here’s me for 35 years not knowing about snakewood

Apparently there’s a real thing called a snake-wood tree. Its wood has a wavy grain and it has two or three trunks.

I’m sort of ashamed that I didn’t a) either know about this wood already or b) independently invent it for use in my D&D campaign. Now that I think about it, the existence of something called “snakewood” in a fantasy campaign should be axiomatic.

Here are some corollaries:

  • The Staff of the Serpent is made of snakewood.
  • If you case Sticks to Snakes on snakewood, the spell does not expire.
  • There’s a magic item called a Snakewood Bow. The arrows it fires turn into snakes in flight: on a hit, it lands on, and bites, its target, for 3d6 poison damage (save for no damage). On a miss, the snake lands adjacent to the target: it is alive and hostile, and is a level 1 (or 1 HD) monster. The snake vanishes once it has bitten a target or when it is killed. The Snakewood Bow can fire twenty snake-arrows a day; after that, it acts like a +1 bow.
  • Snakewood walking stick: This looks like a walking stick, not a weapon, but it looks like one that a jerk like Lucius Malfoy would use. It acts as a +1 club. At will, the owner can make it hiss or rattle. The walking stick has three charges, which are refreshed every day. On a melee hit, the owner can expend a charge to have it bite the target: the target must make a fortitude save vs. poison or take 2d6 damage and become Dazed on the next turn.

    Something that the owner of the snakewood walking stick will have to learn from experience: if it’s used to attack a yuan-ti, it will twist and attack its owner, using the attack roll that was intended for the yuan-ti.

  • 3 Responses to “here’s me for 35 years not knowing about snakewood”

    1. Mystic Scholar says:

      Nice. I’ve never heard of Snakewood either . . . time for a Google search!

      Like the items too. I’ll have to find a use for them. 😉

    2. Claire Claire says:

      PAUL YOU ARE 36

    3. Ervin M. Harris Sr. says:

      I have worked with Snakewood for 8 years.

      Snake Harris

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