From the shadows, Gavin watched as the burly fighter came to the agreed-upon location. The fighter warily eyed his surroundings. He had come early, but Gavin had anticipated that and had come earlier still. With him, Gavin had a little surprise.
As Gavin expected, the fighter wandered right into his surprise. To the fighter’s credit, he almost avoided the hit, but the glass cutter Gavin had attached to the pole dug deep into the fighter’s chest. On cue, Mareena’s parasol floated down and covered the fighter’s face. The fighter howled and tore at the cloth and pole.
“Gavin! Filthy bastard! I am going to get you for this!”
The fighter kept ranting as Gavin slipped away. He’d have to buy Mareena a new parasol for tomorrow’s games and find a new leeching kit for Stephan, but most importantly he had several bets to place across the city. The odds that the fighter would win tomorrow had just gone down dramatically. Gavin was about to make a killing: he was quite sure that the fighter wouldn’t notice the trio of leeches that had just been deposited on his body.
Time is on a trapsmith’s side. They set up their little surprises and then they just have to wait until someone foolishly trips them. Even then, some trapsmiths feel that a direct penalty for the trespass isn’t warranted—some like to incur it when the second trap is tripped. Trapsmiths like to stack the deck in their favor.
Light and Life Leeching Trap CR 4
Type mechanical; Perception DC 25; Disable Device DC 25
Trigger location; Reset none
Effect puncturing pin (attack +10, 2d4+4 plus pinning; beating the pole’s CMD of 25 frees the target from the pinning effect; the pole has hardness 5 and 10 hp)
Effect draped darkness (the target is blinded; the cloth has hardness 0 and 5 hp)
Effect life leech (all wounds suffered by the target incur 1 bleed damage; after 24 hours the leeches drain 1d3 Con; finding the leeches requires a DC 25 Perception check and removing the leeches requires a DC 20 Heal check; failing the heal check deals 1d3 damage)
Next Installment
What can Gavin do with a bedroll, an empty potion vial, several rations, and a spyglass?
The Challenge
Name four adventuring items and receive a murderous trap in return.
You’ve been busy de Mare! I like your prose!
This isn’t really pertinent to the “name four items” nature of the posts, but for YEARS my campaign has had a running gag for when looting a body contains nothing of consequence. Whoever’s DM’ing says, “All you find is a dead robin, a canned ham, and a ball of string.” Throw in a random 4th item and there might be an interesting trap in there somewhere.
But really I just posted this because I’m blasted on Percoset for a migraine headache and I really just couldn’t stop myself from doing it.
@James: Yes, a little something did insert itself in the story :-)
@DMCal: So I am not supposed to use a dead robin, a canned ham, a ball of string and some painkillers? Just making sure :-)