I have been reluctant to write-up horror 'places', mainly because of the desire to capture the right tone. A few years ago I did Rose Red, and while I was geniunely happy with that write-up, I knew in my heart it wasn't the 'scary' place I wanted to do. I decided this year to feature one haunted house (Well two, but that's only because of the fact the house is featured with the write-up), and that was going to be the Overlook from the novel and movie The Shining.

Based on the Stanely Hotel in Colorado, the Overlook is a creepy turn of the century high-end hotel with a creepy atmosphere even when it is fully inhabited. In all media representations, the Overlook is a dangerous place to be, more so in the winter or if you have a twinge of the 'Shining'. The Overlook is as much a character as the actual spectres and ghosts that reside within, and clearly, has its own desire to maintain its existence. Like Rose Red, the Overlook draws energy from bad things, and many, many bad things have happened there.

So...The Overlook


The Overlook Hotel



The Overlook Hotel is not a traditional monster per say, instead operating on a different sort of characteristics. The material strength of the hotel's main body is Ex (20), being comprised primarily of stone and timber. The hotel is heated through an immense boiler system located in the basement, and can be run in the winter by a single caretaker. The land on the hotel has a dark history, and acts as a spiritual vampire, requiring additional energy to sustain itself. The effects of the Overlook are as follows:

• Negative Energy Sponge: The Overlook seems to draw dark energy to it, granting it the ability to act through agents and/or spirits that have become victims. For every negative karma event that happens on the grounds, the Overlook gains x2 positiveKarma, which will then be used to 'build up' it's RIP scores. If the events are performed by mystics, those with psychic abilities, or those who are sensitive to such things, the Overlook gains x4Karma. The Overlook stores this energy to maintain its other effects, as well as grant itself greater control over the events that occur within its walls.
• Spirit Animation: The Overlook maintains the darkest of the spirits who have died on the grounds, granting them a semblence of their former lives. The Overlook effectively is using the spirits to promote its own actions, although several of the spirits seem to have greater power and personality. As such, the Overlook is considered to have anywhere between Gd (10) and Am (50) spirit animation, depending on how much energy it has drawn out.
• Hallucinations*: The Overlook can generate hallucinations, such as forcing individuals to see walls of blood, animating topiary animals (In the beginning...) to stalk prey, make individuals see ghostly visages or horrifying murders, and other events. The Hallucinations begin at Pr (4) and can go as high as Am (50) intensity, depending on the relative negative energy within the Overlook.
• Emotion Control*: The Overlook can manipulate the emotional states of the individuals who stay within the walls, granting it the ability to do two things: 1. Lower the effective Intuition of a specific target up to -4cs through a prolonged process. 2. Cause individuals great emotional distress and therefore make them more capable of causing individual negative karma actions, thus feeding the Overlook, causing an Intuition check against a Gd (10) intensity. The Overlook will select individuals to manipulate based on several criteria: Those who have limitations such as Dark Secret or are prone to negative actions, those individuals with bad history or are prone to violence, and those that have blood on their hands and are prone to negative activity.
• Animate Object: Once the Overlook has over 200 points of energy, it gains the ability to actually animate the topiary garden as well as other objects and/or spirits within its walls, granting them form and substance. Such damage caused by those objects will be real damage, unlike the hallucinatory damage that might have been done previously.
• Bonus effects against psionics: The Overlook can do real damage against psionically powered characters, allowing the Overlook's Hallucinatory effects to be real, rank of damage depending on the amount of negative energy that has been absorbed (As seen with Danny Torrance in room 217).

Limitation:
Negative Energy Dependency: The Overlook requires negative energy in order to maintain its powers and abilities. Without it, the Overlook is effectively inert (Allthough psychics will see and feel the residual negative energy of the place). For the Overlook to become active, it either needs a negative event (such as intentional harm or murder) or will require a psychic of Ex (20) psyche or better to enter the premises unguarded (IE Fail a psyche FEAT).

Caretaker: Despite it all, the Overlook cannot physically maintain itself nor can the spirits inside of it physically manifest themselves to dump the boiler or make repairs. Due to the ancient nature of the boiler downstairs, it must be physically dumped every day or risk explosive results due to pressure. The Overlook will attempt to see to its own continuity first.

Overzealous: The Overlook and the spirits within it tend to be overzealous in the attempt to gain more energy, and suffer a -2cs to reason FEATS when closing in on 'food', forgetting specific facts such as the need for the boiler to be dumped, etc.

Enemy: Danny Torrence: Little Danny Torrence is considered an 'enemy' of the Overlook (as well as a much desired target). My Write-Up of Danny Torrance as his adult version from two years ago (But not including the Dr. Sleep era)

Very interesting.

I'm glad you decided to do this write up. I think the setting in an adventure is probably more important than the antagonist, but in this case it seems to be one in the same.

I would love to see fan designed modules posted in this forum, and have downloaded some of the official ones provided on this site. After I'm done with my D20 write ups I'll try to create a module for them. I think if you were to do a module write up using the characters you posted so far IT. WOULD. ROCK. THE. HOUSE!!!

Think about it Jack, the Overlook Hotel could be a setting for use with the Darkshadow characters you posted and things could get creepier each night the players are there tryin to figure out what the heck is goin on. Then you could make a pdf so we could all download it and use your module in our own campaigns. Or just make for cool reading.

Let's brain storm this and see if we can get fan created modules on this site. We could have Fantasy modules, Horror modules, Sci-Fi modules, aw man the possibilities are endless Jack!

Let me know what you think.

I LOVE THIS WRITE-UP!!!