The most paranoia-inducing dungeon

[Strigon]

The purpose of this thread is simple: make a list of innocent things which could be put in a dungeon, which would unnerve PC's.
The general idea is that, in real life, some things are completely harmless. Those same things have been used time and again to trap unwary PC's, and most have learned never to trust these items for they are Very Bad.

So, what harmless decorations could you put in a dungeon that would make players turn tail and run? I'll start with some obvious ones.

1) Statues. Statues are never statues; rather, they are slumbering guardians just waiting to be awoken. Everyone knows this.
2) Unguarded treasure chests. If it's not at the end of your dungeon, there are one of two options. Either there's a monster lurking nearby that you can't see, or the chest is the monster.
3) A lever by a door. Levers are never good. Levers are especially never good when their purpose seems obvious.

[Douglas]

1) Statues. Statues are never statues; rather, they are slumbering guardians just waiting to be awoken. Everyone knows this.

Statues are not always slumbering guardians. Sometimes they are petrified people instead, warning sign that a medusa, cockatrice, or basilisk is in the area. Do it convincingly enough, and a set of fake petrified people could get a party to voluntarily blindfold themselves to avoid the petrification gaze attack they expect to face.

[IZ42]

Long, unremarkable hallways. Maybe lit by a few torches. Nothing else. No doors, no windows, no monsters, not even mold. Nothing. If that doesn't scare the living hell out of your players, you're doing something wrong.

[JAL_1138]

Water.

Water in D&D is always, always, always bad.

Whether it's one of the innumerable horrible monsters, poison, disease, curses, or drowning, water is always bad.

[TurboGhast]

Obvious illusions of obvious traps. Put less obvious traps on some, but not all of the illusions.

[DireSickFish]

A large ornate mirror in what is otherwise a bunch of crude caves with basic furniture. It works even better if the players have no way to detect if it is magical or not.

[Brendanicus]

Glowing floor tiles. This actually occurred in my game, where the tiles in the room the PC's were sleeping in began to glow. They fled the room and lost a night's sleep as a result.

The glowing was harmless. They don't know that, though.

[JNAProductions]

The Wandering Damage System.

[JAL_1138]

A business card reading "E. G. G. Architecture, Ltd., Tomb And Trap Design. Ask About The 'Acererak Special'."

[ZeroGear]

Hallway/Room full of mirrors. With the occasional monster appearing in one.

[JAL_1138]

Hallway/Room full of mirrors. With the occasional monster appearing in one.

The Fetch is a good one to put in. Or to make the players believe is in one, via heavy hints. 9hd, THAC0 11, AC 4, 2 attacks per round, only visible to its victim, and drains two levels per hit. So they start going around breaking mirrors (so the Fetch can't get through; it needs a big enough mirror) and whack a 3e-type glass Susurrus (they used to be bamboo-like plant monsters related to Shambling Mounds) in the process, and it doesn't take kindly to it.

[Yukitsu]

A single, visibly unlocked door with a friendly welcome mat. In the center is a single gold piece of the otherwise completely empty room.

[Khedrac]

Dead end tunnels where the party cannot find a secret door with a take 20 search.

Particularly if there is not much treasure the party will be sure they missed the secret door to the treasure room. (There's more than one form of paranoia.)

[Takewo]

Well, that's not exactly in a dungeon, but when the characters go to see somebody and there's no one at home (probably because they are working or elsewhere), that can give them the creeps.

[oxybe]

You find a small cave jutting from the ground in a wooden clearing and see a door. A cellar maybe, to a home that isn't here anymore?

Said door is a mimic and will try to eat you. vanquishing the mimic you enter the cavernous room and find it's a storeroom full of cloaks, sacs, possibly stolen weapons, coins littered around stalags (of the mites and tites varieties) and another door on the opposite side.

This is your first mistake.

The ceiling is plastered with lurker aboves and piercers. the floor ones are Ropers. They try to eat you.

Reaching inside the barrel for a longsword you unexpectedly pull out a xaver. It tries to eat you.

Stumbling back into the barrel containing the xaver, you find that it is yet another mimic. It tries to eat you.

As you fend off the murderous sword and barrel, you bump into the coatrack. I mean cloaker. it's a cloaker. It tries to eat you.

Turns out someone had also decided to be that special kind of jerk and animated the coatrack.

Hoping to find a potion to cure yourself from having fended off swords, barrels, coatracks, cloaks and doors, you shove your hand in the sac on the wall. It's a bag of devouring with a taste for flesh.

You decide to take a rest and sit down, having thrown the murderous sac aside, it seems you sat on a trapper who was just idling and waiting for a meal. This sure isn't your day!

Jumping away from it's grip you bump into the strangely spongy... OH GORDDARN IT! IT'S A FREAKING STUNJELLY. Could this room not get any dumber?

Sorry, but it seems you've pissed off the bowler that was chilling in the corner with your yelling.

Escaping the stupid wall and rock monsters with the cunning plan of "step away from it", you decide to grab some gold for your troubles. Then you realize that the gold is probably a gold golem or something like that. Nope, that's a Dragon Quest monster. Turns out this is just your normal, mundane horde scarab swarm, chilling out in a cave, looking like coins.

Having had enough of all this dumb monster shenanigans, you go to the back door expecting it to be a mimic to find that it doesn't open. It's not even a door it's part of the wall... the fleshy, slippery wall that... Crapbaskets.

This is you last mistake.

There you go: the one-room dungeon where everything is out to kill you.

[DigoDragon]

Worse than statues are mannequins. I had a GM who made us all paranoid when we were looking through a department store (basically modern dungeon). The power was out so we were wandering in the dark with just flashlights and cell phones to contact each other. I passed by some mannequins in the women's section. They looked ordinary, wearing some expensive name brand dresses. I continue pass that and then hear a thud behind me.

I turn around. One of the mannequin heads fell off and the one next to that was holding a machete that was not there before. I ran from that real quick!

Meanwhile, another PC was in the electronics section. The TVs were off, but he thought to turn one on. It displayed that classic 'snow' static... but this was a modern digital TV so static isn't something they'd normally do. He checked behind the TV. It was unplugged. He decided to check linens...

None of these weird haunting things hurt us, but they had no explanation and so our GM was turning our imaginations AGAINST us.

A business card reading "E. G. G. Architecture, Ltd., Tomb And Trap Design. Ask About The 'Acererak Special'."

Haha, that last bit is classic. :D

[goto124]

Call your campaign 'Tomb of Horrors'.

Even if it isn't that particular Tomb of Horrors.

[DigoDragon]

Call your campaign 'Tomb of Horrors'.
Even if it isn't that particular Tomb of Horrors.

Even better if it was a misspelling of "Tomb of Honors" XD

[nedz]

A pile of rusted weapons and armour.

A Book with a yellow cover. The text is undecipherable, even with magic.

An empty room.

[Keltest]

Have a welcoming butler present to guide them through the dangerous traps to the treasure room and the room-of-relevant-plot-information. See how hard the players make it for themselves to avoid trusting them.

[JAL_1138]

A pile of rusted weapons and armour.

Ooh, yeah. Rust is always paranoia inducing.

Spoiler

Show

[JNAProductions]

But rust means no rust monsters. They eat rust.

[JAL_1138]

But rust means no rust monsters. They eat rust.

Was thinking of something like "a reddish stain on the altar where metal weapons have completely corroded away" will freak out the fighter in platemail...even if it's just because it's damp in there and the weapons had the same issues as the undercarriage of a '50s Ford pickup over a longer period of time.

[goto124]

Ooh, yeah. Rust is always paranoia inducing.

Spoiler

Show

How does the wizard have the Str to carry the heavy warrior in platemail?

[Eonn]

I wasn't sure if a friend told me this story or I read it on here, but potted plants.

The story went that a DM put potted plant all over his dungeon, in odd places like the middle of an otherwise empty room. Only the first one that encountered was an actual mimic, the rest were just normal plant.

[Karl Aegis]

When you approach a door within the dragon's lair, you hear knocking from the other side of the door and a pair of voices with Scottish accents. The voices start asking if they can come in and speak in a tone that one would use between old friends. If you don't open the door immediately, it starts shaking and rattling as if someone was trying to pry open the door and the voices become more aggressive as they demand to be let in. If you do open the door, there are no signs of anyone having been on the other side of the door at all.

Later on, when you approach another door within the dragon's lair the door politely asks you to turn around and leave before it gets serious.

[Maglubiyet]

A child singing nursery rhymes.

A trembling, starving dog that tentatively approaches the party. As one of the PC's tries to coax it closer (there's always one guy who does) something causes the dog's perception to look over the PC's shoulder. His ears go flat, the hackles on his neck go up, and he turns and flees with his tail between his legs.

Two boots standing in front of a door with a pile of clothes draped over them, topped with a hat.

[Atarax]

Don't forget bridges over deep chasms. That's not a great place for an encounter to happen or anything...

Also, (sorry to get slightly off topic) I'd really like to see a dungeon with paranoia inducing elements that start off very subtle and get more and more noticeable as the PC's head deeper in. All the while, they don't encounter the horrors rumored to lurk in this dark place. Finally, at the heart of the dungeon, they come across undeniable evidence that these creatures exist here, and BAM...they start crawling out of the woodworks. Now what appeared to be another casual room-by-room hack n loot has become a desperate fight just to escape with their lives. Maybe it takes days and they have to watch their rations, torches, ammo, etc...

Kinda the second Alien movie ;)

[boomwolf]

One dungeon I made (that was completely brutal and justified any and all paranoia) featured among others every map maker's nightmare, nonsense physics layout.

Turning in corridors could lead you to the same room, but with directions reversed (up is down), or to a completely new room that covers the space of a previously explored room.

Worst part, they assumed teleportation shenanigans, and went nuts when they could not find the portals or any reverse gravity traps. There weren't any, physics was just wonky there.

(to top it off, and attempt at teleportation or extra - dimensional magic backfired horribly (clues where given ahead) , but one of the bad guys COULD teleport safely. He just knew to avoid the wonky physics zones as he knew the layout, but they assumed he is somehow disrupting their magic.)

[Brendanicus]

Just say the phrase "huge empty room with chest-high walls" and you can practically hear the Fighter's player grinding their imaginary axe.