, it is fantasy and you can do whatever you want. I just think animals are weird and interesting enough to make cool fantasy creatures without having to deviate very far from reality.

But deviating from the RL norm does create a dissonance that can help people embrace the fantastic nature of the game for some.

 

[Minigiant]

1. I had an alien race (it was in the long-forgotten days of 2023, we had races back then) whose elite where sexless cloned in vats, while the mindless slaves reproduced sexually. When interacting with them, asking if they were man or woman resulted in a fun roleplay with the alien being insulted. And the players understanding why later.

I always found it weird that D&D and fantasy rarely handles monsters and species with more that 2 genders or sexes.

The most you get is slaad.

I have a fantasy bird-wolf monster race that has 3 sexes with egg layers and live birther versions.

Then a magically created always evil Humaniods were gender is magically influenced to keep up the same ratios amongst the species. Kill a bunch of warriors and the next births will be more warriors. Kill a spy and the next born is a spy. This influences the always evil mentality as the Humaniods always think they are reincarnated and escaping their fate is impossible.

 

[Remathilis]

Remember when Monster Manuals were interesting to read and full of ideas.

Yes. Exactly this edition. Every other one was barely more than a stat block, a paragraph or three, and some art of varying quality. 2e is the only edition where the MM was a readable sourcebook rather than a Sears catalog.

 

[Alzrius]

Yes. Exactly this edition. Every other one was barely more than a stat block, a paragraph or three, and some art of varying quality. 2e is the only edition where the MM was a readable sourcebook rather than a Sears catalog.

Very true. My holiday gift for a close friend's ten-year old son was the Monstrous Manual, which she and I both agreed would be the most fun monster book for a kid his age to read.

 

[Sulicius]

It's interesting though, I have seen a lot of 3rd party books expand on monster sections. Encounter examples, tactics, loot, each in different amounts or presentation.

Do we need more or do some of us want more? Does a beginner DM need more than an experienced DM, or the other way round?