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]

Anyone can do that. Infact, KB has already published a gnoll PC species in his 5e Eberron supplement. As @Micah Sweet always says (paraphrasing): "don't be a slave to WotC." I mean you can't get much closer to the source than KB!

I think I've actually used those exact words. But there are folks irritated about the demon gnolls who also seem to feel WotC has to fix this themselves. What can you do?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I want those words etched on the tombstone of every person who say "X class should not be a class anymore."

I'd agree with that, since I've never said those words. I want more classes!

 

[Voadam]

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.

Monks were part of Githzerai lore from the start including the whole race being "monastic creatures" and monks training in Githzerai fortresses. The later changes were going from only 5% of individuals and the CN to LN switch.

 

[Bae'zel]

5e was plenty popular without changing the tabletop to more accurately model the lore in a video game.

I think that incorporating changes to the lore from a hugely successful video game was well timed to the release of the revised editions of 2024-2025.

I know that for me and mine Baldur's Gate 3 was a welcome breath of fresh air to the lore just in time for us to dive back into the Forgotten Realms.

Saying that D&D was "plenty popular" already might have less weight in light of the release of plenty of competition (Pathfinder 2e, Dragonbane, Shadowdark, etc...). A fresh coat of paint and tweaks to the current lore might just be the subtle polish needed to get people to stick with D&D.

Yeah yeah cue up comparisons to "the same Maliby Stacy doll as before, but now she has a new hat!". lOL

 

[Voadam]

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.

~50 Million people played D&D at the beginning of 2024.

About 15 million copies of BG3 sold.

 

[camelotcrusade]

I'm very late to this party, and the good news is that no one cares what I think anyway. We'll do what we like, and our players will enjoy it.

Having said that, I'll add that art like this can inspire you even if you prefer the world before you saw it.

We embraced the fey and used all the 2E lore a while back, then added a dash of our own plus Auld Dragon's excellent material. So that meant Damh made the (all male!) satyrs and Verenstra made all the (all female!) dryads. And that's how it was.

But we didn't leave it there. One day I found a picture of a dryad that looked male to me, and so a story about an ancient grove was born, where the male dryad lived in loneiness, all his sisters long gone (that reason served another plot I had going on). The PCs had to figure out how to bring them back as well as confront that the Oak Princess was no longer interested in this male prototype. It also set up the plot that her brother Damh did the same thing around the same time Verenestra did, so there was (or had been) a female satyr out there too.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Heck, why distinguish? NPC gnolls should be able to not be demons too.

Especially with the orc/drow debacle. If you allow one (exceptional) PC to reject the yoke and became "any alignment", then that means that the species is a thinking species. So if your character could atone their evil ways, then others might as well. It might be a low probability event, but then it's difficult to justify saying "there is no hope for them" when you introduce the possibility that there was, maybe, hope and you chose to kill instead of redeem.

 

[Gradine]

Y'all realize that gnolls were the way they are in Baldurs Gate 3 because that's what their lore was in 5e before the game even came out? Like you can't blame this one on Sven folks

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

~50 Million people played D&D at the beginning of 2024.

Over 50 years.

About 15 million copies of BG3 sold.

Over 18 month.

The odds of those 15 millions being still alive, not mentionning remembering anything from their experience, is much higher than the former number.

 

[Chaltab]

BG3 has definitely reached people that didn't already play D&D.

That said there is a somewhat sympathetic gnoll in Moonrise Tower, and they're portrayed less as inherently evil than they are driven by an overpowering hunger.