Weird Locks

Locks

Traps

Alarms

Guards

The next thing I'm doing for Wizard City are d20 tables for Locks, Traps, Alarms, and Guards, intended to be used to quickly generate problems for a heist scenario.

For this first one I am deliberately avoiding the "there is a spell on this lock that triggers when it's messed with", or the "assemble the pieces of the Master Key", because those are quite common and kind of dull.

So, what's the purpose of Locks? For the purposes of a Wizard City campaign, a lock is designed to slow down, discourage, or otherwise prevent entry. It is expected that any wizard, given enough time, will be able to crack any lock, so they're not designed to be impenetrable.

(Note: For some of these, there is an assumption that time travel is an option to the players.)

What Lock Does This Place/Thing Have?

1. Secret Handshake - Lock shaped as hand. Requires performing secret handshake with said hand. Failure and hand grabs your wrist and holds tight until reset by owner.
2. Mystery Box - Internally dark box contains gross-feeling stuff, possibly extradimensional hole to some ethereal feeder. The Box will bite off anything that doesn't smell familiar.
3. Crocodile Maw - Shaped as crocodile head. Requires feeding specific kind of meat to open lock.
4. Knock Knock Lock - Jolly face engraved in metal. Requires speaking a knock knock joke to it, or it’ll shoot lasers at you.
5. The Blind Eye - Eye embedded in lock, looks menacingly at anyone nearby. Contents may only be accessed as long as eye is closed. Eye closes as long as nobody looks at it. Opening eyes while accessing results in disintegration/stupidication/trap.
6. My Hole - Lock contains person-sized outline of owner. Only someone of exactly their dimensions may enter. Popular with amputee wizards.
7. Skunk Dust Keyhole - Unless correct key is used, lock shoots pheromones or a stinky stain-y dust from the keyhole, coating anyone nearby. The smell and dust are nearly impossible to get off.
8. Quantum Lock - Until observed, lock is both simultaneously unlocked and locked. Once observed it will permanently be in one or the other state for any particular person. Typically used in tandem. Flip a coin for each person observing. On heads it’s unlocked for them. Tails, locked. Do this for each lock and each person separately.
9. Heart Sacrifice - Requires still-beating human heart to be plugged into system to open.
10. Poison Wine Lock - A classic. Table arrayed with goblets each containing different and distinct wines. Drinking one in entirety will open lock. Some are just nice wine. Some are deadly poison. (The alternative to this, the Keg Lock, requires one to chug an entire keg of beer to unlock)
11. Gossip Statue - Very intrigued-looking wooden statue of person in eavesdropping or whisper-receiving pose. Requires whispering someone’s personal secret into the statue’s ear. Owner can extract these from statue at will.
12. Gordian Lock - A twisted rope tied in an incomprehensibly complex knot. Only one destined to rule can cut it in one swipe. Only the one who ties it can untie it. Everyone else can either muddle their way through trying to untie it, or slowly chop their way through. Either way takes a serious investment of time.
13. N-Dimensional Sequential Move Puzzle - A rubix cube, but higher than 4th dimensional. Nobody less than a savant of puzzles could even attempt to crack this rotating non-euclidian nightmare. Probably also contains a demon.
14. Art Critic - A snooty little man-lock requires you show him a piece of good art. Will dismiss all but from well-established artists.
15. 1000 Year Lock - Metal lock “blooms” (opens) once only every 1000 years for exactly one day. If you miss your chance that’s it… Or maybe time travel.
16. Singing Lock - Requires one to sing harmoniously with its programmed tune. Typically requires either a high alto or a deep bass. Make sure to have the players attempt this themselves.
17. Celestial Sphere Lock - Lock only becomes visible at specific time on specific day of the year. Typically involves sunlight or moonlight beams bouncing all over the place and being all dramatic.
18. Picky Flower - Flower requires proper combination of water, salinity, pH, and nutrients in order to bloom. Bulb of flower, when blooming, opens portal to extradimensional space. Some flowers require special solutions, like watering with acid, springwater from the fountain of youth, or fetal human serum.
19. Beard Test - Your wizard beard must be at least this wizardly to unlock this portal! Looks like a from-the-waist-up robotic barber, but it measures the quality of your wizard beard on a couple big spools. Beard must have minimum length, width, volume, and wizardiness.
20. Cat Herding Lock - Requires that X number of cats be sitting atop a pedestal. Usually in the 20-30 range. Cats are typically scattered throughout the estate for exactly this purpose. Most common method is training them with Pavlovian response (such as a bell) to come for food.