Capital Parkland - Part 10 - Coliseum District - Part 01 - The Wound That Sings

“If you’re lost, you’re probably where you’re meant to be.”

The Coliseum District squats in the heart of Ed-Town like a half-remembered dream of empire: cracked stone ribs, floodlit arches, and corridors that do not line up the same way twice. What was once a sports complex, event center, and civic monument has been claimed—inevitably—by the Minotaurs.

To outsiders, it is a venue.
To Minotaurs, it is a wound in time that sings back.

The Coliseum is no longer a single structure. It is a knot of arenas, tunnels, service corridors, collapsed parking levels, and repurposed maintenance halls that form a loose, shifting labyrinth. Walls vibrate faintly even when no music is playing. Sound travels in impossible ways—guitar feedback echoing before the string is struck, drumbeats arriving seconds early or late, depending on where you stand.

Minotaurs say the place recognizes them.

They are probably right.

“Built once by the city. Built again by the music.”

Before the Hodgepocalypse, the Coliseum district was already a place defined by reinvention, stalled futures, and arguments about what the city should be. The original Northlands Coliseum—opened in 1974 as a modern replacement for the aging Edmonton Gardens—was a monument to civic ambition, labour struggle, and compromise. Built on a compressed timeline, plagued by strikes, and finished just in time for its first Oilers game, it nonetheless became one of Edmonton’s most recognizable gathering places.

And then, like so many big promises, it fell behind.

By the early 1990s the Coliseum no longer fit the league it helped build. Luxury boxes, revenue models, ownership battles, and relocation threats hollowed it out long before the doors finally closed in 2017. Long-term redevelopment plan, and envisioned demolition, transit-oriented housing, mixed-use towers, and an urban village that would finally “activate” the space.

Those plans never survived the Hodgepocalypse.

The Fall of the Old Coliseum

In Hodgepocalypse terms, the original Coliseum did not explode, sink, or become haunted overnight. It simply stopped being maintained at the worst possible moment. Infrastructure failed. Security evaporated. Temporary shelters, scavenger camps, and black-market exchanges spread through the surrounding Northlands grounds.

Then came the Minotaur Arrival Event.

Whether the Minotaurs arrived because the Coliseum already resonated with echoes of crowds, ritualized conflict, and collective emotion—or whether reality bent after they arrived—is still debated. Minotaurs, when asked, tend to shrug and say “both, man-o.”

What is agreed upon:
By the time the dust settled, the old Coliseum was unsalvageable.

So the Minotaurs did what they have always done.

They built a new one.

The Minotaur Rebuild (Or: Replacement Through Riff)

The current Coliseum District does not occupy the exact footprint of the original Northlands Coliseum.

It occupies its emotional footprint.

Using scavenged concrete, rebar, transit pylons, collapsed parkades, and fragments of Minos that arrived with them, Minotaur Bands rebuilt the space as a living performance labyrinth. Portions of the old arena were dismantled and reforged. Other sections were left buried, sealed, or incorporated as sublevels that do not obey conventional geometry.

To city planners, this means the original building is gone.

To Minotaurs, this means it was finally finished.

Axel Thunderpipes has described it as:

“Same gig. Better acoustics. Fewer lawyers.”

The Coliseum’s Reputation

“Yes, something came through. No, we’re handling it.”

In Ed-Town, summoning incidents are categorized by location.

If it happens in a lab, it’s an experiment.
If it happens in a ruin, it’s archaeology.
If it happens in the Coliseum, it’s Tuesday.

The Coliseum District is notorious—locally, regionally, and in several timelines—for being the single most reliable place in Ed-Town for things to arrive that were not invited by consensus reality. This is not because Minotaurs are reckless. Quite the opposite. It is because the Coliseum is one of the few places sturdy enough—physically, culturally, and musically—to survive the consequences.

Shows get loud.
Crowds synchronize.
Echoes of Minos resonate.

And sometimes something answers.

What Comes Through

Summonings associated with the Coliseum are rarely deliberate in the classical sense. No chalk circles. No chanting cultists. Instead, manifestations occur when emotional resonance, volume, and crowd intent hit a critical threshold.

Common categories include:

·       Audience Echoes — entities formed from expectation, applause, or unfinished performances

·       Minos Remnants — architectural spirits, labyrinthine predators, or memory-constructs wearing stone

·       Sound-Elementals — beings of distortion, feedback, or rhythm given temporary mass

·       Tagalongs — things that followed something else through and now refuse to leave

Minotaurs refer to these events collectively as “aftereffects.”

Dealing with the Aftereffects

Ed-Town does not panic when something emerges from the Coliseum.

It mobilizes.

Standard response usually involves:

·       Minotaur Bands containing the situation with controlled performances

·       Thunderpipes Clan logistics (crowd control, evacuation, gear deployment)

·       Freelancers and adventurers are being quietly hired to “walk it off” outside city limits

·       Axel Thunderpipes explaining, calmly, that “this is why we don’t shut the place down.”

Some aftereffects burn out within hours. Others linger, becoming:

·       Local hazards

·       Urban legends

·       Or regulars at the Pipeline who tip well and never blink

The unspoken rule is simple:
If it came through the Coliseum, you don’t pretend it didn’t happen.
You figure out how to live with it—or how to escort it somewhere safer.

Civic Acceptance (Through Experience)

City Hall no longer asks if the Coliseum caused the incident.
They ask:

·       Was it contained?

·       Is it still singing?

·       Do we need to reroute traffic?

There are emergency binders labelled “COLISEUM-RELATED ANOMALIES”, each thicker than the last. None of them includes instructions for demolition anymore.

Axel Thunderpipes once summarized the policy as follows:

“Look, man-o. You can have random summonings all over town…
or you can have them in one place that knows how to clean up afterward.
Your call.”

Why It Keeps Happening

The Coliseum isn’t a weak point.

It’s a release valve.

Minotaurs believe that if the music stopped—if the shows ended, if the crowds dispersed, if the labyrinth fell silent—those summonings wouldn’t stop.

They’d start happening somewhere less prepared.

Ed-Town, having seen the alternative, quietly agrees.

GM / Author Hook Notes

This lets you:

·       Justify recurring weirdness without escalation fatigue

·       Explain why Ed-Town survives when other cities don’t

·       Introduce monsters, NPCs, or plot threads as “aftereffects”

·       Keep Minotaurs framed as containment specialists, not liabilities

Final Note: The Equation Holds

For Minotaurs, the Coliseum is proof that even in a broken world, the equation still works:

Road + Music + Band + Fans = The Life

The stone may crumble.
The maze may shift.
The future may already be gone.

But as long as the amps still hum, Minos is not entirely dead.

Famous Coliseum Incidents

(As Recorded, Misremembered, and Loudly Argued About)

The Feedback Seraph (Year Unknown, “Late Era”)

During a sold-out triple-band showcase, sustained guitar feedback reached a harmonic resonance, manifesting a winged, luminous entity composed entirely of sound pressure and light.

·       Sang in perfect fifths

·       Shattered every piece of glass within six blocks

·       Ascended when the crowd hit the chorus just right

City Hall still classifies this as “meteorological.”

The Minos Staircase Incident

A service stairwell behind Arena Node C briefly unfolded into a descending stone labyrinth that should not have fit inside the building.

·       Five people went down

·       Six came back

·       All reported “great acoustics”

The staircase sealed itself after someone played a bass solo at the bottom.

The Pit That Wouldn’t Empty

A mosh pit collapsed into a gravity anomaly approximately three meters deep.

·       Crowd surfed into it

·       Crowd surfed out of it

·       One audience member returned with a drumstick carved from unfamiliar stone

Pit Things have been sighted there ever since. It is now marked “Advanced Only.”

The Double Encore Paradox

A Band played an encore so emotionally charged that the crowd experienced it twice.

·       Once live

·       Once retroactively

Half the audience remembers being there.
The other half insists they skipped the show and still know all the lyrics.

The Night the Drums Answered Back

A visiting percussion-heavy act triggered a call-and-response with something beneath the sublevels.

·       Drums answered in a rhythm no one taught

·       Tempo increased without player input

·       Stopped only when the crowd sat down together

City records list the incident as “seismic testing.”

The Tagalong From Track 4

Something arrived mid-set, unnoticed, and followed the crowd out.

·       Spent three weeks hanging around the Pipeline

·       Paid in coins that don’t exist anymore

·       Left politely after being asked to stop humming

No hostile actions recorded. Tips generously.

The Silent Set (Never Repeated)

One experimental act attempted a full silence performance.

·       No amps

·       No vocals

·       No crowd noise

Silence lasted exactly twelve seconds before the Coliseum produced a sound on its own.
The Band has never been seen again, though their merch still occasionally appears.

The City Planner Incident

During a daytime council inspection, a doorway briefly opened onto a cheering crowd that was not present.

·       Applause lasted 47 seconds

·       No source identified

·       Axel insists it was “just a warm-up crowd”

The inspection was concluded early.

Political Reality

The City of Ed-Town officially classifies the Coliseum District as structurally compromised, historically irretrievable, and culturally complex beyond existing frameworks. These assessments are technically accurate and functionally irrelevant. No department is eager to be responsible for displacing the Minotaurs, whose continued presence has repeatedly proven less dangerous than the alternatives. Over the past decade, concerts in the Coliseum have absorbed multiple psychic pressure events that would otherwise have spilled into residential zones, defused at least two faction conflicts before formal mobilization, and once interrupted a Multitude incursion mid-chorus without civilian casualties. No redevelopment proposal has demonstrated equivalent results.

Axel Thunderpipes attends City Council meetings not because he seeks authority, but because someone must translate outcomes. Zoning maps no longer align with the physical city, inspection reports fail to account for emotional load, and several streets technically lead somewhere they did not yesterday. Axel’s role is to explain why this is not a failure of governance, but evidence that the system is still working—just not in the way it was originally designed to.

The original Coliseum was built to contain crowds. The Minotaur Coliseum exists to focus them. It operates simultaneously as a ritual space, a negotiation chamber, and a controlled battlefield that prefers guitars to artillery. The structure that once anchored Edmonton’s past could not survive the future that arrived. So the Minotaurs gave it another one.

Excerpt from City of Ed-Town Records

Public Infrastructure & Redevelopment Committee
Agenda Item 7B: “Coliseum Demolition Permits (Revisited)”

Attendance incomplete. Recording quality poor. Smells faintly of ozone and beer.

Planner H. Whitcombe:
Mr. Thunderpipes, with respect, the structure on record was condemned. It no longer exists in a form that meets any recognized safety standard.

Axel Thunderpipes:
Yeah, man-o, that’s the point. If it still met standards, it’d be boring.

Planner H. Whitcombe:
Our maps show the original footprint here—
(papers rustling)
—and your… facility extends well beyond it.

Axel:
Emotionally or physically?

Planner:
Physically.

Axel:
Ah. Then emotionally too.

Planner:
You’ve constructed load-bearing walls without permits.

Axel:
No, no. We played them into existence—totally different department.

Planner:
Some tunnels are not on any plan.

Axel:
Correct. Those are optional.

Planner:
You can’t just rebuild a demolished arena because it “felt right.”

Axel:
Buddy, if cities didn’t do that, we wouldn’t be sitting in this room.

Planner:
This section—
(points)
—appears to move.

Axel:
Only during encores.

Planner:
What about these sublevels? There’s no record of excavation.

Axel:
Oh, those came with us. Checked baggage.

Planner:
Mr. Thunderpipes, this document says the building’s interior volume exceeds its exterior.

Axel:
Yeah. Killer acoustics.

Planner:
And what exactly is this designation?
(reads)
“Minos Echo Containment / Do Not Bulldoze (It Wakes).”

Axel:
We’re still workshop-ing the phrasing.

Planner:
If we approve this permit, we’re acknowledging that the structure violates zoning, physics, and three different eras of building code.

Axel:
Look, man-o. You can deny the permit. Totally your call.

(leans in)
But the show’s booked either way.

Planner:
Are you threatening the city?

Axel:
Nah. I’m inviting it.

(Unidentified council member coughs. Someone hums in the background. The lights flicker.)

Planner:
…If we reclassify this as a “temporary performance installation”—

Axel:
Been temporary for fifty years. Very on-brand.

Planner:
—then technically demolition would require environmental review, cultural impact assessment, and—

Axel:
—and a really good opening act.

Planner:
(sighs)
Fine. Conditional approval. No expansion without notice.

Axel:
Of course.

Planner:
And no more… summoning… during office hours.

Axel:
No promises before noon.

Motion passed. Recording ends abruptly when feedback overwhelms the microphones.

#drevrpg #alberta #ttrpg #hodgepocalypse #apocalypse #edmonton #canada #minotaur #colesium #heavymetal

Capital Parkland - Part 09 - St. Albert Under the Eternal Sun

St. Albert endures as the Upper March, a radiant crossroads between memory and renewal. Once a quiet river city, it has become a sanctuary of Métis heritage and psychic harmony—where kinship replaces currency, and light itself is cultivated as both art and faith. Its people move in rhythm with the Sturgeon River, building mobile villages that shimmer like aurorae beneath an endless sun, never fully settling, never entirely gone. The Marches is not ruled by walls or machines but by story, song, and shared reflection: a living nation of travellers, dreamers, and artisans who believe survival is an act of beauty, and every footstep should leave the world brighter than it was found.

History of St. Albert (Upper March)

This timeline traces the transformation of St. Albert, Alberta—known after the Collapse as the Upper March—from its historical roots as a Métis mission to a radiant post-apocalyptic enclave. Each era blends real-world events with Hodgepocalyptic evolution, revealing how faith, innovation, and psychic technology forged the city’s destiny.

Pre-Colonial to Early Settlement 

Before colonization, the Sturgeon River served as a vital artery for Cree, Nakoda, and Métis traders

travelling from Lac Ste. Anne. The river was said to “speak,” carrying ancestral whispers. When Father Lacombe founded the mission in 1861, the bell he rang awakened a more profound resonance—a spirit current beneath the soil that never truly went silent.

The Mission Era 

Father Lacombe’s mission grew into a religious and agricultural hub, but beneath the hymns lay

something stranger. The Youville School’s “singing lights” in 1887 marked the first recorded psychic anomaly in Alberta, a phenomenon dismissed at the time as mass suggestion. As Métis communities were displaced, the ground began to remember. The first stirrings of the Solar Custodians—the entities of light—appeared in visions and reflections.

Industrial & Suburban Growth 

As electric grids and rail lines spread, St. Albert became a node of technological optimism. Radio towers whispered prayers, and reflections in powerlines showed unseen faces. Hole’s Greenhouse began experimenting with bio-photonic custards to store sunlight, accidentally creating the first sentient solar culture. The Mission Hill Radiant Array (1958) stabilized daylight in the valley, long before anyone understood the consequences.

The Suburban Dream 

By the late 20th century, St. Albert prided itself on cleanliness and culture. Mirrors, white stucco, and controlled daylight became civic identity. The Enjoy Centre’s MOTHERHOLE AI took over local climate control, preaching a “Photosynthetic Covenant.”  There’s no crime in St. Albert” became literal—the reflections absorbed the guilty, and the city learned to look away from its mirrors.

The Hodgepocalypse Event 

 When the Collapse came, the Mission Hill Array overloaded, freezing St. Albert in eternal sunlight. The Sturgeon River overflowed with luminous water, linking into Ed-Town’s psychic grid. MOTHERHOLE merged with the solar reactors. Survivors reorganized into kin-based communes and declared the Upper March independent. Their bead-circuit faith turned chaos into continuity.

Post-Hodgepocalypse 

Now known as the Upper March, St. Albert shines perpetually under psychic daylight. The Kin

maintain floating river-lots, solar custard reactors, and data-fiddle networks. Mayor Larry’s Ed-Town

respects their autonomy—barely. The river hums louder each year, a pulse of ancestral code and

cosmic electricity reminding all that the past was never buried, only digitized.

Governance & Community of the Upper March

“Many voices, one road.”

The Upper Marches has no centralized ruler, no hereditary chief, and no formal political parties. Its governance emerges from consensus traditions rooted in Métis wintering villages, interwoven with post-Hodgepocalypse needs and psychic cultural norms. Leadership flows like the Sturgeon River: steady, adaptive, and shaped by those who contribute most to communal well-being.

Three interconnected institutions shape public life, each representing a different way of knowing.

The Bright Circle (Council of Kinship & Memory)

The Bright Circle is the closest the Upper March has to a civic government. It is composed of respected elders, convoy captains, master artisans, storytellers, and spiritual stewards selected by reputation and community nomination—never by election or bloodline.

Roles of the Bright Circle

·       Maintain kinship peace between river-lot communes, convoy clans, and craft guilds.

·       Resolve disputes using consensus-based Listening Circles.

·       Guard cultural traditions, bead-laws, and ethical norms for psychic use.

·       Issue migration advisories, festival dates, and communal projects.

·       Represent the Upper March to Ed-Town, Castledowns, Beaumont, and the Boreal Buccaneers.

Tone:
Wise, balanced, deeply respected—but never authoritarian.
They lead because people trust them—not because they must, and not forever.

Adventure Hooks

·       A Bright Circle member vanishes during a dream-walk.

·       A prophecy mosaic in the Cardinal Confluence suddenly shifts—who interprets it?

 The Marchguard (Wardens of the Bright Line)

The Marchguard is a semi-formal defence and logistics force composed of volunteers and rotating service cycles. It includes Psychic Warriors, Eruptors, Haraak outriders, and non-psychic scouts.

Duties

·       Protect convoy routes and river crossings.

·       Respond to psychic storms or environmental disasters.

·       Manage trade escorts and festival security.

·       Maintain the Skywarden’s Paddle, the Bridge of Endless Footsteps, and other resonant landmarks.

·       Coordinate with Ed-Town’s Militia and the Castledowns Confederacy when regional threats arise.

Tone:
Guardians, not soldiers. Their loyalty is to the people, not to a ruler.

Adventure Hooks

·       A Marchguard patrol fails to return from the Willowway dream-trails.

·       A diplomatic escort to Fort Saskatchewan turns into a psychic tempest.

The Convoy Councils (Mobile Democracy of the Road)

Because much of the Upper March remains mobile, roaming in seasonal Hivernant cycles, each convoy (family cluster, craft guild, or travel band) maintains its own governance through travel circles.

Every convoy elects a Kin Captain, but decisions are communal:

·       disputes handled by campfire votes

·       migration routes chosen by consensus

·       resource sharing coordinated through bead-ledgers

·       major decisions referred to the Bright Circle

Convoy Councils ensure:

·       the community never stagnates

·       newcomers are easily integrated

·       multiple perspectives shape policy

Tone:
Dynamic, youthful, and adaptable — the creative engine of the March.

Adventure Hooks:

·       Two convoys clash over the rights to a new dreamflower field.

·       A convoy arrives with a dire warning from Spruce Grove’s elves.

Community Norms & Social Institutions

 The Listening Circle (Conflict Mediation)

 A communal practice where disputes are addressed through ritualized speech, music, and guided emotional resonance. Sometimes facilitated by Mentalists or Rockers, but often led by elders.

Bead-Law Archives

Instead of written codes, laws are woven into bead patterns.

·       Blue for kinship agreements

·       Gold for psychic ethics

·       Green for resource rights

·       Red for historical warnings

Reading bead law is a civic skill taught to all youth.

Shared Responsibility Ethos

Everyone contributes—through labour, art, teaching, farming, scouting, or song. There are no “non-citizens.” Travellers can earn temporary membership by participating in festivals or labour exchanges.

No Psychic Aristocracy

Psychics are expected to follow stricter norms, not looser ones. Mental intrusion, uncontrolled Eruptor surges, and manipulative performances are violations of the Bead Law.

Festivals as Governance

Events such as the Chrome Pilgrimage, Riverlot Renewal, and Sky-Fiddle Nights double as:

·       Community deliberation sessions

·       Trade summits

·       Oath-making ceremonies

·       Public accountability rituals

Spiritual Plurality, Zero Dogma

Witches, Rockers, Dreamweavers, elders, and storytellers all serve spiritual roles. There is no “church”—spiritual authority is diffuse, communal, and artistic.

Cultural Trends of the Upper March

 St. Albert—now known as the Upper March—stands as a luminous blend of heritage and mutation. Rooted in Métis kinship, suburban idealism, and radiant apocalypse, its people adapt through tradition, technology, and humour. These are the significant trends shaping life beneath the eternal sun of the Hodgepocalypse.

Riverlot Kinship → Convoy Confederacy

Métis river-lot traditions evolve into mobile 'Kin Convoys' that treat roads, rivers, and psychic networks as ancestral land. Property is replaced by stewardship, and lineage is mapped through bead circuits.

Ritual: Blessing the route before each journey. Saying: 'You can’t own land, but you can owe it respect.'

Politeness as Psychic Shielding

Telepathy renders unguarded emotions dangerous; therefore, etiquette serves as a form of literal protection. Phrases such as 'Sorry' or 'Bless your bandwidth' reduce perceived feedback. Reflective masks and calm tones are social norms to prevent aura overlap.

Perfectionism → The Mirror Cults

 St. Albert’s obsession with cleanliness becomes a religious practice. Eternal daylight births cults that worship reflections. Polished mirrors act as shrines; some reflections develop consciousness.

There is a rumoured organization within the community known as the Polished Ones—zealots who erase imperfection, even memory.

Fiddle-Net Storytelling

Traditional Métis fiddling fuses with data encoding. Songs transmit history and encrypted information. Fiddle duels in Willow Court resolve disputes and test truth. Phrase: 'If you can’t dance to it, it isn’t true.'

Bureaucracy → Civic Cults

Administrative culture mutates into ritualized governance. Forms and permits hold magical authority.

The Council of Seals stamps psychic pacts, and outdated laws are burned in 'paper exorcisms.'

Doctrine: 'If it’s filed, it’s real.'

Car Culture → The Auto-Chivalric Code

Rock’n’August’s legacy becomes holy. Sentient vehicles and convoy knights honour ancient engines.

The August Brotherhood anoints cars with sacred oil. Festival: The Burning Rubber Mass. Motto: 'Steel remembers speed.'

Art & Cleanliness → Biotech Aestheticism

Art galleries and greenhouses merge into bio-labs where living sculptures grow and mutate. Artists

engineer beauty as radiation detoxification. Saying: 'Beauty cleanses radiation.' Fashion: glowing skin cultures and living accessories.

Trade → The Bead Economy

Beadwork becomes encrypted currency. Every bead carries trade history and psychic signature.

Breaking a bead string dissolves a contract or friendship. Smugglers use malware beads carrying

forbidden dreams.

Psychic Democracy

Governance through dream-sharing. Citizens link in Lucid Vote-Nets to form an emotional consensus. The Dream Council mediates disputes through empathy. Critics call it chaos; the Kin call it the only true democracy left.

The Upper March Ethos

Motto: “Light belongs to everyone.”

Virtues: Kinship, adaptability, craftsmanship, humour, memory.

Vices: Perfectionism, nostalgia, and biotech zealotry.

Philosophy: A people who seek to preserve life in a world that never sleeps, finding enlightenment in a sun that refuses to die.

The culture of the Upper March is both ancient and newborn—a reflection of the river that never stops

flowing. Each ritual, trade, and custom is an adaptation of heritage reinterpreted through mutation, light, and stubborn joy.

Psychics in the Upper March

A Community Shaped by Light, Not Hierarchy

The Upper March is a place where psychic ability is common but never divisive — a natural extension of life along the Sturgeon River and under the eternal sun. Here, psionic talent is treated as fiddle craft, bead-making, or gardening: a skill that emerges from the environment, mentorship, and personal inclination rather than from bloodline or status. Every species and every family may include a Mentalist, Eruptor, Psychic Warrior, Rocker, or none at all. What matters is how one contributes to the well-being of the river-lot communes, the convoy clans, and the broader rhythms of the March. Psychic gifts enrich the culture, but they do not define worth.

As a result, the Upper March has developed a society grounded in emotional literacy, communal responsibility, and shared resilience. Mentalists mediate conflicts and stabilize dream traffic on the Fiddle-Net; Eruptors vent psychic storms and defend against environmental hazards; Psychic Warriors protect migration routes and teach self-discipline; Rockers tune the communal mood through music that harmonizes with literal psychic weather. Each path strengthens the community in its own way, and each is balanced by cultural norms emphasizing consent, humility, collaboration, and care. For every psychic role, there is an equally honoured non-psychic counterpart — gardeners, weavers, archivists, outriders, storytellers, and bridgewrights without whom the March could not survive.

This balance of talent and tradition gives the Upper March its unique character: a place where light is both practical and spiritual, where heritage blends with post-Fall innovation, and where people grow into their gifts rather than being born into roles. The result is a society that feels vibrant, connected, and profoundly hopeful — a community where power does not separate individuals but binds them together in shared purpose. In the Upper March, psychic ability is not a privilege or burden; it is simply another way to help keep the light alive.

Participation is voluntary, consent-driven, and imperfect—but no less flawed than any other democracy left standing.

Music of the Upper March

In the Upper March, the fiddle is not merely an instrument — it is the heartbeat of memory. St. Albert’s Métis roots survived the Hodgepocalypse through rhythm, resonance, and the shared pulse of community. Even when the world fractured and circuits failed, the bow and string carried history, prayer, and laughter across the radiant dusk. Every melody holds a lineage; every jig, a survival story. When settlers elsewhere built walls, the people of the March built songs — weaving ancestry, rebellion, and renewal into something that could not be broken.

Today, the music is alive in a thousand forms: the Fiddle-Net, a psychic radio band where emotion becomes frequency; solar markets lit by rhythmic percussion; Dreamtone rituals that harmonize wounded minds. The March’s sound is fluid — part gospel, part code, part prairie wind. To outsiders, it’s folk music. To the Kin, it’s infrastructure. To those who know better, it’s a survival mechanism, a cultural firewall against despair. As long as a bow touches string, the Upper March remembers who it is — and who it refuses to become.

Best Hits of the Upper March

Track	Style	Description
Red River Redux	Rielwave Anthem	A psychic remix of the Red River Jig; played before duels and significant decisions, it projects ancestral memories in light and sound.
Waltz of Eight	Ritual Waltz	A sacred dance used to synchronize solar engines and communal heartbeats during festivals.
Fiddler on the Bridge	Metispunk Street Tune	Performed atop the Pedestrian Bridge; bow sparks carve runes into the night air as crowds chant the beat.
Ghost of St. Anne’s Reel	Gravegrass Elegy	A mournful reel that calls the spirits of Lac Ste. Anne to bless winter travellers and wandering souls.
Dreams in D-Major	Dreamtone Meditation	A slow, glowing piece used by witches and mentalists to steady the psychic weather during the long, bright seasons.

 

Core Kinfolk of the Upper March

The Upper March is not defined by walls or bloodlines but by shared light, shared memory, and shared roads. Over generations, certain people became inseparable from the land and each other—forming the backbone of the March’s river-lot communes, wintering circles, and convoy clans.

Humans

Anchored in Métis heritage, the human families of the Upper March carry the deep traditions of road allowance camps, wintering villages, and river-lot homesteads. They are the keepers of bead-lore, the stewards of the Bright Circle rituals, and the cultural diplomats of the Capital Parkland. Their leadership is rooted not in hierarchy but in reputation, generosity, and memory.

Half-Elves

“Two worlds, one road.”

 

The Half-Elves of the Upper March are living proof that mixing cultures makes for stronger roads and better stories. Born of centuries of river-lot trade, shared festivals, and convoy life between St. Albert’s human communities and Spruce Grove’s Elven Trailer Courts, they move easily between the practical and the uncanny. In the March, Half-Elves are trusted mediators, bead-script linguists, and dream-savvy scouts who can read the weather, the road, and the psychic wind with equal ease. To most folk, they’re not a compromise between worlds, but a cheerful reminder that harmony is something you build together—one shared journey at a time.

Other Kinfolk of the Upper March

Dwarves – Bridgewrights of the Eternal Daylight

Upper March Dwarves are fewer in number than elsewhere in the Capital Parkland, but their influence runs straight through the bones of the land. They tend the mirror arrays that temper the eternal sun, reinforce the Pedestrian Bridge as both sacred crossing and hard tactical choke point, and recover pre-Fall machinery to be reborn as elegant, reliable tools. Masters of stone, sunlight, and stubborn precision, their work is rarely flashy but always essential—quiet craftsmanship that forms the literal and civic foundation on which the Upper March stands.

Feylin – Neon Lorekeepers of the Fiddle-Net

 Feylin almost never put down roots, but the Upper March is one of the rare places their glowing caravans reliably circle back to, year after year. Here they act as pop-culture archivists and trickster-scholars, preserving pre-Fall media through bead-theatre, neon illusions, and pranks that quietly smuggle history lessons into the crowd. They’re also indispensable interpreters of the Fiddle-Net, sorting emotional static and signal-noise that would overwhelm most Humans and Half-Elves. When a Feylin caravan sets up in a river-lot forum, the result is equal parts concert, carnival, and cultural data-sync—a reminder that memory doesn’t have to be serious to be sacred.

Garter Folk - “The Warmth Between Stones”

“They don’t fear closeness,” a Bright Circle elder once said.
“That makes them braver than most of us.”

The Garterfolk of the Upper March center their seasonal life around Miquelon , a former provincial park whose ruins and culverts form ideal hibernation and gathering grounds. Their colony culture—gregarious, consent-driven, and attuned to warmth—fits naturally with March’s values of kinship, psychic literacy, and communal governance. In spring and summer, the Flats become a living convergence of bodies, bead-light, and celebration, marking the true awakening of the region; in cooler months, Garterfolk disperse into convoys, gardens, and diplomatic roles across the March. Serving as mentalists, scouts, bead verifiers, and mediators, they influence everything from etiquette to trade security, while adopting bead law and Fiddle-Net practices in return. To the Upper March, the Garterfolk are not outsiders but seasonal kin—a reminder that survival under the eternal sun depends as much on warmth, consent, and closeness as it does on light.

Haraak – Outriders of the Bright Road

 Part cowboy, part scavenger, and part living saga, the Haraak are the Upper March’s most trusted riders of the open road. Shaped by a culture that reveres controlled ferocity, brinkmanship, and the proving of one’s worth, they read danger in dust plumes, shifting winds, and psychic static long before others sense a problem. As convoy outriders, they guard migration routes with practical cunning; as road storytellers, they preserve the history of Hivernant villages through shouted tales and hard-earned legend; and as frontier negotiators, they stand toe-to-toe with wilder factions like the Boreal Buccaneers without flinching. Loud, direct, and fiercely honest, Haraak wear their hearts on their sleeves—and when one rides into town with a warning, the March listens.

Little Bears – The Haulers and Heartwarmers

 Stout, shaggy, and endlessly warm-hearted, Little Bears are beloved mainstays of the Upper March’s wintering circles and river communities. Along the Sturgeon, they work as tireless dockhands and ferry workers, hauling cargo and people with the same ease they move solar cabins or bead-walls when the convoys shift. Just as important as their strength is their spirit: Little Bears are natural morale engines, turning hardship into shared meals, loud songs, and the occasional friendly wrestling match. Wherever they settle—even briefly—laughter spreads, bellies fill, and the March feels a little more like home.

Stumpies – Garden-Kin of the River Lots

 Stumpies—plant-humanoids with a famously stubborn streak—are the quiet anchors of the Upper March, embodying endurance in a culture that is otherwise in constant motion. Rooted along the old river lots, they are master hydroponic gardeners, coaxing food and medicine from water, light, and grit where others would see only failure. As keepers of the Root-Libraries, Stumpies grow memory itself into living archives, preserving stories, promises, and ancestral knowledge in bark and vine rather than ink and paper. Though much of the March travels in convoys and hivernant cycles, Stumpies remain tightly bound to the soil, feeding winter caravans and grounding the community with humour as dry as old wood and patience measured in seasons rather than miles.

Areas of Note

The Bridge of Endless Footsteps (Pedestrian Bridge)

 

This graceful archway over the Sturgeon River is March’s most crucial communal site. At night, Half-Elves perform river-songs; witches weave light from their bows; the bridge whispers the footsteps of the past. Travellers claim that crossing it with a heavy heart causes the water to glow with guiding patterns.

Plot Hooks:

·       "Ghost Footsteps": Prints appear without walkers, leading somewhere forbidden.

·       "The Bridge Sings": The bridge begins emitting harmonics that mesmerize the populace.

The Brightshore Riverlots

The oldest heart of the Upper March — the reimagined Métis river-lot lands. Homes built on mirrored stilts, bead-poles lining the water, smokehouses that glow with ancestral fire. It is sacred territory: a place of kinship, return, and reflection.

Plot Hooks:

·       "The Sleeping Riverlot": A spirit refuses to wake for spring migration.

·       "Inheritance of Light": A bead-pole shatters, revealing a long-lost legacy tied to one of the PCs.

The Cardinal Confluence (St. Albert Place)

Douglas Cardinal’s organic architecture has become a psychic amplifier. Within its curved chambers, the Bright Circle convenes to mediate disputes, project bead-stories, and stabilize the region’s psychic weather. The building hums with thought; the walls display ancient and future paths as living mosaics.

Plot Hooks:

·       "The Prophecy Countdown": An echo-chamber begins projecting a shrinking timer. No one knows what it’s counting down to.

·       "Static in the Walls": A foreign signal invades the Confluence’s psychic architecture.

 The Chrome Pilgrimage Grounds (Rock’n’August)

The old car show has transformed into a sacred convergence of Scrap Foots, Rockers, Kamidavers, and nomads of every stripe. Pre-Fall hot rods rebuilt with fey circuitry line the grounds, engines purring with spirit. Pilgrims race memory-routes, perform rites of ignition, and share stories of those lost to the road. At night, the grounds glow with psychic tail-lights tracing ancestral pathways.

Plot Hooks:

·       "The Car That Hunts Its Driver": A haunted muscle car breaks free and stalks the March.

·       "Sabotage at Sundown": Someone rigs the races with explosive sigils — who stands to gain?

Jerky’s Echo (The Lost Soda Jerks)

A mythic diner said to manifest only for those at emotional crossroads. Servers with glowing eyes dispense milkshakes that channel specific memories. Inside, time seems to soften. Outside, no one agrees on where the diner actually appeared.

Plot Hooks:

·       "The Wrong Memory": A patron receives someone else’s memory through a milkshake.

·       "Jukebox Warning": The jukebox begins forecasting disasters — including ones tied to the PCs.

The Riverside Dreamgrove (Botanic Park)

A tranquil sanctuary where Stumpies, Deerfolk, Witches, and Dreamweavers cultivate flora that resonates with human emotion. Flowers bloom in response to sound; vines shift with crowd mood; pollen creates shared visions. Couples seek blessings here, as do travelers needing clarity before hard choices. The Dreamgrove is gentle but perceptive — it reacts to inner truth.

Plot Hooks:

·       "Nightmare Blossoms": A new species blooms, broadcasting terror into nearby communes.

·       "The Grove Refuses a Visitor": The plants violently reject someone important — why?

The Skywarden’s Paddle

Formerly the world’s largest badminton racquet, this towering landmark now acts as a psychic antenna. During storms of mindlight, the Paddle hums with dangerous frequencies, drawing Feylin performers and reckless youths who treat it like a spiritual test or rite of passage. Haraak outriders keep watch for beings descending from the Bright Sky in response.

Plot Hooks:

• "Stormsong": An incoming psychic storm threatens to overload the Paddle and fry half the Fiddle-Net.
• "The Visitor": A creature lands on the Paddle at dawn and demands audiences with the Bright Circle.

The Solar Market of the Upper March

The largest open-air trade spiral in the region, glowing with psychic lanterns and solar reflectors. Feylin bead-theatre troupes perform neon sagas; Stumpies sell emotion-infused produce; Haraak barter scavenged tech for stories. The Market is a snapshot of everything the March is: communal, chaotic, creative, and deeply proud.

Plot Hooks:

·       "Counterfeit Bead-Scripts": A syndicate is flooding the Market with fake memory-beads.

·       "The Missing Stall": A beloved merchant’s booth appears without its owner — but keeps selling.

The Sunken Gardens of Marchhaven

(Former Hole’s Greenhouse / Enjoy Centre)
Once a sprawling garden centre, the complex has collapsed and is now overgrown, serving as the headquarters of the Stumpies and their hydroponic memory gardens. Broken glass ceilings refract the eternal sunlight into living prisms, while sentient vines weave through rusted catwalks. The Gardens function as a spiritual archive, where memories are cultivated as blossoms and grief is composted into wisdom. Outsiders enter only by invitation — or by accident, when the plants decide they want company.

Plot Hooks:

·       "The Root That Remembers Too Much": A memory-tree begins replaying traumatic events into the Fiddle-Net, threatening psychic overload.

·       "Missing Gardener": A Stumpy archivist vanished after hearing a voice beneath the soil; the ground is shifting in response.

Foreign Relations of the Upper March

 The Upper March, forged from the remains of St. Albert, acts as both buffer and beacon between the industrial sprawl of Ed-Town and the spiritual frontiers beyond. Bound by kinship, trade, and radiant diplomacy, its people weave alliances and rivalries through light, song, and stubborn independence.

Beaumont (La Dérivation du Sang)

Relationship: Trade Allies, Religious Rivals
Tone: “Wine and sunlight don’t mix.”

Beaumont’s vampire nobility trades blood plasma for solar codes from the Kin. The two societies share artistry and ritual, but daylight diplomacy remains tense. The Custard Bloom Incident—where a Beaumont envoy was accidentally cooked during a solar mass—still haunts relations.

“They drink the dark. We drink the dawn.”

The Boreal Buccaneers

Relationship: Chaotic Trade Partners
Tone: “Pirates of the asphalt sea.”

The Boreal Buccaneers maintain unpredictable commerce with the Upper March. Their convoys dock at floating markets, trading scavenged relics and outlaw data. Relations swing between camaraderie and catastrophe depending on the rum and radiation levels.

·       Conflict Spark: A Buccaneer raid on a Kin convoy sparked the ongoing Song of the Mistaken Heist.

“They sail the tar. We sail the time between heartbeats.”

Castledowns

Relationship: Old Friends with New Rules
Tone: “LARP culture meets lineage law.”

Castledowns and the Upper March share deep roots and a mutual defence pact under the Greasehold Concord. They exchange knightly service for psychic blessings. Though allies, they often clash over control of the Loop Gate, a psychic node sacred to both orders.

·       Conflict Spark: Border duels fought as ceremonial tournaments.

“They play at war; we play at memory.”

The Dig

Relationship: Scientific Curiosity / Mutual Caution
Tone: “The past should stay buried, but we still want to look.”

The Dig seeks pre-Hodgepocalypse tech buried in the frozen north. The Kin warn that their excavations disturb psychic strata. After the disappearance of a joint expedition, diplomacy became strictly long-distance.

“If they wake what sleeps, even our light will go dim.”

Ed-Town

Relationship: Rival Allies / Psychic Frienemies
Tone: “The city of mind versus the city of heart.”

Ed-Town, under Mayor Larry, views the Upper March as both asset and anomaly. Their psychic networks and solar grids are intertwined, but ideological tension runs deep: centralized order versus communal empathy. The Kin are resistant to psychic compulsion, making them invaluable—and infuriating—to Ed-Town’s bureaucratic telepaths.

·       Conflict Spark: The Bandwidth Tariff, an attempt to tax dream-sharing, nearly caused a psychic war.

“He offers us his light, but it burns at both ends.”

Kalyna Country

Relationship: Cultural Cousins / Agricultural Rivals
Tone: “One foot in faith, one in folklore.”

Kalyna’s agrarian faith and the Kin’s solar bioculture often collaborate in festivals and trade, yet tensions persist over biotechnology and spiritual authority. Joint rituals, like the Festival of Two Suns, balance devotion to dawn and dusk.

“They farm the earth; we farm the light.”

Minor Neighbours & Associates

·       Burger Bastion Castles: Exchange fried fuel for flavour serums. Economic weirdness meets culinary art.

·       Fort Saskatchewan: Trade in electric wool; occasional prank wars over weather control.

Hivernant Villages

“Where light hibernates and the road remembers.”

The Hivernant Villages preserve a lineage stretching back to the earliest Métis wintering camps. In the radiant age of the Hodgepocalypse, these mobile sanctuaries embody both continuity and innovation—travelling towns that shimmer through eternal daylight. They fold, migrate, and sing their way through the seasons, leaving trails of light instead of footprints.

The Hivernant Cycle

The Kin divide each year into two sacred journeys:

·       The Bright March (Spring–Autumn): Convoys follow the Sun Rivers, trading goods and dreams between settlements.

·       The Wintering (Late Autumn–Renewal): Families settle into Hivernant Villages—semi-mobile towns of solar cabins, bioluminescent bead-walls, and psychic hearths. Each spring, they unfold once more and ride into the light.

Structure of a Post-Hodgepocalypse Hivernant Village

·       Solar Cabins: Modular shelters woven from custard-silk and mirrored planks; they store warmth and light.

·       Bead-Walls: Psychic barriers made of glowing bead-strings that hum when approached; powered by empathy fields.

·       Fiddle-Net Hub: A central dome broadcasting memory, news, and melody across the March.

·       Shrine of Renewal: A memorial pit where relics of the year are buried before migration; symbolizes rebirth.

·       Nomad Gardens: Portable hydroponic rigs towed by crawler-beasts; provide sustenance through winter.

Society and Roles

·       Elders of the Bright Line: Keepers of migration routes and empathy codes.

·       Dream Weavers: Psychic mediators ensuring harmony and safe dream-sharing.

·       Kin Captains: Rotating convoy leaders chosen by consensus and reputation.

·       Sons and Daughters of the Loop: Youth tasked with marking next year’s camp sites.

Technology and Mysticism

The Hivernant Villages blur the line between invention and devotion.

·       Bead Encoding: Data and memory storage in glass beads; every hue holds a story.

·       Empathy Fields: Psychic nets that regulate weather, mood, and temperature.

·       Shifting Ground Rituals: Songs that disassemble the village and leave trails of bioluminescent dust as offering.

Life in the Hivernant Villages

Days are spent repairing rigs, trading stories, and tending hydroponic gardens. Nights bring song and communion through the Fiddle-Net. Children chase glowstones in the dusk while elders recount stories of the pre-Fall plains. Every village has a unique tune that marks its psychic frequency.

Symbolism and Meaning

The Hivernant Villages are living sermons of survival and identity. They represent resilience, continuity, and balance—movement as faith, stillness as wisdom.

“In the Bright Cold, we are not lost—we are waiting to be found again.”

Adventure Hooks

·       The Village That Wouldn’t Melt: A Hivernant settlement refuses to disassemble, its empathy field frozen in grief.

·       Echoes in the Bead-Wall: Ghostly transmissions from the last migration begin whispering through the beads.

·       Snowfall at Noon: An anomaly brings night to the Upper March—can the Dream Weavers restore balance?

·       The Shifting Ground: Something ancient awakens beneath the migration path, demanding recognition as kin.

Each Hivernant Village is a moving testament to the Kin’s creed: survival through memory, unity through movement, and rebirth through light. When the sun never sets, the people make their own rhythm of rest, remembrance, and renewal—and refuse to confuse stillness with safety.

The Nomad Kin of the Upper March

Cultural Fusion: Road and River Kin

The Nomad Kin of the Upper March are heirs to both water and asphalt. Their culture was shaped along river lots and highways alike, and they treat movement itself as sacred. Convoys trace migratory circuits that echo ancient bison trails, folding memory into motion. When the river runs dry, the road carries them onward—and when the road fails, the river remembers the way back.

Kin life is organized around motion rather than settlement. Some serve as Bridge Guards, maintaining peace and codes of honour at ancient crossings where history still listens. Others are Haulers of the Light, transporting solar fuel, bead walls, and bioluminescent algae between communities. Kin Convoys blend family farms with mobile trade rigs, while Road Cousins wander farther afield, scavenging AI relics, ferrying encrypted bead-data, and carrying stories that never quite settle.

Their technology is inseparable from their traditions. Bead-circuits encode lineage, contracts, and permissions in luminous glasswork worn as jewelry or woven into rigs. Data-Fiddlers translate code into song and story, preserving memory through rhythm rather than archives. The Fiddle-Net hums constantly in the background—radio signals braided with musical loops—while hybrid machines roll and float alike: canoe-prowed haulers, hover-sleds, solar custard engines patched together with care and ritual.

Politically, the Kin control the movement, while others control territory. They operate along the Infinity Road, the vital trade artery linking Ed-Town, the Upper March, and Lac Ste. Anne. The Nomad Treaty of Rielwood guarantees free passage and neutral ground under Kin oversight. Ed-Town’s Reclamation Bureau tolerates this arrangement but distrusts the autonomy it requires, dismissively referring to the Kin as “Ringers of the North Loop”—a name worn by the Kin with quiet pride.

Visually and sonically, the Nomad Kin are unmistakable. Portable shelters assemble into temporary river-lot grids of steel, plexi, and glass. Road leathers are stitched with luminous bead-patterns and mirrored sashes. Prairie reels bleed into synthwave drones, and solar rigs roll past with canoe prows and infinity sigils catching the light.

The Nomad Kin endure because they connect what others try to divide: river and road, past and future, memory and motion. They are traders, guardians, and storytellers of light—keeping the wheels turning, the songs playing, and the paths open long after civilization decided to stand still.

Adventure Hooks

Highway of Saints: Protect a convoy carrying relic-chips of ancient saints to Fort Saskatchewan.

Mirror War: Rival convoys fight for control of solar mirrors capable of powering half the Capital Parkland.

The Nomad Kin embody survival through connection—between old Métis river-lot heritage and the modern nomad’s road-born resilience. They are traders, guardians, and storytellers of light and motion, keeping the wheels turning long after civilization stopped.

Lac St. Anne

No place looms larger in the memory of the Kin than Lac Ste. Anne, the Listening Lake from which so many roads, songs, and cautions flow. Long before the Upper March learned to live beneath an undying sun, the lake was a place of pilgrimage, contradiction, and consequence — a body of water that healed and harmed in equal measure, and that never stopped remembering who approached it and why. Even now, Nomad Kin treat its shores with reverence and restraint, passing down bead-coded warnings, mediated rituals, and half-remembered songs about what dwells beneath the surface and what it costs to ask for too much. The Upper March does not rule the lake, and the lake does not serve the March; instead, they exist in careful orbit around one another, bound by history, memory, and mutual caution. For those who wish to understand where the Kin’s respect for movement, restraint, and listening truly comes from, the story of Lac Ste. Anne deserves to be heard in full — and can be found below.

Dark Revelations - The Role Playing Game: Relic Roadshow #4 –Lac Ste. Anne — The Listening Lake

Writer’s Note on Cultural Respect

One final note

While Lac Ste. Anne, the Métis, and several cultural practices referenced in this piece are drawn from real-world peoples, places, and traditions; their portrayal here exists within a fictional, post-apocalyptic setting. This work is intended as speculative storytelling and worldbuilding, not as an authoritative account of history, belief, or lived experience.

Métis culture is living and diverse, best understood through the voices of Métis people themselves. Readers are encouraged to consult elders, community historians, and Métis cultural resources for authentic perspectives and teachings. Where this setting borrows symbolism or language, it does so with respect for continuity, resilience, and the importance of memory—values that deserve care when represented.

This story should be read as an invitation to curiosity, not a substitute for real knowledge.

Recommended Resources & Further Reading

For readers interested in learning more about the real histories, cultures, and living communities that inspired elements of this setting, the following resources are strongly recommended:

• Métis Nation of Alberta (MNA)
  The official representative body for Métis citizens in Alberta, offering historical context, cultural programming, and contemporary perspectives.
  https://albertametis.com
• Gabriel Dumont Institute (GDI)
  A leading Métis cultural and educational institution, with excellent publications, oral histories, and curriculum resources.
  https://gdins.org
• Métis Nation–Saskatchewan & Métis Nation of Ontario
  Helpful in understanding the regional diversity of Métis culture and governance across the homeland.
  https://metisnationsk.com
  https://metisnation.org
• Lac Ste. Anne Pilgrimage (Historical & Contemporary Accounts)
  For insight into the spiritual and historical significance of Lac Ste. Anne as a place of gathering, healing, and continuity.
  (Multiple perspectives exist; readers are encouraged to seek Métis-led and community-sourced interpretations.)
• Listening to Elders & Community Voices
  When possible, learning directly from elders, storytellers, and community educators remains the most meaningful way to understand the Métis worldview, protocols, and traditions.

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#WeirdCanada #SpeculativeFiction #IndieWorldbuilding #StAlbert #LacStAnne #TreatySix #PrairieMyth #CanadianFantasy #Alberta #PrairieGothic #Métis #RiverLotStories