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.

 

[Chaltab]

Anything that eats bugs is a-okay in my book, but a lot of people are scared of spiders. I've never seen someone recoil at the sight of a grasshopper, ant, or even a bee like I have seen them recoil from the sight of a spider. I've seen grown adults run away from a tarantula encountered in the wilds of Texas. There are message boards with rules against even posting pictures of spiders such is the fear so common.

Tarantulas are fine. The spiders that bother me are the ones so small you don't notice them until they're crawling on you.

 

[MGibster]

Tarantulas are fine. The spiders that bother me are the ones so small you don't notice them until they're crawling on you.

I went hunting many, many years ago, and because I don't really need to hunt to eat, I'm terrible at it. I'll usually bring a book with me and it's pretty normal for me to look up and see a deer or two walking back into the safety of the woods. One one particular trip, I kept dozing off in the deer stand, and each time I'd wake up I'd find more than a dozen tiny, about the size of my pinky nail, salt & pepper colored spiders crawling all over me. I'd brush them off, doze off again, and wake up to find those spiders all over me again.

 

[Mind of tempest]

Oh, man, yeah. I'd love to see more mammalian (or avian or reptilian) eusocial monsters in D&D. Eusocial vertebrates are a special type of creepy.

I saw some osr guy made ones derived from humans which is honestly way freaker.

 

[Mind of tempest]

I don't see this pictorial choice as particularly inclusive. It's marginal as best.

Having a few benevolent creatures be female (like satyresses) despite already having an established benevolent female counterpart in myth (the nymphs) doesn't help, the female version was already present. And honestly, the nymph was certainly depicted more postively than the satyr, even though D&D official art fell short of representing satyrs with their namesake oversized, excited genital organs.

Having a single evil monsters (Hags) being shown as male is a really slight gain (it's still a monster that is the reflection on prejudice against age and ugliness).

Having a poor, cursed creature who can't help but petrifying any social contact it may have (Medusa) be either male of female is certainly more inclusive, as in "every sex can get cursed", but I wouldn't use that as a badge of inclusivity. Especially when it's not new, male medusa have been part of the game since 3e (Sharn City of Towers, 2004) and apparently already had a male counterpart (the maedar, of whom I learnt in this thread).

Having a few benevolent creatures (nymphs, dryads) be male doesn't seem to do much for inclusivity. Sure, making this creature sexed (before, one could say that it was a single-sex species, therefore neutral as they weren't known to breed) gives more visibility to males in the game, but I don't feel we lacked cool depictions of male creatures in the game at this point. If they wanted to do more for inclusivity on this front of male representation, they'd depict more female orcs and goblins in published content: I am pretty sure a lot of groups imagine all male when they are told "the peaceful caravan is ambushed by 6 goblin warriors". As an example, the goblin tribe described in Rime of the Frostmaiden has exactly 1 female goblin, and she's a healer. There are several children goblins, so it's not just the author wanting to avoid a slaughter of civilians...

why are you complaining about more hot monster women? or more monster men.
we are here to kill lot and maybe make a friend I do not even grasp what there is to complain about.

 

[Mind of tempest]

They're not, but even in mythology they're connected to satyrs and are usually the objects of their affections.


They are. It falls into the idea that "good" women are young, pretty, and fertile, and that society has no use for older, unattractive, and infertile women. In Ravenloft (3e), evil post-menopausal women could even become a hag.

are not all the old supposed to offer wisdom, experience and train the youth to fulfil the same functions they used to have?

 

[Mind of tempest]

Anything that eats bugs is a-okay in my book, but a lot of people are scared of spiders. I've never seen someone recoil at the sight of a grasshopper, ant, or even a bee like I have seen them recoil from the sight of a spider. I've seen grown adults run away from a tarantula encountered in the wilds of Texas. There are message boards with rules against even posting pictures of spiders such is the fear so common.

I freeze like a deer in headlights at wasps, but spiders I am to save from being killed by my family.
the only evil thing I could see being part of spiders is being associated with the threads of fate, as I hate fate.

 

[dave2008]

are not all the old supposed to offer wisdom, experience and train the youth to fulfil the same functions they used to have?

I'm not sure of your intent here, but historically that line of thinking has lead to a lot of sexual abuse. Not saying it has too, but that is, unfortunately, a thing

 

[Mind of tempest]

I'm not sure of your intent here, but historically that line of thinking has lead to a lot of sexual abuse. Not saying it has too, but that is, unfortunately, a thing

I ment as i all old people are to train apprentices to take over their roles in society, I assume that is what old women where often doing in a pre-modern society

 

[Micah Sweet]

I ment as i all old people are to train apprentices to take over their roles in society, I assume that is what old women where often doing in a pre-modern society

Seems logical. A lot of teaching even now is done by the elderly.

 

[Faolyn]

are not all the old supposed to offer wisdom, experience and train the youth to fulfil the same functions they used to have?

Those ideas came later.