2025 Monster Manual to Introduce Male Versions of Hags, Medusas, and Dryads

Screenshot 2025-01-07 at 1.05.10 PM.png


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.

 

log in or register to remove this ad

Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


log in or register to remove this ad

This thread is super long, so hopefully this has already been added:
  • Satyress: Satyress - Wikipedia
  • The male equivalent of a hag in Celtic folklore was the bodach: Bodach - Wikipedia
  • Many of the "hag partners" were for some reason characterized separately a giants in D&D (for a long time, hags mingled with giants in AD&D folklore if I remember correctly), which is an odd choice, since it's pretty clear in folklore they were considered the same thing, so to speak. But many of the legendary hag-type monsters had monstrous husbands that could easily be male versions: Befana has befano, Grila has Leppalúði, etc.
If you dig enough, there are "pretty close" alternates of just about every gendered monster. D&D made some choices early in the game about monster classifications (like the curious gorgon/medusa split that most folklore doesn't accommodate) that have now influenced fantasy representation (if you search for "male medusa" maedar comes up like it's part of folklore, which it isn't).
It’s interesting how many monsters in D&D stem from a common folklore name or term but ended up being broken out in to distinctly separate monsters.
 

The male equivalent of a hag in Celtic folklore was the bodach: Bodach - Wikipedia

Also, during his fifth voyage, Sinbad is tricked by an old man into carrying him across a river, but the old man refuses to dismount and rides Sinbad around like a horse -- hag-riding. Eventually Sinbad gets the old man drunk and kills him.

There's definitely precedent in folklore and literature.
 

Bad bet on the vampires: both fictional and supposed vampires in real life were female. Camilla, Elizabeth Barthory and Mercy Brown (the latter a woman in 19th century Rhode Island) were all though you be vampires, in either the original corpse style or the sexy aristocratic style.
I stand corrected.
Interestingly, werewolves would have been a safer bet. Most werewolves were male in both history and folklore, sometimes considered the male equivalent to witches. Skinwalkers too, though much of the "folklore" surrounding them is bunk due to the fact that Navajo don't share info with outsiders and the internet has been ripe to make up its own lore to fill the gap.
Thank you.
And while the Golem was a singular creature (equivalent to the D&S clay golem) it's double ironic that another classic golem, the flesh golem, is also inspired by a single entity: Frankenstein's monster. One thinks if he has a snazzy name, that would be his creature type in D&D as well...
Also thank you for chiming in.
 

I knew a guy back in the day who photocopied his Monstrous Compendium pages so that each creature had it's own page or pages . . . for every supplement in the series and all the monsters from adventures and setting books to boot. The dude had binders and binders of monsters . . . .
That might have been me. I was up to at least 6, plus an additional binder for the index (which I made using MS Access). Alas, I got rid of it a few years ago and just kept the index.

It's nice having unrestricted access to a copier at work.
 


Interestingly, werewolves would have been a safer bet. Most werewolves were male in both history and folklore, sometimes considered the male equivalent to witches. Skinwalkers too, though much of the "folklore" surrounding them is bunk due to the fact that Navajo don't share info with outsiders and the internet has been ripe to make up its own lore to fill the gap.

Technically "werewolf" even means "manwolf." By the same etymology a female werewolf would be "wifwolf."
 

Also, during his fifth voyage, Sinbad is tricked by an old man into carrying him across a river, but the old man refuses to dismount and rides Sinbad around like a horse -- hag-riding. Eventually Sinbad gets the old man drunk and kills him.

There's definitely precedent in folklore and literature.
I liked that story so much, I used it to make a creature for my homebrew - the Ridulya

1736515408335.png

1736515428360.png
 

Technically "werewolf" even means "manwolf." By the same etymology a female werewolf would be "wifwolf."
I tend to be careful using etymology to determine gender. There are just so many examples of using the masculine to refer to both genders that it's difficult to determine if it's the inclusive (mankind) or exclusive (manosphere).

That said, it probably has some element to it, as masculinity and wolves have shared a lot of linkage in various societies.
 

Thanks for those.

And there I was thinking some of the playable monsters in Tall Tales of the Wee Folk (1989) were obscure - anyone fancy playing as a pooka?
I wouldn’t consider pooka is that obscure. “Puck” is a variation on that Celtic term for a naughty fairy. See Robin Goodfellow in a Midsummer Night’s Dream.
 

Trending content

Remove ads

Trending content

Remove ads

Top