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

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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.

 

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Christian Hoffer

Christian Hoffer


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Since I never used maedar, I don't care if they got replaced with male medusas. I would prefer they expand on the medusa in a more interesting way though. Why not "medusa" creatures for other elements? If the classic one turns victims to stone with a gaze, what about:

  • If they look at you, you catch on fire and burn to a crisp.
  • With a gaze, they fill your body with water until you drown where you stand.
  • Stare at you until you fill with air and pop like a balloon.
 

Since I never used maedar, I don't care if they got replaced with male medusas. I would prefer they expand on the medusa in a more interesting way though. Why not "medusa" creatures for other elements? If the classic one turns victims to stone with a gaze, what about:

  • If they look at you, you catch on fire and burn to a crisp.
  • With a gaze, they fill your body with water until you drown where you stand.
  • Stare at you until you fill with air and pop like a balloon.
As I mentioned earlier, there is a vitrifying medusa in Lost Laboratory of Kwalish.
 


Is there going to be an update? I thought Baker said he was moving on to non-Eberronian things.
Keith Baker might do some stuff on his blog, or maybe something for the DM's Guild, but I'm pretty sure he is moving on from Eberron.

WotC doesn't need Baker to do new Eberron products, but they haven't made any announcements. And really, we don't need any updates for the existing 5E Eberron books to work with the 2024 rules. I'd be surprised if WotC put out a new book, or even an errata type document.
 

Since I never used maedar, I don't care if they got replaced with male medusas. I would prefer they expand on the medusa in a more interesting way though. Why not "medusa" creatures for other elements? If the classic one turns victims to stone with a gaze, what about:

  • If they look at you, you catch on fire and burn to a crisp.
Honestly, that sounds like a demon or devil thing.

  • With a gaze, they fill your body with water until you drown where you stand.
And that would be a cool power for a sea hag.

  • Stare at you until you fill with air and pop like a balloon.
Air elemental ability?

I'm not saying you can't have medusa that do these things, of course, but medusa have been associated with stone for so long that giving them elemental powers more makes it feel like they've been made to fill a niche. Like how 3e decided to create earth, fire, and air weirds in addition to the water weird. (And then turn them into hot chick oracles, for some unknown reason.)

I'd say have variant medusa turn victims into solid objects other than solid stone. Glass or sand, wood (for a forest-dweller or Poison Ivy-type), beeswax (for a beekeeper medusa), coral (for a swimming medusa), bone (like that terrifying Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva disease), or metal.

...now that I think of it, the last of them would make for a very interesting origin for a (possibly intelligent) magic weapon.
 

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