Are there any risks to rooting a device?

I see lots of tutorials telling me *how* to root my phone (Motorola Droid), but none of them mention any potential "side effects." Aside from a few relatively minor issues that seem to require rooting to fix, I'm basically happy with the phone and therefore a little leery of messing with a device that cost me a lot of money and is only a few months old. Assuming that I'm *just* talking about rooting, and none of the typical post-root actions (like installing a custom ROM), am I taking any risks by choosing to root? * Does it have the potential to brick the device? * Will it void my warranty? * Will I stop getting updates? * Will the cops show up at my front door the next day? *(Yes, I'm being facetious.)* * Anything else I should be aware of? (See also: https://android.stackexchange.com/q/21042/1465)