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This is a fun topic to talk about as there are already so many snake and snake-like things in D&D. We have snakes, snake gods, snake cults, snake items, Heck there used to be a spell called sticks to snakes. We did a video on it, check it out – Here.

So here I am going to give 5 prompts for the DM and 5 prompts for the player to play a D&D game dealing with snakes.

Player

• First and foremost, let’s take a page out of one Indiana Jones’ book. Why not have a character that is afraid of snakes? A self imposed irrational fear. Playing into this fear gives your character more substance and helps the DM by at some point giving you an obstacle you would have to overcome.
• Now we can go with another obvious one, Your character is snake centric. Regardless of what you are mechanically, you like snakes. You could have a snake companion or familiar. Your spells could be flavored with a snake motif, heck you could even dress in scaled attire. Maybe you worship a snake god.
• You either belonged to, or do belong to a snake cult and you fear that they will find you or give you a mission that will spell doom for the area you grew up in. Cults are great to add into a backstory as they can easily be fanatics that cannot be easily persuaded away from a course of action.
• Maybe you have a strange birthmark or symbol on your body that is snake-like. Is it part of some strange prophecy? Maybe it is not. What the village shaman told you that something would happen, and it does not, how do you cope with that loss.
• Lastly, what if your character dreams of snakes? Each one you remember is different. You have yet to put the pieces of this puzzle together, what does it mean?

Dungeon Master

• First I am going to take a leaf right out of Robin’s Game – Those Bastards. What if a massive snake has moved in close to a village and is eating people. I am not talking about a massive snake like those that exist in our world, I am talking about a snake so big it can swallow people whole and keep eating. In our game the massive snake was called Bird Eater as it was near an Aarakocra village. We were hero’s after that.
• Now let us go to the movies. What about Snakes on a Plane? Well maybe it is not a plane, but another vehicle that players cannot easily get off of: a train, an airship or a boat. It can of course go further than a simple snake got out of a crate and could easily lead to further story and complications.
• A snake as your villain. This might be an easy pick but a Yuan-Ti themed game would be a lot of fun to run. There would be lots of deception and plenty of ways to use all those snake idioms you are just dying to use, maybe that is just me.Heck for your fantasy world feel free to make up your own.
• People are disappearing. At first everyone thinks that they are being taken, but when the problems increase by an overabundance of snakes in the area, it turns out that people are being changed into snakes. What is causing this strange occurrence, how can you stop it and undo the change on those already affected?
• For this last idea, I am going to stretch the term snake into the idiom snake in the grass. Why not run a game of thrones style, high deception with backstabbing style game? The players could represent a single house trying to fight their way to the top, or try to survive in a heated game of who sits on the throne?