It Had to be Giant Snakes

Giant snakes, a staple of pulp fiction and D&D, go all the way back to the original 1975 three booklet set. While they aren't given specific stats there, they are listed in several encounter tables.

Although giant snakes don’t actually have an entry in the Holmes basic set (1977), they are mentioned at several points in the text and a giant snake is included in the sample dungeon.

The 1e Monster Manual (1977) provides stats for constrictor, poisonous, sea, and spitting snakes, as well as the mythical amphisbaena. The Moldvay basic set also provides giant snake entries, but takes a very different tact: while AD&D details general types of monstrous snakes, Moldvay stats out specific species of snakes: cobra, pit viper, sea snake, giant rattler and rock python. From a mechanical standpoint I much prefer the AD&D approach, but from a flavor perspective I much prefer the D&D approach. Go figure.

Second edition, 3e, and 5e generally follow AD&D, stating out general types of snakes broken out by size and primary attack. Following an idea used effectively by Paizo designers, for the Great Dungeon I took 3e stats for generic snakes and reskinned them with campaign-specific species.

Giant Snake card from David R. Megarry’s Dungeon! boardgame (1975).

Surprisingly, given the ubiquity of giant snakes, Wizards produced relatively few plastic miniatures of these monsters as part of the DDM line. There was a fiendish snake in the Blood War set and a displacer serpent in the Giants of Legend set, both Medium figures. As far as I know there were no Large or Huge snake figures. Paizo attempted to rectify this in their Wizkids Pathfinder Battles line with a Large emperor cobra, an uncommon in the Dungeons Deep set.

Given the lack of Large and Huge snake figures, I was glad to see that the second figure in the Reaper Bones 3 core set was a Julie Guthrie giant cobra. This is a great figure, with nice details like a couple of small sarcophagi and a skull nestled in the snake’s coils. The model was plagued by some mold lines that were difficult to eradicate without wrecking the scales, and in the end I decided to live with the lines. I was pretty happy with my paint job on the model, though I am not sure about adding pupils to the eyes: I liked how it looked with just blank yellow orbs in the sockets.

Snakes in the Great Dungeon

Snakes in general are uncommon in the North and are normally only encountered in late spring, summer, and early fall. The long, harsh winters force the snakes into hibernation for much of the year, often into communal dens deep underground.

The cave rattler is a venomous snake found in rocky wilderness areas, ranging from the Hollow Hills to the Boundary Mountains. Colored grey-brown with dark bands, they are infamous in the North for their great size, nasty disposition, and deadly poison. Known examples include the cave rattler (Large viper snake) and giant cave rattler (Huge viper snake).

The mountain adder (Medium viper snake) is a rusty red color with dark bands, a venomous snake found in the upper reaches of the Great Gobbo River Valley and the lower Boundary Mountains.Large, writhing swarms of hatchling mountain adders have been reported in early spring.

Swamp adders (Medium viper snake) are yellow, venomous water snakes found in lakes and marshes across the North. They are fairly common in the bogs around Black Lake during summer months.

Rock pythons are very rare, cold-hardy constrictor snakes found near water only in the most remote areas of the North. They range in size from rock pythons (constrictor snake) to giant rock pythons (advanced constrictor snakes) to the enormous king rock pythons (giant constrictor snakes).