Magical Traps

Chinese finger trap:

The glyph's magic keeps you held tightly (even tighter if you try and pull away) which is not good if you can hear approaching footsteps. Amputation is often the best way...

On a spellbook:

An odd glyph among those dusty runes on the cover; to anyone untrained in the arts, it simply issues a commanding impulse to return the book to where it was found. To one of the magical arts, however, the glyph is much more danerous. Any spellcaster that the original owner of the book did not name as being allowed to handle the book will suffer an excrutiatingly painful shock, and if they drop the book (75% chance), the glyph is enchanted to select the single most powerful spell that won't damage the book and cast it against the offending mage.

Another amusing trap, for a more scientific setting...

An infrared 'eye' beam crossing the corridor at various levels; break the beam, you trigger the trap - in this case, a gravity trap that starts amplifying gravity - if you try to make it down the hall you'll be paste, even if you're the Flash - but you can make it out readily enough. Stubborn people are likely to be found later on as a thin, gooey mess spread across the floor.

Amulet Trap:

Within a great temple are a couple of hundred Beetle Amulets each half the size of a person's hand, scattered on the golden altars. Should anybody try and steal anything, they all come to life and attack the perp. And their bites cause gangrene unless a healing potion or healing spell is used quickly. It is the number of these animated amulets that make them a real problem.

Forceplanes:

The final trap in most dungeons, the Forceplane field has, unlike most traps, no straight way through it. No puzzle can be solved to get through the curving planes of death, and only raw skill can navigate through it.

A Forceplane is a one dimensional line with infinite gravity, bound in place by several overlapping wards. Because it is one dimensional, its gravity is only useful when the plane is touched. When that happens, an infitely thin line slices through everything it touches, down to far smaller than an atomic level.

Because of the act of the planes cutting through the air, they appear as grey wisps to the naked eye. There are several such planes in this chamber, and the only way through them is to simply tumble and run.

Marble Tiles:

Simple black and white marble tiles line the floor of this room. The trap is simple- black tiles, when stepped on, reverse the gravity on that specific tile. White tiles use normal gravity.

The trouble comes when the PC suddenly has one leg resting ten feet above the other, resulting in severe groinal stretching.

Gold?

Depending on a certain condition (made by the GM), this gold can be either regular gold, psychoreactive glass, or an enormous elemental with flowing coins for skin.

Psychoreactive glass reacts to strong emotion- prolonged feelings of hatred or anger result in it turning into a hatewraith, which proceeds to murder its creator. In the presence of happiness, it dissipates.

Psychoreactive glass looks like gold, but is lighter.

Corridor of Aging

This trap seems like a normal corridor but a potent magical spell has been placed on it which speeds up the ageing process massively. Hair will grow white and fall out, teeth might well fall out, the person will wrinkle and grow weak.If those caught try and run through the corridor their weakened hearts will give them a heart attack and they will die.

If they walk too slowly they will also die.

The trick is to walk at the right speed.When they reach the end of the trap they will go back to normal, except that if they are bald their hair will have to grow again.They must reach the end of the trap to reverse the aging process.

Sleeping Princess Trap:

A bed containing what appears to be a princess enchanted in a magical sleep. In fact, said *princess* is a Ghoul or other Undead in a magical sleep, made to look like a princess by an illusion spell. If kissed, the kisser will be put in an enchanted sleep and made to look like the princess and the Undead (who should be fairly dangerous by itself) will attack the other PC's. To wake the enchanted PC permanently, he/she must be carried out of the castle/maze/dungeon/tomb that the adventure is taking place in. There are other ways... he/she can be kissed and woken but that will put another PC in the same situation. Or he/she can be kissed, after the Undead is dispatched, with the dead lips of the dispatched Undead.

Hot Wire Trap

A series of metal strands across a corridor that are flexible and easy to push through. Half way along they suddenly, be it through magic or through steampunk tech, glow red hot. Any exposed skin will be horribly burnt, normal clothes will burn in 5 to 10 seconds, leather armour in 30 to 60 seconds, wet leather armour within two minites. Chainmail and plate armour takes five minites to heat to dangerous levels and the strands can be chopped quite easily.

This trap will get your PCs on both ways. Being that you'd use it when they would have to come back this way later, maybe a dead end or something.

You have a illusion spell that is partially faded on the floor, it is easily jumped over. As the foolhardy pc jumps over it he/she breaks a "string" that was next to impossible to see, think spider silk type stuff. He get hit while some poisoned darts because he triggered the first part of the trap, and gets knocked over backwards when he lands on the ground by a quarterstaff that shoots out of the wall at chest level. When he falls over he doesn't fall into the pit but land on the ground. Oh wow I guess there was no pit there. The rest of the party walks over it with no problem. They trigger the second part of the trap later. So they leave and once they're out of hearing range they trigger another trap, a plate on the floor. Nothing happens so they go on their merry way thinking that it was a broken trap. Later when they come back and the first person tries to walk over the pit they fall in. When they land a door shuts behind them and they are trapped in the pit.

The door to the pit is wooden, so any party that then goes to disbelieve the illusion will see that. If any others try to jump they find that the string was magically mended while they were gone.

Curious Flame

The base of this specialized trap is your standard fast fire effect, produced by chemical or magical means. The real trick lies in the trigger, enchanted to detect large quantities of paper.

This is good for two reasons:

- the carriers of paper items are typically weaker, increasing the chance of a serious injury, or death

- with a bit of luck can be valuable items damaged or destroyed.

Note that it can allow most of an adventuring party past it. (It is assumed there are other traps, targeting other types.) It is one of the more hated traps, built by villains with smarts.

Mirror Image

A large mirror on the wall. When a PC or PCs are reflected in it, depending on the game, either a double of the PC or PCs jump out with the PCs weapons, strength level and skills and attack, or the double/s emerges later and follows the PCs, trying to murder (or otherwise incapacitate a PC and take his or her place to turn traitor at a critical moment. The PCs can break the mirror easily, but not knowing what it is, they are likely to trigger the trap at least once.

A large number of jewels are on the floor of a treasure room, but when one is picked up, it is revealed to be part of an elemential held in enchanted sleep, which is now awakened and attacks the PCs, or at the very least injures them accidently due to it's huge size.

The cursed potion trap.

A bag with four or five potions in it. The potions are labeled. A few cure light wounds, a cure medium wounds and a cure heavy wounds.

The cure heavy wounds is actually cause heavy wounds.

Fearsome Threesome

The PCs come to a branching of corridors with three hallways. One hallway appears to have silently swinging pendulum axes (silent image), a second appears to be empty (invisible pendulum axes) and the third appears to also have silently swinging pendulum axes (real axes with silence)

Good luck.

The Real Fake Pit Trap.

In a hallway is a pit. The pit has something bad at the bottom. The pit isn't very large though. Just large enough not to be walked across, but a good running jump should get you to the other side. The pit however is an illusion, as is the floor on the other side. When the players try to vault over the pit, they fall through the floor on the other side, and find themselves in the real pit.

The 'door-is-a-trap-and-the-trap-is-a-door' Trap

Near the top of a wizards tower, after following a long set of curved stair up, there is a door. To the left of this door, hidden by a wall tapestry , is a sealed room full of water. At the bottom of the stairs, is a set of spikes.

It's simple, force the lock, the water seal breaks, the hallway gets flooded, and the players get pushed to the bottom of the stairs, where the spikes are there to greet them.

Except for one problem. The door is a fake. The water sealed room is the real door, with just enough real water behind it to look like it is holding back the great flood.

Picking the lock on the fake door won't work, because noting is locked. If the players manage to actually bash through the wall, they will find a very long fall. The door leads outside the tower.

Bookmark Trap

A magical bookmark that by itself is harmless, whilst a Detect Magic spell cast on it will reveal a magical aura and nothing more. When put into a spellbook however, it casts the spell on the page at the person who put it into the book.

When put into a normal book, it causes what is written in the book to *come to life* and either attack the reader or otherwise act up. If for example it is a book about the sea, it will cause water to pour out of the book until removed.