Bad House

From Gothpoodle

Lesser Jaggling, Artificial Spirit, Structural Choir

This spirit still inhabits the physical structure which birthed it, the location of the Torture Room locus.

Description

A huge, decaying, imposing Victorian mansion surrounded by a wrought iron fence and dead trees.

Storytelling Hints

The Bad House is a malicious entity who delights in tormenting those that enter it, squeezing them for all the fear it can get.

Stats

• Rank: 3
• Attributes: Power 5, Finesse 5, Resistance 10
• Willpower: 15
• Essence: 20
• Initiative: 15
• Defense: 10
• Speed: 10
• Size: 22
• Corpus: 32
• Influences: Fear 1, Houses 2.
• Numina: Fetter, Manipulate Element, Material Vision, Reaching, Savant (Manipulate Element), Stalwart, Threshold.
• Bans: It has no Defense against whomever possesses the house master key (currently in a lockbox in at the First National Bank of San Francisco along with the title and other paperwork being held for the current absent owner).

Background

The Bad House has a long and troubled history. It was built in 1896 by a strict man of severe temperament who made his money in banking, loaning money to prospectors and speculators and then reaping the rewards of their ruin, and whose misanthropy drove him to relocate to the new suburbs. He ruled over his family with an iron fist, beating his children when they disobeyed him and locking his delicate wife in a basement room when her mental faculties began to fail. His children fled him at the earliest opportunity and he died of a heart attack in 1919, leaving his mad wife to starve to death in the basement room, her body undiscovered until the house was inspected before being sold by one of the man's estranged descendants. When the daughter of one of the new owners was impregnated by a black male servant, they were taken to the secret room where she was forced to watch her lover beaten almost to death. Her own trial followed as a doctor was brought in to perform an abortion. She was kept in the room for weeks following the procedure, in pain, in the dark, forced to repent for her sin and indiscretion. Instead, she hung herself . The family moved out shortly afterwards, in 1921. Another successful banker purchased it next and made the basement room his office, away from the hustle and the bustle of life upstairs. It was there that he committed suicide in 1930, after the stock market crash had destroyed him, unable to face the prospect of being unable to care for his family. It was next purchased by a bootlegger's enforcer and the secret room was used for the interrogation and torture of those who opposed them. When the man was killed a year later, it was purchased by a businessman who converted it to a boarding house, a purpose it served for much of the next two decades. During that time, the isolated basement room changed hands many times, few tenants able to last more than a few months due to nightmares and an overwhelming sense of dread. The building was abandoned when the owner went bankrupt in 1949. It was purchased cheap at auction by a Korean war veteran in 1953 who used the room in the basement for his war-bride, keeping her as a sex slave for ten years before she managed to escape, after which he swallowed his service revolver in her room. During the next decade, it gained a reputation for being haunted and became a popular place for children to dare each other to spend a night. It gained new permanent residents in 1965 when hippies occupied the vacant building and formed a commune. The basement room was shut up because of its bad vibes and things were relatively quiet with the building until the leader of the group grew unstable and began victimizing the female members (enforcing "free love") and punishing members who dissented with time in the "bad room". This continued until matters were exposed in 1970 and authorities cleared the building and arrested its leader, who local press played up as a "nascent Charles Manson". Shortly afterwards a fire unintentionally started by drug-using squatters delayed the house going onto the auction block. It remained vacant until 1982, when a child went missing after entering the house on a dare and city slated it for demolition. The move was protested on historical grounds and the building was finally purchased by a restoration society, who made basic repairs and then donated it for use as an AIDS hospice, a purpose it served throughout the 80s until a family brought to light that euthanasia was being performed on site and it was shut down in 1993 and sold to pay legal fees. The new owners renovated it and tried to run a bed and breakfast but it failed within the two years due to the ambiance. They entered bankruptcy soon afterwards and the house was sold to Archibald Keller, a rich eccentric and recluse who made a fortune as a programmer for Netscape. He developed intense agoraphobia within a few months of moving into the house and cut himself off from the world entirely, except for computer access. He died of a brain aneurysm in 2004 but nobody noticed and the house has sat vacant ever since, the bills being paid from his flush bank account. His mummified body lies in the basement room which is the center of the house's power.