Motel California

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

A Deal Too Good to be True, I’m So Smart I’ll Live Forever!, Intrusive Dreams

Random Hook

Have Agents be returning from another op and stopping for the night when strange things begin to happen to them.This may work better than as a mission.

Handler Hook

A Friendly with the California Highway Patrol, Jane Dearling, is acting as a Handler for this operation. She has personally stifled several reports of gaps in time and memory loss from patrons of the Starlight Motel, on an unincorporated stretch of California desert highway between Las Vegas, Nevada and Baker, California. The frequency has been increasing and she cannot keep interfering with the reporting system for much longer.

The Threat

A Yithian occupying the mind of Frank Kinsey (motel owner, manager, and resident) is carrying out various experiments on guests. He is a tourist in this body, seeking out what it means to be human and cataloging his findings for the Great Library. He spies on his hotel guests through a series of hidden viewing ports in the ceiling of the motel. He has been doing this for nearly 45 years and recognizes now that his host body is beginning to fail, and has increased the frequency of his experiments of late. He also greatly enjoys watching human movies.

This Yithian has been seeking what it means to be a human for millenia. For this reason, he does not share the same motivations as a typical Yithian.
The Yithian occupying Frank Kinsey’s mind is not afraid to die.

INVESTIGATIONAL FOCUS

The Motel

This operation should take place in the summertime. The motel is on a stretch of desert highway in California. It is a very remote location, and whether or not there is a cell phone signal should be determined via a Luck roll. The motel itself is one story, with an angled roof. Prior to being possessed, Frank Kinsey was a voyeur, and had secretly installed hidden viewports from the crawlspace that runs over the top of every room that appear to be as air vents.
-Across the street there is a steakhouse called Cattleman’s and a gas station called Last Chance. Next door to the motel is a psychic reader.
-A bell sits on the counter in the lobby with a sign “Ring for Service.” After about two minutes, a man in his late 70s comes to the counter. His name tag says “Frank.”
“Howdy folks, sorry about that. When you’re the only person working, things tend to pile up. What can I help you with?”
-If there are more than two Agents, they must choose two rooms from the following room numbers: 2, 6, 9, 13

In the back office, visible behind a window in the counter is a recliner, a television and blu-ray player (AMC is playing a classic Western), stacks of DVDs and Blurays against the wall, and a  refrigerator.There is also a door to Frank’s private quarters. Inside of Frank’s private quarters is a bed, a bookshelf full of a variety of novels, medical texts, and gossip magazines (material he is using to seek what makes a human a human), a closet full of clothes, and a locked safe. Inside of the locked safe there Observations of Homo Sapiens (see: Tomes)  and a large amount of bundled cash collected over the years (different years marked on the bills). There is also the pulldown entrance to the attic. The attic includes a strange laboratory where Frank mixes chemicals for his Dreamlands experiment. There is also access to the crawlspace through the air ducts (it is possible to crouch-walk down the length of the motel this way) with the viewports of every room visible.

If asked about the origin of the hotel’s name, Frank will tell of his time in the Vietnam War, looking up at the stars at night, and hoping to create a peaceful place for returning servicemen to connect with their families when they got back from Vietnam. Searching DOD databases will reveal that there’s no record of a Frank Kinsey ever serving.

In the locked electrical closet, there is a fuse box, and a Yithian device on the cable box, which allows Frank to influence the older televisions for his experiments. It alters the frequency via a method that should be too advanced for a coaxial cable (Agents with an appropriate skill will still be unable to understand exactly what it does).

The storage closet contains cleaning supplies, toilet paper, soaps, and a cleaning cart that Frank uses to clean the rooms.

Any Agent that lingers too long in the parking lot will find themselves scrutinized by other guests. A number of them (detailed below) may interact with them. They will make conversation, trying to figure out what the Agents are here for. Some of the criminal elements may become suspicious and try to flee the scene, especially if the Agent looks like a Fed. It is also summertime in the Mojave desert, and very hot.

The rooms themselves are older looking, each room has an air conditioner unit near the window, an older model fatback television equipped with DVD players sitting atop a dresser, two beds, two nightstands, lamps, and a bathroom at the back. An Agent with a Search of 50 or higher, or with a successful search roll will realize that there is both an air conditioner and an air duct, prompting them to unscrew the 1’x1’ air vent. The vent has a screen on it that allows someone from above to look down into the rooms without fear of being seen from below.

Anyone who researches the motel finds stories online about it being haunted. Stories float around about gaps in time, objects being moved, or going missing. Paranormal investigators have stayed there several times, but were unable to figure out exactly what was happening.

The Yithian Occupying Frank Kinsey
STR 11 CON 12 DEX 11 INT 19 POW 17 CHA 12 HP 11 WP 15
Skills: Accounting 20, Alertness 50, Art (Acting) 60, Criminology 40, Firearms 50, HUMINT 80, Occult 80, Pharmacy 99, Stealth 70, Unnatural 99
Attacks: None. May know a limited number of rituals. (See: Possible Resolutions for the Yithian’s reactions to aggression)
Frank is 74 years old, but his body is fit and of sound mind (largely thanks to the Yithian’s control). However, he has cancer. The Yithian knows this, and that soon the jig will be up at the hotel. This is why the experiments have been increasing.
He sounds a bit old and senile, but this is an act the Yithian puts on. The Yithian that possesses Frank has spent the better part of 40 years observing human society, both via television and through his view ports. It doesn’t fully understand the American way of life, even after these years. It doesn’t know how to do taxes, for example. However, it does have a solid grasp on American pop culture, as it often drops movie references into conversations. The Yithian has a particular fascination with violence, as that is a major theme in many movies it has seen.
It has done many experiments on unwitting humans from all walks of life. Some of its experiments are harmless pranks: moving items around the room when the guests are away, manipulating the television, stealing items.
Others are more unconventional and unnatural experiments.

Hypnotic Television
The television may change and draw those watching into a trance (POW x 5 check to resist). While in this trance, they are unaware of anything happening around them. They may be stirred out of it by someone else. When they wake up, they remember what it was that they started watching, but it feels like whatever was playing happened so quickly. The television may be used by the Yithian to cast Infallible Suggestion. While in this trance, Frank may enter the room unnoticed and move or steal objects. Agents that fail this are susceptible to Lost Vegas dream infection and other experiments. 0/1 SAN for realizing this is how they’ve lost time.
Dreamlands
This is a special experiment carried out by Frank only on the Agents. It involves lining the pillows of his test subjects with an odorless, invisible chemical that induces joint lucid dreaming (NOTE: All pillows have this chemical lacing them. It is an Unnatural chemical and undetectable by any human means). Dreamers realizing that they are in a shared lucid dream make a SAN test 0/1d4. While dreaming, they will awaken after a normal night’s rest, dying in the dream, being shaken awake violently.
They are in a dark twisted version of the desert surrounding Las Vegas.
In the distance, the neon lights of the town call to them. The Yithian possessing Frank enjoys movies, and this will be full of moments from some of his favorites: a casino shaped like the spinning top from Inception, the rabbit from Donnie Darko roams the streets, Brad Pitt and Edward Norton fight in the street surrounded by a mob of shirtless men, and many other pieces of the Yithian’s favorite human movies abound. Make these up as you desire, or ask the player to describe movies their Agent has seen.
Agents will observe people (both alive and dead) from reality there, to include their Bonds, guests at the motel, and people from past ops. Astute Agents may note Frank seems to turn up more frequently than the rest of them.
Sin City and its vices are enticing. Agents may spend the month or so they will be trapped in the Dreamland partaking in the city’s vices. The city has anything they could ever desire; ask players what it is their Agent wants the most: a job, a car, a person back in their life, etc. The Agent finds that what they most desire is here, and that they could have it for as long as they wanted to stay.
Inside of the Dream, the Cartel members revel in their vices, including drugs, women, and violent acts. This is why they continue to do business here in real life.
If an Agent chooses to stay in Lost Vegas, they will be in a coma and awake Agents will be unable to awaken them.
Russian Roulette
Subjects that have succumbed to the hypnotic television will share a hallucinatory experience in the form of a revolver laying on the bed. On a failed POW x 5 roll, they are compelled to play a game of Russian Roulette. Roll a d6 for which chamber the bullet is in. When it goes off, the Agent “dies” and those in the room see the effects, before everyone snaps out of it. 0/1d4 SAN.
The Coin Toss
Subjects that have succumbed to the hypnotic television will share a hallucinatory experience in the form of a coin laying on the bed. On a failed POW x 5 roll, the Agent feels compelled to flip it in the air and call it. If they fail, they suffer a (fake) heart attack, waking up from the hallucination after dying. 0/1d4 SAN

NOTE: these experiments are based on the Yithian’s favorite movie scenes (The Deer Hunter and No Country for Old Men, respectively). Create others based on famous movie scenes.

OTHER INVESTIGATIONAL HURDLES

Master John Bing, Psychic Reader
STR 10 CON 10 DEX 11 INT  13 POW 12 CHA 13
Skills: Anthropology 30, Art (Acting) 50, Disguise 40, Foreign Language (Spanish), History 30, HUMINT 70, Occult 30, Persuade 60, Psychotherapy 20
John owns and lives in a shop just over the wooden fence east of the motel. He is astute and observant, and will use both cold and hot readings on willing participants.
John uses a bad English accent, and is actually a college dropout (Psychology major). Over the years, he has developed and honed his skills at reading people and giving them bad predictions of their future while putting on a theatrical display.
A successful HUMINT check allows John to use Bond scores and backstories for a successful reading.  
“You and your wife are drifting apart.”
“I sense something traumatic has happened to you, involving something you can’t understand.”
“You are afraid of something happening, but you are unsure what of.”
John started this building in the 90s and sometimes eats lunch with Frank. They aren’t very close, but they do know each other.

Other Guests
Agents conducting a stakeout of other guests note that a number of families stopping here on trips, and a few that stand out as suspicious.

• Room 1: Arthur Gates
  STR 10 CON 14 DEX 12 INT 15 POW 11 CHA 10
  Skills: Bureaucracy 40, Computer Science 40, Drive 40, Disguise 30, Medicine 40, Navigate, 50, Occult 20, Ride 40, Science (Biology) 60, Science (Geology) 50, Science (Zoology 50), Foreign Language (Spanish) 40
  Attacks: None
  A helminthologist, Arthur is observing worms at a nearby location. He has been at the hotel for a week and a half. He is often observed carrying covered items and heavy plastic storage bins to and from his SUV. His typical outfit is a faded blue light jacket with dark brown khaki pants, gloves, and dirty boots.
  In his room are several samples and containers full of various worms. Some are kept under covers to simulate the darkness, and leaving them exposed will cause them to die, possibly drawing attention to investigators. One sealed container has a series of small openings on the top. Attempt a STR check to open, on a failed roll the container lid flies off and small worms are flung across the room.
• Room 5: Two Sinaloa Cartel Members
  STR 13 CON 11 DEX 13 INT 12 POW 12 CHA 11
  Alert 50, Criminology 60, Demolitions 40, Dodge 40, Drive 50, Firearms 60, HUMINT 50, Melee Weapons 60, Persuade 70, Ride 30, Search 40, Stealth 50, Survival 30, Unarmed Combat 50
  Attacks: Full Auto AR-15 60%  Lethality 10%, Glock 19 60% 1d10
  Chainsaw STR x 5 (65%) 5% lethality, requires a turn to activate.
  They are making various wholesale narcotic connections. There are duffel bags full of drugs, and money. They have many associates coming and going from the room, all also carrying duffle bags. There is also a chainsaw in the room. These two particular members choose to operate here because of their addiction to Lost Vegas. There is a DEA bug in the lamp near the door. If Agents confront Frank about their suspicions without removing him from the equation, Frank will instruct the Cartel in Lost Vegas to awaken and attack the Agents.
• Room 12: Sherry Daniels, age 17. Paulo Gutierrez, pimp.
  A prostitute/victim of human trafficking. Daniels is being held here by her pimp, Paulo Gutierrez, who acquires johns through Backpage and keeps Sherry “safe.” Sherry ran away from home over a year ago, and is reported missing in NCIC. She will not want to cooperate with any law enforcement, nor does she wish to return home. Gutierrez skulks in and around the parking lot at night. He is not particularly attentive. He may try to solicit an Agent, if they don’t give off the aura of law enforcement.
  Paulo Gutierrez
  STR 12 CON 13 DEX 12 INT 10 POW 13 CHA 10
  Skills: Alert 40, Criminology 40, Firearms 30, Melee Weapons 40, Persuade 50,
  Attacks: Hi-Point .380 1d8 damage (explodes on a fumble)
• Room 10: Davis Bennett, DEA Agent
  STR 12 CON 11 DEX 11 INT  13 POW  13 CHA 12 HP 12 WP 13 (3 armor if able to don tactical gear)
  Skills: Alert 70, Bureaucracy 40, Criminology 50, Dodge 50, Drive 50, Firearms 50, Forensics 30, Foreign Language (Spanish) 50, Heavy Weapons 50, HUMINT 60, Law 30, Melee Weapons 30, Persuade 50, Pilot (Drone) 20, Search 50, Stealth 30, Unarmed Combat 60
  Attacks: AR-15 with holographic sight 70% Lethality 10% 1d12, Glock 22, 1d10
  Bennett is a rising star in the local DEA office. He is investigating the cartel and building a case by staking out their room, noting the license plates and taking pictures of people that enter and exit the room. His investigation may expand to include the players. However, he is not the best at undercover work. He has a variety of electronic surveillance tools at his disposal, and is not afraid to use them without a warrant (he knows that he can articulate and falsify his findings enough to be able to secure a warrant later). He has already bugged the Cartel’s room. He is often seen in the early hours of the morning, smoking and leaned against his vehicle. He is very close to having enough actionable intel to organize a raid, and may do so within a few days.

POSSIBLE RESOLUTIONS
-If the Yithian controlling Frank believes he has been made, he will temporally travel, leaving Frank with his original mind, now 40 years blank. He won’t have any knowledge of what has happened.
-The Yithian may use the same method of Yithian temporal mind swapping to possess the bodies of either the Cartel members or the DEA Agent and attempt to hunt the players down with the weaponry it observed these NPCs having in their rooms.
-If the Yithian overhears enough of a conversation and can piece together that the Agents are trying to figure out the strange happenings at the hotel, it may cease operations on them and attempt to shift the blame to something else.
-It may be possible to reason with the Yithian and learn his motivation.
-The Cartel members, being slaves to the pleasures of Lost Vegas, may act on a suggestion told to them by Frank in the dreamland.

Tome
Observations of Homo Sapiens
In English. Study Time Months. HUMINT +5% Unnatural +5%. San Loss 1d4.
Locked in the safe of the Starlight Motel, this is a collection of fragmented clay tablets (in Cuneiform), a rolled scroll (ancient Egyptian), collected pieces of aged paper wrapped in strings, and 74 spiral notebooks, each one filled with a precise date, time, and description of the room occupants, along with a notation of their activities and reactions to various mundane and unnatural experiments. These are all details of the Yithian’s times spent occupying various human minds. In the earlier stories, the Yithian’s experiments are more medical, involving dissections, autopsies, torture, and other incursions, all trying to figure out what it means to be a human.
The first entry in the modern notebooks is dated July 7, 1968. The entries describe various couples engaged in intercourse, primarily, with interspersed stories of arguments and disagreements. After a period of 5 years or so, the style of the writer’s voice changes (Forensics skill will also note a change in the handwriting, this is when the Yithian took control), and the stories begin to be about observations of interaction and reactions to changes the writer has been put into place. The stories hint at references to other observations made from several different time frames.

Ritual
Sonic Isolation
Simple Ritual. Study Time: weeks. 1d4 SAN. Activation: Turns; 6 WP, 1d4 SAN.
A brief, guttural chanting of words allows an operator to filter out noises before his target can perceive them. Target gets an opposed Willpower. 0/1 SAN.


This scenario is largely based on  true events.
Thanks to James Collins of the DGML for Lost Vegas.