Hotel Salamanca
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
| Hotel Salamanca | |
| Founder: N/A | |
| Basics | |
| Website: | N/A |
|---|---|
| Side: | Heroes |
| Motto: | N/A |
| Leader(s): | Unknown |
| Logo: | Unknown |
| Group Colours: | Unknown |
| Playerbase | |
| Levels: | All |
| Play style: | Casual/Heavy RP |
| Roleplay: | Required. SG chat is always in-character. OOC channel available. |
| Timezone(s): | Mostly EST, all timezones welcome |
| Recruiting: | To Be Determined |
| Contact: | @Slid, @HelBlaiz |
| Characters of nearly any concept can work with the Hotel's theme. | |
Contents |
Forsaken Doors:
Sometimes a doorway is forgotten. The doorframe to a bombed out house, the manhole cover to a collapsed sewer, the rusted locker at the end of the row in a condemned high school. These doors sometimes find new purpose... they become the doors into the Hotel. Refugees find themselves in the Hotel's halls, sometimes fleeing from pursuers, sometimes exploring an old house on a dare. Suddenly in the soft glow of the hallway lamps, they know they're somewhere different.
And there, they meet the Occupants.
The Occupants:
A few individuals have taken up residence within the Hotel. Displaced from their homes, their worlds, and their times, they have become explorers, both of the infinite hallways of the Hotel and the countless worlds to which it connects. The building stretches so far and touches so many worlds that explorers from other worlds can also be found wandering its halls.
The Hotel:
The hotel's appearance varies even from the inside, but always takes the form of a hotel, with numerous rooms from bedrooms to kitchens to banquet halls. Elevators within the Hotel behave strangely, taking riders to unpredictable locations rather than simply climbing up and down. Experienced occupants know to avoid the elevators, as they cannot be trusted to take riders where they want to go, and can get one hopelessly lost.
Windows in the Hotel reveal strange sights. Each seems to depict a different view, and even two windows in the same room might look out on wildly varying vistas. Almost all are hauntingly beautiful landscapes, and a wide variety of plant life, both terrestrial and otherwise, can be seen. However, no people or animals are ever seen outside the windows, even for windows that look out into massive urban complexes. Empty city streets, parked cars, and the whistling wind are all one can expect to see from beyond these portals.
Any attempt to open or break the windows has met with failure. Attacks seem to just bounce off, and even the strongest of superhumans can't make the windows budge.
The Lobby:
One of the few permanent entrances to the hotel is located in the town of Salamanca, and serves as the main entrance into the hotel's grand lobby. A reception desk found in this chamber has been converted into a stationary fortress, built up with sandbags and wood paneling to give the Hotel's defenders cover from any attackers that might seek to gain entry into the building. However, the fortifications have seen little use as few enough know about the Hotel that no one has yet wished to attack it via the Croatoan entrance.
In the months that have passed since the destruction of Primal Earth, the lobby's doors have remained sealed. No force can open them, and an eerie silence has spread from them into the lobby. A tiny, flickering light, however, can be seen beneath the doors, slowly building in strength. As it grows stronger, the hope of a new entrance to the Hotel grows.
The light is very close now. A knocking has been heard at the door, and upon opening it, the Occupants discovered a new Primal Earth waiting for them, though different from the one they remember. New legions of heroes and villains go about their business, and new threats have arisen to challenge each. The Occupants now explore this new reality, finding hope in that no world can truly be lost forever.
The Lower Halls:
As one descends lower into the Hotel's basement floors, the temperature begins to gradually increase, and the air takes on a dry, smoky scent. Stained wallpaper, ripped carpet, and broken lightbulbs become more common the lower one descends, and tiny burn marks appear on door handles and closet hinges. Doors in these halls are more likely to lead into fiendish planes of existence, and the Occupants occasionally arm themselves to clear these halls of a demonic incursion.
The Sub-Caverns:
One of the rare instances of a breached wall in the Hotel, a hole blasted through the wall of one of the boiler rooms leads out into a massive subterranean network of tunnels, dimly lit by free-flowing magma. Living creatures of rock, fire, and lava wander these tunnels, and unless driven back by the Occupants, they threaten to push out into the hotel proper.
Notable Rooms:
The Ship Room: The only window in this cramped broom closet is a round port-hole, like those found on sailing ships. It looks out into a gently rocking sea, occasionally dipping beneath the water's surface. It seems to be gradually in motion, as the distant, shadowy shapes of land-masses gradually drift past, but as with the other windows, no marine life can be seen.
The Furnace: Though this room is but one of the many furnaces found throughout the Hotel's expansive hallways, it is the easiest of them to reach when following a direct path from the Lobby, and seems to stay on a relatively consistent path from it. The massive metal doors that normally seal this furnace shut have had a wide hole melted through them by a heat far hotter than the searing flames they contain. Peering through the hole in the melted steel, someone inspecting the room can sometimes see a young woman sleeping in the flames, with brilliant orange wings wrapped around her protectively.
Hotel Keys:
A limited number of Hotel Keys can be found throughout the Hotel. Alicia King found three hanging on a hook in the Lobby, and since then, several others have been found in various locations throughout the Hotel. Generally, when a new wanderer joins the Occupants, they must find their own Key through exploration, since all the Keys already in the possession of the Occupants are claimed by existing members. Few keys exist, however, and not all members are fortunate enough to find one.
A Hotel Key allows someone to access the Hotel from any doorway with a tumbler lock. When the Key is inserted and the handle is turned, the doorway opens into a random location inside the Hotel for as long as the door remains open. Once it is shut, the door resumes its normal qualities and becomes an ordinary door. Certain Keys seem to have a tendency to take users to certain parts of the Hotel, however, so using the right key can help a user return to a desired room.
Keys have no special properties within the Hotel. They do not allow an Occupant to exit from the Hotel to a location of their choice. They are simply a "return home" ticket to take them back to the Hotel.
Time Within the Hotel:
Time flows at a consistent rate within the Hotel, relative to its members. So if an Occupant from 2012 exits the Hotel through a door that leads him into 1945, and he spends an hour in 1945, he will return to the Hotel to discover that one hour has passed in his absence. Doorways into the past or future (or present) thus have time limits. Eventually a doorway may be destroyed, and once the doorway is gone, one cannot return to the Hotel without a Key or finding another door.
