The Lyrander airship cleared the Endworld Mountains and cruised above the Blade Desert. The journey from Q’barra was pleasant and the captain expects to arrive at the Boneyard ahead of schedule. A cry from the crow’s nest signals trouble. Riders are seen in the distance. The number of hippogryph’s is astounding. Ridden by Halfling warriors they quickly form up and attack. Three of the hippogryph’s break off from the main force and pass over the deck of the ship. The riders release a crate that smashes on to the deck below, covering it in very angry snakes.

This is pretty much what happened to my gaming group during our last session. Rather than snakes, we received fire bombs that brought the airship down. The encounter immediately triggered the thought of Snakes on an Plane, and thoughts of Sam Jackson cursing in ways that only he can dominated my mind.

The encounter is simple enough to create, grab a snake of appropriate level and drop a few onto the deck of an airship. Watch the hilarity ensue. On top of its immediate pop references, you can also add in a splash of Indiana Jones by ensuring that the captain of the airship is petrified of snakes.

I suppose this is one of the truly great things about being a D&D geek. Taking a great pulp movie and inserting it into D&D for the sheer pleasure of it. There are of course plenty of other movies that can be converted into D&D and over the next few weeks the Dungeon’s Master team will be looking into some of our favourites.

I took a quick look through the Monster Manual and didn’t come across any snakes that I thought would work in the encounter. Fortunately we have Adventure Tools and the Monster Builder. It’s not the prettiest monster, but it’ll do the job in a pinch.

I managed to find a few maps of airships on the net. I don’t have permission to use them so I’ll just point you in the right direction. If you’re short on idea’s for an adventure one night feel free to drop load of snakes on the PCs and allow the fun to begin. An easy encounter to run if you’re behind in your weekly preparation.