The Travesty! The Horror! Male Medusae.

[Rechan]

Instead of Flesh to Stone, they had the ability to turn Stone to Flesh - the story goes, they hide in the shadows until their sweetie-pea has made a few statues, they come out, bust the thing up with their fists (extremely strong) and then reverse the process so they could both feed. Human shashimi with a great blood sauce.

That's how I thought all Maedar worked.

As someone who's played in Eberron, with male medusa (I.e. dudes with snakes for hair), I don't have a problem with it.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Put me on the list of people who don't think that every monster needs to be a breeding species. It may be because I was reading Greek mythology for a decade before I ever picked up a D&D book, but for me a medusa will always be an evil woman cursed by the gods with a form that matches her ugly soul. I think that is a far more interesting background for a monster than a species that just happens to be born with an evil nature and the ability to turn flesh to stone. I despise the kind of uninspired writing that results in the second.

I don't really think the whole "political correctness" justification being thrown around is very valid, either, for a number of reasons, but this really isn't the place to go into it.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Maedar are tres goofy imo. I prefer medusae to have male and female varieties. Sure you could give them a mystical origin or go old school there-can-be-only-three one a la Birthright but that's not the way D&D has traditionally portrayed its monsters. They're all species. Except for the Tarrasque.

<- simulationist


Trivia question: What were the names of the other two gorgons?

 

[Rechan]

You know. For those who like "Two-parent breeding" but don't like male medusa, there's a few other options:

Female medusae breed with human men. The result is always female, always another medusa.

Male Medusae are Yaun-ti. Female yaun-ti are medusae.

 

[thewok]

Why were Gorgons renamed to Medusae, and why then was the gorgon changed to something else? Why did the developer at the time do that? This is a story I would like to read about sometime.

As far as male versions of the medusa, I'm fine with them. But, I'd probably say that they're pretty rarely seen outside medusa lairs. Perhaps the medusa society is matriarchal, and the fathers are the ones who stay at home with the kids while the women go out and raise hell on adventurers.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Maedar are tres goofy imo. I prefer medusae to have male and female varieties. Sure you could give them a mystical origin or go old school there-can-be-only-three one a la Birthright but that's not the way D&D has traditionally portrayed its monsters. They're all species. Except for the Tarrasque.

<- simulationist

Out of raw curiosity, why do you connect being a simulationist and your preference for breeding monsters? I don't see any logical link there. The difference between a medusa being the result of a curse and a medusas being a true-breeding race doesn't really fall under any definition of simulationism that I have ever heard before.

 

[hong]

They're only a travesty if they aren't done the same way I wanted to do them.

So to speak.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Ew, they have?

Oh well, from the early results, looks like I'm one of the few bothered by this. So, perhaps adding them was a good call. Bummer for me though!

I remember reading an article about the male medusa/maedar back in Dragon magazine issue about #85 or so. They were, iirc, even more reclusive than their female counterparts and could turn stone to flesh (so they could restore their lady loves after they were inevitably turned to stone by seeing their own reflection).

 

[kennew142]

I can't believe anyone would be bothered by the idea of male medusae. The medusa in Greek mythology is a singular creature. In D&D medusae are a race of monstrous humanoids. They've always been depicted this way in D&D. If they're a separate race, they have to reproduce some way. Parthenogenesis would work for me, but male medusae don't bother me either.

I'm a classicist by training (and vocation), but have no trouble differentiating between classical mythology (which btw is about much more than incest, if you bother to read it) and D&D. Anyone who wants a more mythological feel for their medusae has to house rule it anyway. Removing male medusae from the book requires no more effort than removing the rest of the species in order to make her unique.

BTW, the more I think of it, the more I like the idea of parthenogenesis. Most mythological creatures come from the feywild in my game anyway. After all, the Medieval conceptualization of the fey realm included the creatures from classical mythology. Oh no, I can't believe the amount of effort it took for me to make the medusae into partheogenetic fey creatures. How do I ever find the time to do these things?

 

[kennew142]

Trivia question: What were the names of the other two gorgons?

Stheno and Euryale, of course.