What They Don't Tell You About The Medusas - D&D

though at first glance this creature appeared to be a well-proportioned human a closer look reveals a hideous face crowned with a mass of writhing hissing snakes instead of hair eyes glowing a deep furl red and scale earth-colored skin this is a medusa though of course everyone knows what a medusa is it barely needs any introduction though as i say that a couple of questions spring to mind like for example how do they reproduce no no for reals this is an important question that is always positive whenever you have a monstrous creature that looks like a human especially one that is meant to look shapely as the descriptions say there are some brave bards out there who will want to give it a shot just to see what happens and believe it or not we actually do have an answer for it but less about sex we also have other questions like are the eyes of a medusa as potent as the eyes of a basilisk are all medusa's bipedal what about those that have snake-like lower bodies are there any male medusas before we answer any of these questions and we will first as always let's talk about our sponsor today this video is brought to you by the sunken isles a new dynasty dragon's adventure written by our fellow content creator rune smith right now on kickstarter the adventure is set on the islands of manaki a cluster of islands grown from the body of a god and so the islands are special they are magically alive they'd be thrust into an adventure with a volcanic spirit an undead dwarven king a pirate an ancient native and the forces of the deity itself each of these forces immediately sets out with their own plans and it's up to you and your players to gather the same amount of forces as they do you and your players can collect powerful crew members as they sail make alliances with hidden cultures and get aid from god-like half-immortal beings in the final days of the isles a war is waged based on your choices the adventure will have branching paths making decisions in here matter each adventure in the campaign spans the course of a week and you level up at the end of those weeks there are 20 adventures and so the book will have you level up from level 1 to level 20. check out the kickstarter on the link below and give the give it a look to the sunken isles but now back to the video here is the 5th edition monster manual entry for the medusa let's first read it and see what they tell us as deadly as they are ravishing the serpent-haired medusas suffer an immortal curse brought on by their vanity they lurk in quiet exile among the tumbled ruins of their former lives surrounded by the petrified remains of past admirers and would-be heroes okay so first off they don't really tell us whether or not they have scaly skin they just say that they are beautiful so the presumption i would imagine would be that they basically just look like beautiful women but moving on men and women who desire eternal youth beauty and adoration might pray to malicious gods big dragons for ancient magic or seek out powerful archmages to fulfill their wishes others make sacrifices to demon lords or archdevils offering all in exchange for this gift oblivious to the curse that accompanies it those who strike such bargains gain physical beauty restored youth immortality and the adoration of all who behold them granting them the influence and power they so desire however after years of living like a demigod among mortals the prize for their vanity and hubris is accepted and they are forever transformed into medusas and medusa's hair turns into a nest of venomous serpents and all who gaze upon the medusa are petrified becoming stone monuments to its corruption now this part is peculiar because this is actually an introduction to the lore of the medusas as in this is new lore that we didn't have before medusas are normal creatures just like a human an elve or a dwarf they have their own biology and ways in which they reproduce and live within the ecosystems of these worlds the fact that you can turn yourself into a medusa simply via magic is very interesting and doesn't necessarily contradict any of the previously established lore but it is certainly new now lastly down here medusas live forever in seclusion alienated from the world around them by their monstrous form in capris their homes gradually fall into this repair until they are little more than shadowy ruins covered with thorns and creepers riddled with obstructions and hiding places full hearty looters and adventurers who enter are often unaware of the medusa's presence until the creature is among them a medusa is subject to its own curse by looking vainly in its reflection it turns to stone as surely as any living mortal as a result a medusa destroys or removes any mirrors or reflective surfaces in its lair now my only issue here with this passage is just that it makes the presumption that all medusas are okay living in squalor and indicated buildings which is certainly not the case medusas certainly don't seem to possess the same predilections as humanoids when it comes to you know certain sensitivities but it is true that they are alienated because of their form in particular because they simply have a hard time living amongst people when they can accidentally just petrify any who meet their gays and so they are forced into those situations now here is a stat sheet you can see that they do possess natural armor so that's interesting so it is still kind of up in the air whether or not they have scales as skin but this seems to very heavily imply it see if you do the math you come up with the calculations that her ac is actually 13 plus dex which is exactly what you give to scaly creatures if you look at what you get for ac if you play a lizard folk it is 13 plus dex because of their scales if you look at the draconic bloodline sorcerer who gets their scales in their skin it is again 13 plus decks the fifth edition art which is amazing by the way doesn't quite do a good job at showcasing the fact that honestly they are probably supposed to have scales now the reason that i'm making a big deal out of this is because medusas did not necessarily have scales in first or second edition and then had scales in third and fourth plus popular media portrays them both ways anyways so to be able to figure it out once and for all is kind of important but i digress and here you can see that they're very intelligent charismatic very skillful too look at all these proficiencies that's unironically very impressive for a monstrous creature then we have the petrifying gaze which is the signature move of the medusa nothing too crazy here you already know the drill basically if you meet her gaze you start turning to stone and then just like the basilisk if she sees herself in a reflective surface then she can turn herself into stone as well now down here we can see that the medusa kind of randomly honestly appears to be incredibly proficient in martial combat it's like an attack with blades and bows it does feel very out of place considering that this entire lore page describes the medusas as a curse that befalls one who has to be assumed to be a pretty noble lady who seeked magic to become beautiful forever it's kind of weird that she this noble lady would also be a master in combat now there is of course context to this but it's not given by the 5th edition monster manual now the last thing to notice from this stat sheet here is the poison that is produced by the snake hair is insanely powerful a 46 poison damage is absolutely no joke and it seems like she coats it into her arrows to make them more damaging which is pretty smart but that's about it that is the 5th edition entry for the monster manual now let's go ahead and talk about what the monster mantle did not tell you about the medusas so the way that the medusa is described in the lore is such so as to leave the true nature of how a medusa looks to be relatively up in the air specifically because the main strategy of a medusa is to fool people into thinking of her as a normal female the way it's actually meant to work is that unless you are within 20 feet of the medusa she would then look like a beautiful human to you otherwise her true nature would be revealed a medusa's face to someone who is close would look horrid a disgusting monstrous horrible looking face but what you will find is that some lore books take it a few steps backwards while others take it a few steps forward in first edition this is how they look when up close like a normal female human but just ugly and old in second edition they show us how they would look like from far away but but not how they would look like from up close and then here this is the official 3rd edition art now there is absolutely no way that anyone would mistake this thing for a beautifully shapely female not even from 40 feet or beyond this is a straight-up monster so it kind of leads me to believe that they mean to imply that there must be some kind of illusion magic involved here but no such magic is ever mentioned in any of the lures for any addition the lore is honestly a mess when it comes to medusas in regard to how their faces are meant to look or even their bodies for that matter so what we're going to do because of how much of a mess this all is is we're going to focus at least on this point on the forgotten realms lore we actually have a pretty cool passage in one of elminster's ecology books for the forgotten realms and it is kind of fascinating when it comes to medusa's on this one particular setting it says quote apparently for her fabled gaze to work the victim must see most of the medusa's face while meeting her stare end quote now this quote is amazing now to give you context it is actually referencing the ability for a medusa to have sexual intercourse with a human for the purposes of procreation so the context is that even though a man could be literally having sex with the medusa right in front of him he might not realize her monstrous face or even become petrified unless he looks at the entirety of the medusa's face that's the context for that quote so as you can see there is definitely magic being implied here heavily though again not specifically stated just implied that unless you don't see the entire medusa's face she will look just like a beautiful normal female to you so for now this is what we're going to go with if you see her from far away she's a beautiful shapely woman if you get close and you can see her face then her true form is revealed whereas you would start to see scales on parts of her skin and her face would become hideous but if you cannot see her full face and she would continue to look beautiful to you even if you have sex with her but there it is that's literally canon now the quote also touches on something entirely different that is arguably even more interesting and important the fact that the medusa's gaze does not turn you to stone unless you can see most of her face so the medusa could be covered up in say a veil and its stony gaze would not work on you this is very important but it shows us that medusas can indeed exist amongst humanoids so long as they cover themselves up in fact i believe there was such a medusa in the game planescape torment which is a dungeons dragons game where you can find a medusa who works in a brothel who cannot do her work because she lost her veil and you must try and get it back for for reasons but now so it is like a thing that does happen and we have seen it before but now let's talk about a medusa's eyes that which activates their signature move the ability to petrify unlike the basilisk which only requires for you to receive the radiation from the eyes of the creature the medusa is more complex as it requires for you to see most of the creature's face for the effect to work hence the medusa's gaze would be considered more of a magical curse than a chemical reaction further unlike the basilisk stone gaze which can be bounced off out of any reflective surface a medusa stone gaze can only bounce off out of metallic surfaces this is a very clear and very interesting distinction between the two stoners a medusa for example could look upon her reflection in the water or on any kind of polished stone without suffering any problems and without getting petrified and so could you as well now this is a question that i am sure is burning through your minds because it wasn't mine so glass is not metallic which means technically a medusa would not reflect her stone gaze on glass which is really good to know however the thing is it turns out glass wasn't really used on mirrors until like the middle or late middle ages and even when it was it was coated with lead and or gold which of course are both metals so more than likely a mirror indulgence and dragons would probably be made out of silver or some other kind of metal like bronze depending of course again on how late in history you're playing i suppose how much you care but yeah i mean the medusas come from greek mythology which is like way way way older than medieval times anyway so within this context mirrors would reflect the stone gaze of the medusa at least that's how i would play it now if an intelligent medusa wanted a mirror she could as well make it out of obsidian which is totally a thing since obsidian is a rock and not a metal she would not reflect her curse upon herself but now to summarize this a bit and and to add a little bit more nuance basilisks transmit their petrification through magic that is carried in the radiation that spills out from their eyes this radiation enters the ocular system of a creature and then passes into the bloodstream then from the bloodstream it transmits everywhere onto the body petrifying everything as it passes and the medusa's gaze works more like a curse you gaze into her horrific face and then you become effectively cursed to petrification it's more of a classical style of magic rather than a biological phenomena that is accompanied by magic and because of this there are advantages and disadvantages the disadvantage of course for the meduza is that it is harder to petrify because the enemy has to see your full face but the advantage is that the medusa doesn't necessarily have to be conscious for her effect to work a medusa can't petrify a target even if she's dead though i guess that's not really an advantage to her since she's swole dead but anyways if you slay a medusa and then decapitate her you can indeed grab her head and use it as a petrifying magical item where you literally go pointing out her face at people and then petrifying them that is literally how it works and you don't have to do anything to the head you don't have to enchant it either it just works like that the caveat though is that the more that the head decomposes the weaker the effect becomes basically in the lore they stated that the save dc for the petrification reduces by one for every day that the medusa has been dead i should also mention that medusas can see into both the astral and the ethereal realm whenever they need to and they can petrify creatures in those planes as well which is really cool now another difference between the medusas and the basilisks is that medusa's cannot petrify each other which is actually a great boon this allows many medusas to actually work together towards achieving common goals since virtually anyone else in existence becomes petrified of their gaze and of course humanoids are always trying to hunt them the relationship between these groups and medusas tends to be more practical in nature than for fonzies and companions are discarded as soon as it becomes beneficial to them as you would imagine things would be you know for a monstrous evil creature in fact the lore even states that medusas eat and can gain sustenance from the snakes of another medusa's hair which is very interesting now medusas like snakes do not require much to eat and can actually go for long times without requiring a meal the things that they do actually eat however are a bit of a mystery in the lore we know that they can sustain themselves in vermin eating things like rats and snakes we also know that they are full omnivores so we can assume that their diet can be very varied the main question that the one thing that we really don't know that it would be the most important thing which is i guess the important thing with any monster is whether or not they can eat humanoids or if they would want to do that which is one thing that we do not know we do know that they cannot eat petrified flesh which creates a very serious problem for them sometimes when it comes to finding food though some of the elder medusa learn how to create concoctions that dispels the petrification effect which they can then use in order to trap and eat one of their petrified targets it is a very common thing for example to slay a medusa and then find one of these anti-petrification potions in their lair it's one of the most common loots that you can get from a medusa now medusas do not reproduce with each other because all medusas are female though i should clarify that a bit all natural medusas are female you can have a male medusa but that has to happen through a magical process for example if a male like human being becomes cursed through powerful magic like the fifth edition monster manual described it and then becomes a medusa well then that male human would become a male medusa like for example marlos orndrail from the princes of the apocalypse adventure but you could not for example have a baby be born a medusa and also be male that just doesn't exist what you have instead is an entirely different race of monsters that function like the male medusa but it's not called a medusa they are called the madar the maydar work nothing like the medusas they don't have snakes as hair they do not have the ability to petrify with their eyes they don't even share the same biology or diet style for example medusas are omnivores but madar are carnivores madars are also only male there are no females of this race so when compared to the medusas they are literally completely different creatures however madars have three very unique and interesting features that make them join together with medusas for one they are one of the only monsters that happen to be completely immune to petrification which means that medusas can interact freely with them second madars have the very special ability of being able to turn petrified stone to flesh and they can do this on command whenever they want so a medusa could petrify a target break down that statue that she just created and then the maidar could grab a chunk of the rock turn it into flesh and then cook it and eat it alongside the medusa so they have extremely strong synergy and they work really well together and third is well love for whatever reason these two monsters are designed or meant or faded to always be together madar and medusas fall in love with each other and always mate for life in fact it is interesting how medusas are described as being just like generally terrible people in every way they are horrid in attitude they care not for the well-being of others they are spiteful they have no appreciation for the value of life they're just in general very very evil but upon meeting a maydar they fall in love and stay with them for the rest of their lives it's it's kind of cute and very rare too i mean honestly how many like evil monstrous creatures feel love out there in those dragons and these guys are one of the few even if only when together it is said that if someone kills their mate the other will go to war and back to avenge their love even if it cost them their life it is adorable now reproduction for a medusa is also very weird not because the lore is messy about it in fact we actually know exactly how it works it's just kind of bizarre and maybe a bit confusing so when a medusa and a maid are made the medusa lays down eggs yes the eggs medusa's laid down eggs now from those eggs normal looking babies will hatch each baby has a 75 chance of being female and 25 percent chance of being male now out of the babies that are boys only one percent of them will be made are and the rest will be human babies so 99 of the male babies will be human and 100 of the female babies will be human i don't mean that they look human i mean they are literally human beings and the tricky thing is that madar babies and human babies effectively look the same there's really no distinguishing feature between them except for the fact that human babies become petrified when they look at a medusa so yeah when babies hatch from a maydar and a medusa the medusa mother will look upon each of the babies and petrify them to kill them and if the baby does not become petrified then that means that it must be a maydah at which point they raise that baby like normal while they dispose of the rest so you might have noticed that i never said medusa baby when a medusa and a maid are made you can only either get humans or madars no medusas in order for a medusa to procreate and create more of themselves she would have to reproduce with a humanoid that is not a maydar the lord does specify human but it might work with other human races i'm not actually sure in any case like we talked about it before a medusa can hide her monstrous form for as long as she just didn't show her full face oh she could simply hide her face on a veil or some other kind of protection and then reproduce with a human who would be none the wiser when this happens and when the deed is done medusa typically reward the human male with petrification poor guy at least he died happy now the eggs that will then hatch from the union of a medusa and a male human will result in being all female medusas which would look like normal human babies but with a twist quote these offspring like those of medusa and maydar hatch snake-like from eggs but they look human enough as babies chubby pink skinned girls with a cap of green stubby hair tendrils they always mature into medusa and quote the lord does state though quite amusingly that the little girls are revolting to look at which is kind of funny they grow at roughly the same rate as humans at age 2 the serpentine hair becomes alive and gains its poisonous bite and the medusa would eventually gain its ability to petrify as they hit puberty now the snakes we haven't talked about the snakes yet unfortunately that is because there isn't much about the snakes and by much i mean anything really we don't know how sentient they really are as in we don't know if they each have their own mind or if they just share the same mind as the medusa we do know that when the medusa becomes excited then the snakes wriggle a lot more vigorously but that's basically all we get in terms of any kind of mental connections between the two we know that hungry medusas will eat the snake hairs out of other dead medusas so it's not like they venerate these snakes like say a unt would for example we know that all medusas and madar are immune to the poisons of the snakes but yeah other than that it really is very vague the poison that these snakes produce however is some of the strongest poison in the game which is funny or interesting that it just so happens to be i guess you wouldn't think about it but it is true so the actual strongest poison is supposed to be the purple worm poison but quite frankly nobody's getting that i mean who's killing a purple worm just to take its poison in terms of the moe's readily accessed most powerful poison you will actually see say you know players use for example would have to be the wyvern poison which is actually the poison that the assassin creature uses in the monster manual the medusa 5th edition has her poison dealing less damage than the wyvern and purple worm poison but you probably didn't know that back in the day they all had the same damage for that poison even in third edition the medusa and the purple worm boys and did the same the wyvern was a bit different back then but regardless my point is you guys have been sleeping on the medusa's poison it's supposed to be really really strong let me read you how things used to be quote if an opponent averts his eyes the medusa rushes up so that its serpentine groads can attack the range of such attacks is only one foot but the victim must save vs poison or die end quote now let me read you what it says in first edition quote the victim bitten must save vs poison or die end quote isn't there something just inherently powerful and epic about the idea of just save or die it just sounds badass in third edition these poisons would reduce your strength stat by 1d6 or sometimes 2d6 if your stat then reached 0 you would die so it was still very dangerous in that way back then but yeah that's part of the strategy of the medusa the reality is that everyone knows what a medusa is you see the serpentine hair so you cover your eyes or simply don't look at her face it's just that simple and so the medusa needs something else to fall back to and that's what the hair is supposed to be you just bite someone and that someone dies now you might think that that is overpowered but keep in mind that you're contending with a creature that will literally just turn you to stone if you see her which would mean that you would die automatically anyway so a snake bite that insta kills you might not sound quite as dramatic when you put it that way the whole idea about averting your gaze is really when you think about it it's kind of a dumb way of attacking a medusa the smart way would be to attack from range and never get within 30 feet of the medusa because the range of the stone gaze is actually pretty small and if you were to get close she can bite you and kill you and so medusa's over time have learned the art of the bow in order to compensate especially when they can utilize the poison of their snakes and coat their arrows on it and that is why actually medusas are supposed to be fairly marshall with the bow now to finish up the video let's talk about the greater medusa which is totally a thing the greater medusas are medusas that have an entire serpentine lower half of their bodies but you might have seen these for example from smite or from dota these were actually included in 2nd edition so they are canon and we do have some lore about them unlike the normal medusa which are supposed to at least look pretty from far and have horrible looking faces from clothes these greater medusas just straight up look like monsters all throughout their entire body is meant to be covered with scales and are pretty large in general having a length of about 10 to 20 feet which is crazy now the interesting distinguishing factor about these girls and why they're called greater medusa and not say lesser medusa is because their entire blood is poisoned so getting any of their blood on you in any way would cause you to save against that poison as if you were bitten by the snakes which again in second edition basically meant you died if you failed that check so you could slash the medusa have some of her blood spilled on you and you would have to do the save or die but yeah i mean other than that they basically work the same way as their normal medusa cousins we don't know anything about their biology or reproduction or really anything of the sort they're just a variant without much to it unfortunately i would like to personally thank my patreon supporters barry mask and 5v magic shop morgan johnson rusty rain dock feeder degree codini omega scales terry colb benjamin busters falcon951 stephen or doryx sabine kurshab thomas hunt soulless rider lost crusader stalia trev 909 tony arcy george fortland trevor hess the living guild pack describe herva johnson the wizard's vault nakhtor ashura shoddycast brian camp chattaga john the wicked shane and sam skinner warren smith jesse feliciano barrack simon landreville elisa kestrel kristen coleman lactose dean tolerant holy phy and murdon games for supporting me on patreon at the 25 level if you would like to support me as well then please head on over to patreon.comrex to support thank you guys for watching thank you guys for being here thank you for being awesome and i will see you all next time

Channel: MrRhexx

Views: 156,835

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Id: n0kr0c1Fc_8

Length: 28min 20sec (1700 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 11 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Axelfiraga]

This was way more information about medusas than I had any reason needing, but I somehow watched the whole thing. Great content!

I’m a bit confused by the whole madar/Medusa breeding thing. How come:

• madar + Medusa = human (99% of the time)

But

• human + Medusa = Medusa (?)

I also realized that there are no male Gorgons (Madar?) on Ravnica (or in mtg). Are Gorgons technically a different race than Medusas? Like, the Theros Gorgons and Vraska look more monstrous from say, Kroazada Gorgon. Then you have someone like Visara, idk what the hell is going on there.

[u/AniTaneen]

This video on D&D Medusa's. Definitely like the idea that Medusas can reproduce by suppressing their petrification