Door Traps

Hand-melt:

As your hand nears the lock it goes limp and sags, the closer you reach, the more fluid and droopy your hand becomes. At very close range, globules of flesh start dripping onto the floor where they slowly solidify back into fingers and knuckles.

Animated mechanism:

You insert the key in the lock, when you hear a crunching noise. You look down. You're holding a key-hilt, and the lock is grinning back at you with an array of evil-looking teeth. Thank goodness you didn't try to get close and pick that lock...

Unlocking

Doors should have a lock. But even a quality lock may not stop every thief, or worse, a key may be copied, or stolen! Higher security can be achieved if you think about these options.

- stealing the key and unlocking, the thief still triggers the trap... how is that possible? Answer: to disarm the trap, you need to turn the key once more after the door is unlocked. Easy to teach the guards, and not very obvious.

- especially good for richly decorated doors, a small concealed part/button must be pressed while opening; otherwise the trap will be triggered. If well placed, it may not be noticed by anyone even if they observe the guard unlocking the door.

- the key must be magnetic to work (you could make it magical or whatever uncommon property). Even a highly skilled thief or a copied key may not work.

- If something metallic is put into the keyhole, it closes a circuit and a strong electrical shock is dealt (can be created magically if you want to make it 'magic'). Solution is to either have non-metallic keys, or better yet, outfit the guards with leather gloves.

Don't forget to build in an alarm to each trap.

Forcing open

This door is a fake, designed to make people think twice if they like to use the force wherever possible. It looks very weak, could be stuck, or the lock be damaged. The point is to become forced open... with the full body if possible. It is easy to force open, and while not as weak as it seemed, it is made much thinner in some places. Right behind the door, behind the thinned out places are prepared sharp spikes. Looks like this:

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||- | <- door

||- | <<- spikes

||- |

||- |

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(Of course, the better/stronger someone manages to push, the more painful will it be. Poison optional.)

The Door

A nifty little encounter appropriate for any powerful sorcerer/magically adept monsters lair.

When the party have penetrated to an appropriatly impressive level/room they encounter The Door, this door is a vessel through which the Sorcerer/Monster can safely work against any intruders, the door is heavy duty iron bound studded oak wrought with craft, skill and magic, set in the middle is a crystal orb, once the party get within a preset distance the orb flickers briefly as the door warns its 'master' of the intruders, the master can then effectivly possess the door itself, this means that all movement the door is capable of (i.e. opening and closing) come under the control of the master, the master can also cast spells from the door as if he were there himself, all the while any damage that is inflicted in return merely damages the door, this will in effect ruin any of the parties chances of surprise, allow the master to assess the parties abilities while remaining safe and sound and finally will probably cause the party to waste some of their juicier items/spells on a chunk of wood and iron, and if the master happens to have a deadly spell or three it could also reduce the size of the party.

Of course if you wanted to be really nasty you could have the door open to admit one person and then slam shut on the second person (squish) whilst blasting away with every spell in the masters repetoir.

Gremell 5700b Security Scanner

This item takes your standard biometric hand scanner to the next level. The hand is placed in the trademarked Gremell box on a pressure sensative plate. The Gremmel wrist capture seals the hand into the box, trapping the hand at the wrist. The pressure sensor plate then does a level 2 scan of the hand and detects the pulse of the hand. If everything matches, the door opens and the wrist is let free.

If the hand meets most of the protocols, but not all, the wrist lock stays in place and security/ maintance is summoned to access the employee.

If the hand fails most of the protocols, a patented Arizaki's Vibroslice blade removes the hand at the wrist. This blade will remove most cyberwear as well. Security and Housekeeping is alerted.

If an alert signal is already in the system, one that says people should stay at their desks, any attempt to access a door will active the vibroslice at the wrist.

Gremell 5900 series Security Scanner

This door security system combines biometrics and mechanical activation to stymie most illicit activations.

The hand is placed in the trademarked Gremell box. Finger tips are placed in the four designated cups. The wrist capture closes in as the scanner plate does a level 1 scan of the palm. The digits in the cups are also scanned. If those are met, the individuals access code is asked for on the convenient screen. The imputs are made adjusting the individual's fingers up or down, preventing dead man's puppenting and other illicit means of hacking a door's security. Depending on the time of day or alert status of the door, a wrong code either locks the hand into the scanner OR a patented Arizaki's Vibroslice blade removes the hand at the wrist. This blade will remove most cyberwear as well. Either way security and maintance will be summoned.

The Dreaded Murphy Bed of Dooooom

The Nasty, Sinister Noble had a trap door in his chamber, one that he seldom needed to access. Accordingly, he built the door under the pedestal of a massive and extremely solid 'evil leader'-sized bed he'd picked up cheaply from his emperor (who was upgrading due to the addition of several rubinesque harem members).

A mechanism was designed to raise the bed high off the floor (fortunately, the chains matched his décor), so that the trap door could be accessed. An easily found trap was placed on the trapdoor, which would cause the bed to slam down violently if anyone tampered with it. A similarly simple button was hidden nearby (The 'button' nose of a charming, carven cherub, chained and being flogged by another such celestial being) allowing the trap to be easily disarmed.

Of course there's a catch. The Nasty, Sinister Nobleman had a simple 'housekeeping' enchantment placed upon the chamber. It dusts, sweeps, mends, and tidies up the place. Also, when the nobleman isn't present to shut it down, it resets that button two seconds after the trap door is touched.

(Squish!)

Shatter Door

This door appears quite solid, and doesn't respond to lock picks. If someone tries to ram it or kick it down, the outer door shatters - a flimsy facade! A cantrip keeps the thin covering solid until a certain measure of force is against it (think a reverse non-Newtonian solid). Behind the facade is a pressurized layer of acid, spraying forcibly thorough the damage remains of the door.