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.

 

[Gradine]

Two of my current players are new to D&D but are obsessed with BG3

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

Talk to me when you have any proof of WotC 5e losing sales to anyone.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I honestly feel I say this a lot but... gnolls are interesting in Eberron. Where pretty much every monster race is interesting. And now gnolls are 100% incompatible with decades of Eberron lore, because Eberron had gnolls overcoming their savage natures and becoming productive members of society under the assumption they were humanoids, rather than fields.

Honestly, I solve this by just making Eberron a completely separate thing. It happens to share some words with DnD, but I run Eberron in DnD the same way I would run Azeroth. It's lore takes precedence.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

Well-timed from a marketing point of view, certainly.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Honestly, I solve this by just making Eberron a completely separate thing. It happens to share some words with DnD, but I run Eberron in DnD the same way I would run Azeroth. It's lore takes precedence.

Probably the best way to go with Eberron. It was never intended to have much of anything to do with the D&D Multiverse.

 

[Bae'zel]

Talk to me when you have any proof of WotC 5e losing sales to anyone.

I’m sorry but, what exactly is your point? You dislike Wotc and the current changes to D&D, I get that but I’m not even sure what we’re arguing about anymore.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I’m sorry but, what exactly is your point? You dislike Wotc and the current changes to D&D, I get that but I’m not even sure what we’re arguing about anymore.

Nothing really, I guess. I withdraw the comment.

 

[Faolyn]

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

Almost every gamer I know (including myself) loves gnolls...

 

[Chaltab]

I admit I didn't particularly care for them as antagonists until the Mighty Nein fought them in a Manticore den.

 

[Remathilis]

Almost every gamer I know (including myself) loves gnolls...

I'm the minority there, since I found them to just be orcs with hyena heads. Nothing unique or special that wasn't already happening with goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, bugbears, lizardfolk, etc. Which is why I really groked to the "mutated demonic hyenamen" idea. An orc would kill you. A hobgoblin enslaves you. But a gnoll would kill, eat, and desecrate your corpse, and if you're lucky, in that order.

EDIT: I should not I don't run them as having a real civilization, they don't raise young (new gnolls come from hyenas, or rarely humans, eating demon-tainted meat), and are barely more sapient than the hyenas that spawned them. They are more akin to a natural disaster, a plague of locusts, than to a humanoid. It absolutely doesn't bother me to make them fiends and treat them as always Evil, especially when so many other humanoids can be nuanced beings now.