Dungeons & Dragons to Introduce Male Versions of Hags, Medusas, and More in 2025 Monster Manual

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' will feature artwork depicting several classic monsters like Hags and Medusas as being either male or female. Next month, Wizards of the Coast will release a new for, with updated stat blocks and artwork for over 500 monsters. The new is part of a wider rules revision for, but the book's designers are also updating some of the underlying lore and ways certain monsters are depicted within the game.

In a video posted today by Wizards of the Coast, designers Jeremy Crawford and Wesley Schneider revealed that the 2025 Monster Manual would include artwork showcasing some creatures of both male and female genders. While creatures like Hags, Medusas, or Dryads have traditionally appeared as females in artwork, the new will include artwork showing both male and female versions of both creatures. Other creatures, like the incubus and succubus, would now be depicted as having both different forms and different abilities. In the, an incubus can appear as either male or female and can shift into a succubus that has different abilities.

While some will find adding gendered versions of certain creatures to be controversial, many of the changes are related to creatures that pre-date lore. For example, Medusa was originally a monster pulled from the Greek myth that was originally a female human and later became a female-presenting monster. The Medusas in have no such lore and thus don't need to be shown in a particular fashion. Likewise, other creatures with origins from classic myths (like the dryad and satyr) have very different lore and features inand thus don't need to be presented as being a certain gender. Plus, some of these creatures (like the Medusa and satyr) have already appeared in both genders in other books.

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Keep in mind that this will likely only affect a small number of monsters in the. For instance, dragons have multiple