Thornlands - Part 2 - Prairie Atlantis - Part 3 - Schools and the Submerged

 

S.A.I.T. (Sanctum of Applied Innovation & Technology)

Once a renowned institute of trades, technology, and applied sciences, the SAIT complex now towers above the flooded ruins of Calgary, its elevated walkways and tiered buildings spared from submersion. Known simply as “The Forge” to locals, it has become one of the last working tech-education enclaves in the region—a bastion of half-functioning machines, jury-rigged laboratories, and wisdom passed through burnt schematics and mnemonic tattoos.

The campus is surrounded by flooded debris fields and canal-pocked streets, making ground approach difficult. However, it remains highly active thanks to zip lines, drone couriers, and solar-rail lifts.’

Factions of S.A.I.T.

The Emberlings – Young Sparks of the Forge 

right-eyed and scorch-marked, the Emberlings are the next generation of makers and fighters in Prairie Atlantis. Part apprentice, part scrap-warrior, they wield wrench-axes and thermal welders with reckless pride. They form ad-hoc guilds with names like “The Socket Order” or “Boil Team 6,” and take pride in surviving mid-lecture explosions and scav runs into the TCZ.

Plot Hook: “Pipe Dreams”
An Emberling capstone project—meant to recycle sewer heat into clean energy—accidentally awakens something beneath the Red Vault. Now the party must either help contain it... or help the Emberlings convince the Tenured it counts as extra credit.

Ghost Faculty – Professors Emeritus (and Ominous)

Bound to the Forge by willpower, trauma, or unfinished lectures, the Ghost Faculty roam the quieter halls, flickering through broken terminals and forgotten labs. Some are brilliant, eager to teach again. Others are bitter, looping through toxic tenure disputes or cursing students who failed their final projects—and them.

Plot Hook: “The Midterm That Wouldn’t Die”
Students in Lecture Hall 9b haven’t emerged in two days. When the party investigates, they find the room trapped in a psychic recursion loop, with spectral faculty demanding answers to an unsolvable midterm. Worse yet, failing grades have consequences… metaphysical ones.

Gleamers – Salvagers of the Sacred Circuit

These tech cultists and code scavengers believe every working machine holds a shard of divine memory. Some are pious tinkerers loyal to the Forge, while others slip memory cores to Cybercult agents in exchange for neuro-hallucinogens or forbidden firmware. They dress in layered LEDs and hoarded circuit boards, whispering to coffee makers and worshipping the occasional operational vending machine.

Plot Hook: “Debugging the Divine”
The Gleamers have uncovered an ancient AI fragment buried beneath the old IT wing. They claim it's a "mechanical messiah"—but it keeps asking for firmware updates in languages no one remembers. The party must decide whether to help, translate, or terminate.

The Tenured – Keepers of Lost Curriculum

Ancient, respected, and mildly terrifying, the Tenured are the intellectual aristocracy of the Forge. Cloaked in scorched lab coats and ceremonial lanyards, they guard what remains of pre-Revelation knowledge with paranoid pride. Each professor governs a discipline like a fiefdom, and admission to their teachings often demands more than tuition—blood compatibility, fealty pledges, or the completion of dangerous “entrance exams” in malfunctioning labs.

Plot Hook: “Final Thesis”
A Tenured professor has died—again—and their last wish was to pass on forbidden schematics buried in the Radiotron’s memory vault. The party is chosen to deliver a mnemonic key... but a rival Tenured faction claims it was meant for them and invokes the ancient rite of Thesis Combat.

The Foundry Floor – Sparks Beneath the Forge

Beneath the Red Vault and the elevated halls of the Sanctum, the Foundry Floor blazes with kinetic purpose. The air is thick with molten ozone, shouted schematics, and the ringing cadence of metal beaten into survival. Welding sparks light the shadows of towering exo-limbs and half-built monstrosities, while apprentices race drones down grooved tracks for calibration rites. Every bench is a battlefield of innovation, where repurposed scrap becomes a lifeline, a weapon, or a transport—often all three. Overseers clad in scorched aprons and mirrored visors enforce discipline with magnet-charged hammers and a grudging respect for ambition.

Plot Hook – “Scrap Sabbath”
An experimental railgun frame went missing overnight, and now glowing footprints lead into the lowest catwalks. Someone—or something-is building its project, and it's not sticking to the curriculum.

Highline Walks – Rooftop Lifelines of the Flooded Core

Winding through the upper levels of submerged Prairie Atlantis, the Highline Walks form a web of steel-plated catwalks, garden bridges, and reinforced overpasses between the remnants of skyscrapers and institutional towers. What began as emergency evacuation routes has evolved into thriving aerial communities—complete with sniper nests, rooftop hydroponic farms, and stray cat sanctuaries guarded as fiercely as supply caches. Traders whisper that the Walks are protected by an old Angel Company blessing, and some claim that ANA herself once practiced her marksmanship on these rails, trading wisdom for shelter among rooftop sages and scaffold-born ferals. Now, the Highlines serve as both arteries of survival and high-ground battlegrounds, perched above flooded chaos.

Plot Hook – “Whiskers and Crosshairs”
A beloved Highline sniper has gone silent, and her cat sanctuary now broadcasts a distress signal in Morse via blinking LED collars. The party must trace the signal through hostile rooftops, hydraulic traps, and an enemy sniper who may be using her old perch—and old tactics—for very new goals.

The Red Vault – Heart of the Forge

Once the central administrative building of SAIT, the Red Vault has become the pulsing heart of post-Revelation innovation in Prairie Atlantis, its reinforced structure now houses a hybridized library-workshop-grid complex, buzzing with stored kinetic, solar, and arcane power. During the day, scholars, salvagers, and sapiens alike crowd its halls, exchanging blueprints and barter-pacts. At night, the building emits a steady crimson glow—an unintended side effect of excess energy cycling through the jury-rigged systems beneath. While its upper levels are filled with chalkboard blueprints, burnt-out screen terminals, and mnemonic tattoos inked onto parchment and flesh, the lowest levels remain sealed. The door to the sub-basement is marked in glowing glyphs and one ancient, very clear stencil: Uranium Curriculum – Authorized Personnel Only.

Plot Hook – “Crack the Curriculum”
A group of rogue engineers has begun experiencing vivid, identical dreams: blueprints of impossible machines, scrawled in a glowing, unknown script. All clues point to the Red Vault’s sealed basement. The party is recruited to escort a psychic key down into the heart of the Forge—but something behind that door is awake, and it remembers the Atomic Age too well.

 The Radiotron – Voice of the Ruins

Once a proud communications tower beaming civic announcements across Calgary’s skyline, the Radiotron now pulses with outlaw rhythm and static-laced wisdom. Covered in graffiti and bristling with makeshift antennae, it’s the domain of rogue tech-DJs who call themselves the Freqlords—broadcasting encrypted schematics, survival tactics, and rebellious sermons woven into bass-heavy beats. Locals tune in with salvaged receivers or psychically attuned earbuds, listening for the next drop of knowledge—or resistance. The Radiotron is more than a signal tower; it’s a lighthouse for the mind, and a war drum for those who still believe the city can dance again.

Plot Hook – “Dead Air at Dawn”
The Radiotron has gone suddenly, eerily silent. Its last broadcast ended mid-beat with a scream and a burst of binary. The party is tasked with climbing the tower, decoding the signal logs, and discovering what silenced the Freqlords before the city's scattered enclaves lose their rhythm—and their hope.

Submerged or Flooded Zones of Prairie Atlantis

Bowness – The Fract Isles

Once a riverside suburb, Bowness fractured during the Great Flood into a chain of scattered islets—now known as The Fract Isles. Twisting canals flow between rooftop peaks, half-drowned cul-de-sacs, and hastily built stilt-villages lashed together with driftwood and scavenged piping. It’s a place where oars speak louder than words. Beaver Folk navigate the waters on raft-caravans loaded with root liquor and reclaimed tech, while painted war-kayaks from rival gangs skim silently between the reeds. At the heart of it all is the Canoe Mafia—a tight-lipped flotilla syndicate controlling tolls, smuggling routes, and the lucrative paddle-for-hire trade. Every island has its secrets, and every current carries rumors downstream.

Plot Hook – “The Oath Oar”
A legendary canoe said to be carved from the last pre-Revelation cypress has resurfaced—and with it, an ancient debt tied to a forgotten blood oath between Canoe Mafia founders. Now every gang wants it, and the party’s boat just drifted into the middle of the warpath.

East Village – Slickshack Row

East Village has surrendered to the tide. Once a beacon of urban renewal, it’s now a chaotic flotilla of half-submerged condo husks, lashed-together barges, and rusted shipping containers stacked like errant dominoes. Locals call it Slickshack Row, a drifting shantytown of paddle-peddlers, bootleg traders, and synthetic fishmongers selling meat that might still twitch. Canal Muskrats—tough-as-silt survivors and former infrastructure workers—run protection rackets and taxi services. Smugglers weave neon-lit paths through the driftwood alleys while the Cult of the Neon Minnow chants to aquatic circuitry, swearing their patron swims just beneath the oily surface. Here, deals are made with a nod, a paddle, and a knife never drawn.

Plot Hook – “The Minnow’s Mouth”
A preacher of the Neon Minnow has begun broadcasting omens through a floating speaker-tangle made from stolen data towers. He claims a "flood inside the flood" is coming—and the cult is stockpiling batteries, hydrogel, and live sacrifices. The party must infiltrate Slickshack Row to uncover whether this is doomsday prep or something worse… a summoning.

Eau Claire & Prince’s Island Park – The Green Deep

Where cobbled paths once welcomed joggers and festivals lit the night, now only water and whispering roots remain. The Green Deep is a lush, half-submerged dream-bog formed atop the drowned ruins of Prince’s Island Park, where aquatic fey have taken root and twisted memory into habitat. Bioluminescent lilies bob alongside waterlogged playgrounds, while drowned trees hum lullabies that invade sleep. Acclimated hippos—semi-mystic beasts with territorial wisdom—guard sacred pools, and sapient fish trade forgotten songs for shiny offerings. The boundary between dream and water grows thin here; those who linger too long often surface with new scars… or someone else’s memories.

Plot Hook – “The Pond Remembers”
An envoy from the Strathcan Militia vanished after attempting to ally with the sapient fish of the Deep. Days later, a shimmering replica of them emerged—singing a lullaby in reverse and demanding to speak with “the original.” The party must dive into the submerged ruins to uncover what the waters honestly remember… and what they’ve become.

Fort Calgary – The Drowned Redoubt

Built at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers in 1875 to assert Dominion control over the frontier, Fort Calgary now lies submerged beneath murky waters and metaphysical tension. Known today as The Drowned Redoubt, the former outpost is locked in a ceaseless psychic loop—replaying moments of colonial clash, resistance, and uneasy diplomacy between long-faded NWMP officers and spectral emissaries of the land’s first peoples. Time eddies here: gunfire echoes with no source, ghost treaties are signed and torn up again and again, and drowned artifacts radiate emotional resonance potent enough to rupture memory. Archeo-spiritualists seek to harmonize the past through ritual re-enactment, while rogue ritualists see it as fertile ground to rewrite psychic history with blood and will. The water is thick with silt, sediment, and unresolved reckoning.

Plot Hook – “The Treaty of Bubbles”
A radical faction of ritual historians plans to conduct a binding ceremony deep within the Drowned Redoubt to “amend the original treaty in psychic law.” But something in the loop has started fighting back. The party must dive into the heart of the echoing conflict, decide which version of history they’re walking into, and whether they’ll come out of it unchanged.

Inglewood – The Shatterbank

Once one of the oldest neighborhoods in Calgary, Inglewood has become The Shatterbank—a crumbled floodplain of broken storefronts, leaning brick skeletons, and half-sunk century homes. Amid the wreckage lies a ruptured ley line node, cracked open like a geode and leaking ambient arcana into the surrounding ruins. The result is a magical contamination zone where gravity stutters, time twitches, and reality doesn’t always reload correctly. Goblin treasure divers thrive here, weaving through the eddying ley-pools in search of pre-Revelation vaults and cursed curiosities. Rival scavenger crews clash over relic claims, and strange, sentient fungus blooms in the shadows, whispering stock tips from a timeline that never happened.

Plot Hook – “Spoils of the Spiral”
A leyline distortion near Shatterbank just spat out a golden coin stamped with tomorrow’s date and a goblin sigil that doesn’t exist—yet. A powerful scavenger lord wants the party to trace the anomaly to its source and secure the node before a rival crew (or something weirder) gets there first.

Mission & Lindsay Park – The Coral Commons

Once a quiet residential stretch nestled along the Elbow River, the neighborhoods of Mission and Lindsay Park have transformed into a hallucinogenic aquatic sprawl known as The Coral Commons. Submerged condos and cul-de-sacs are now encrusted with glowing coral formations and feral biotech gardens that bloom with impossible colors and whisper in photosynthetic verse. Schools of carnivorous koi patrol the flooded alleys, drawn to movement and amplified emotion. The zone attracts exiled artists, runaway gene-sculptors, and junk cults who view the coral as divine architecture—living proof of beauty birthed from collapse. At night, the water glows like stained glass, and the line between inspiration and infection blurs dangerously.

Plot Hook – “The Canvas Bites Back”
A mutated installation artist has gone missing after declaring the coral her “final collaborator.” Her last livestream showed a koi biting into her pigment gland and vanishing into the coral galleries. The party must dive into the drowned Commons to recover her—or her art—before the Cult of Chromabloom claims it as a holy relic.

RiverWalk Pathways – The Echo Tunnels

What was once a scenic pedestrian route now lies entirely submerged beneath the murky flows of Prairie Atlantis. Known as The Echo Tunnels, this sunken web of walkways winds between collapsed bridges, flooded underpasses, and drowned art installations. But it’s not just the currents that stir—whispers drift through the water, echoes of alternate histories and futures-that-might-have-been. Reflective spirits drift among the ruins, reenacting choices never made. Fate Fugitives come here to bargain for borrowed time, and Medusa clairvoyants dive blindfolded, claiming to glimpse timelines too fragile to name. The deeper one goes, the more personal the echoes become—until the tunnel stops reflecting the past and starts mirroring you.

Plot Hook – “The Ghost in the Choice”
A renowned Fate Fugitive resurfaced, babbling about “the decision that split the sky”—then turned to stone without meeting a Medusa’s gaze. Now, clairvoyants across the city are falling into trances they can’t wake from. The party must follow the Fugitive’s path into the Echo Tunnels before the timeline they’re living in gets overwritten by something worse.

Stampede Grounds – The Sloshedome

Once the beating heart of Calgary’s festival spirit, the Stampede Grounds are now a warped coliseum of spectacle and survival. The Saddledome, half-collapsed and half-flooded, has been rechristened The Sloshedome. In this gladiatorial basin, post-apocalyptic cowpokes ride mutated nightmare beasts through knee-deep water and electro-psychic storm bursts for fame, rations, or absolution. The arena hosts "psychic rodeos," chaotic bloodsports where riders bond mentally with their mounts or suffer psychic backlash in the middle of summoned hailstorms. Between events, the submerged concourses serve as betting halls, makeshift stalls, and outlaw training grounds. Spectators chant for bucking crabs, weather wranglers, and the occasional summoned tornado with hooves.

Plot Hook – “One Last Ride”
A local legend named Gully Mae was supposed to ride the three-headed thunder-bull “Voltage Pete” in the season opener. Still, she vanished the night before with a stolen relic spurring storm activity across the city. The party is hired to either bring her back—or ride in her place before the Sloshedome declares open season.

Stephen Avenue – The Mirror Maw

Once Calgary’s bustling commercial artery, Stephen Avenue now glistens under waist-high water, its glass towers reflecting more than sunlight. Locals call it The Mirror Maw—a zone where psychic residues of ambition, greed, and collapse swirl like sediment in the flooded streets. Holographic echoes of stockbrokers and CEOs flicker along the canals, repeating pre-Revelation transactions with eerie precision. Psychic disturbances ripple through the glass facades, projecting memories that aren’t your own. Rogue archivists and knowledge divers pilot canal-boats through the district, hoping to retrieve lost data caches, intellectual property relics, or haunt-bound patents. But every transaction leaves a trace—and sometimes, the ghosts want to collect.

Plot Hook – “Hostile Takeover”
A freelance archivist broke open a sealed vault beneath a former bank and uploaded something… that’s now uploading itself. Psychic instability is spreading like a memetic contagion across the Mirror Maw. The party is hired to enter the submerged vault and “negotiate” with whatever digital ghost believes it has just acquired the whole district.

University of Calgary Zone – “The Arcanum Campus”

Overview:
An enchanted sprawl of broken lecture halls, dorm towers repurposed as arcane keeps, and leyline-charged commons. Meant initially to bring enlightenment to Prairie Atlantis, the colony from the Rock brought its regional magic, slang, and student hierarchy. Over time, they built rival Houses—not just dorms, but magical micro-factions locked in a never-ending cycle of pranks, political maneuvering, and ritual one-upmanship.

The Cracked Flask – House Alchemicide’s Chaotic Crucible

Once the University’s proud science complex, The Cracked Flask now bubbles, bangs, and belches with arcano-chemical lunacy. Claimed by House Alchemicide, this frat house of volatile brewers, potion-fighters, and fermentation theorists is infamous for its dangerous parties and academically questionable concoctions. Potion kegs roll through the halls unsupervised, beer golems burst into drunken fights with fire elementals, and every floor has its own unique ambient hazard warning. Students joke that it's always under lockdown—not because the administration says so, but because reality itself prefers it that way. A cauldron-filled lounge and bombastic ritual bar serve as both battleground and bonding site for anyone reckless enough to sip something unlabeled.

Plot Hook – “Last Call Labyrinth”
The aftermath of a legendary Alchemicide party has transformed part of the building into a looping, mutating time lab. A hungover planar anomaly still occupies the center, reliving the rager on an endless loop. Now, strange echoes of partygoers keep crawling out of closets and reciting drink recipes that haven’t been invented yet. The party must break the cycle before the loop expands—and turns campus into one endless bender across time.

The Frosted Dome – Vault of Enchanted Aesthetics

Once the elegant Nickel Galleries, the Frosted Dome now broods like a half-buried relic itself—its cracked skylights glowing faintly with containment runes and the haunting aura of suppressed expression. The interior is a museum-turned-arcane strongbox, housing cursed artwork, forgotten relics of magical history, and paintings that move too much. Sentient graffiti slithers between exhibit labels, correcting historical errors or delivering sass in glowing sigils. Curse-bound interns still tend the exhibits, mouthing silent warnings to those who dare peer too long. Most chilling is the Weeping Portrait, which sings anti-magic lullabies that unravel enchantments—and sometimes minds. Student Houses must file under-the-table favors or “borrow” credentials to enter, making every visit both illicit and unforgettable.

Plot Hook – “The Sculptor’s Wake”
One of the exhibits—Form 78B: “Ascension in Marble”—has come to life and is “correcting” reality across campus. Buildings are warping into symmetry. Students are reshaped into idealized versions of historical figures. The party must stop the living sculpture before it overwrites someone important, or one of them is chiseled into a role they never auditioned for.

The Hexchange – Bazaar of Wits and Wagers

Once the beating heart of campus student life, the Hexchange has mutated into a chaotic nexus of magical commerce and whispered obligation. Arcane lights flicker overhead as booths brim with cursed trinkets, retooled artifacts, and illicit scrolls bound in cafeteria napkin contracts. Floating chalkboards trail behind customers, recording everything from potion trades to heartbreaks converted into spell components. Presiding over it all are the Registrar Golems—ancient stone automatons carved with rune-ledgers, enforcing both decorum and debt with eerie impartiality. Beneath its stone floors, the food court has become a dueling arena and secret speakeasy where favors flow faster than mana, and every deal echoes forever.

Plot Hook – “The Founder’s Fragment”
A fragment of the university’s mythical founder’s wand has resurfaced as the top prize in a forbidden betting ring beneath the coffee shop. But rumors swirl that the wand carries more than power—it stores the founder’s memories, and maybe their will. The party must infiltrate the underground scene before a rogue house or unbound construct claims the fragment and rewrites campus history from the student union up.

House Ophidia – Sisters of the Serpent Veil

Coiled within the overgrown remnants of the old zoology wing, House Ophidia thrives in a tangle of arcane mystery, emotional alchemy, and reptilian grace. Its sorority members are masters of serpentomancy, illusion, and identity-magic—studying scales and sloughing skin with equal reverence. At the heart of their lair lies the Dorm of Skin, a sacred, steamy chamber where they ritually shed their former selves into animated husks—symbolic and sometimes disturbingly literal. Ophidians are infamous for their glamours, veiled motives, and passive-aggressive spellcraft, constantly sparring with the bombastic House Pyres in an escalating feud of fire and fang. Outsiders say you never truly meet a member of House Ophidia—only the version she wants you to see.

Plot Hook – “The Shedding Error”
One of the sorority’s illusions has gone rogue—except it’s not a glamour, it’s a discarded self made flesh. The dopple-self is acing classes, charming professors, and stealing a life the original claims as hers. The party is hired to find out if the “new her” is a threat, a blessing… or a dangerously incomplete person with ambitions of her own.

Bonus Hook – “The Bite Beneath”
A serpent familiar from the House’s inner sanctum escapes, whispering dreams of a hidden ritual called The Third Shedding. Now other students are waking with scales... and strange urges. What exactly are the Ophidians preparing for?

House Pyres – The Ember Crowned Brotherhood

Born from the still-smoking remains of the athletics center, House Pyres is a searing fusion of elemental evocation and varsity bravado. These jock-mages specialize in channeling raw firepower into athletic ritual, fielding pyroclastic prodigies in sports like Ley line Lacrosse, Rift Polo, and the occasional unsanctioned Mage-Brawl—their dorm reeks of scorched incense, brimstone protein shakes, and ego. “Fireball Fridays” are both a weekly rite and controlled hazard, where duels, parties, and spell-offs ignite across the red-lined gym floor. Most see House Pyres as hot-headed and reckless, but beneath their bravado lies deep magical discipline honed through motion, adrenaline, and perfectly timed explosions.

Plot Hook – “Coach Ignis”
After a particularly spirited Fireball Friday, a rogue fire elemental refused to return to the plane of flame. Instead, it took up residence in the remains of the gym’s sauna and began coaching. Now it’s transforming a band of underachievers into lava-laced legends—and threatening to incinerate the opposition (and referees) who get in their way. The party must intervene before Coach Ignis sets fire to campus unity… or ascends to godhood via intramural championship.

The Quad of Rites – Field of Spells and Specters

Once a quiet green lawn for campus sunbathers and protesting undergrads, the Quad of Rites has become a crackling field of ritual energy, crisscrossed with leyline anchors and half-permanent glyphs burned into the grass. Here, students duel not for pride but for scholarships, tuition waivers, or access to forbidden syllabi. Public rituals—some sanctioned, most not—flare under the watchful eye of floating familiars and semi-sentient chalk circles. Looming over it all is the ghost of Chancellor Wryndel, the last living administrator before the colony cut contact with The Rock. Now he returns each finals season with maddening riddles, arcane insight, and hexes disguised as extra credit.

Plot Hook – “The Final Curse”
A senior student vanished mid-thesis duel after receiving a whispered “hint” from Chancellor Wryndel. The Quad has since become unstable—rituals misfire, summoned familiars refuse to leave, and the air hums with unfinished test questions. The party must confront the ghost and uncover what dark syllabus he's been grading from… before the final bell tolls for them too.

Additional Plot Hooks

1. “Rush the Ritual” – A rogue mage is attempting to form a new, unregulated House using a blood oath, an old exam paper, and forbidden access to the yearbook golem.
2. “Thesis of Doom” – A senior student’s final dissertation goes rogue and gains magical sentience. It’s building a logic bomb out of rejected footnotes.
3. “Tenure or Terror” – A new professor from the Rock is promising unification, but their methods seem increasingly eldritch and authoritarian. Are they just trying to reform campus… or reboot it?

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