B.U.R.G.L.A.R.s Part 3: 10 Traps

Part 3 of my investigation into "Hobbits have a Roadside Picnic." 

Part 1 is here. 

Part 2 is here.

Traps

"I don’t exactly understand your terminology. What traps?”

Noonan laughed. "That’s folklore," he explained. "Stalkers’ jargon. Bug traps—those are the areas of increased gravity."

A dungeon zone is filled with hazardous environments that arise spontaneously due to proximity with a dragon. Some are strange substances, such as the vapours and heats the Earth brews in her belly, but fouler. Others have are like beasts, or were beasts that have been changed by the dungeon. Others still have a strange will all their own - or a will that is an extension of Smaug's. 

Note: Some of these rules are tried and true OSE-esque dungeon features, but I think there's a lot of weird things here, too. This information should be GM only. Players learn how to approach these hazards through experimentation (out of character skill with player-facing information that is persistent for the table) as they try to master the dungeon.

1. Hell Slime

A green sludge found filling storerooms, wells, and cellars. It is unliving and unmoving.

Hell slime can only be contained by stone or ceramic.

When exposed to other nonliving materials (leather, wood, paper, cloth, glass, etc.), the hell slime quickly breaks it down and converts it into slime, so that the whole grows by the consumed object's mass. Hell slime can quickly get out of control in this way: as it gets bigger, it consumes more, and stretches into new regions, devouring portions of the dungeon.

When it comes into contact with a living body, it infects it. Skin, organs, and muscles are left intact, but the slime begins to painlessly eat the creature's bones. A PC who comes into contact with slime should determine where the slime touched them (roll randomly if it's not clear from the fiction). They lose 1 hp every turn. For every 4 hp lost, all bones are permanently destroyed in that segment and the slime crawls up the body.

For example, if a finger was infected, first the hand is lost - then the arm to the elbow - then the elbow to the shoulder, then the ribcage, then the spine. When the spine is consumed, the person dies (if hp loss hadn't already killed them). 

Amputation is the only way to stop the advance of hell slime on the body.

Carrying hell slime outside of the dungeon is a capital crime in every kingdom. There are always potential purchasers.

2. Moulds and Spores

The dungeon grows un-earthly fungus on the walls, columns, doors, and hallways. 

Note: The rules for moulds are from Dolmenwood. The effects of the moulds are new.

Triggering: If touched or damaged, there is a 3-in-6 chance of the mould emitting a cloud of spores in a 10′ cube area.

Effect: All in the cloud must Save or be caught in the spores. The effect depends on the type of mould.

Removing: Each type of mould is harmed by a specific type of damage. Each roughly 10′ × 10′ patch of mould can withstand 2d8 (average 9) points of damage.

1. White mould: Victim is partially petrified, gaining +1AC and losing -20 ft of movement speed. If not cured (e.g., by remove curse), victim fully petrifies within 1d4 days. White mould is harmed by fire.

2. Grey mould: Inflicts 2d6 fire damage per Round to any in the cloud, which lingers for 1d6 Rounds. Grey mould is harmed by magical cold.

3. Brown mould: Infects the victim's skin with spores, causing rainbow blotches. If not cured (e.g., by remove disease) the victim is permanently polymorphed into a random animal in 2d4 days. Brown mould patches spread in the presence of fire within 5′: a torch causes the mould to double in size, burning oil quadruple, and a fireball 8 times. Multiplication takes 1 Round. Brown mould is harmed by acid or water (1d6 damage per pint).

4. Blue mould: The victim flickers with fairy fire, takes 1 damage every 6 turns (1 hour), and suffers a -2 penalty to reaction rolls from monsters and animals until they benefit from magical healing. Blue mould is harmed by fire or by magical healing.

5. Indigo mould: The victim begins to weep uncontrollably, suffering a -2 penalty to attacks and saving throws until they benefit from magical healing. Indigo mould is harmed by fire or by magical healing.

3. Revenants 

Those who have died in the dungeon may be raised into a cursed un-death. They rise and walk the halls, half-rotten, bones protruding, moving under the power of some unseen force. 

Revenants are not aggressive by default. Mostly, they go about the tasks that they pursued in life: slowly, clumsily, sadly. Most are too rotten to talk, but they can gesture. Some can weep a fluid that is not tears.

Most revenants are dwarves who were buried in the Tombs.

This revenant is (2d6):

2. Going mad, will attack

3. Guarding the way forward; will attack if the PCs try to get past them

4. Looking for their wife, distressed

5. Trying to put together a children's toy

6. Sitting down to dine and slowly (very slowly) sipping wine from a goblet

7. Slowly (very slowly) writing a random rumor in a book; one rumor is written every 1d4 Turns until the revenant gives up and stares into space

8. Wants to trade a plump mushroom for something rare and valuable; will become angry if denied

9. Trying to figure out a song on the harp

10. Scraping at the walls with a pick, ineffectually

11. Slowly hammering on a steel tine

12.  Counting 3d6 pieces of dragon gold over and over, stacking and restacking it; will become angry if robbed

4. Weird Walls and Keys

Throughout the dungeon, walls of strange material bifurcate and cut off passage towards the dragon's lair. They were not made by the dwarves, but are products of the zone--they grow spontaneously and shift between delves. 

Concept keys: Burglars have learned that each wall can be defeated by a certain thought called a concept key. When exposed to a song, a feeling, a word, an image, these walls melt away like mist in the morning. 

Dungeon keys: The dwarves made keys for their doors, chests, manacles, cuckoo clocks, etc. Any key that was within the Mountain at the coming of the dragon is a dungeon key. Keys from outside the dungeon will not work. 

When a weird wall is touched with a dungeon key, the key disappears and the wall is destroyed. Dungeon keys are a sure-fire and fast way to get past weird walls.

However, there were only so many keys in the dungeon. Each time one is used, there is one fewer. There will never be any replacements made. And the walls are constantly growing and constantly shifting. The Union can foresee a time where there are no keys left, but the walls remain. That is why the Union prefers to open weird walls with visualization techniques and save the keys for emergencies. Burglars are here for quick riches, and so make free use of the dungeon keys.

The types of weird walls are:

1. Walls of Web: Although nobody has ever seen a spider of any size in the dungeon zone, there are walls seemingly made of black webs. They are sticky to the touch (dealing 1 hp of damage if touched with bare skin). 

Breaking: The thick cords resist the bite of most swords and axes, but they can be sliced through in 1 turn by a magical weapon--the cords reweave themselves after 1 turn, closing the gap. 

Concept key: Walls of web melt away into black motes when told secrets: a burglar must speak aloud a personal fact that no one in the company knows. A burglar alone cannot use this concept key.

2. Walls of Flesh: Some walls are made of flesh and sinew. Some are like a giant's arm twisting through the passageways: some are riddled with teratomas of hair, mouths, eyes. 

Breaking: The walls can be butchered. A 5' passage can be cut into a wall of flesh with hacking weapons and 2 turns. There is a 1-in-6 chance that the blood of a wall of flesh is hell slime. If eaten, the meat is deadly.

Concept key: Walls of flesh whisper riddles. If the riddle is guessed, the wall melts into a pink sludge.

3. Walls of Will: There are unseen walls. Some evil will (the dragon's?) prevents a company from moving forward, as if solid steel stood in their way.

Breaking: Walls of will cannot be broken. 

Concept key: A hopeful thought born of song will break the will that holds the company back. One burglar must sing a song or recite a poem that engenders hope in the company.

4. Walls of Fire: Fires rage in the dungeon that block off passage: they have no fuel, but are otherwise similar to the fires of the natural world. (Dragonfire, discussed below, is different.)

Breaking: Walls of fire cannot be broken. They have never been successfully extinguished by water. Jumping through a wall of fire deals 2d6 damage and ignites anything flammable on the character.

Concept key: Walls of fire will evaporate into choking black smoke if an item of significance is sacrificed to the flames.

5. Black Oil

Black oil is scum that sloughs off the waters under the Mountain. It moves with the speed and stimuli-based instincts of a slug.

If black oil is covered the surface of the water, the water cannot be navigated without suffering the penalties of the oil.

Terrestrially, the black oil is easy to avoid if there is ample space. However, black oil can sometimes drip down from the ceiling onto a random burglar. Each burglar passing under the resting place of a black oil has a 2-in-6 chance of triggering it. If a burglar is carrying a magical treasure, this chance increases to 5-in-6. The burglar is allowed a Save to avoid the dropping oil. 

When covered in oil, each round the victim suffers the following effects in order. They will suffer effect 1 until no longer applicable, then suffer effect 2 until no longer applicable, then suffer effect 3.

1. Eat through armour: The black oil will first eat through the victim's armour. Each round, the armour's AC bonus is reduced by 1. At 0 AC, it is destroyed beyond repair. 

2. Eat treasures: The black oil is drawn to magical treasures from the dungeon. If the victim is carrying such treasures, each round there is a 3-in-6 chance the black oil will devour it. When devoured, it explodes, dealing 1d4 damage to the victim. 

3. Eat the victim: The black oil deals 1d4 damage to the victim each round. Victims killed in this way become oil-covered skeletons (1HD). 

Removing a black oil requires fire or a gem. If burned with fire, each oil can withstand 2d8 (average 9) points of damage. The victim also takes this damage. If the black oil is fed a gem, both the gem and the oil are instantly destroyed.

The Returner faction seeks out black oils to feed treasures to, deliberately.

6. Witch Lanterns 

Certainly these are of the category of magical treasure, but are avoided as traps by burglars.

These lanterns glow with green light. Around them cluster 1d8 shadows which move jerkily, stutter-stopping along the walls and floors. Victims who are drained of their Strength rise as new shadows, bound forever to the lantern that killed them.

Extinguishing the green flame destroys all bound shadows. Most of the witch lanterns have been destroyed in the upper two levels, but some still exist in the lower deeps.

7. Shimmers

Shimmers are 10' x 10' manifestations of destructive physical forces. Difficult to see in torchlight, impossible to see in sunlight, but easily spotted in the dark: they are practically invisible, appearing only as a light glimmering in pitch black or like a heat mirage in low light. 

In a large dark room, shimmers can be spotted outside of the range of torch light automatically when moving at exploration speed. 

In a corridor, shimmers are more dangerous. The front-line burglar has a 2-in-6 chance (elves have a 3-in-6 chance) of seeing a shimmer directly ahead of them. A 10' pole is already too close for comfort: the burglar gets a +2 to their Save but might still be sucked in to the shimmer. The only reliable method of discovering them before walking into them is by throwing objects (like acorns) ahead of you as you move. Moving in this way forces the party to move at a maximum exploration rate of 20' per Turn.

Those who step close to a shimmer are allowed a Save to throw themselves backwards out of its grip. On a failure, they are instantly destroyed, their body ripped apart as if squeezed by an invisible giant.

8. Enchanted Wells

The wells that the dwarves carved into the Mountain have all been tainted by the dragon's presence. Drinking from any of them is perilous because their effects are unknown.

Delvers have mapped the effects of certain pools in the first two levels. For example, the well at the North Crossroads shrinks imbibers for 3 Turns (30 minutes) to a twelfth of their size (feet become inches). 

When drinking from an unidentified well, roll on Goblinpunch's Perfect Potions List. The result is tied to that room forever. 

Waters bottled in hermetic vials can be sold on the black market.

There is a 2-in-6 chance that any enchanted pool has a black oil haunting it each time the room is visited. 

9. Phantoms 

Revenants are not the only way the dead haunt the dungeon. Burglars may bring the ghosts of those they know, living or dead, with them under the Mountain. They manifest as phantoms. 

A phantom is a seeming, an illusion, made out of condensed smoke and light. They are physically present and can interact with their environment, but have only a Strength of 1. If they ever suffer a single point of damage, they vanish in puff of smoke.

To stock phantoms in your dungeon, ask your players questions and use the answers to build them into the random encounter table.

The phantom appears as...

1. A group of rival burglars

2. A beloved family member of a member of the company (living or dead)

3. An NPC from Lake-town that is well known to the company

4. Union guardsmen hunting burglars

The phantom is...

1. Desperate to tell a certain member of the company a random rumour: they treat this as an omen of utmost importance, no matter the subject matter

2. Spiteful to a member of the company, insulting them in a way that is uniquely painful

3. Eager to lead the company deeper into the dungeon, promising treasure

4. Quiet, following behind the company without saying anything

10. Blinding Sound

The Blinding Sound is a trap that is not tied to a location. Put it on your random encounter table.

The Sound begins as a low rumble, barely discernable. If the company is standing still and being utterly silent, they can sense it without a roll. If the company is moving at exploration speed, each burglar can roll to detect the rising pitch of the sound with a 4-in-6 chance (hobbits get a 5-in-6 chance). If the company is moving faster, they can only detect it with a 2-in-6 chance. If successfully detected before it rises, the company can take preventative measures. Burglars carry custom ear muffs as protection. 

Once noticeably audible, the Sound effects any who can hear it. Each victim is allowed a Save to plug their ears at the last minute. If successful, they are blind for 1d30 days. If unsuccessful, they are blinded permanently.

B.U.R.G.L.A.R.s Part 2: Dungeon Zones

Part 2 of my investigation into "What if the Desolation of Smaug was a Zone from Roadsic Picnic?" 

Part 1 is here. 

Maybe I should have called this series "Hobbits have a Roadside Picnic." Hmmm.

Dungeon Zones

Inns are the haunts of burglars--notorious drunks, all. All of a burglar's tall tales are told there.

"I saw the Old Wyrm making new passageways. He was digging like an earthworm, chomping at the stone. The stone was passing through his long body. The changing gasses were coming out the back."

"I heard the Golden One about a level below us. We ran. But when we came back to the Northwest Guard Chamber, there was a fourth door. I told Fatty to follow me, but he went through the wrong portal. I could hear the blinding sound start up - that's the Wyrm's roar - so I dropped to my knees and pulled my hood over my head. My eyes turned out alright, but I never saw Fatty again."

Extra Angles, New Passages

Both the union delvers and burglars agree that the dungeon's layout doesn't remain static. The current understanding is that there are three different configurations the dungeon can be in based on the phase of the moon when the dungeon is entered. 

New moon: The new moon dungeon is entirely the product of the dwarf's craftsmanship: the hall of habitation, the guard posts, the armories, the workshops, the forges, the markets. 

Waxing or waning: The dungeon's appearance when the moon is between crescent and full is similar to the new moon dungeon, but rooms with corners have expanded to add new angles: triangular rooms become square rooms, square rooms become octagonal, octagonal rooms become dodecagonal rooms, and dodecagonal rooms become icosagonal. Round rooms are unchanged. New passages, seemingly of dwarf make but unremembered by any map from before the coming of the dragon, connect these expanded rooms together.

Full moon: The full moon dungeon is the largest and most complex. The expanded rooms and passages lead to "new" rooms, halls, and chambers. These rooms appear to have dwarven architecture, but the art and symbiology found there is dreamlike and distorted. In burglar folklore, these new rooms have the deadliest concentration of traps but also the most unlooted swag.

Rumor says that special days of the year or special celestial occurrences (Durin's Day, for instance) reveal entirely new layouts.

Elf Time

"In that land, maybe, we were in a time that has elsewhere long gone by. It was not, I think, until Silverlode bore us back to Anduin that we returned to the time that flows through mortal lands to the Great Sea."

A notable feature of dungeon zones is what burglars call "elf time": a distortion of the passing of time inside the dungeon versus outside the dungeon. Burglars will emerge after burning four torches and be told that they were gone for four days, or a single hour, or an entire month. 

For good luck, burglars never call a missing burglar "dead" unless they witnessed the death first hand. They will refer to them as "lost in elf time." (You may explain missing players at your table in this way.) 

Rule: When exiting a dungeon, one player should roll a d6. On a roll of 1, elf time has occurred. Roll d20 and consult the chart:

1-4. No time has occurred outside. The burglars seemed to enter and then exit the dungeon within the same minute.

5-10. Time outside the dungeon is twice what the burglars have experienced inside the dungeon.

11-15. A number of days outside the dungeon equal to the number of turns inside the dungeon have elapsed. 

16-19. Regardless of how long the delve lasted, the burglars return one month later to the hour.

20. Regardless of how long the delve lasted, the burglars return one year and one day later, to the hour.

I was going to cover traps in this post as well but it got too long. I need to split it up.

B.U.R.G.L.A.R.s

When people give me a recommendation for a book, a show, whatever, I always say "I'll add it to the list!" And I'm not kidding: I have a list. It sits at the bottom of my To Do Google Doc, where I track my daily tasks. The list is organized by medium (book, show, whatever), but is just a comma separated list in the order the text was recommended to me. Some of the lists are hundreds of entries long.

This is all to say, people have been telling me "Roadside Picnic is really good OSR inspiration" for many years and I've said "Yeah, yeah, it's on the list."

Well, I'm reading it right now. And let me tell you something.

Roadside Picnic is really good OSR inspiration. 

If you have not yet read it (and I recommend that you do!), the essential premise is that several years ago there was "The Visit," where aliens landed at six sites on Earth (called "Zones"). They left behind changed physical laws in those Zones (weird gravity wells, mutagenic slime) and advanced technological artifacts. A class of smugglers called "stalkers" sneak past the government barricades into the Zones, braving the traps of the weird environment to recover these artifacts. 

One of the people who had been hooting about this excellent book was Anne, who posted about it on her blog. In her post, her conversation partner had the temerity to say: 

It also makes me think how it might be interesting to think about a version of The Hobbit where the desolation of Smaug was a Zone!

That is what this post is about.

The Desolation of the Dragon

"There was little grass, and before long there was neither bush nor tree, and only broken and blackened stumps to speak of ones long vanished. They were come to the Desolation of
the Dragon, and they were come at the waning of the year."

To say that dragons "create" dungeons is not entirely correct, in the same way that it's not accurate to say that the ground "creates" gravity. When a dragon settles in an area, it warps the area in the same way that a planet warps spacetime. The result is a dungeon. Newtonian physics no longer accurately describes the behavior of objects in a dragon's domain. We must switch to dungeon physics.

For most people, dungeon physics mean two things:

First, the existence of traps. This isn't to say pressure plates or poisoned needles. Traps, in this instance, mean hazardous environments that arise spontaneously in the dungeon: forcefields, walls of fire, poisonous molds, hell slimes.  

Second, the existence of magic treasure. In the presence of a dragon, once-normal mundane objects or areas may suddenly behave as enchanted: sewing pins that emit a deafening shriek, bracelets will spin forever when balanced on their edge, barrels that are invisible.

For dungeon philosophers (wizards), both are the same category of transmutation. Except you can categorize transformed objects that are hazardous to human health as traps and transformed objects that have neutral or beneficial properties as treasure. And, like medicines, sometimes the difference is in the dose.

And when you slay the dragon? That's just the start of your troubles. 

The Lonely Mountain and the Union of Five Armies

“I remember the Mountain well enough and the lands about it. And I know where Mirkwood is, and the Withered Heath where the great dragons bred."  

One-hundred and seventy-one years ago, the dragon Smaug came to the Lonely Mountain and drove out the dwarves and men who lived there. A dungeon zone took root.

Today, the land around the Lonely Mountain is controlled by the Five Armies, each of whom is from a kingdom that lays some claim on the lands of the dungeon (the Dwarves, the Men of Dale) or the roads used to travel towards the dungeon (the Elves of Mirkwood, the Goblins of the Misty Mountains, and the Wolves of the Wild). This Union sends forth sanctioned delves of equal numbers to recover treasures from the dungeon and further their understanding of draconic incursions. 

Burglars 

"INTERVIEWER: You probably mean stalkers? 
DR. PILLMAN: I’m not familiar with the term.
INTERVIEWER: That’s what the residents of Harmont call the desperate young men who, despite the grave risks, sneak into the Zone and smuggle out whatever they find. It’s quite the new career."

Lake-town was founded after the coming of the dragon by the refugees of the kingdom of Esgaroth. A simple democracy, it provides something like a neutral space for the Union of the Five Armies. The residents have never seen the wealth extracted from the dungeon trickle down - the rivers have never flowed with gold, as they were promised.

Some of these residents take on the profession of burglar. A burglar avoids the guards of the union to make an unsanctioned delve in the dungeon. When they survive, they sell the swag to the highest bidder: foreign kingdoms, rich autarchs from beyond Rhun, or even clandestine representatives from member-kingdoms of the union (who each resent their rivals and think their sharing agreements unequally penalize themselves). 

But burglars do not have long lives. The traps in the dungeon are many, and only the upper levels have been partially mapped. Worse, those that handle the treasures rarely see their later years: the dragon sickness is a slow but irresistible foe.

And the less said about the sicknesses of their children, the better. 

This series continues in Part 2: Dungeon Zones.

CYOA (Choose Your Own Advertisement)

Alas, to be an indie RPG designer is to be both the author, the project manager, the social media, and the marketer (among other things). 

You may have heard me mention this week (on this blog and through social media) that voting for the 2026 ENNIES is currently going on and the Designing Dungeons Course is up for Best Online Content. I make no apologies for shilling!

But, if I must advertise, I should at least be funny.

That's why I put together the...

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVERTISEMENT (CYOA)

Click it!

Play through it! If it makes you laugh, give me a vote by Monday, July 20th, 2026. 
 

Thank you! Gracias! Tak! Danke! 多谢多谢! Merci beaucoup!

The Designing Dungeons Course: Or, How to Kill a Party in 30 Rooms or Less has been nominated for 🏆Best Online Content in the 2026 ENNIES🏆. I mean it when I say that it's an honor just to be nominated. Thank you very much! 

Vote here!

Who What Why of the Designing Dungeons Course

If you are a regular reader on my blog, I hope you already know all about the Designing Dungeons Course. But just to briefly sum up the project:

The germ of the idea came from Warren of the blog ICastLight. "I wish there was a book that talked through dungeon design that you could follow along with. And at the end of reading the book, you have a dungeon of your own!" 

The idea was so compelling I forced him to join me in making it. Having released my dungeon-crawling game, His Majesty the Worm in 2025, I had seen how cautiously people approached the concept of making a dungeon from scratch. Both Warren and I believe strongly that making a dungeon is just a series of discrete steps: it's fun and easy to do.

The course is consists of 13 chapters. Each chapter consists of some RPG theory, exercises, prompts, and step-by-step instructions to write a 30-room dungeon to run for your friends. There's a workbook that you can use to follow along!

The course has an audio component recorded by the oak and leather voice of Jon Britton, the GM of the incredible 3d6DownTheLine podcast.

And course, the whole thing is free!

How to vote

The ENNIES are a fan choice award, so who goes on to win is based on voting. 

If you got something out of the course - if the procedures have helped you overcome writer's block or if you found some useful resources for your own GMing practice - I would very much appreciate a vote! 

1. Go to the ennie-awards.com's voting booth

2. Click on Best Online Content

3. Select Designing Dungeons Course: Or, How to Kill a Party in 30 Rooms or Less, Joshua McCrowell & Warren D as #1.

4. Press submit! 

5. Receive my eternal gratitude for your support.

Voting continues from July 10th to July 19th.

If we win, my collaborator Warren and I have a very silly acceptance video prerecorded. It will be worth a vote for me just to laugh at our little video.