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]

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

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.

How depressing. The idea that the game's lore can be determined even in part by how many people play a branded video game is a little sad, no matter how understandable WotC's logic might be.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Huh. I notice the original 1e Medusa is gender-neutral. The text describes it as "it" and "human" like. There is no reference to "she" or "female".

I think it's coherent with it being no longer a person but an entire species. Being human-woman-like doesn't make it female.

Specifically, when D&D uses reallife names, I prefer an effort to model its reallife meaning.

When D&D diverges from the reallife concept, it should diverge from the reallife name as well.

This sounds common sense to me, and I have seen no argument supporting rejecting that outside two, that I don't find convincing:

1. Most people don't know about the creatures in the Monster Manuel anyway, so there is no need to include the few people who actually know about them, too bad if they think a Satyr is an embodiment of sexual energy, what would make them think so?
2. The term has been used wrongly for 50 years, so we should continue to be wrong.

The second is especially bothersome to me. For long, I thought that the Pyramids were built by slaves, and when I learnt that it was incorrect, I immediately adopted it. If I were to play a game set in ancient Egypt, I wouldn't include slave workers hauling rocks, and I wouldn't think for a second "well, I've been wrong for so many years, why bother?". At least just in case people at my table would cringe at the idea of them being slaves.

By the same logic, taking a poop has never been part of the D&D lore (as far as I know), so we can't assume humans in D&D are pooping based on the name of humans alone. If you castle map lacks latrines, it's because you're making incorrect assumption about D&D lore.

On the other hand, a group that knows absolutely nothing about mythology would have objectively no problem with a serpent-bodied Medusa, a three-headed giant Kappa or Thor's hammer being called Excalibur, since they wouldn't recognize anything about their mythic names, so from the point of view of the designers, it won't prevent any sales.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

How depressing. The idea that the game's lore can be determined even in part by how many people play a branded video game is a little sad, no matter how understandable WotC's logic might be.

That's the logical outcome of the argument about not adhering to Greek mythology on the basis that their target audience doesn't know about mythology and thus won't form any preconception about a creature (allowing you to call a gelatinous cube a pegasus if you want).

In this case, since the target audience will probably have played the game, they know gnolls aren't real people, they are evil demonic creature and that's it's a-ok to kill their newborn children (in Act 1, where a preemptive strike on the bloated hyena is slightly better tactically than just waiting for the gnoll ambush to actually start), and therefore their preconception must be adhered to.

It's depressing, but it's consistent.

 

[Stormonu]

Maybe more mythologically accurate, but not more D&D accurate. D&D is not mythology, it is a game and its lore is its own thig.

Odd thing that. What I really liked about D&D was it drew on "real world" mythology. Turning these myths into WotC stylized (visual & story) IP and getting away from the "real world" roots they came from bothers me. It bothered me when GW started doing it with the atrocious respelling of formerly mythological names, and it bothers me when WotC tries to turn monsters into something they can copyright. Leave the origins uncertain and the visuals based on the old tales and let DM's decide it on their own if they want to go a different route - if at all.

 

[Remathilis]

That's the logical outcome of the argument about not adhering to Greek mythology on the basis that their target audience doesn't know about mythology and thus won't form any preconception about a creature (allowing you to call a gelatinous cube a pegasus if you want).

In this case, since the target audience will probably have played the game, they know gnolls aren't real people, they are evil demonic creature and that's it's a-ok to kill their newborn children (in Act 1), and therefore their preconception must be adhered to.

It's depressing, but it's consistent.

To be honest, they should go back to ORIGINAL lore where they are a cross between gnomes and trolls. (And cousin to Mystara's Thouls, a cross been troll and ghoul).

But i suspect that isn't what y'all mean...

 

[Micah Sweet]

Odd thing that. What I really liked about D&D was it drew on "real world" mythology. Turning these myths into WotC stylized (visual & story) IP and getting away from the "real world" roots they came from bothers me. It bothered me when GW started doing it with the atrocious respelling of formerly mythological names, and it bothers me when WotC tries to turn monsters into something they can copyright. Leave the origins uncertain and the visuals based on the old tales and let DM's decide it on their own if they want to go a different route - if at all.

That would be nice.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To be honest, they should go back to ORIGINAL lore where they are a cross between gnomes and trolls. (And cousin to Mystara's Thouls, a cross been troll and ghoul).

But i suspect that isn't what y'all mean...

Do you actually believe that, or are you just being snarky so you call out supposed hypocracy?

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

To be honest, they should go back to ORIGINAL lore where they are a cross between gnomes and trolls. (And cousin to Mystara's Thouls, a cross been troll and ghoul).

But i suspect that isn't what y'all mean...

Why not? It would certainly help the people who root for hyena anthropomorphic creatures to be playable characters by reopening that design space.

(Note: if I really wanted to, I'd make them hyena-inspired shifters from Eberron and not call the species gnoll).

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

How depressing. The idea that the game's lore can be determined even in part by how many people play a branded video game is a little sad, no matter how understandable WotC's logic might be.

The Githzerai were survivalist preppers IN SPACE until Planescape Torment came out with Dak'kon and suddenly they became extraplanar monks obsessed with bringing balance to chaos. It's happened before and no one gave a naughty word then.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The Githzerai were survivalist preppers IN SPACE until Planescape Torment came out with Dak'kon and suddenly they became extraplanar monks obsessed with bringing balance to chaos. It's happened before and no one gave a naughty word then.

2e Planescape used the monk lore, not just Torment. And changing what type of creature something is is not the same thing as adding a culture (even a majority one) to an existing creature. Nothing about most githzerei being monks prevents some of them from being survivalist preppers.