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D&D Ideas — Keys

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is keys, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of keys our module Trip to the Planar Zoo includes a very special set of Keys of Danger, each one a magical wand and together capable of opening the gates to a blissful oasis — if the adventurers can survive the Humanoid Exhibit! You can get Nerdarchy the Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy plus snag a FREE GIFT by signing up here.

Nerdy News

Mooove your focus over to the week that was! Let a sacred cow go out to pasture, smith the battle with the best of them and fall in love all over again with Those Bastards! Plus a chat with an industry pro, revisiting old friends for a live stream campaign and our weekly topical live chat round out this week’s Nerdy News. Check it out here.

Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Fun and interesting uses for keys in D&D or really any RPG gets me thinking about puzzles, secret doors and traps. All three are tied together can be especially useful for 5E D&D because it’s a way to use tool sets that might not see as much love. 

I came up with two key themed challenges you can drop right into your games as part of puzzles, secret doors and traps. During the live chat we explored how key can mean a lot of different things beyond the object used to open a lock. The first one incorporates keys in a musical sense and the second as a device to wind up some clockwork mechanisms. 

Magical Organ Door

Any room where a musical organ feels appropriate to you will do for this combination trap/puzzle/secret door. A successful DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) check enables a character to notice the seams of a secret door. The door is magically sealed. A successful DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check enables a character to notice a pattern of keys on the organ worn more than the rest. A successful DC 15 Charisma (Performance or Musical Instrument) check enables a character to recognize the song and play it correctly. This causes the secret door to open. On a failed check a glyph of warding triggers and the erupts with magical energy in a 20-foot-radius sphere centered on the glyph. The sphere spreads around corners. Each creature in the area must make a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 5d8 thunder damage on a failed save and half as much on a successful one. 

Toy Soldier Sentries

There is a hall with a locked door at the end. Five alcoves sit on either side of the hall leading towards the door. Each alcove contains a suit of armor. The back of each suit of armor there is a key hole for a winding key. The door is magically locked and made of iron. There are 10 key holes in the door in a circle in the center of the door. Hanging on a hook to either side of the door are strange looking keys on a keyring. There are five keys per keyring. To open the door each suit of armor must be wound with a winding key. If any of the keys are used on the door suits of armor animate and attack. They can be shut down by using the keys on them. A successful DC 15 Dexterity (Sleight of Hand) check enables a character to use the winding key on animated armor during combat. When animated suits of armor are defeated they get pulled back into their alcoves and reform to resume their attack after one round. If both key rings are returned to their hooks then the animated armors return to their alcoves. Once all the winding keys have been used on the animated armor the door opens. New key rings will form in an hour on their hooks. The old ones cease to function.

From Ted’s Head

Keys are used to open things or lock them. I brought up the idea of using keys as the topic for the live chat and our editorials after I binge watched the latest season of Locke and Key. This show is a ton of fun and filled with magical keys.

I used this show as inspiration for my game at D&D in a Castle and I unloaded 24 magic keys over the course of the game. I am not going to overload you with all of them but I modified some of the keys we have in the Mage Forge so while the party was in the house it had extra powers. I hope this selection of magical keys inspires your own key themed adventures.

The first keys the party found are what I call the Cantrip Keys. In Locke and Key some keys reveal key holes in walls, doors or even people while holding them. My Cantrip Keys take inspiration from third edition D&D in that you could only equip one key in certain location within your body. The Cantrip Keys work this way. If you hold one and examine your body you will see a key hole appear on your left wrist. If you insert and turn the key its power is unlocked within you and the key molds to your skin and lies like a barely raised tattoo. When this happens only you can remove the key. Each key looks like an old antique key with a visual representation of the spell to which it grants you access. For example hand for mage hand or bugs for infestation. I created six of these but you can add any designs you want to add into your game and create even more Cantrip Keys.

Cantrip Keys

Wondrous item, uncommon

• Wind Key. Learn and cast the gust cantrip
• Plant Key. Learn and cast the druidcraft cantrip
• Grasping Key. Learn and cast the mage hand cantrip
• Insect Key. Learn and cast the infestation cantrip
• Golden Key. Learn and cast the light cantrip
• Bite Key. Learn and cast the primal savagery cantrip

If you have one of these keys locked into your left wrist and hold another key it will not reveal another keyhole. By limiting the number to one Cantrip Key it stopped any player from taking all the keys and having them all. If you do not like this limitation you are free to allow as many or as few as you like.

If you do not like the idea of inserting keys into your body you can of course flavor these items as rings, bracelets or literally anything. Since the flavor of the game was magic keys I wanted that to be a big part of the game, but once the party left the house the keys magically changed. Rather than being a key-like tattoo, I informed them the keys transformed into bracelets but otherwise functioned the same. Subtle designs of the key motif were worked into the bracelet, the only indicator of the item’s true origin.

The players all had a blast with the game, one even asking if I was planning on making the House of the Forgotten Past as an adventure for sale in the future. Maybe I should expand what we did at the castle. Let us know what you think.

From the Nerditor’s Desk

Finding a key to a lock behind which lay the means to advance their goals is a pretty common scenario in the RPG experience. D&D is no exception with it’s myriad dungeon doors, villain lairs, treasure chests and the like. The heroes need a key to open a lock and inside they find a clue leading them to the next lock, and the next key, and so on. Adventures can be quite metaphorical.

Anyone who’s been around Nerdarchy knows we love us some strongly themed D&D campaigns as well as turning and twisting tropes around. Many of my favorite live chats are those in which we explore the weekly topic as a framework for a campaign and my chat with Nerdarchist Dave was one such time. Since I’m a huge fan of providing a party with unusual circumstances from the get go this week’s topic puts in mind a D&D campaign with a group of adventures in possession of a very special Skeleton Key and all the escapades certain to ensue.

D&D Skeleton Key campaign

One of the best things about high concept themed campaigns is they’re useful for any tier of play. In this campaign idea the party are keepers of a Skeleton Key capable of opening a door to anywhere. Of course we’ll put some limitations on our Skeleton Key. This is part of the idea’s versatility.

Giving players a powerful and mysterious item goes beyond simply running a Monty Haul campaign. For one thing this gives players a tendency to take bolder action, which can make a D&D game more thrilling. It also provides a unique means for the characters to interact with the world. You know there’s a group of players out there who would methodically try their Skeleton Key on every single key hole they come across. Here again is another component of themed campaign versatility.

Any sort of supernatural force makes a believable way for a Dungeon Master to break state and create some drama and tension. When the Skeleton Key works in a way the characters never experienced before they’ll instantly grow curious. At the same time the DM gets an opportunity to smoothly insert something into the game. Now there’s a trifecta of key components to consider for your own D&D Skeleton Key campaign.

During your session zero with the other players you can discuss these questions and find the sweet spot that works for the group. In a less fantastical style of game a Skeleton Key that unlocks any treasure chest might be the limit of your version. Other players might feel comfortable if their Skeleton Key randomly opens a portal to anywhere in the multiverse, perils be damned. What the Skeleton Key represents in your campaign is the important part, mechanically and narratively both.

What does the Skeleton Key do?

• Provides a bonus to opening locks
• Instantly opens locks, or casts knock
• Locks any door, or casts arcane lock
• Casts dimension door, gate or another teleportation like spell
• Opens a doorway to a pocket dimension the party can use as a home base
• Turns any door into a portal to another plane of existence
• Functions like transport via plants (or transport via beard if you’re into the whole Beardomancy thing)

What does the Skeleton Key mean?

• What individuals or groups know of it’s existence?
• Who might covet it and for what purpose?
• Why are the player characters in possession of it?
• Do the adventurers have any special responsibility or are their circumstances merely by chance?
• What is the history and purpose of it in your world?
• What happens if it is lost, broken or destroyed?
• Is there a particular door or lock that must be opened and do the adventurers know about it?

What does the Skeleton Key represent?

• Do you want a campaign where the party frequently travels to wildly different places, perhaps even through time?
• Is it part of a serial adventure structure? For example: Party Learns of Treasure Chest>Party Adventures to Acquire Treasure Chest>Party Uses Skeleton Key to Claim Treasure. Lots of people enjoy a highly patterned play style!
• Does it provide information? Maybe it always opens a door to where the heroes are needed, which is a terrific and vague way to get the characters wherever the fun parts of the campaign await.
• Can it be the focal point of the entire campaign? Perhaps adventures entrusted with it must unlock (whoa.) the key’s full potential so it can open the way to the campaign’s epic climax.
• How do you plan to use its hidden abilities? In other words what sorts of exciting ways do you imagine using it to shake things up for the players? You can get the ball rolling with the Look Out Below encounter from a couple of weeks ago on the website here.
• Are there any consequences for using it? For all the party knows certain entities may become alerted whenever its used, drawing their attention to it and of course the adventurers.
• Does it grant the characters any special interactions in the world? They might be part of a larger organization related to it or maybe must keep it secret but those in the know recognize the importance and help the heroes out when no one else will.

Thinking about these questions and discussing the concept as a group helps shape a really unique D&D campaign. You’ll notice there’s nothing about specific monsters, spells or other mechanical parts of the game. This is another thing I love about themed campaigns. The group might land on the idea of a Tier 4 campaign with a Skeleton Key they can dump spell slots into and open portals to anywhere in the multiverse including a secret pocket dimension. Their adventures might be excursions across time, space and the planes while expanding their demiplane base and gathering NPCs to live there. Another group might play a Tier 1 campaign as the World’s Greatest Thieves in a world with little magic where their power to unlock any door makes them legendary — and gets them in over their heads.

*Featured image — A trip to the planar zoo is no walk through the park when you wake up as part of the exhibit! Will the characters learn the truth of their captivity, or will the zookeepers’ perfectly constructed habitat keep even the sharpest adventurers in the dark? Check it out here!

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