The Secret Door

In your roleplaying adventure or creative writing, when you come to a dead end and all hope seems lost, why not waste your last minutes groping around for a secret door? A good adventure always reveals one… after all, the story must go on.

A good narrative needs an escape route when characters are in dire straits, and a secret door or hidden passage or magic portal is just what the doctor (Dr. Narrator) ordered! Look at these menus to turn a perilous moment into a new passage… possibly to even greater peril.

Where to find Secret Doors

• closets, wardrobes, ancient armoires
• behind bookshelves, bookcase, tapestries, pictures, paintings, chalk board,
• mansion, castle,
• library,
• coat rack,
• shopping mall bathroom stall,
• movie shelf in an 80s video store
• church, temple, shrine, altat,
• in a school locker,
• under a bed,
• crypt, tomb, bottom of a coffin,
• attic, cellar, basement, dungeon, jail cell,
• vault, safe,
• cave, cavern,
• fireplace,
• mirror,
• hidden in the painted lines of a fresco, relief sculpture, pattern, motif,
• under a rug,
• under a sleeping dog, or orc, giant, dragon, chimera, griffin,
• beneath a pile of rubble, garbage heap, behind a dumpster,
• outhouse,
• vending machine,
• hotel, inn, motel,
• tavern, saloon (behind the bar),
• under the stairs, behind a hallway panel, behind a stove,
• carnival, market stall, circus tent,
• caravan, wagon, trailer,
• in a column, pillar, archway,
• in the refrigerator, bottom of a chest freezer under grandma’s meatloaf from 17 years ago.
• gymnasium or auditorium storage room,
• park (in the base of a tree)
• bottom of a crate, chest, water well, fire pit,
• underwater, under leaves, under a manure pile,

Types of Secret Doors

• trap door, sliding floor boards, cellar opening,
• grate, portcullis, mesh, shield, forcefield,
• moving stone, chair, shelf, wall,
• ceiling access, attic door,
• panel wall, wainscotting, false wall
• magic portal, illusory wall, magically protected passage,
• charmed door revealed,
• outline appears in wall,
• just a door… except it goes somewhere weird
• stone, brick, wood, iron, plaster, concrete, glass, obsidian, oak, lattice,
• hollow, solid, thick, thin,
• veil, sheer, curtain, drapery, tapestry,
• mural, fresco, painting, mosaic, tile,
• in a fountain, pool, waterfall,
• pay the statue beside it, convince the “guardian” to let you pass (may include a riddle), input a code, say a magic word,
• vibrate and explode, implode, evaporate, disintegrate, vaporize,
• a hole
• gigantic rolling stone,
• circular, square, rectangular, arched,
• hanging, suspended,
• nailed shut, boltes, locked, fastened, braced from behind (or from your side),
• electric, flame, water, vapor, gas, ice, glass, mirror, liquid, jelly,
• cursed, blessed, holy, unholy, damned,

Types of Secret Door Apparatuses

• light switch, light cord, turn a light bulb
• secret knock, drink an elixir, read a scroll,
• promise something, make a deal (that you probably shouldn’t make),
• tap the keystone three times with a special scepter,
• magic word, command word, reciting a poem, praising a god,
• tipping a book, pressing a brick, pulling a stone, tapping a rock,
• tipping a bust of Beethoven on a piano and finding a button,
• piano key code or combo, humming a tune, opens by a certain pitch, activated by a whistle,
• sequence of steps on a patterned floor,
• speak to a statue, guardian, image, giant talking mouth, illusory floating head, ghost, specter, phantasm, demon, angel,
• swinging brick wall, book shelf,
• sitting on a chair,
• lever, spring, switch, cord, button, swing, pendulum,
• requires a wrecking ball,
• lock, padlock, chain and lock,
• trace a symbol, number, rune, sign
• burn special incense, candle, weed, light a brazier, swing a censer and chant like you mean it,
• punch a code into a panel of numbers, letters, symbols, colors, shapes,
• sliding, swinging, twist, burst, split,
• falls forward, falls back, falls apart,
• drops into floor,
• disappears,
• creaks really loud
• alarm goes off,
• trapped!!!!

Secret Door Stuff

• trap, trick, gas, alarm, poison,
• lock, padlock, key,
• number panel, coding device,
• runes, writing, warning, caution sign, symbols,
• guardian, angel, demon, beast, statue, golem, suit of armour (animated of course),
• awful smell, enticing aroma, fresh air, death, dankness, mold, filth, dust,
• sounds of laughter, crying, moaning, far off screaming, whispers of warning, howls, panting, scraping, dead silence,
• light or darkness,
• feelings of foreboding,
• webbing, weeds, vines, moss, moisture, dust, debris, bones,
• a ring of 100 keys… one of which fits (great if characters don’t have much time…)

Behind the Secret Door!

• treasure, treasure, more treasure,
• ferocious beast
• tunnel, small passageway, cave,
• steep stairs down,
• passage between (in) walls,
• secret room, clandestine command post, rebel hideout, secret library,
• bowling alley,
• magic portal, tesseract, transdimensional portal, teleportation device,
• a forest, jungle,
• the door opens under water so a great wave of water comes spewing out of the new opening drenching you and filling up the room you’re in
• an arena, stadium, auditorium (in which you could be the main attraction)
• a wise old man, elderly woman, creature, witch, Medusa,
• your double,
• a child,
• a skeleton, a corpse, a curse, a dybbuk,
• a fabled weapon, an artifact, a precious relic, a holy site, a secret tome of knowledge,
• writing on the wall, a note, scroll, parchment, map, scrawled “help me” in blood,
• chill wind, eerie feeling,
• some insane person or beast,
• a way out
• a way in
• hope

Developments

• check out this post for more door ideas
• when you open the door, the delicious smell of fresh apple pie beckons you on… probably a bad sign.
• the door opens and a crazed beast, trapped on the other side, springs out at you and immediately attacks (hungry, frightened, just plain angry)
• the door opens revealing… another door (repeat until nauseous)
• instead of opening, you’ve punched in the wrong code (or whatever) and something terrible begins to happen
• upon opening the door, you hear hideous evil laughter… is it all in your head? I’m sure you’ll find out.
• a secret door can open to an entirely new land, world, place, room, etc… the unpredictability can create all kinds of elevated narrative.
• you go through the door into… a giant trash compactor, which of course turns on shortly after your arrival.
• secret doors are most excellent narrative transitions if you want to go back in time, shrink, enlarge, slow down, speed up, travel great distances, become ghostly, etc… they can do way more than just get you to another space.
• the door leads to a network of passages, each with more doors to contend with.