This post will have several spoilers in it. So, if you haven’t played Room 213 yet, I recommend saving this post until you’ve played or it’s officially retired.
Spoilers Incoming, last warning.
Room 213 is split into four sections; the Main room is meant to be a hotel room. There is a tunnel that leads out of it into the Operation Room, and from there you get into the last room with the body freezer and furnace. As the story goes, Holmes would gas the hotel room, then sneak in through the wardrobe to gather up the bodies. Cut them up in the operation room, and either hang them in the freezer or burn them in the furnace (what a jerk).
When you play Room 213, you need to crawl through the tunnel out of the first room. Inside that tunnel, you discover the missing doll from one of the guests Holmes had murdered. In our game, the ghost that haunts Room 213 can’t rest until she’s gotten her doll back.
As part of the fun from building this room, we needed to shop for a whole bunch of Porcelain Dolls to fill the role of “The angel Sue, searching for her bow of blue”. This means I had to go from thrift store to thrift store buying all the dolls they had. Without any context, I’m sure this raised at least a few eyebrows.
These dolls would never last since guests would throw them into the furnace, at the floor, or sometimes at each other shattering them in the process. So they broke all the time, which meant I had to always go back out to get more.
For months this wasn’t a problem, but the supply started running low after some random dude kept buying all the porcelain dolls they had (it was me), so I had to venture out further to find them. That’s when I met Tanya.
Tanya was in a thrift store I hadn’t visited before and she was the only doll there. Immediately I felt this one was a bit different. Just look into Tanya’s eyes…. You can almost feel her looking back. So much so that I had to take a picture of her to show the team.
When I bought her, the lady at the front commented to me, “Oh that was is creepy, it's been here for a while”. I laughed and told her we needed a scary one so it’s perfect.
At first, everything was fine, and people would get freaked out by her as intended. But then she broke.
This is when things got weird and props stopped working. In the beginning, it was basic things like a sound didn’t play when it should, but then things would stop working altogether and need to be replaced (The mirror for one). Then things started acting up in all the rooms. Most people would chalk this up to regular wear and tear, but we knew differently, it was her and she wasn’t happy.
We had fixed her with glue and tape but things kept getting weird. It wasn’t until we gave her a name, Tanya, that it stopped (or didn’t, can’t really tell)
All the dolls we purchased are secondhand, so we don’t know the story of them before. So here is the 80’s horror movie version of her story that I have running in my head.
She was a mischievous person from decades ago, let’s say she was accused of being a Salem witch. When she died her spirit was captured inside of a Doll by some powerful magic. The owner of the doll locked her away in an attic to never see light again. However many years later when this owner passed away, their relatives were cleaning out the attic and they found her. Along with the rest of their things, Tanya was donated to charity. She rotted away on a high shelf in the back of an old antique store. Then one day, a random business owner comes in and finds her sitting there. When he purchases her, the owner of that store gives a vague warning about the doll's vibe. The owner laughs it off and leaves with the doll in hand. As he walks out, Tanya looks into the camera and smiles…
So next time you visit ERH, make sure to say hello to Tanya, her spirit is around somewhere being mischievous.