Gatehouse Snapbow

Reiver's Right — Location 2 Hazard

An Improvised Defense Left Behind

A heavy crossbow has been lashed beneath the gatehouse duty desk and aimed toward the interior doorway leading farther into the camp. A thin cord runs from the weapon's trigger to the door latch.

The mechanism is crude and recent. It is not part of Reiver's Right's ordinary gate defenses. Someone assembled it quickly from equipment already inside the gatehouse.

[MECHANICAL] [TRAP]

A loaded heavy crossbow concealed beneath the duty desk fires when the gatehouse's interior door is opened.

Stealth DC 17 (trained) to notice the thin trigger cord, disturbed dust beneath the desk, or the concealed crossbow before opening the door.

Description Opening the interior door pulls a concealed cord attached to the trigger of a heavy crossbow aimed across the gatehouse at chest height.

Disable Thievery DC 15 (trained) to disconnect the trigger cord; Crafting DC 16 to safely jam the firing mechanism.

A character who has already identified the trap can also cut or detach the cord from a safe position without attempting a check if they can reach it without moving the trapped door.

AC 17; Fort +8, Ref +5

Hardness 5; HP 20 (BT 10)

Immunities critical hits, object immunities, precision damage

Spring-Loaded Shot ↻

Trigger A creature opens the trapped interior door without disabling the mechanism.

Effect The crossbow immediately makes a ranged Strike against the triggering creature.

Ranged Strike +10; Damage 2d6+3 piercing.

On a critical hit, the target must also succeed at a Fortitude DC 17 save or be pushed 5 feet away from the doorway.

Reset The crossbow must be manually reloaded and the trigger cord restrung, requiring approximately 1 minute.

Challenge: Examine the Improvised Trap

Once the snapbow has been discovered or triggered, its construction can reveal something about the gatehouse's final occupants.

Primary Check Crafting DC 15, Warfare Lore DC 14, or Perception DC 16

Critical Success The trap was assembled very recently and in considerable haste. The crossbow came from the gatehouse weapon rack, while the trigger cord was cut from ordinary signal line. Scratches beneath the desk show that the installer worked quickly and expected the mechanism to be temporary. Clue: Someone inside Reiver's Right expected another person to follow them through the gatehouse and wanted to injure or delay that pursuer.

Success The trap is clearly improvised from gatehouse equipment rather than being part of the camp's permanent defenses. Clue: Someone deliberately trapped the interior doorway shortly before the gatehouse was abandoned.

Failure The character recognizes that the trap is improvised but cannot determine when it was assembled or what circumstances prompted it.

Critical Failure The rough construction provides no reliable indication of who built the device or when it was placed.

The trap should not suggest that Reiver's Right prepared for a siege. The normal gate defenses were never activated, and the palisade was not attacked.

Instead, the snapbow suggests something more personal and immediate: someone already inside the camp was fleeing, being pursued, or trying to prevent another person from following them farther into Reiver's Right.

Do not identify the installer here. The trap is another piece of evidence that the camp's final violence unfolded internally.