Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

[AlHazred]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

I've posted a lot of (what I hope is) quality material on here, but this is still what I'm most proud of: starting the creepiness of the Creepy Hotel Thread. Thanks, guys! I'm not currently running anything modern, but I'll have to go back to the well and see if there's anything new bubbling to the surface!

[tkdguy]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Since I'm committing thread necromancy here, I may as well include a couple of ghosts.

 

The Ghostly Couple

 

The spirits of a married couple who died in a car accident occasionally visit the hotel. They aren't bound to the place, so they're not always there. They're not malicious, but they are mischievous, and they delight in playing harmless pranks on the hotel's residents and visitors.

 

I got this bit from the Cary Grant movie Topper.

[The Weapon]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The recruiters:

Every so often a team of recruiters rent a conference room and give group interviews/testing to anyone who turns up (mostly teenagers, but some in their early 20s). All the recruiters look to be at least 40 years old ethnically diverse, of both sexs and some have physical injuries (a eye patch, burns etc) . They are looking for "innovative, quick on their feet team players who are willing to go the extra mile" for a "world class services organisation with unique and specialised expertise". Beyond that they are very vague about what they're looking for and what the job will be, except that they once held the positions they are seeking to fill. Questions about whether the recruiters got their injuries in that job are deflected with comments about confidentiality and how everything will be explained more fully to those who pass the interview process. Potential applicants are given tests for creativity in very limited time frames, reaction speed, physical fitness and various psychological traits. Those who pass are taken into another room where the job offer is explained. Those who come out are either nervous and excited or really, really scared, the latter being the ones who turned down the job.

 

The next time they book the room the interviewers all look like the new hires from the last time, but 20 or more years older and with several permanent injuries similar in degree to that suffered by the first interviews. Some of them are missing however. If asked about this similarity they will act surprised (they're not that good at acting). Any reference to their missing companions will provoke anger, denials of knowing what you're talking about and a swift end to the conversation.

[Lucius]

Re: Security Guard

 

I am not fully awake. This is from a dream I JUST had....

 

The security guard is old. Not only does he look old, but if the characters get a look at the hotel's personel records, they know he's over 80. He seems too old for the job, but despite seeming to move slowly, he always makes his rounds, going from one station to another in the building with an old fashioned key-clock. And the staff is completely confident in him. One will mention that he had to kill someone not long ago, another will report that it's said he's killed several intruders over the years, but all accounts exonerate him completely - he's killed, but no one questions that he was always justified, that he did what he had to do at the time.

 

His eyes are still sharp, and he can move fast when he wants to, you notice.

 

If you can get into his suite (a Lockpick roll while he's making rounds perhaps) you find one entire room dedicated to small memorials; each little space with photos, perhaps some mementoes in a case, documents and articles from newspapers on the wall and more such in file folders in small cabinets. It is as if each time he's had to kill, he felt he owed it to the deceased to find out who he was, and to remember. Mostly they were crooks, thieves, drunkards, addicts, murderers, but their failings and crimes and character flaws are here recorded dispassionately, along with, in each case, some information regarding their victims and the impact of their crimes. The accounts of where they crossed paths with the Security Guard do not glorify him, but do exonerate him. Often, he seems to have survived by sheer luck against a hardened or desperate criminal, more a fortunate near-victim than a hero. There is room for more, as if he feels certain he will have to kill again.

 

If both the personal records and these memorials are accurate, the oldest case dates to when the Security Guard was about 4 or 5 years old.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary wonders if it's wise to record my dreams here of all places, and when I'm not yet awake even...

 

It didn't occur to me until just now how this dream parallels Speaker for the Dead

 

Lucius Alexander

 

the palindromedary hadn't noticed

[Susano]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

In the basement of the hotel is a heavy door. It is (or was) locked and shows signs of great age. Opening it reveals a stairwell going down. The walls and floor are of modern materials (such as poured concrete), but the further you descend, the older things gets, till you find yourself walking on aged brick and then stone blocks. The stairwell itself is a long and narrow oval, with two landings per "floor" (i.e. it switches back on itself once before you reach the landing under where you entered.) There are no lights, or if there are, they last long enough and/or appropriate only for the material used to make the stairwell. Thus, there are electrical lights only as long as you are in the area of concrete and some brick. Afterwards, you see evidence of hooks for oil lanterns, brackets and baskets for torches and burning rushes and so on. The air is cool, but stays the same temperature regardless of depth. The depth of the stairwell is unknown, but extends far below the hotel and might extend far below is deemed physically possible for the area the hotel is located in.

There are rumors of sounds heard from those who have opened the door and ventured down the stairs: crying, faint screams, shouts, scratching and rasping noises, echoing booms, and so on. Some people have reported seeing scratches in the walls, graffiti in various languages (including ones no one can recognize), strange symbols, and even holes in the landings and missing stairs. At least one report says a body was seen on a landing, but when the witness reached the landing, the body was gone.

Possibly the strangest part of all this is the evidence of impacts (made perhaps by someone knocking with great force) on the stairwell side of the door. Also, there have been reports of faint rappings and tappings from time to time.

[tkdguy]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Private Eye

 

This man always comes in when there's a thick fog surrounding the area. He is of average height and weight. His appearance isn't very distinctive, although he always wears a fedora and trenchcoat and is often unshaven. He comes in, asks a few questions about certain people or events, and leaves after making a few cryptic remarks. If the PCs watch him leave, they see him walking into a thick fog and eventually disappears in it.

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

In the basement of the hotel is a heavy door. It is (or was) locked and shows signs of great age. Opening it reveals a stairwell going down. The walls and floor are of modern materials (such as poured concrete)' date=' but the further you descend, the older things gets, till you find yourself walking on aged brick and then stone blocks. The stairwell itself is a long and narrow oval, with two landings per "floor" ([i']i.e.[/i] it switches back on itself one before you each the landing under where you entered.) There are no lights, or if there are, they last and/or appropriate only for the material used to make the stairwell. This, there are electrical lights only as long as you are in the area of concrete and some brick. Afterwards, you see evidence of hooks for oil lanterns, brackets and baskets for torches and burning rushes and so on. The air is cool, but stays the same temperature regardless of depth. The depth of the stairwell is unknown, but extends far below the hotel and might extend far below is deemed physically possible for the area the hotel is located in.....

 

At the bottom of the stairway, people who dare to descend that far find a long gallery, carved out solid, light-coloured stone. Along the wall of the gallery are rush mats flanked by stone fireplaces and clay pots, each with a scatter of parched corn at the bottom. At the end of the gallery, an underground stream flows through a channel, with a watering step at the upstream end, and squats for the neccesities at the downstream side, and beside it a slow bitumen drip. The dust is thick through the area, except the middle, where footprints lead to an incongruously modern stack of boxes.

 

If the players come back over the months, they will see the gallery undergo steady changes, acquiring closed washroom stalls, cots, electric lights, even a generator. When they finally catch a member of the motel staff carrying stuff down to the gallery, he or she will only tell them that "management says that we have to have the place ready, before it happens again." The worker has no idea what "it" might be, and won't explain which member of hotel management, if any, is responsible.

[Susano]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

At the bottom of the stairway....

 

This, of course, presumes the stairwell has a bottom....

 

[Lawnmower Boy]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

This, of course, presumes the stairwell has a bottom....

 

 

I liked your version, but I also thought it could be taken in the other direction....

[Lucius]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

I liked your version' date=' but I also thought it could be taken in the other direction....[/quote']

 

Up the stairs?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

As I was going up the stairs, I met a palindromedary

[tkdguy]

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Nightwatchman

 

The security guard on the late shift is a middle-aged man. He walks with a pronounced limp, but he is otherwise in good condition. He loves to reminisce about the "good old days" when he was young and wild, and he laments the archery mishap that ended his adventures abruptly.

[Lucius]

 

The Empty Hotel

 

 

After a few days of staying at the hotel, you return to it one day to find it empty. Everything is still in your own room, and the rest of the hotel seems much the same, except that there is no sign of any of the guests or staff. Then you notice that the newspaper vending machines in the lobby carry papers dated a year and a half ago. The last entry in the guest register has the same date.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says that's a way to DEpopulate a creepy hotel

[AlHazred]

On 9/6/2012 at 5:41 AM, Lucius said:

Up the stairs?

 

The Sixth Staircase

 

The hotel is not that big. It has a bank of two elevators in the lobby, and a freight elevator that opens to the loading dock. They also have six stairwells; two of them sit at the end of either wing, and one parallels the elevators in the lobby.

 

The sixth staircase is not indicated as a recommended mode of escape on any of the emergency "In Case of Fire" floorplans. It's kept locked at all times, and only the manager has the key -- an old-fashioned skeleton key with an elaborately detailed bow and shank, and a curiously-cut-out bit. The sixth staircase sits in the middle of a hall, breaking the symmetry of that hotel wing. Like the other stairwells, the sixth staircase runs from the basement to the top floor, where it has a large angled skylight that lets in the sunlight.

 

Usually.

 

Before the staircase was on lockdown there were reports, from a few (usually frazzled) guests, that the sixth staircase sometimes goes higher than the top floor of the hotel, late at night. One guest said he had emerged into what he thought was the top floor to find it pitch black and filled with a rank odor. He thought he heard "animal noises" and "people moaning," that so terrified him he immediately fled back down the stairs and refused to return to his (top floor) room. Another guest, who by her own admission was extremely intoxicated, reported a strange cloudscape, brilliantly lit by golden sunlight and featuring what appeared to be "fairy castles" floating by; she was found unconscious on the top floor landing the following morning.

 

The most detailed report comes from one guest, a respectable businessman in his 50s, who returned from a client meeting held in the bar/restaurant past closing and took the sixth stair. He knew his room was on the top floor, and didn't really pay attention to the climb. But when he opened the door at the top, he reported the hallway looked different than he remembered. He got all the way to what should have been his room, before he realized what those differences were.

 

The light fixtures spaced regularly down the hallway were not fluorescent, but seemed instead to be some sort of lamps burning a sweet-smelling oil. The carpet also seemed different than he remembered, with a green viny motif. The door to "his" room was ajar. Thinking he was discovering an intruder, he threw the door open to discover a huge room, larger than he remembered. A few steps led down to a large, comfortable space with a window-wall that looked out over a beautiful mountainous area. In the distance, birds flew with... something... apparently tethered behind them.

 

Then he noticed the couple in the room. Wearing robes of unfamiliar cut, the man and woman were apparently engaged in relations when the guest entered the room. The strange man stood and bellowed at the hotel guest, who reported the windows suddenly darkening before a flash of lightning blinded him and a peal of thunder deafened him. Instinctively, he fled out of the room and tumbled down the stairs, the sounds of a deep voiced man and thunder filling his ears.

 

Hotel staff called emergency services, and the guest eventually recovered his eyesight. His medical expenses covered by the hotel management, he was given several weeks of therapy for his burns; since that incident, the staircase is kept locked.

 

Plot Hooks:

 

1) Mystical: The sixth stair sits on a nexus of ley lines. On nights of supernatural significance, it can send people to an otherworld coinciding to the ethnicity of the person traveling upon it. One of the guests was sent to the Happy Hunting Grounds; the older guest ended up on Mount Olympus. If the guest has no definite ethnicity, the nexus sends them to an afterlife coincident to their ethos -- so the intoxicated guest ended up in a cloudscape which was an amalgam of her hopes and dreams. Some guests have gone missing in their respective otherworlds, which is why the hotel staff has locked it up because, while they don't know exactly what is going on, they know enough to limit access. Unfortunately, it might not have been done soon enough -- otherworldly forces have captured one (or more) of the errant guests and discovered the passage works both ways, and now they plan an invasion...

 

2) Weird Conspiracy: What most assume is the top floor of the hotel is actually just beneath the actual "top floor." The actual "top floor" fits under the facade/"roof" of the hotel. This space was created during the hotel's construction by the cabal that owned the place back then. They used it as a "secret clubhouse" of sorts, for wild bacchanalias and the like. The only means of ingress is a secret extra stair that is normally kept mechanically folded against the roof of the stairwell, its presence disguised as support structure for the large, angled skylight window. Pressing a hidden key lowers the stair for entrance. The cabal has changed membership in the intervening decades, but they still retain control of the place. Some of the members have grown forgetful, and sometimes leave the secret stair in place after they enter or leave; those times coincided with the hotel guests' strange experiences. The members use the secret floor for all sorts of things -- romantic trysts, blood matches between animals or coerced humans, ritual sacrifice/torture, etc. The older guest ran into one of the romantic trysts and, disoriented, was amazed by the window image (projected by a hidden device as part of the decor) and was then attacked by one of the cabal members using a tazer (actually an advanced version, made with the cabal's secret high tech).

 

3) Fortean: The sixth staircase occupies a natural fold in space, which leads occasionally to places Not Of This Earth. Alternate Earths can be visited, some extremely different and hostile to Life As We Know It. There is no way to control the "spacewarp," but it is possible beings from other worlds can navigate its folds better than we can. It is also possible that, with experience, PCs could learn this as well. Maybe the spacewarp twists according to "temporal waves" that emanate from some other-worldly source.

[tkdguy]

How many floors are there in the hotel?

[SteelCold]

forget the creepy hotel. theres more than enough to fill out a creepy town.

[Lucius]

How many floors are there in the hotel?

However many you need. Don't think of all this as being in any single hotel, however fantastic. If your creepy idea calls for a thirteenth floor, the hotel has at least that many floors. If an idea works better for a small single story motel type establishment, go with that.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

If you need a palindromedary, the hotel allows pets

[Basic204]

If you want a good example there is a hotel in canda that is haunted. 

 

The witch

 

No one knows what she truly looks like because most who have seen her have died in the course of doing so. On flim it looks like a female humanoid form but horribly changed in ways that makes the viewer tremble in fear she has a black mass around her. You know were she has been by the claw marks she leaves behind and the horrible destruction left behind in its wake.

 

The Group

 

These beings have been seen by those who stay in room 43. What they want no one really knows but there appearance seem to fallow the same patterns. As you sleep in your bed you will hear voices but when you look around there is no one. Next you......... 

[tkdguy]

The Haunt

 

While quite harmless, this apparition is definitely unsettling. Viewers only glimpse it for a split second, and then only from the corners of their eyes. They usually see it when they're sitting or lying down, and it stands beside them to look at them before disappearing.

 

The haunt always looks exactly like the viewer.

[Nothere]

O.k. Two things pretty much the same but I had the second idea first. But all that talk of stairs leads me to....

 

The man on the stairs

 

Every now and again people will notice a very short man standing on the stairs. The man is clearly staring at particular guests and doing so in an unfriendly manner. At least that's what people say to explain why they start shouting from the lobby up the stairs. Everyone else reports that the little man wasn't there.

 

And second.

 

The little girls ball.

 

A cute little  girl around six or seven. wanders around playing with a ball. After several minutes playing the ball gets away from her. She immediately starts crying and says her mommy is going to be mad at her. those who went to get the ball for her report the little girl ran off, while they weren't paying attention. They wanted to find her to return the ball, but now the ball is gone as well.

[AlHazred]

forget the creepy hotel. theres more than enough to fill out a creepy town.

So, draw us a map (doesn't have to be artistic or anything, just a simple sketch-and-labels) and show us how you'd do it! I'm intrigued by the idea! Sort of like Twin Peaks!

[Nothere]

Well theres the creepy library, the creepy church, the creepy boathouse, and the creepy thing standing right behind you

[Ximenez]

I'm new, and this could have been done before:

 

The Twins

 

Two inhabitants of the hotel look exactly alike. They don't dress the same, but they share something in common--a piece of jewelry in common, or they both carry the same teal purse. Nobody else seems to notice. If you point it out to them--say, by pulling one's long hair in a bun, or giving one a fake mustache so they match--they'll look in the mirror at two identical images and say, "sorry, don't see it."  

[Lucius]

 

Sometimes the silence in the library is broken by mysterious sounds.

 

Music so soothing it can lull one to sleep, that only seems disturbing in retrospect as one wonders where it came from.

 

Repetitive chanting.

 

Snatches of conversation in an unknown language.

 

The sound of pages turning when there is no one else in the library...

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Hoofbeats that seem to be approaching and receding at the same time

[freakboy6117]

A REAL LIFE creepy motel for inspiration it's a run down clown themed motel with hundreds of clown toys in the lobby and a gold rush era plague grave yard next door fun.

[Lucius]

Would something like this creepy motel fit Monster Hunters International?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Palindromedary Hunter Interdimensional