THE LEGEND
The Nording family can be traced back to the 1600’s when they came to the new world and cultivated enormous hemp farms. Due to the popularity of their crops, the Nordings soon amassed a fortune large enough to rival a King and built huge estates to protect their wealth and crops. Harvest time for them was a celebration unlike any other in history and word of the Nording’s ability to throw a party stretched across the seas.
As their fame and wealth grew, people from around the world would travel to the Nording’s estates and participate in the good times, bringing with them the local intoxicants of their land. The further away the participants came from, the more exotic the buzz. Hemp and alcohol were always abundant but soon there was another stream of organic plants and flowers that were tended to in such a way that would cause hallucinations, abundant energy and increased sexual libidos.
By the beginning of the 1900’s, the Nordings were party Gods. No longer a party for the common folk, the celebrations turned into private events with the guest list saturated with wealth and royalty. All of the organic substances that had been brought to the estates over the years were studied and cultivated and grown in the Nording private gardens. These gardens were tended to in secret and became known as the Gardens of Ecstasy. Fueled by these Gardens of Ecstasy, the parties sometimes turned to orgies and could even last for months.
When prohibition hit the United States, the Nording parties quickly became a target of law enforcement and that way of life was forced out. Not wanting to lose all of the family’s wealth, the Nordings closed their doors and no longer hosted the extravagant parties or lifestyle. It was during these depressing years that Benjamin Samuel Nording was born…the first Nording born into a party-less life.
Because things were not as the Nording genes knew they should be, Ben was never fully sane. It was as if some unknown force was always pulling at him in directions he could not define and there was nothing he could do to escape it. As times changed, Ben found himself in the middle of the 1960’s never having had a sip of alcohol or any other mind-altering substance. As the madness overtook him, he found himself in an unavoidable situation and after a few drinks the 1960’s drug craze overwhelmed him and he lost control of his mind. For the first time in his life, Benjamin Samuel Nording had felt the burden of his life lifted from him. Haunted by dueling thoughts, he lost track of reality and killed himself. His suicide note dictated that his estate be donated to the good of combating the evils of drugs and alcohol.
Rehab/Halfway House Circa 1993
Our story picks up as the once famous party mansion is now a voluntary, high-end rehabilitation center.
The mansion, now known as The Ben S. Nording Hotel houses a collection of zany characters ranging from the glue sniffing janitor to the manic-depressive rock star. You meet the high school stoners, the alcoholic Doctor who runs the place, the nymphomaniac nurse, pill popping homemaker, hypocritical ex-cop and the 72-year-old sex addicted mobster before you get beyond the entrance hall. The hotel is haunted by Lord Gutterball, a ghost who persuades guests to do the wrong thing and there is a Garden of Ecstasy tended to by the 200 year-old gardener, Salema, a witch doctor by her own rights.
The hotel itself is an old estate from the late 1600’s and is complete with secret passages, underground railways, magic doors, extravagant indoor water ways and enchanted gardens. Character backgrounds are hugely diverse with most of the guests checked in by choice, giving them the freedom to come and go as they please. No one really wants to stop their bad habits and imagination compromises nothing as they all seem readily available. It is the synergy of the diversity of the characters as well as their ridiculous behavior that is constantly putting them in hilarious situations.
