Dave's Motel and Diner (Location)

A location, inspired by chloe's BUCKETS OF BLOOD setting.

the vibe

DAVE'S MOTEL AND DINER is everywhere. every interstate turnoff, every rural town just barely clinging to its last vestiges of life, every big city in the middle of the desert. the signage is old, the paintwork chipped. the tables are sticky, the floor stained. the food all tastes the same. no matter where you're coming from or where you're headed, you can stop off at dave's, so long as you know where to look. dave's is never full—why would it be? you don't go there if you have a choice. the waitresses are polite, though never speak more than a sentence or two at once. their shadows always seem to draw long behind them, no matter the time of day outside. there's a rusted gas pump out front, an eighteen-wheeler parked around the side. never more than one. the décor blurs together; all pastel blue and once-clean whites, grimy chrome and crappy neon signs. the bathrooms never seem to be cleaned, always bearing the stench of a corpse. there's always someone at the counter, nursing a cup of coffee. they never seem to leave. the rooms are bare; a steel bedframe and lumpy mattress, peeling wallpaper left unadorned. 

no matter where you came from in the world outside, things always seem the same. the same design inside, the same atmosphere of unwelcome. you've never seen anyone enter ahead of you. the few times you've spoken to other clientele they've always claimed to have come in from somewhere else. sometimes, even, you find yourself thinking as you leave you've come out somewhere completely different from where you came in. that doesn't make any sense though. if you didn't know any better, you could swear every dave's was the exact same place.

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d6 reasons Dave's might be the way it is:

1. the original location was built atop portal to Hell. the souls of all employees remain trapped within.
2. it's the Platonic archetype of a motel-diner, filling in the gaps where things should be but aren't.
3. it's a meeting point for time-travellers, warping reality around itself.
4. it's the setting of a classic horror novel that has permeated the collective unconscious—every time you enter the diner, you enter the book.
5. the diner is Hell—for its employees. part of Stan's latest outreach program. 
6. "Dave's" is, in fact, a prison for the pretender Bacchus, crafted centuries ago by Dionysus as a dreary hell for the false god of wine. he wanders from diner to diner in torturous sobriety, finding only places devoid of revelry. the diner's nature being exploitable by mortals is entirely incidental.

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regardless of where you enter Dave's, the diner within is always the same place. no one knows quite why or how—no one willing to tell, at least—but you can always find your way to Dave's if you need to. the clientele are eclectic; it's hard to end up there if there isn't something odd about you. it's a waystop for weary wizards, a safe space from the Feds; a useful meeting point, for those inclined. enjoy! (entries in the above table stolen from, in order, chloe, purplecthulu, Everythings, chloe, Sylvanas_iii, and Ro-Man!)