Accidental Death Trap

[TheChemist]

Similar to the other topic that's going right now, I'm looking for death traps. For this topic, however, I'm looking for unintentional, accidental, and environment based traps. These types of traps are mentioned in the rules with their example being the burning building crumbling around the heroes i.e. the traps where the villain walks away, confident that, "no one could survive that."

For my particular needs, I'm looking for something that could be used in a water treatment plant or in some underground tunnels with water, such as a sewer. The idea here is that the villain is currently dumping a drug into the city's water supply similar to the Scarecrow in Batman Begins.

Don't let my needs hold you back though, feel free to pipe in with any and all make-shift death traps.

[FuzzyBoots]

Well, if you're working in a water plant, the simplest versions involve, well, water. You've got everything from he chamber that's rapidly filling to the hero stuck inside of a room while the water pressure outside keeps the door shut. In all cases, the person stuck in the trap will often be forced to finesse it because of the risk to themselves and others if they just start blasting away. For extra "fun", there are more fluids than water. Effluent can be used as well, adding checks versus Nausea and Disease to the trouble the hero faces, not to mention he ickiness factor of it (don't forget that if they don't get it fixed right away, technical solutions will start receiving penalties due to the difficulty of working through or beneath the liquid. Even water, seemingly clear, is almost impossible to see through for far without goggles).

I suspect a quick gander at water treatment methods will do you some good. Off of the top of my head, methods used include agitation (large mechanical blender arms or turbines), distillation (boiling hot water being turned into steam), chemical treatment (which includes caustic chemicals, not to mention many which are harmful to humans at high concentrations), and radiation (the obvious). ^_^ Seems like a nice list of effects you can subject heroes to when they get stuck in the pipes/vats.

[Kevin_MacTaggert]

Great thread!

Okay - " accidental " , " water " , " large structure " , " maybe underground " ... led me to that scene from " X2 ":

Alkali Lake - the dam breaks due to Jean Grey's Telekinetic Blastwave ( an accident ) - so, something like that, where the heroes are underwater or surrounded by water and the bad guy(s) OR one of the PCs accidentally damages the structure, causing water to flood the area - the PCs would need to save themselves and others from certain death! Adds that " Ticking Time Bomb " effect

my two pieces of Copper

[zebaroth]

a fire beased super loses contorl of his/her powers and sets the forest that the team is in on fire

[Laughingcrow]

Someone with a high degree of Electrical control could use some form of Electrolysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis.

Basically, and with less science, you split water (H20) into Hydrogen (H2) and Oxygen (O), which is an incredibly volatile mixture. If this process goes on for a while, filling up the entire sewer/water system, the water levels would drop considerably (leading to an investigation) with the system flooding with Hydrogen gas.

All it takes down there, once it's filled up, is for a hero to light up a spark - and there's a sudden pop of a hydrogen explosion.

Not entirely realistic, scientifically, but hey - trying to outrun a hydrogen explosion shockwave sounds fun, doesn't it?

[biggmcg]

Nicking an idea from Skyfall, an explosion in the tunnel the heroes are fleeing down opens the ceiling up. They use a train in the film, but there could be anything you can think of in a tunnel above (or below). Crude oil, natural gas, chemicals, subway trains full of screaming innocents, a cargo train carrying volatile chemicals or nuclear waste... Just a few ideas.