Dwarven Fire Rune Trap

I am the kind of person who will occasionally get on an abstract tip and bug out over some basic aspect of daily existence, such as: if you are literate, it is not possible to look at a word without reading it. If you know a word, the part of your mind that processes and comprehends the meaning does so immediately, and cannot be switched off. 

Yes! I have spent time looking at writing and trying to only see the shapes of the script without understanding the words, and I have failed.

Yes! I am a weirdo also, how kind of you to notice.

Anyway all that is just context for this trap!

Dwarven Fire Rune


The dwarven word for "fire" is displayed on a  in magic paint or as a shimmering magic hologram or in the wending shape of an eerie hovering flame or whatever. The flavour is up to you.

The trap only triggers if you can read Dwarven - if you do, when you see and read the rune it implants into your mind not only the linguistic meaning of the word but, the very essence of the thing itself. Thus your brain heats up and probably wisps of smoke comes out your ears and nose, and your hair catches fire.


Damage/effects - scale it appropriately for the threat level you're trying to achieve and how beefy the party is.
I would suggest at minimum 1d10 flame damage (equivalent to getting hit by Fire Bolt), but, you could make it an intra-cranial Fireball and go with 8d6 fire damage.
INT save for half damage and/or avoid additional effects.
What kind of additional effects? Here's a few options...

• If a caster, you forget any prepared spells that are water- or ice-based... but if you have any fire magic prepared, the next time you cast a fire-based spell today, the potency is boosted and it does maximum damage (if it hits).
• Take temporary INT and/or WIS damage (not really a thing in 5th Edition, but I still like to attack PCs ability scores from time to time).
• Chance to develop a pyrophobia / pyromania.

Placement - a few ideas:

• on the wall at the far end of a corridor, see it soon as you open the door or round the corner
• on the inside surface of the lid of a treasure chest
• behind a curtain that a villain can drop, revealing the rune as they make their escape
• tattooed on a dead duergar's torso! That'll teach you a lesson about compulsive looting you dang murder-hoboze!

Variants

• Meaning of the rune - could be a different element (ice, lightning), or a different kind of  concept entirely e.g. "Silence" triggering a save-or-go mute effect. There are effectively infinite options here - to me the interesting part of this trap is the literacy requirement for the trigger, not the fire effects specifically. 
• Hypnotic rune - in this version, make a WIS save or be locked in a fascinated stasis, staring at the rune, over-awed by the True Meaning of Fire, while it slowly boils your brain for continuous (or escalating!) damage each round until you make your save or the Barbarian crash-tackles you.
• Naturally you can use languages other than Dwarven if you please, I take Dwarven as the default due to the traditional association with runic magic. Hence better mythic resonance and whatnot.

Probably inspired also by this creep, who runs around dungeons hiding Scrabble tiles that spell D-E-A-T-H. You might be able to read about him at my other blog someday.