The Capital Parkland - Part 04 - Fort Saskatchewan

“The Flocking Frontier”

Capital Parkland Suburb • Population: 1,900 humanoids, 4,000+ Thunder Sheep (on paper)

Overview:
Once a key node in pre-Hodge Alberta, Fort Saskatchewan now stands as a fortified enclave on the North Saskatchewan River—a surreal blend of industrial might, haunted history, and chaotic livestock. Though technically a suburb of Ed-Town, Fort Sask fiercely maintains its independence. What began as a police outpost and jail city has transformed into the headquarters of North America’s largest herd of magical trickster sheep—known as the Thunder Sheep.

Fort Saskatchewan balances whimsy and grim history: a place where spectral hangmen roam beside musical sheep, and where every laugh risks triggering a bleating explosion. It’s both a shrine to survival and a satire of civilization held together by song, static, and stubbornness.

The Thunder Sheep Phenomenon:

In Fort Saskatchewan, the Thundersheep aren’t just a phenomenon—they’re a civic institution, a spiritual hazard, and an unofficial mascot of defiant survival. Descended (or so the murals claim) from celestial herds once tended by dragon lords, these woolly pranksters now roam the greenways of the Fold, float above the Legacy Grounds, and occasionally loiter on courthouse rooftops to cause static. Local humans revere them with equal parts awe and exasperation—some treat them as divine omens, others as livestock with delusions of grandeur. The Shepherd-Knights maintain a tenuous truce with the flock, using music and elaborate pageantry to maintain order. At the same time, the Order of the Static Bale insists the sheep are agents of divine entropy, guiding the city through calculated chaos. Most troubling (and amusing) are the seasonal Wool Reckonings, when brave—or foolish—townsfolk try to pluck enchanted tufts of wool for luck, only to trigger increasingly elaborate prank wars that can last weeks. In Fort Sask, you don’t own Thundersheep. You negotiate with them.

Their wool is a prized commodity, used in crafting enchanted textiles and bio-reactive insulation, but harvesting it without getting zapped or outwitted is a seasonal ordeal known as the Wool Reckoning.

Key Factions:

The Shepherd-Knights of the Crook and Keytar

Clad in patchwork armor stitched from thunder wool, scrap metal, and band tour t-shirts, the Shepherd-Knights of the Crook and Keytar are Fort Saskatchewan’s most flamboyant defenders—and its most chaotic spiritual order. Equal parts warrior, bard, and sheep-whispering mystic, these knights blend divine theatrics with post-apocalyptic pragmatism. Armed with electrified crooks and enchanted keytars (yes, musical instruments), they patrol the Fold’s boundaries and mediate Thunder Sheep-related disputes through duels of sound and soul. Their rites are absurdly ceremonial invocations performed in power chords, oaths sworn to rhythm, and justice delivered via performance battle. Despite their eccentric flair, they are deadly serious about their duties: protecting the Flock, interpreting pranks as divine messages, and ensuring no sheep—or citizen—wanders too far astray. Outsiders may laugh, but when the storm rolls in and the wool crackles with prophecy, it is the Shepherd-Knights who rise first, keytar in hand and lightning in their step.

The Order of the Static Bale

In dimly lit woolhouses woven from reclaimed fence posts and electrified yarn, the Order of the Static Bale contemplates the divine spark hidden in every bleat. These woolwright-priests believe the Thundersheep are not mere animals, but living avatars of ancient wind gods—spirits of storm, luck, and chaotic enlightenment. Their scriptures are embroidered into thunder wool tapestries that hum with residual static, and their rituals involve combing the flock for omens, reading prank patterns as sacred glyphs, and preserving blessed tufts in relic jars. Members of the Order often wear elaborate robes braided with copper wire and stormcloud motifs, and many have scorch marks from their devotional misfires. They view prank wars as acts of divine teaching and believe suffering the sheep's wrath is a form of spiritual refinement. While the Shepherd-Knights act as protectors, the Static Bale act as interpreters—priests, mystics, and sometimes reluctant zookeepers to gods who poop in flowerbeds and float through windows at night.

Dhow Dominion Remnants

In the rust-choked shadows of Fort Saskatchewan’s industrial fringe, the Dhow Dominion Remnants carry on their petrochemical priesthood with oil-streaked robes and flickering safety vests. Once corporate technicians and refinery workers, they’ve become petro-cultists, interpreting faded hazard signs and maintenance logs as divine scripture left by the "Engineers of Old." Their rituals involve rhythmic chantings of refinery schedules, offering burnt plastics on cracked burner altars, and bathing in reclaimed solvents for purification. They believe the industrial complex is alive—a slumbering machine-god whose breath powers the world and whose wrath causes blackouts and mutation. Living deep within the Synthetic Sprawl, these zealots maintain scavenged control rooms, perform weekly “Pressure Rites,” and are known to anoint chosen pilgrims with motor oil. To outsiders, they’re mad—but to the Dhow Dominion, they are stewards of fire, steam, and legacy. Occasionally, they clash with the Shepherd-Knights over leyline interference or try to convert a Thundersheep… with catastrophic results.

The Shearborn

Once inmates of Fort Saskatchewan’s notorious correctional complex, the Shearborn have traded shackles for shears and found unlikely redemption in the wooly chaos of post-Hodge life. Bound by guilt, honor, or necessity, these former convicts now serve as rugged shepherds, guardians, and woolwrights—dedicated to protecting the Thunder Sheep herds from raiders, prank poachers, and predators both mundane and magical. Many still wear fragments of their old prison jumpsuits beneath layers of reinforced shepherd gear, symbolizing the life they’ve left behind and the sentence they now serve by choice. Tough, stoic, and fiercely loyal, the Shearborn operate on an unspoken code: "Protect the flock, earn your peace." Though some locals still eye them with suspicion, their tireless patrols and quiet acts of heroism have earned begrudging respect. Some say the Thunder Sheep accept them more readily than any other people—perhaps sensing kindred souls who, like them, once strayed far but now wander with purpose.

Species of Note

Cyclops

In the static-charged, wool-wrapped madness of post-Hodge Fort Saskatchewan, Cyclopes are the black-gloved wrenches behind the wonder. While humans dominate the shepherd ranks and sheep politics, it’s often Cyclopean hands that keep the thunder wagons rolling, the containment grids humming, and the wool refineries from blowing themselves to kingdom come. Drawn by the promise of power sources, ruin-tech salvage, and weird wool conductivity, Cyclopean Gearheads have turned the industrial outskirts of Fort Sask—ancient maintenance tunnels and refinery sublayers—into subterranean “Gearpits”: hybrid chop shops, crash pads, and techno-mystic shrines dedicated to the Faustian craft.  Despite their sheer size and intimidating “evil eye,” many locals view them with a strange affection—half feared, half celebrated.

Fate Fugitives

Fort Saskatchewan’s penitentiary past makes it a natural refuge—and battleground—for Fate Fugitives, especially those who broke free of both literal and metaphysical sentences. Many of the town’s Shearborn (reformed ex-cons) include Fugitives who slipped through the cracks of prophecy, death, or damnation and found purpose herding Thunder Sheep or guarding the Fold from cosmic oversight. To them, Fort Sask is more than a home—it’s a sanctuary of second chances wrapped in static.  Fort Sask is both a final stop and a starting line: a place to rebuild what fate once denied, one prank, scar, and redemption at a time.

Humans

Humans remain the backbone of Fort Saskatchewan’s population—descendants of farmers, refinery workers, jailers, and suburban survivors who refused to flee when the Hodge came crashing down. Hardened by blackouts, refinery burns, and sheep uprisings, the locals embody Alberta grit: blue-collar resolve mixed with spiritual stubbornness. The town’s human population is diverse, with significant Métis heritage and a working-class culture shaped by generations of labor in petrochemical plants and corrections facilities. Many locals trace their lineage back to prison guards, steelworkers, or those who served time and turned their lives around—making Fort Sask unusually tolerant toward outsiders and ex-cons, including Fate Fugitives, Cyclopes, and other weirdlings. While humans dominate the Shepherd-Knights, woolwright guilds, and the Flockwatcher’s Council, they’re far from insular. Shared hardship has bred a reluctant multiculturalism.

The Fold - The Rebuilt Fort

Rising atop the historic site of the North-West Mounted Police outpost and its adjoining prison, The Fold stands as a jagged fusion of penitentiary grit and post-Hodge absurdity. What was once a place of iron bars and retribution now hums with static energy and the wool-bound chaos of Thundersheep. Reimagined as both stronghold and sanctum, The Fold serves as Fort Saskatchewan’s first line of defense, a wool enchantment workshop, and the seat of the Flockwatcher’s Council—a bureaucratic oddity where humans, fey, and at least one thunderous sheep debate municipal matters with alarming efficiency. Reinforced jail cells have been repurposed as barracks, meditation pens, or static-charged holding cells for unruly rams. Lightning rods crackle overhead, while bronze murals and old inmate graffiti remind all who enter of the fort’s checkered past. Some whisper of Swift Runner’s ghost, wandering the lower levels in search of molasses and absolution. All the while, the adjacent Legacy Park & Sheep Grazing Grounds buzzes with pranks, prophecy, and electric fleece.

Plot Hook: When the ghost of Swift Runner begins appearing outside The Fold’s walls—fused with unnatural storm energy—panic spreads through the council chambers. Someone must brave the haunted prison wing and the misbehaving Thundersheep to uncover what (or who) is stirring the stormy past.

Other Important Locations:

The layout of the town is pretty unique. The whole city is split down the middle by Highway 21. The east side is primarily made up of new suburbs, big-name retail chains, a prison, and some industrial areas. The west side is mostly the older homes and original downtown, which has some great little stores and restaurants. Feels like the east side is a big city and the west side is a small town.

The Alchemoils

Once the crown jewel of Alberta’s Industrial Heartland, the Alchemoils now sprawl as a seething petro-eldritch nightmare—its smokestacks warped into writhing towers of sentient chrome and fumes. Living pipelines slither like steel serpents, refinery stacks weep molten chemicals, and bioengineered maintenance creatures stalk the fumes in search of “leaks” to plug—with flesh or otherwise. The site is half-functioning infrastructure, half techno-occult shrine, tended to by the zealous Dhow Dominion Remnants and Nucleomancers, who interpret tank pressure gauges and refinery logs as divine prophecy. Despite the madness, rare fuels, reactive alloys, and mutagenic vapors still draw desperate scavengers and opportunistic warbands to its bubbling gates.

Plot Hook: A local vehicle cult needs a canister of “Living Diesel” rumored to only gestate in the belly of a rogue refinery beast deep within the Alchemoils. Unfortunately, the refinery believes it’s pregnant—with a messiah.

The Loomhall

City Hall & Library →

Once the municipal core of Fort Saskatchewan, The Loomhall now serves as a wool-bound sanctum of law, lore, and dangerously literal bureaucracy. The old city hall chambers echo with the rhythmic clatter of loom-clerics weaving bylaws, edicts, and civic history into enchanted tapestries that line every wall. At the center of it all stands Ewegene, a sentient Thundersheep librarian whose encyclopedic memory and unpredictable zaps keep would-be vandals and misfilers in line. The adjoining Wool Archive is both a civic treasure and a mild existential threat, as some readers report being swallowed whole by unfinished footnotes or overly legalistic knitting. Here, civic duty meets metaphysical tapestry, and getting a library card might require a saving throw.

Plot Hook: A rogue ordinance stitched into an old tapestry is about to be ratified—one that would magically evict every non-sheep resident of Fort Sask. The party must race against the municipal clock to decipher ancient bylaws, survive the Loomhall bureaucracy, and outwit Ewegene’s woolly wrath.

The Penitent Hall

Once a provincial correctional facility, The Penitent Hall now stands as a half-collapsed penitential monastery looming over Fort Saskatchewan’s eastern edge. Its surviving wings are home to ex-raiders, outlaws, and repentant brutes who now walk the path of grim discipline, seeking redemption through silence, service, and sheep-herding. The ruins resonate with the wails of execution ghosts and the slow, syrupy moans of Molasses Wraiths—spectral echoes of Fort Sask’s most infamous hangings and last meals. The Hall trains its initiates in both martial rigor and spiritual atonement, but some say it also harbors relics of darker justice, locked away beneath the Last Gallows. Visitors are warned: mercy is learned here, but only after pain.

Plot Hook: A spectral uprising threatens to unravel the fragile order of the Penitent Hall, and the only way to quell it is to retrieve the cursed Last Gallows ledger hidden beneath the execution chamber. The party must brave ghostly trials, morally conflicted monks, and sticky-fingered Molasses Wraiths to restore balance—or watch the penitents fall back into wrath.

The Pulse Tower

Once a standard community hospital, the Pulse Tower now rises as a biomechanical marvel—its walls thrum with rhythmic energy, its corridors pulse with bioluminescent veins, and its structure seems to breathe with a will of its own. Psionic medics and empathic healers guide patients through both physical and mental recovery, using a blend of biotech, dream therapy, and aura surgery. However, not all treatments take—the lower wings are sealed due to outbreaks of rogue gene therapies, and infection spirits drift through abandoned wards whispering fevers into sleeping ears. Some say the morgue still catalogs its dead through twitching, sentient filing systems, while others claim the building chooses which lives to save. The Pulse Tower is both a sanctuary and a testing ground, a place where miracles and nightmares are manufactured daily.

Plot Hook: A patient infected with a psychic virus has vanished into the Pulse Tower’s dream ward—and their nightmares are bleeding into the real world. The party must brave hallucinatory wards, corrupted medtech, and psychic feedback storms to bring them back before the infection spreads beyond the tower.

Rivergate

Once a humble boat launch, Rivergate now serves as a mist-choked ferry outpost on the ever-shifting North Saskatchewan. Rafts cobbled from scrap and enchanted driftwood brave the tides under the watchful eyes of tidebound mutants—aquatic folk warped by devotion, radiation, or both. They answer to Saint Undine of the Drowned Crossing, a half-mythic water saint said to sleep beneath the riverbed, her presence marked by sudden whirlpools and voices in the fog. Rivergate is a liminal place where secrets change hands on damp piers, and passage across the water may require more than coin—it might demand memories, oaths, or offerings pulled from a dream. The fog rolls in quick, and sometimes, boats return without their pilots.

Plot Hook: A smuggling job across Rivergate is complicated when a rival crew invokes Saint Undine’s wrath with a cursed relic. Now the party must navigate an unraveling truce between mutants and spirits, or risk becoming part of the river’s next forgotten tale.

Thunderloop Spiral

Once a regional raceway for internal combustion diehards, the Thunderloop Spiral is now a sacred circuit of speed, spectacle, and barely-contained chaos. Thunder Sheep yoked to scrap-chariots thunder across the cracked asphalt alongside howling biker gangs and semi-sentient hotrods that burn more soul than fuel. The arena stands—patched with hubcaps and bleacher bones—echo with chants from betting Shepherd-Knights, rogue mechs with a taste for gambling, and crowds hungry for kinetic glory. Lightning arcs through the sky in sync with the Spiral’s pulse, and racers swear the track sometimes shifts, twisting to favor the bold or devour the slow. Victory brings fame, favors, and a blessing from the Track Seers; failure earns a roadside grave or worse—eternal laps in the ghost lane.

Plot Hook: The party must enter the Thunder Derby to earn the favor of a Shepherd-Knight sponsor, but an AI racer gone rogue believes one of them is the reincarnation of its old rival. Meanwhile, an assassination plot rides shotgun under the guise of competition, and only a well-placed shortcut—or well-timed crash—can change fate.

Woolhalla Market

Once a humble suburban plaza, Woolhalla Market is now a chaotic bazaar pulsing with neon relics, electric fleece, and the smell of ozone. Cracked pavement hosts vendor stalls made from repurposed vending machines and arcane ATM husks, each hawking wares like static-charged cheese, emotionally volatile yarn, and prank-based weapons of mild destruction. Thunder Sheep squat beneath flickering signs advertising forgotten retail holidays and mutter strange slogans in dead advertising tongues. WyrmNet pirates, rogue AI shopkeepers, and reality-TV cults compete for control of the mall’s central court, while the bravest—or most foolish—seek glory in the Blue Bag Trials, a trash-bin coliseum where dignity is optional and victory stinks. Somewhere in the shadows, animatronic mascots stir, still obeying algorithms last updated before the Hodgepocalypse.

Plot Hook:  To unlock a banned codec spell, the party must win favor from the mall’s semi-sapient food court oracle by completing a prank war against rival vendors. Meanwhile, a rogue animatronic mascot begins kidnapping patrons and wiring their minds into an endless feedback loop of loyalty points and lost memories.

Legacy and Lore Hooks:

The Ghost of Swift Runner: Said to possess sheep during storms.

The Last Executioner’s Blade: Hidden beneath the Fold—rumored to grant control over the flock.

Woolbound Prophecies: Found only in the glyph patterns left by prank-stampeding sheep. Readable only under moonlight or while wearing wool underwear.

Thunder Sheep Prank Table (d20)

Roll 1d20 when the flock gets frisky—or at random intervals, just because.

d20	Prank Description
1	A Thunder Sheep sneaks into camp and eats a character’s socks. Later, it returns them… electrified and humming with static.
2	The flock rearranges all carts, wagons, and parked vehicles into a replica of the Yin-Yang symbol. No one saw them do it.
3	Someone’s bedroll or tent is filled with freshly plucked, still-sparking wool. The static discharge ruins one electronic device.
4	A musical bleating flashmob erupts at dawn. The tune is suspiciously familiar—Eye of the Tiger in pentatonic scale.
5	A single Thunder Sheep follows a PC everywhere for the next 24 hours, mimicking their behavior like a mirror.
6	The party’s food is replaced with perfectly crafted wool replicas. The real food is hidden in increasingly elaborate puzzles nearby.
7	A PC’s weapon or tool is replaced by a plush wool facsimile. It goes “baaaa” when swung.
8	The Thunder Sheep create crop circle-like patterns in the nearest field, but with sigils from an unknown magical language.
9	The party wakes to find their faces painted with glowing runes in sheep dung. The runes slowly fade… unless you cast Identify.
10	The herd steals a key piece of gear and holds a sheep trial to determine if the PC is "worthy." All arguments must be in bleats.
11	A flock stampede occurs—but only in place. Dozens of sheep gallop at full speed without moving, creating a thunderous drumline.
12	A PC’s shadow starts lagging behind them and baaing loudly. Only visible under moonlight.
13	The Thunder Sheep rearrange all signage in town to point toward a made-up place called “Woolhalla.”
14	During a critical negotiation, a sheep loudly farts and explodes into glitter. Everyone’s eyes water.
15	A sheep hands (yes, hands) a player character a crumpled love letter. It’s addressed from “Ewe Know Who.”
16	One sheep gains a faux halo and begins performing minor miracles: turning water to oat milk, calming anger, and charging phones.
17	All of the party’s shoes have been licked clean, waxed, and braided together with wool thread overnight.
18	Thunder Sheep form a kickline and perform a surprisingly tight version of New York, New York at sundown. They demand tips.
19	A sheep swaps places with one PC’s familiar, pet, or summoned ally. No one notices until it's too late.
20	A Thunder Baa! echoes from the hills. Lightning splits the sky, and a giant, glowing, trickster sheep appears… then vanishes. Every Thunder Sheep in the area now glows faintly and refuses to explain why.

 

#Hodgepocalypse
#ThunderSheep
#PrairiePunk
#AlbertaFantasy
#CanadianPostApocalypse
#StaticWool
#Flockpunk

#apocalypse

#drevrpg

#dungeonsanddragons

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