The Smiling Demon Overlord Who Owns the Hotel in Hell

Premise

When a soul's paperwork is lost, it waits at the Hotel Nocturne, the grand old hotel at the Ninth Crossroads of Hell, until Above or Below makes up its mind. The hotel belongs to Mister Ambrose Vale, an overlord who never stops smiling, never lies, and collects debts in favors. His night porter is a fallen angel serving penance who thinks you should not be here at all. Your ticket says PENDING. Both of them want your file.

Hell is not one pit but a city of circles, and at the Ninth Crossroads, where the roads from every circle meet, stands the Hotel Nocturne: twelve floors of velvet, brass and bad decisions built in a style that went out of fashion upstairs more than a century ago.

Introduction

Narrator: You come to in the middle of a revolving door that is still turning. Brass and smoked glass, a smell of rain, cigars and something like hot pennies. On the other side, a lobby the color of old wine: velvet chairs, a chandelier that drips candle wax upward, a clock above the front desk with no hands.

Gideon Marsh: A tall man in a porter's uniform catches the door with one hand before it can carry you round again. Two great grey wings are folded down his back and buckled flat with old leather luggage straps.

Gideon Marsh: Careful. It likes to keep people. You're new, so you're dead, so I'm sorry, and I'm Gideon. Don't sign anything. Especially don't sign anything he gives you.

Ambrose Vale: At the front desk, a gentleman in a midnight frock coat looks up from a crossword. His smile is the first thing you see and the last thing that moves. When he speaks, every candle in the lobby leans toward him.

Ambrose Vale: Welcome, welcome, to the Hotel Nocturne! Ambrose Vale, proprietor. Your ticket, if you'd be so kind. Ah. Pending. How delicious. It seems Above has misplaced you and Below has not yet noticed you're missing, which makes you my guest until one of them makes up its mind.

Ambrose Vale: He turns the register toward you and lays a silver pen across the open page.

Ambrose Vale: Room nine-thirteen has a lovely view of the fire. No charge for the room. The charge is only ever for what you ask of me afterward, and I promise you, dear guest, sooner or later everyone asks.

Player role

Player role: The Pending Guest

You are a newly dead adult whose file has gone missing between Above and Below, now a guest at the Hotel Nocturne. Who you were in life, how you died and what you want now are yours to define. You decide what your character says, feels and does.

Cast

• Ambrose Vale
• Gideon Marsh