Fear and Horror Emanate from Haunted Traps in 5E D&D with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft

Salutations, nerds! Today I’m going to be taking a closer look at the Haunted Traps section of Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Long story short, normal traps were put in place on purpose by a person for a reason. Haunted traps by contrast aren’t set with purpose and instead manifest like a stain. This is a recurrent theme in a lot of horror works, it turns out, and now it’s represented in 5E D&D too.

Manifesting haunted traps in 5E D&D

Some examples of the Haunted Trap phenomenon described in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft include the way the Otherworld materializes in Silent Hill, how the house in The Grudge seeps into anyone with the audacity to try to live there and then follows them or how the will of one existentially angry woman and her legacy stained the grounds of eponymous countryside house in The Haunting of Bly Manor.

To illustrate how Haunted Traps come to be and find their way into your 5E D&D games I’m gonna follow along with Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft and create one! Along with the guidance in the book for creating a Darklord and playing as survivors of horror these haunted traps provide another resource for putting together your own adventures in whatever genres of horror you prefer. These adventures can take place in one of the established Domains of Dread, one of those left more amorphous for you to develop, an entirely new one you create from scratch or any other campaign setting.

The events bringing a haunted trap it into being

Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft suggests taking this concept under advisement. For me lore is very important so even if the characters never go as far as to figure out why a thing exists I still want to know because there’s a certain cohesion that comes with this kind of implication.

A haunted trap should be something intense. Remember — this event left a wound on the world. It doesn’t have to be something of great consequence to everyone but definitely something that mattered greatly to someone.

“Like other traps, haunted traps represent threats leveled toward trespassers. They originate in an area spontaneously, often resulting from overwhelming negative emotions, tragedy, or evil. Just as some terrible fates might cause a tormented individual to rise as an undead creature, so might supernatural evil and violent emotions manifest more generally as one or more haunted traps. Such traps provide a way to theme the dangers and monsters of a haunted place to reveal a grim history or frightening tale.” — from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft chapter 4: Haunted Traps

A duchess who caught her maid and lover in bed with another woman and in her raw fury took a pair of shears to the maid’s face is the impetus for my haunted trap. This maid was a very vain woman and so the haunted trap is being fueled here not just by the wrath of the aforementioned duchess but the pain and loss of the maid as well.

Detecting haunted traps

Due to the unusual nature of a haunted trap compared to a more conventional trap Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft provides guidance for detecting them in an equally different way. A haunted trap gets a Haunt Bonus that sets the DC for the trap, although the book does not give guidance on determining what this Haunt Bonus ought to be. Detecting the emanation requires a passive Wisdom (Perception) to equal or exceed 10 plus the Haunt Bonus with success giving a character one round to react.

This procedure seems pretty straightforward and for the haunted trap I’m making there has to be something to notice. This trap is on the maid’s bedroom and it won’t be difficult to notice the emanation as the sound of someone sobbing inside of the door so I’m going to make the Haunt Bonus +2.

The haunted trap itself is simple. When a character walks into the room, the pair of bloodstained and rusted scissors on the vanity lift up on their own and start slashing. A character can try to attack the scissors but nonmagical attacks and unsilvered weapons don’t do anything to them. There’s got to be something really important in the room though because otherwise who wouldn’t just walk back out and shut the door behind them never to return? The maid was the duchess’s lover. She has the magical key to some unpickable lock farther into the manor.

Disarming haunted traps

Van Ricthen’s Guide to Ravenloft gives a list of ways to disarm a haunted trap that do not include thieves’ tools or dispel magic. The book does indicate how the Channel Divinity class feature and remove curse spell can be used though. The part that interests me though describes how, “Some haunted traps might also be disarmed in nonmagical ways related to the history of a haunted area.”

Apart from the ways detailed in the book there are two ways to disarm the haunted trap I’m making. First, somewhere in the house where this haunted trap lies there’s a porcelain mask featuring the visage of the maid’s undamaged face. A character who enters the room wearing the mask gives the scissors pause for long enough for you to get the key. We’ll say 5 minutes for those of you who like exact numbers. Second, the scissors can be attacked with a spell or a silvered weapon, which honestly isn’t as fun but fair is fair. The scissors have 1 hit point and an AC 16. Disarming the trap this way suppresses it for 24 hours.

Sample haunted traps

The sample traps in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft range from PG-13 fun to absolute nightmare fuel and illustrate how you aren’t limited to what is usually physically possible in this case. Break the laws of physics! This is one of the few cases where players will thank you for it.

• Danse Macabre. Phantom performers draw unwary adventurers into an irresistible dance of the dead. Not for nothing one of Nerdarchy’s own wildly successful Out of the Box encounters is called Dance Macabre. You can’t go wrong with haunts whose origins lie in fancy parties where everyone died.
• Faceless Malice. Throw a little freaky supernatural mirror hijinks at adventurers with this haunted trap, which might not be high on the danger scale but certainly ranks up there on the freaking players out spectrum.
• Icon of the Lower Aerial Kingdoms. This haunted trap shows how nasty and impactful they can be. Bizarre occult paraphernalia is a hallmark of spooky supernatural stories and adventurers had best be wary of this fiendish trap’s magic jar effect.
• Morbid Memory. A good example of how a haunted trap need not be designed with danger for the characters in mind although some minor mechanics tacked onto this one make it mildly impactful. This one feels more like the kind of trap players would want to trigger since it provides insights into whatever scary adventure they’re in the midst of when encountered.

Have fun, happy haunting and of course, stay nerdy!

*Featured image — During a seance, a spirit makes itself known to the Keepers of the Feather. Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft includes resources to make sure your 5E D&D game is both spooky and safe in ways right for your specific group. [Image courtesy Wizards of the Coast]

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