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.

 

[Echohawk]

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

I think you are both demonstrating significant selection bias here. If you take the time to compare lore for specific monsters across editions, 5e comes in about average compared to previous editions, at least in terms of quantity. Quality is, of course, entirely subjective.

3e and 4e both had some lore-heavy Monster Manuals, with the Monster Manual V and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale immediately springing to mind. And while the 2e Monstrous Manual is a wonderful book, a fair number of the entries suffer from the requirement that they take up exactly a page. While this forced some writers to get creative in producing interesting lore, there are also plenty of creatures with several paragraphs spent on unnecessarily complicated subsystems for that monster's abilities and quite a few that badly need an editing pass to deal with internal inconsistencies or incoherent wording.

When it comes to monster lore, every edition has strengths and weaknesses. That often depends on exactly which creature you're looking at, and, frankly, personal taste. In my opinion, anyone trying to make a claim that a specific edition is unequivocally best for monster lore is likely to simply be displaying their own edition biases.​

 

[abirdcall]

I think you are both demonstrating significant selection bias here. If you take the time to compare lore for specific monsters across editions, 5e comes in about average compared to previous editions, at least in terms of quantity. Quality is, of course, entirely subjective.

3e and 4e both had some lore-heavy Monster Manuals, with the Monster Manual V and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale immediately springing to mind. And while the 2e Monstrous Manual is a wonderful book, a fair number of the entries suffer from the requirement that they take up exactly a page. While this forced some writers to get creative in producing interesting lore, there are also plenty of creatures with several paragraphs spent on unnecessarily complicated subsystems for that monster's abilities and quite a few that badly need an editing pass to deal with internal inconsistencies or incoherent wording.

When it comes to monster lore, every edition has strengths and weaknesses. That often depends on exactly which creature you're looking at, and, frankly, personal taste. In my opinion, anyone trying to make a claim that a specific edition is unequivocally best for monster lore is likely to simply be displaying their own edition biases.​

I think you are assigning weight that isn't there.

One was a sarcastic comment that claimed the 5e monster manuals are bereft of interesting ideas.

The other was a contradiction of that statement.

I don't think they are staking claim to a single edition being unequivocally best.

 

[Bae'zel]

You know which D&D "Monster Manual" disappointed my son and I? The Monster a Day Calendar.

Sure there wasn't a lot of real estate on each entry, but wow did it suck to have the single paragraph of text only describe what the monster looked like... next to an image of the monster.

My son complained almost daily. Also wasn't happy that they just recycled the art from the 5e MM.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In people’s defense, eusociality is really cool. But yeah, stick to ant and bee inspired monsters for it, certainly not spiders.

It is a bit weird that there are no official rules for formians. I needed to hunt some third party rules when I wanted to use them in my game. Though this new book apparently has quite a few monsters that were not in the previous one. Do we already know what they are?

 

[dave2008]

Do we already know what they are?

No we do not. We know there are 85 new monster. If these are new to D&D or just new to this edition (or some combination) is not known.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No we do not. We know there are 85 new monster. If these are new to D&D or just new to this edition (or some combination) is not known.

Hoping some formians then!

 

[Stormonu]

I think you are both demonstrating significant selection bias here. If you take the time to compare lore for specific monsters across editions, 5e comes in about average compared to previous editions, at least in terms of quantity. Quality is, of course, entirely subjective.

3e and 4e both had some lore-heavy Monster Manuals, with the Monster Manual V and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale immediately springing to mind. And while the 2e Monstrous Manual is a wonderful book, a fair number of the entries suffer from the requirement that they take up exactly a page. While this forced some writers to get creative in producing interesting lore, there are also plenty of creatures with several paragraphs spent on unnecessarily complicated subsystems for that monster's abilities and quite a few that badly need an editing pass to deal with internal inconsistencies or incoherent wording.

When it comes to monster lore, every edition has strengths and weaknesses. That often depends on exactly which creature you're looking at, and, frankly, personal taste. In my opinion, anyone trying to make a claim that a specific edition is unequivocally best for monster lore is likely to simply be displaying their own edition biases.​

I would luv to see a "modernized" 2E monster manual that tightened those descriptions up a bit, at least in regards to attacks. There's a lot of entries that spend a paragraph on outlining a creature's attack that could be tightened up to something like - "Two Claws: 1d6 each; Bite: 1d8. On a hit with a bite, the <X> grabs the target." Leaving more room for ecology, tactics and such, or putting a subtype on the page as well.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Whenever I read any monster book, from any publisher, I use 2e as my basis for comparison. Nothing else from TSR and nothing from WotC measures up to it for me. Few products from 3pp are comparable. Level Up's Monstrous Menagerie books, The Monster Overhaul, the new Monster Manual for ACKS II, maybe a few others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think you are both demonstrating significant selection bias here. If you take the time to compare lore for specific monsters across editions, 5e comes in about average compared to previous editions, at least in terms of quantity. Quality is, of course, entirely subjective.

3e and 4e both had some lore-heavy Monster Manuals, with the Monster Manual V and Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale immediately springing to mind. And while the 2e Monstrous Manual is a wonderful book, a fair number of the entries suffer from the requirement that they take up exactly a page. While this forced some writers to get creative in producing interesting lore, there are also plenty of creatures with several paragraphs spent on unnecessarily complicated subsystems for that monster's abilities and quite a few that badly need an editing pass to deal with internal inconsistencies or incoherent wording.

When it comes to monster lore, every edition has strengths and weaknesses. That often depends on exactly which creature you're looking at, and, frankly, personal taste. In my opinion, anyone trying to make a claim that a specific edition is unequivocally best for monster lore is likely to simply be displaying their own edition biases.​

Of course it's subjective. But it's also unequivocal. For them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hoping some formians then!

The Guild has covered formians in 5e well enough for me. Don't need WotC to do it.