A dryad is a Medium (5' tall) fey creature that looks like a beautiful woman. Her features are elf-like but more pronounced, and she might manifest features that suggest her connection to the forest—green hair or skin like burnished wood.

A nymph is a Medium (4'–6' tall) fey creature that looks like a supernaturally beautiful woman. Her features are elf-like but more pronounced. Merely looking at a nymph can blind or even kill a mortal, though this is not so much an effect of her beauty (as is commonly supposed) but a curse she levels on those who intrude into her private sanctum. (Those who catch a nymph bathing are most at risk.)

I have a problem with fey creatures. Okay, maybe not all fey creatures, but I have an issue with dryads and nymphs as described in the history of D&D. Did you take a moment to read through the above descriptions? Did you notice anything unusual? I've got two creatures, both are about the same size, both have elf-like features, and both look like beautiful women. As a visual guy who is trying to create unique and interesting creatures, I'm left wondering "what is the difference?" after reading these two descriptions.

Okay, sure, one is not just beautiful, but is supernaturally beautiful. Can anyone tell me what "supernaturally beautiful" looks like? I have friends who will argue for hours about whether Cameron Diaz is average, pretty, cute, or beautiful. Then you've got the whole issue of cultural differences of beauty, generational differences of the standards of beauty, and even differences about body types as related to beauty. I don't even want to start trying to define what supernaturally beautiful might look like. Just sounds like a nightmare to me.

Hmm, I got myself sidetracked there for a minute.

So one is beautiful and the other is supernaturally beautiful. We've also got that one of them might have green hair or skin that is like burnished wood (and that's beautiful—wait, don't get distracted again . . .). So, is that the only visual difference between these critters? Is there no D&D lore or history that makes them more visually interesting and different from each other?

Okay, let's step back for a second and look at some real world mythology and see if we can find some way to inject some visual clarity into the critters. We've got a problem. It seems that those crazy Greeks say that a dryad is actually a tree nymph. In fact, nymphs were subdivided depending upon where they lived: dryads (forests), naiads (springs and rivers), nereids (the Mediterranean), oceanids (the sea), oreads (mountains), limoniads (meadows), limniads (lakes, marshes, and swamps), meliads (ash trees), epimeliads (with sheep?), and napaea (valleys and glens).

Hmmm . . . time to go talk to the expert.

After a conversation with James Wyatt on this subject, I've come up against a visual conundrum. You see, this is kinda the way the discussion went . . .

Me: "So we've got nymphs, and we've got dryads. I get that a lot of D&D comes from real world mythology, but why do we have 'generic nymphs' and then call out dryads specifically? Doesn't that leave a lot of nymph subraces out there?"

James: "In case you haven't noticed yet, I'm working really hard at trying to confuse and baffle you."

Me: "No fair! You know I'm easily confused and distracted. In fact, the nymph discussion is just another . . . is that a new mini there on your desk? Where did you get it? I just picked up. . . ."

Actually, the conversation that James and I had went quite differently. The truth is simple: the history and reasons behind why things were done in the past in D&D are often shrouded in mystery, and "I'm not sure what they were thinking" moments. Who can say why the 1E Monster Manual ended up the way it did? James seems to believe that "nymphs" (in general) and "dryads" are words that have worked their way into common parlance more than the other distinctions of nymphs, although that might be an effect of the Monster Manual rather than a cause.

So here we are again, back at our starting point. We've got two fey creatures that have a common historical basis and a very common visual look. So how do we differentiate them?

When James thinks of the monster called a nymph in D&D, he tends to think about the sort of generic nymphs of Greek myth—the ones that attended Artemis as she was bathing, for example. That makes the D&D nymph closest to naiads then. Are you familiar with that classical story line? This type of scene has been captured numerous times during the ages. Some of my favorite depictions are the ones that follow.

When you dig through the art of the ages, the nymph has pretty much been depicted as some lovely, semi-nude female figure. The depiction of "beauty" has depended upon the age in which the art was created. Ricci adopted the classical full-figured nude associated with his age. Waterhouse took on the more waifish young Euro beauty the Pre-Raphaelites seemed to adore in their romantic paintings.

Waterhouse might actually be a great place to center this conversation then. He also threw some paint at the dryad, or hamadryad, in this case. So, how did the brilliant painter Waterhouse differentiate the two nymphs? Well, simple. He put the dryad in a tree! Yep, still a beautiful, semi-nude young woman, but this time she's been integrated into a tree.

Is it that simple? Is a nymph just a beautiful young woman depicted in different ways to designate the type of nymph she is? Give her a tail and she's a mermaid or oceanid, put her in a tree and she's a dryad, drop her in a stream and she's a naiad. Is it truly that simple? Seriously?? Well, if any of the feedback about the contemporary D&D dryad is to be considered, you might think that folks in the D&D realm were more comfortable with the classic concept of the dryad than they were with the re-envisioning of the dryad as a monstrous creature as depicted by William O'Connor.

So what do you think?

Which of the following best represents the way you envision nymphs and dryads?   The nymph is a stunningly beautiful generic fey creature with elf-like looks, while the dryad is a specific type of nymph that is associated with a tree. The nymph and the dryad are completely different creatures and should have different visual representations. Other (comment below). I have no opinion on this.

What do you think of the idea of the dryad being depicted as a monstrous creature (like in the painting by William O'Connor above)?   The nymph is a stunningly beautiful generic fey creature with elf-like looks, while the dryad is a specific type of nymph that is associated with a tree. The monstrous dryad is not a good visual direction for the D&D dryad. Other (comment below). I have no opinion on this.

Oh, and take a look at the dryad art again . . . there's our male counterpart to the nymph playing the flutes for Waterhouse's little dryad.

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Jon Schindehette
Jon Schindehette joined Wizards of the Coast in 1997 as the website art director. In the intervening years he has worked as the marketing art director, novels art director, and creative manager. In January of 2009 he moved into the role of senior creative director for D&D. Jon is a long time D&D player (started in 1978), and currently plays in a Tuesday night game and DMs a random pick-up game for younger players. He can be found on Twitter (@ArtOrder) and at theartorder.com.