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Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel


AlHazred

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The Mistimed

 

This bald gentleman in his mid 40s appears obsessed with time. He frequently checks his wrist watch, his pocket watch (with a very handsome fob), or his PDA. He has the NIST timeserver bookmarked. A large clock dominates his living room, and a digital alarm clock is beside his bed. It's kind of odd then, that none of these devices agree to within 10 minutes of each other.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Helpful Old Lady

If anyone takes the stairs, down from the 3rd, or any higher, floor (2nd floor for the British ;)) he will meet an old lady, who will insist on "helping" him down the stairs. She shows up every time the N/PC goes down the stairs, joining him on the 3rd floor, or the landing if he's going through.

 

She's fluttery, scatty, but not too trembly/unsteady. No amount of insisting help isn't needed will get rid of her.

 

That is, until the N/PC asks around about who she is. She isn't registered at the hotel, no-one knows her name or anything about her. Once a person asks about her, he'll never see her again.

 

 

Not a person, but a location:

The Fourth Coathook From The Left

There's a row of coathooks near the front door (in the restaurant, the TV room, wherever you prefer ;)). They're your standard wall-mounted hooks, a dozen of them.

 

Strangely, any coat, wrap, etc. hung on the fourth one from the left will be moved to another hook, when no-one is looking. This sometimes leads to yells of "Who the **** was ****ing around with my coat?!?" from those unfamiliar with the phenomenon. The staff and the hotel regulars have learned to ignore the moving of coats, since no harm ever comes to the moved garments.

 

The only really upsetting thing about the fourth coathook is it's connection with...

 

 

The Twenty-Minute Guest

Every once in a while a woman will come into the hotel, go right to the coathooks, hang her coat on the fourth hook, then move to the front desk; all this without saying a word. The woman will then book a room for one night, take the key, and go straight upstairs, saying her baggage will be brought by a friend, in a little while. At some point after the new guest leaves the front lobby, when no-one is watching, her coat will disappear from the fourth coathook.

 

The guest disappears as well, at about the same time (as near as can be judged). Which is bad enough, but if anyone who saw the vanished woman and can remember her appearance does some research, she looked identical to someone who recently was murdererd, in some city other than the one the hotel is in.

 

Any investigation, by the police or a good PI, will turn up no evidence about the vanished guest; no hair/skin flakes/etc. in the room or the front lobby, the signature that should be in the guestbook is missing, etc., etc. Nothing but whoever saw the vanished guest to serve as evidence; and somehow the frontdesk clerk that was on duty never managed to hear her name clearly.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Observer:

 

White male, about 40 y.o., smallish, with thick glasses that make his eyes look huge. The Observer is frequently found wandering the hallways, looking for anything that he might find interesting, even trying doors of closets or other guest's rooms. He is not remotely subtle, at least not unless he learns to fear those he is observing. He shows few if any signs of comprehending spoken language, and seems equally fascinated by people, rats, and roaches (for example). He does not speak, except maybe to himself. His minimal communication with staff is through hand-written notes that he leaves for them. (Know one sees him write these notes, and he never directly hands them to anyone).

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Painter:

 

I don't have a clear mental picture, but she's probably unattractive. Her paintings are mainly of people in the hotel (guests, staff, etc.). They are moderately realistic in style and display genuine but unexceptional talent. The paintings are interesting for what they appear to reveal about their subjects. Some might portray guests or staff as angels, devils, or robots. Others might show them as perpetrators or victims of horrible crimes. At least a few are accurate (whether prophetic or historical). One might reveal something about a PC that seems to be evidence that she entered his room -- or maybe something she shouldn't be able to know even then. She freely admits that she is using people in the hotel as her models, but otherwise regards the subjects of the paintings as stuff she just makes up. "Yeah, this one's Bill in room 302. You know how he has that patch over his eye. Well I thought it would be fun to show him feeding his eyeball to a venus flytrap".

 

Edit: I was initially thinking she's middle-aged and dumpy. But now I'm thinking she might be a younger art student who seems almost absurdly clean-cut, innocent, and mainstream except for her paintings. She might also be cheerful and upbeat to the point of being annoying.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Eternal Desk Clerk

 

No matter what time of day or night it is, this desk clerk -- named Jerry -- is on duty. Every. Time. He appears to be in his early thirties, and is always cheerful and sociable, and quite helpful...as long as it invovles the business of checking in or out of the hotel, getting extra towels for your room, or whatever. If asked about anything or anyone not directly related to those subjects (including questions about a guest that registered just 10 minutes before) he'll just shrug helplessly, give a seemingly-genuine grin and say some varient of "I really don't know; I wish I could help you."

 

Though Jerry seems to always be on duty, he never looks tired, worn, out of sorts, like he's just woken up or desperately wants to go to sleep. While he is sometimes off on "break", he'll just happen to return to the front desk when someone comes up to it needing something...either coming out of the back office, returning from stepping outside to smoke a cigarette, just finishing up in the bathroom, or whatever. It's always by seeming coincidence of good timing, and he never fails at this. His clothes always appear in good condition, recently washed, never rumpled, and so on. Though he does apparently smoke (sometimes stubbing out a cigarette in the lobby ashtray when he steps in from outside) no one has ever actually seen him smoke. The only thing anyone can ever remember seeing him drink is coffee...from a pot behind the desk that only Jerry ever uses. The rest of the staff, if pressed, will just say they never pour coffee from that pot because "it's Jerry's", and only that...as if that is reason enough.

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Guest Major Tom

Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Semi-Retired Occultist:

 

This gentleman, who appears to be in his 70s, tends to keep to himself for the

most part. If any of the hotel's other residents are questioned about him, they

know only that he's considered something of an expert on the occult, and that

he used to have a partner who was a medical doctor of some sort. They also

know that the doctor apparently died under somewhat peculiar circumstances

several years ago.

 

There are also times that, whenever he's in his apartment, anyone passing by

occasionally senses the presence of something both hellish and unearthly. The

only other thing that is known about him is how he signs his name in the hotel

register: W. Sebastian.

 

 

Major Tom :eg:

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Tract Lady

 

One of the residents of the hotel, the "Tract Lady" is a woman in her early sixties with iron grey hair, a slighty hunched posture, and a sunny disposition. She always has with her a supply of religious tracts -- a single sheet of paper, printed on both sides, called The Sentinel. She has a different issue of the tract each day, and presses one on everyone she sees, though in a friendly, cheerful, interested fashion and not an overbearing or intrusive fashion.

 

Like most such items, each printing of The Sentinel talks about the problems in today's world and how to overcome them or cope with them through faith and the power of the Scriptures. If anyone takes the time to read the tract carefully, however, they will find a few odd...typos. For example, instead of saying "The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost" it might say "The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghast." Now while that could be a simple typo, others may seem a bit more sinister...words left out, added, or substituted that can completely alter the meaning of the verse being quoted. A quoted section of the Ten Commandments could read "Do not commit murder. Do not not commit adultery. Do not steal. Do testify as a false witness against your neighbor." Again, this could be a typo, but it's more disturbing.

 

If anyone points them out to the Tract Lady, she'll act embarassed and say "Oh, I thought I'd gotten rid of all those misprinted ones! Here, dear, let me give you the corrected copy!" She then digs through her bundle of tracts and pulls out another copy of the tract in question, and it does in fact have the "typo" corrected to read as it should. There will, however, be another different typo of the same sort elsewhere in the document...

 

If anyone tries to call the phone number of the publisher (listed in the fine print on the bottom of the back side of the tract) they'll get a "number not in service" message. If they ask the Tract Lady about that, she'll explain that the publisher recently moved offices, and the number hasn't been corrected on the publications yet. She'll write the new number down on a piece of paper and give it to the person who asked. Later, when they go to pull out the piece of paper and call the number, they won't be able to find the paper. If they attempt to call the number right away (on a cell phone, for instance) they'll get a busy signal. If they call Information and ask about the number, they'll be told that number is not a listed number.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Backwards Man

 

This resident of the hotel -- a man in his late forties -- has some very odd habits. First, when he walks, there's an expression of great concentration on his face, and he walks very slowly and deliberately, with exaggerated care. When he speaks, he talks like he walks...slowly, with great care, pronouncing each word deliberately. He has a slight accent, but it's unidentifiable. When he listens to someone else, it's with the same expression of great concentration. Sometimes, when talking to a person, he'll nod or shake his head in response to something they haven't said yet, or will answer a question they were about to ask. When he realizes this has happened, he gets flustered and ends the conversation quickly, and walks away...with that same slow, deliberate walk.

 

No one has ever seen him eat or drink, though he does appear to do so, though that's odd as well. Every day or so he can be seen leaving the hotel empty-handed, and returning with used, empty Chinese take-out containers, bags with wadded up McDonald's hamburger wrappers, and so on, and going up to his room with them. The next day he can be seen leaving the hotel carrying full Chinese take-out containers, a bag with McDonald's hamburgers and fries it it, and returning empty-handed. Sometimes he comes back with a bag of empty soda bottles, bread bags, and the like and will a few days later take away shopping bags full of fresh vegetables, full soda bottles, loaves of bread, and such.

 

The name he goes by is Otto Mim.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Misplaced Tourist

 

A young man who appears to be barely out of his teens, Kevin Riley is blond, good-looking, in good physical shape, and displays a kind of eager, wide-eyed curiosity that some find pleasantly amusing and others find mildly annoying. Though he appears to be a permanent resident at the hotel, Kevin insists that he's actually out touring various cities around the globe before he settles down and decides what to do with his life.

 

The odd thing is that, no matter what city the hotel is actually in, Kevin will make remarks indicating that he believes the hotel to be in a completely different city...if it's in New York, Kevin may seem to think it's in Chicago, L.A., or London. He'll act surprised if anyone points out this discrepancy to him, and then he'll obviously "play along", "humoring" the other person because he doesn't want to hurt their feelings by pointing out they are in fact the ones who are wrong.

 

Kevin spends most of the day out of the hotel, doing "tourist things" but when he returns he will sometimes have items with him that are a bit out of place. For example, he might bring back as dinner a piping hot sandwich, obviously freshly-made, but the name, address, and phone number on the bag are for a resteraunt in a different city (frequently on a different continent). His pocket change for the day may be in a currency from a different country, or possibly be American, but rather antique or out-of-date...all the coins and bills have dates prior to 1950, for instance.

 

The city Kevin believes the hotel to occupy is different every day, and if yesterday he said Chicago and today he says London -- and someone points this out to him -- he acts as though he's always said it was in London, and then goes into his "play along, humor the other person" routine.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Old Postman

 

Though not actually a resident of the hotel, The Old Postman is a fixture of the place, stopping in each day to drop off the mail and to pick up the outgoing mail. He's well-known to the regulars and residents of the hotel, and always takes the time to have a cup of coffee and chat for a bit before moving on with his route. The oddity comes from the fact that he appears to be in his nineties, obviously well past retirement age, though he moves very spryly for someone of his apparent age. Also, he always dresses in the Post Office summer uniform -- which includes shorts -- no matter what season it is or what the weather is like, even when it's freezing cold or pouring rain.

 

Anyone checking around will see other postmen servicing the route that includes the hotel, though none of them ever stop at it...and The Old Postman is never seen servicing any place except the hotel.

 

No matter what the weather is like, The Old Postman always arrives at the same time each morning. Even if there's six-foot snow drifts that have the entire city shut down and the mail service paralyzed, he manages to make his rounds.

 

He even delivers mail on major holidays.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Vitamin Guy

 

Thin, nervous, and always harried-looking, the Vitamin Guy is always eager to tell you about the Disease of the Week, and what you need to do to avoid it. "What you need to do" always includes a fistful of various vitamin tablets and mineral supplements. The Vitamin Guy doesn't seem convinced that he has the diseases or ailments or conditions he talks about -- he's not a 'normal' hypocondriact -- but he's always taking the precautions against them, swallowing supplements and tablets by the handful...literally. Between the amount of tablets and capsules he swallows, and the water, fruit juice, or wheat grass liquid mulch he uses to wash them down, there's probably no way he could fit any actual food into his stomach.

 

If deprived of his vitamins for any reason, he becomes a bit hysterical and can exhibit surprising strength in getting them back from whoever took them away from him. If he drops any he'll scrabble after them madly, knocking over chairs, tables, and other residents if necessary and apparently not noticing or caring that he's doing it. If he can't retrieve the capsule or tablet for some reason -- maybe it fell through a heating vent in the floor -- he'll swallow what he has en masse and then rush off to his room to obtain a replacement for the lost one.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Cake Lady

 

Eva Jones is thirty-nine years old and the other residents of the hotel know that she's retired and living on some sort of disability payments, though none of them know exactly what her disability is. Eva herself seems perfectly fit physically, with no obvious outward sign of any disability. When talking to someone else, her attention does have a habit of drifting away and her eyes will focus on something just over the other person's shoulder...though if that person turns to look, there's never anything or anyone there. If asked what she was looking at, Eva will brush off the question with a muttered "Nothing, really, I guess" and then will attempt to go on with the interrupted conversation.

 

Every evening Eva goes out to the neighborhood store and purchases and angel food cake, brings it back to the hotel, unwraps it, and places it on a paper plate on a table in the lobby. She'll explain cheerfully that she's leaving it for the guardian angels that protect the hotel, since they're on duty day and night without any breaks or words of appreciation for their services, and this is her way of thanking them for all that they do in protecting the hotel and its residents from the forces of evil. In the morning the cake is always gone, which Eva say is proof the guardian angels exist and are appreciative of her gift. (The cake is in fact always gone each morning, and even if watched, will manage to disappear before sunrise, and no one will ever see it go or see what happened to it.)

 

Once in a great while, instead of angel's food cake, Eva will bring back a package of devil's food cookies and leave them out. On those evenings she's grim, a bit nervous, and very tight-lipped, refusing to explain why she's doing what she's doing. She'll then retire to her room and turn the numerous bolt locks with quite audible clicks and thunks. Like the cake, the cookies are always gone by daybreak...

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

This thread is by far the most interesting one I've read in a long time. Keep up the great work, guys!

 

Hey, can anyone envision a TV series with these guests as regulars or semi-regulars?

 

Edit: With "Hotel California" as the theme song, of course! ;)

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The Lycanthrope

 

He's a husky gentleman, fairly hirsuite, with a single eyebrow. His index, middle, and ring fingers are exactly the same length.

 

Most of the time, he's fairly unremarkable, if rather stand-offish, but as the full moon approaches he becomes increasingly agitated. He buys in stores of meat, which he stores in his room, makes sure he knows moonrise on the first day of the full moon to the second, and on the day before will lock himself in his room witha "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. Anyone listening will hear the clicks and clatters of locks and chains, then the thump and drag of furniture being put across the door.

 

However, on the three days of the full moon, he will emerge from his room, perfectly normally. In fact, far more normally than he is othewise. His clothes will fit him better, he's perfectly calm, and he won't obsess about the moon. He'll be friendlier than before, talking quite happily to people. He will do absolutely nothing strange or remarkable on those three days. Observant people might notice that his eyebrows are now separate, and his fingers are now different sizes.

 

On the day after the full moon, he will emerge from his room pale and haggard, and will check the newspapers for stories about mutilated livestock or animal attacks on humans. When he doesn't find any, he will be relieved, and will resume his usual routine.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The Vitamin Guy

 

Thin, nervous, and always harried-looking, the Vitamin Guy is always eager to tell you about the Disease of the Week, and what you need to do to avoid it. "What you need to do" always includes a fistful of various vitamin tablets and mineral supplements. The Vitamin Guy doesn't seem convinced that he has the diseases or ailments or conditions he talks about -- he's not a 'normal' hypocondriact -- but he's always taking the precautions against them, swallowing supplements and tablets by the handful...literally. Between the amount of tablets and capsules he swallows, and the water, fruit juice, or wheat grass liquid mulch he uses to wash them down, there's probably no way he could fit any actual food into his stomach.

 

If deprived of his vitamins for any reason, he becomes a bit hysterical and can exhibit surprising strength in getting them back from whoever took them away from him. If he drops any he'll scrabble after them madly, knocking over chairs, tables, and other residents if necessary and apparently not noticing or caring that he's doing it. If he can't retrieve the capsule or tablet for some reason -- maybe it fell through a heating vent in the floor -- he'll swallow what he has en masse and then rush off to his room to obtain a replacement for the lost one.

I think I work with this guy... :nonp:
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The author

 

This nearsighted, pleasant looking man has dark hair parted on his right. He is always polite. His answers to all questions have an air of authority. He spends most of his time in the hotel. When he does leave, he will have what appears to be some sort of manuscript. When he returns, he will be carrying cat food, and a large number of books with a common theme. They may be all fantasy novels, all animal books, or all martial arts tomes. By all rights, his room should be filled with books as he never carries more than the manuscript out of the hotel, but it is not.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The formerly pretty blonde

 

She sits in the club hotel most nights. She dresses in clothes that are out of place for the times. Usually sixties, or seventies clothes. She drinkes out of a rum and cola that she nurses for the most part. She has the look of someone who once was very pretty but the years and the mileage have worn her down. She seems like a very sweet person and has a pleasent personality, but she doesn't seem to be all there.

 

Her only visitors are a old black lady who also has the look of faded beauty about her. She sometimes sings on the open mike night usually belting out tunes from the sixties and seventies. She is sometimes joined by an older man who dresses casually but is rumoured to be rich. Sometimes when they are talking they mention a friend named Josie, but always in the past tense. The blonde lives at the hotel and pays for her room through a disability check she gets each month.

 

Oh, and did I mention? The blonde always talks as if she is singing a melody.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Melody from Josie and the ***** Cats...I thought I was bad for doing the hero of Early Edition.

 

Here's another hero from a by gone day...

 

Ray

Dark haired man who drives a black 69 corvette. A lot of people seem to owe him favors, and if you have a problem, he'll help you too. All you have to do is pay the favor back at some undetermined time in the future.

 

If his fingerprints are ran through the system, they always match a Ray, but the picture that goes with the photgraph never matches the Ray who lives in the hotel.

CES

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

I'm surprised nobody thought of this one...

 

The Dice Man Cometh

 

This rather nondescript fellow hardly (if ever) pays attention to the other guests. He is usually found in the lobby or the bar. In either case, he sits alone in a corner rolling dice constantly, stopping only to decipher the results. Sometimes he arranges most of the dice in a pattern, while rolling a single die. Depending on the result, he will keep or remove one of the dice in the pattern, often changing the postition or face value (number of pips facing up) other dice in the pattern, sometimes doing both. He will do this for hours. If approached and questioned about his actions, he will simply give the other person an icy glance and relocate to continue his game in peace.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

The battle card players:

Every third saturday, the hotel holds a tournament for combat card players (yugioh, magic, pokemon, etc). They take up the ball room with their games. It's closed to outsiders.

 

Sometimes passersby hear animal roars, lightning, and the occasional breakage.

 

Only one can be the King of Games.

CES

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Hey' date=' can anyone envision a TV series with these guests as regulars or semi-regulars?[/quote']That's probably what Twin Peaks would have turned into. Or Eerie, Indiana.

 

In any case, I found the RPG.net thread (not so easy, with their Search function disabled for the long term). Some really good ideas in that thread as well.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Mr. Long

 

(first name can be either mundane -- such as John, Chinese -- such as Yun-Fat, or atypical -- such as August)

 

He's tall, Asian (Chinese?), with long black hair, dark skin, green eyes, handsome features, and long fingers. He is always well-dressed and very polite, with just a trace of an accent to his English. He lives in a room near the top of the hotel and has apparently been there for years... and years... and years. Is known to pay his bills in out-of-date money and makes gifts of circa 1850s-1870s gold coins to cleaning ladies and bellhops who do excellent work. Knows quite a bit about history, both Chinese and 19th Century American, and has a collection of ancient newspapers in his room, all encased in their own clear plastic envelopes (examples: Death of Lincoln, destruction of the Maine, end of WWI, Pearl Harbor, Kennedy assassination, Apollo 11 landing, and so on). Come Halloween will dress in fine Chinese clothing of the sort one might expect the nobles to have once worn (attends whatever function the hotel has in the ballroom dressed this way). The doorman tend to ask him about the weather as he leaves for the day, and whatever his answer is, it will be 100% correct. Interestingly, the times the doorman have asked him about better/different weather, he's responded with "I'll see what I can do" and sure enough, the desired weather has appeared. During heavy rainstorms, especially ones with a lot of thunder and lightning, he might be met walking down the stairs from the roof -- his hair soaked, but his clothing dry. Oh, and he's fantastically strong too, for such an old(?) guy.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Victor and his young Assistant

Er the name might be wrong there,

Facsimiles of : The two main characters from The Professional

The man is tall and polite with slightly bad English, he often carries a heavy case with him. The girl is 'cute' and claims 'The man is her father and teaching her the violin'.

The man lives mainly on Milk and is very private.

They are harmless unless someone:- Attempts to break in to their apartment, attacks or harms the girl, or if some innocent is threatened right near their room door.

- In which case Victor's skill with guns and close combat weapons is unsurpassed. --

They will leave suddenly, and coincidentally an important underworld figure will have died.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Inspired by Dr. Anomaly ---

 

The Cop on the Beat

He doesn't live in the hotel, but everyone there knows Officer Jackson, errr Johnson, no wait, Johansson....

 

They recognize him, but no-one seems to be sure of his name. Anyway, he's been walking the beat on the street the hotel is on for years now, and always stops in to the coffee shop on the ground floor for a cup and a roll (not a doughnut, curiously) an hour or two after starting his rounds.

 

Also, he does a quick walk-through of the lobby a few times a day....

 

And night. Peculiarly, he seems to have both the day shift and the evening shift, though not the graveyard shift----he's seen as early as 6 AM and as late as ~10PM, but not the rest of the time. Also, he's pretty irregular in his habits, but then a smart beat cop would vary his routine.

 

He's a bit overweight, a calm plodding sort, though he looks tough enough to handle himself.

 

So, other than seeming to work two shifts back-to-back, there's nothing unusual about Officer Jamieson---I mean Jefferson---

 

Except the police department went to prowl-car-only patrols in this part of the city about 15 years ago.

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Re: Help Me Populate A Creepy Hotel

 

Old Ted

 

"... Sure, this whole area used to be farms generations ago. The municipal government eventually bought some property through Eminent Domain to open the area to business. The farm that used to be here, well, it had problems. Some said it was built on cursed land. Others said something about close encounters with little green men. All I rightly know is, the families that lived here, well, they had some bad luck. 'Twould be unChristian to dwell on their past problems, though.

 

"Anyway, I was getting around to Ted. See, there's this guy, he's the spitting image of the last guy to own the farm, 'fore they took it and built the hotel. You see him, now and again, walking through the halls. He never seems to go out through the lobby, and the Management claim no one of that description has signed in. Yet there've been plenty of people who've seen him.

 

"Some think he died in anger and resentment, and has come back to haunt the living. Others say he's just a "psychic echo," which is some fancy word for a ghost, if you ask me. A few think he's another guest pulling some kind of joke. Seems like a really obscure joke to me, though.

 

"What do I think? Well, he's only been seen in specific parts of the hotel on the ground floor, and he's always asking people weird questions, like have they seen a rock shaped like this and so, or have they heard voices in the floor, or did they notice goosebumps when they went in their rooms. See, I think he's trying to spook people, get 'em to leave. Once they're gone and the hotel closes, well, his job will be done and he can go to rest.

 

"Anyway, he's not that interesting. Let me tell you about this dog in the fourth floor hallway..."

 

Plot Hooks:

 

1) Mystical: Old Ted is, in fact, a ghost haunting the spot where his farm used to be. He's not malicious, though. He knew when he bought the farm that there was a burial ground located on it, that was sacred to several local tribes in ancient times. They required sacrifices to keep the spirits sleeping and satisfied. With the construction of the hotel, the spirits have been getting more and more restless; so much so, they're ready to burst through and begin haunting the living in earnest - or maybe they've already done so, and it's their influence that's been causing much of the creepiness of the hotel. In any case, Ted's trying to figure out where it is (all the landmarks have been paved over, naturally) and then convince someone to perform the long-delayed ritual.

 

2) Weird Conspiracy: The resemblance of the "ghost" to Old Ted is not coincidental - the man people think is Old Ted is actually his grandson Ed. Ed knows that his grandfather's farm was the site of an secret government bunker, concealed and forgotten. His father told him about it when he was little, and in reading the newspaper accounts of the construction of the hotel, he realized he never read about them finding it. He suspects it was constructed over, and might still be around. His research leads him to believe it might contain anything from stores of gold bullion to government documents that incriminate certain historical figures, to ancient secrets the government was even then trying to cover up. If he can locate where it was supposed to be, he'll see if he can conceivably start digging to find it, somewhere beneath the floor. He's already found an old tunnel his father told him about, that leads him to the hotel's courtyard - that's how he gets in and out.

 

3) Fortean: Old Ted looks just like the old farmer because he is the old farmer... sort of. He's from a neighboring reality (maybe the Hollow Earth, maybe a reality similar to the one that Just Left of Reality Guy comes from) where it is one hundred years earlier than our reality. He came through the first time by accident while stumbling over some strange ruins on his farm, and he's been back a few times since. One the one hand, his good Christian principles dictate that this is the Devil's work; on the other, there must be some way a profit could be made from it, one that would let him keep the farm - and what happens to the Hotel in this reality if he succeeds?

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