Relic Roadshow #4 –Lac Ste. Anne — The Listening Lake

 

Coordinates: 53°42′30″N 114°27′37″W

Known As: Manitou Sakhahigan (Cree), Wakamne (Nakota Sioux)
Note: This is a work of speculative fiction inspired by real geography and traditions. No disrespect is intended.

Overview

Lac Ste. Anne is not merely a lake — it is a memory basin, a place where belief, pilgrimage, and psychic residue collect like silt. Long before the Hodgepocalypse, it was known as a site of healing, visions, and contradictions: miracles and sickness, faith and fear, calm waters and treacherous currents. In the radiant age after the Fall, these tensions did not vanish. They intensified.

Today, Lac Ste. Anne is regarded throughout the Capital Parkland as a Listening Place — a body of water that hears intention, absorbs excess, and answers only on its own terms.

Before the Hodgepocalypse

Ancient stories speak of something moving beneath the lake, its passage stirring sudden currents capable of overturning canoes without warning. Later traditions layered new meaning atop the old: missionary sites dedicated to Saint Anne, and annual summer pilgrimages where faith, healing, and community converged.

For generations, the lake was a place where people came seeking answers — and occasionally found consequences instead.

After the Hodgepocalypse

When the Hodgepocalypse reshaped the world, Lac Ste. Anne surged with uncontrolled psychic and magical energy. Shoreline settlements were destroyed or abandoned almost overnight. For decades afterward, the lake was avoided — spoken of in lowered voices as spooky, wrong, or too loud to listen to safely.

Nature returned first.

Birds arrived in impossible numbers, drawn by the lake’s altered ecology. Over time, they grew larger, stranger, and more numerous, reshaping the shoreline into a living rookery. Their presence fed massive blooms of blue-green algae — a familiar paradox amplified by magic. The water could heal or harm depending on how, when, and why it was approached.

Louis, the Lake-Warden

At the heart of Lac Ste. Anne dwells a being known simply as Louis.

No one agrees on what Louis truly is.

Some say he was once human — a pilgrim, a caretaker, a man who fell into the lake and was never allowed to leave. Others claim he is older than the stories, a necessity given shape by the lake itself. What is agreed upon is his function: Louis consumes what the lake cannot hold.

Waste. Corruption. Grief. Psychic overflow. Unwanted memory.

In doing so, he acts as both guardian and pressure valve, preventing the lake from tearing itself — and the surrounding region — apart.

Louis does not speak openly. He does not tolerate intrusion. And he does not appreciate being addressed directly.

The Gnomes of the Shore

A small but influential Gnome community has resettled portions of the lakeshore. Eschewing pointy hats for baseball caps and tool belts, they serve as intermediaries between Louis and the outside world.

The Gnomes maintain strict quarantines around key shoreline sites, citing safety, tradition, and “Louis’ preferences.” They process lake water for ritual and alchemical use, manage bird domestication programs, and keep meticulous bead-ledgers recording offerings made — and accepted.

They take great exception to anyone attempting to contact Louis without proper mediation.

Magical Properties

Place of Power: Major
Domains: Conjuration, Divination

• Casters gain +2 to Ritual checks for Conjuration and Divination spells cast at designated shoreline sites.
• Gain +1 spell penetration for those spell types while within attuned zones.
• Effects apply to specific locations, not the entire lake.

Alchemical Use:
Lake water may be used as a potion component. When properly processed, it increases potion potency by one tier. Failure increases ritual DC by +5; failure results in a corrupted effect such as Poo Flu or psychic backlash.

Cultural Role Today

In the modern Upper March worldview, Lac Ste. Anne is neither a shrine nor a hazard alone — it is a filter. Pilgrims still come, but they are careful. Offerings are measured. Songs are quieter. Many Nomad Kin believe the lake listens best when approached without expectation.

“You don’t ask the lake for answers,” goes a common saying.
“You ask if you’re ready to hear one.”

Adventure Hooks

The Gnomes Are Mobilizing:

A sudden, coordinated movement of Gnome forces suggests something has changed beneath the lake.

Louis Has Refused an Offering:

For the first time in memory, an offering was returned — intact.

The Birds Are Gathering:

Avian megafauna are massing in unprecedented numbers. Even the Gnomes are nervous.

A Voice from the Water:

Someone claims Louis spoke—and named someone who matches one of the PCs.

Common Creatures & Threats

• Gremlins
• Riftwing Harbinger 
• Tar Oozes
• Louis, the Lake-Warden

Final Note

Lac Ste. Anne endures as a reminder that not all problems are meant to be solved — some must be contained, respected, or fed carefully. The lake remembers every era that has tried to claim it.

And Louis remembers them too.

#drevrpg #d20 #apocalypse #relicroadshow