Black Powder Traps

These traps are designed to give an explosive twist to a campaign set in the age of sail! Each of these traps has a real-world historical precedent from the 18th century.

Spring-gun traps were tripwire booby traps, usually rigged with a blunderbuss to discharge a deadly hail of buck-and-ball shot. Sometimes called “cemetery guns,” these traps were most often set by aristocrats looking to deter poachers or body-snatchers—who dug up graves and looted corpses, selling them to enterprising medical students for practice dissections. Spring-guns were also used by unscrupulous soldiers to protect key areas of interest. A spring-gun trap set to protect a powder warehouse in Virginia 1775 injured two young boys in 1775, causing widespread outrage and forcing the colonial governor to flee.

Stone mines could be created as part of a primitive weapon system called a “fougasse.” Little more than a gunpowder-laden pit, a fougasse was often filled with stone, brick, or other debris in lieu of leaden projectiles, making them effective anti-personnel deterrents when conventional ordnance was limited. A tripwire set along the perimeter would trigger sparks and detonate the charge, creating a nasty surprise for any poor infantrymen in the area.

A timed bomb, infamously used Guy Fawkes’  Gunpowder Plot, was the guerilla explosive du jure of the 17th and 18th century. Used in bombings and assassination attempts, a heavy timed bomb consisted of several kegs of gunpowder and could be loaded and surreptitiously transported on a cart or wagon. The “quick-match” mechanic here is perhaps a little fanciful—it was inspired by plot point in one of the Horatio Hornblower novels!

GMBinder Link: Black Powder Traps