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]

Wrong thread?

No, right thread, but perhaps I didn't include enough context. If you click back to the mail I was responding to, you'll see there was a side discussion about the uniqueness of the tarrasque.

 

[MGibster]

If it’s homebrew, I already have my preferred take on gnolls. My grievance is that WotC seems to be going out of their way to shut the door on any possibility of a 1st party playable gnoll.

I think a lot of us can empathize with your plight. Lots of us have disliked some of the changes made over the years that might seem insignificant to most but really got under our skin. In your honor, my cackle of gnolls will be lead by a mighty matriarch named Charlaquin, Bane of Elves and Defenestrator of Dyvers.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Is a Humanoid gnoll by an other name acceptable to playable Gnoll fans?

Gnoll fans are about as common as gnolls are in the real world.

• Humanoids are problematic for an always-Evil monster.
• Gnolls are nonhuman hyena-folk.
Therefore:
• Double down on these nonhumans being always-Evil.

Nah, thats overthinking it. Monstrous gnolls appeared in BG3, and are therefore now set in stone, since far more people have played BG3 than ever played regular D&D.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And hilariously, then D&D went and used the Gorgon name for a completely unrelated bronze-scaled Bull creature that can also petrify things... The idea taken from an old book on animals (that has a lot of made-up fantastical ones).

I thought the bronze bulls Jason used to plough the field to sow the dragon's teeth where the original for the D&D gorgon.

 

[Yaarel]

It’s almost like there’s demand for them that WotC is spurning for no real reason or something.

I loved the 4e Eladrin as Int-Cha Fey mage civilizations.

2014 felt painful for omitting them, even felt like it was spiteful.

But now 2024 solves the problem for me in a surprising way. The Elf can improve any ability score. At least some Elves of the Eladrin culture are fully Fey. Plus, 2024 background and feat gives more design space to do more interesting things with the themes relating to the character concept.

Now I like the 2024 Elf even better than the 4e Eladrin.


Your missing the playable Gnoll reminds me of my wistfulness for the Cha-Int Elf. Hopefully you will find a way to fulfill the character concept, officially, even if in a surprising way.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

JRPGs in particular

That's hardly surprising, since Greek myths don't underpin Japanese culture like the do Western. JRPGs get the lore third hand via D&D and video games.

 

[Yaarel]

But you already have that. And I’m not opposed to that being how gnolls are typically depicted, so long as they aren’t exclusively that. Gnolls are a step further removed from real-life bigotry than orcs are, but they are still a sapient species native to the material plane who have a culture and babies and all that jazz. making them inherently evil has the same fundamental problems as making orcs inherently evil does, and changing their creature type to fiends to dodge that issue is just snubbing those of us who want to be able to play gnoll characters.

Yeah. Any creature with a "culture" cannot be always-Evil.

Culture requires the ability to learn, empathize, and so on.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Gnoll fans are about as common as gnolls are in the real world.

so rare outside of furry conventions?

 

[Yaarel]

In Norway, a "male hag" makes sense.

There are many different kinds of troll. D&D stats to represent an ancient troll with exaggerated features of aging (larger nose, larger ears, etcetera) who focuses on wielding magic, applies to male and female.

 

[Yaarel]

Good to know, I have been wanting to see Nosferatu and enjoyed last voyage of the demeter too.

I was surprised how fairy-tale-like Nosferatu is (and was originally).

He is more like a personification of a plague (a blend of medieval bubonic and gothic consumption).