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1 Spring-Noose: These thin waxed wires are set to snap tight when anything jostles them off their feeble holding hooks, yanking their catch up into the air as a rock on the other end of the line descends.

Dust of disappearance or an invisibility spell is often used to conceal the snare. Such snares are often set in triples, spaced to make avoiding them all very difficult. A snared being must make a Strength Check, Dexterity Check, and Intelligence Check when meeting with a spring-snare. If any of these fail, the noose catches the character around feet, limbs, or head. Caught characters drop whatever they are carrying unless a second Strength Check is successful, are pulled into the air, and take 1d4+2 points of damage. Every round thereafter, they suffer 1d4 points of constriction damage; add 3 points of damage per round strangulation damage if the noose is around the character’s throat. The wires are AC5 and will take 7 hit points of damage in any one spot before being cut. These snares are often fitted with noisy alarms: the falling weights are festooned with attached metal scraps which clang wildly as the weight falls.

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2 Leg hold Traps: The familiar ankle-biting, spring-jawed metal traps found in many perilous adventure tales, these may be baited with items or food, concealed with leaves, dead bodies, or simply a carefully-flung cloak - or made invisible with magical dust. When a leg hold is triggered by the disturbance of its foot-treadle, the victim must make a Dexterity Check. Success means 1 point of damage, the trap only grazing the character; failure means 1d6 + 3 hit points of damage and entrapment. If the trap is mobile, it can be dragged along with a movement rate penalty of four, armour class penalty of two, and 1-2 hit points of additional damage through blood loss every 3 rounds; traveling with a trap on a victim’s foot leaves a bloody trail through the dungeon easily detected by wandering monsters. If the trap is fixed to the floor, the victim must get free, break it, or eventually perish on the spot. Typically, such traps require a successful bend bars roll to wrench out of shape. They are AC 1 and will take 32 points of damage in one concentrated spot before breaking. Attacks on the trap may also affect the held victim, or make noise that attracts monsters. Victims in a fixed-location

Leg hold suffer a five point AC penalty (minimum of AC 10).

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3 Audible Lures: Leucrotta and other creatures who are accomplished mimics become adept at attracting inquisitive adventurers. No matter how accomplished adventurers become, few can resist cries for help or the smell of money. One example: a scream, in terrified human female tones, ‘No!

Please! No!’ answered by an angry snarl, in human male tones: ‘Then give me the gem! Only I can use its powers! By the gods, girl - give me the gem!’ Another popular gambit is the terrified male human: ‘Mercy! Spare me! My ransom is six thousand gold - see, the key to the chest! Let me go free, and I will tell you where the chest is hidden!’ This can be followed by hard bargaining: ‘. . . in a vault in The City of the Dead, but you’ll never find it’ or ‘I can add gems to it, then. . .’ Monsters often work together in such traps - a human providing the vocals while an ogre or hobgoblin waits to attack. Many goblin kin use trained human slaves for this.

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4 Visual Lures: More familiar to most adventurers is visual mimicry. Doppelgangers often appear as apparently-dead adventurers. They don equipment and strew treasure they have gained around themselves so adventurers will be tempted to search the bodies. The doppelgangers get a good look at the PC party as they’re being turned over, searched, and so on and can decide whether or not to attack. Other creatures (such as piercers) position themselves above attractively-equipped corpses, awaiting greedy dungeon explorers. Mimics prefer more elaborate impersonations. Finding a gap or natural alcove in a corridor or cavern, one mimic may shape itself into the likeness of a stone spout or outcropping of natural rock, laboriously piling up stone blocks in front of it, in a wall. When prey approaches, it shifts slightly, to topple the stone blocks onto the party for 2d4 or less damage to each PC hit, and remains in its shape, waiting for them to climb up past it, to investigate a hole it has left - where some menace is obviously hiding. Other visual lures and traps of the mimic follow: In an ornate room, PCs find a stone throne, its arms inset with a pattern of gems. The gems are real, but the throne itself is a mimic. A treasure vault might have a trapdoor in the floor-a stone block with a pull-ring set in it. The trapdoor is actually a mimic filling the top of a disused well, into which it yanks attacking PCs. Another room has a tattered tapestry hanging on one wall. It sports holes, and looks ragged and worthless. Through the holes, a closed stone door can be seen. The door is real, but the true tapestry rotted away long ago - it is a mimic that will fall on any creatures brushing past or through it to the door. Variations on these lures are worked by many beings. For comic relief, picture a human thief trying the old ‘diadem on a string’ routine, drawing a gilded circlet bristling with false gems across the floor with fine string, to lead PCs to a waiting trap. This laughable stunt can hurt if used with some of the traps detailed in Smash Traps; derisive PCs could walk right into a ‘kissing maiden’ or under a spring spear.