Terrorsaur Badlands - Part 1 - Bones of the Past

A searing, high-magic wasteland of layered canyons, wind-sculpted hoodoos, and fossil-rich cliffs, the Terrorsaur Badlands were once the world's most famous dinosaur dig site. Now, it is a portal-touched frontier haunted by Terrorsaurs—dinosaur-demon hybrids from the Hallowed World, seeping into our realm with the intent to crush civilization beneath their talons. These apex horrors are still rare… but they grow bolder each moon.

History

Part I: Real-World History of the Alberta Badlands

Prehistoric Era (~75–66 million years ago)

Once a lush, subtropical paradise 75 million years ago, this region teemed with towering redwoods, colossal ferns, and thunder-lizards that ruled the land. Nestled along the ancient shores of the Western Interior Seaway, the Badlands were the domain of prehistoric titans—Albertosaurus, Centrosaurus, Styracosaurus, and Edmontosaurus—whose battles and migrations played out across sprawling coastal plains. Over countless millennia, their bones were entombed by shifting sediments, layer upon layer pressed down by time and tectonics. Today, this fossil-rich wilderness stands as one of the world’s most excellent natural archives—a sacred graveyard of giants and a geological palimpsest where the past erupts into the present.

Glacial Retreat (~13,000–10,000 years ago)

When the last Ice Age loosened its grip, torrents of glacial meltwater tore across the land, carving deep scars into the earth. From that cataclysm were born the coulees, hoodoos, and canyons—natural cathedrals sculpted by time and water. The mighty Red Deer River became the lifeblood of the Badlands, cutting serpentine paths through stone and sediment, shaping the contours of the world we know today. As the ice withdrew and the earth exhaled warmth once more, the first peoples followed its retreat, settling among these newly revealed valleys. Here they read the stories written in stone, hunted among the ancient bones, and gave names to the spirits that lingered in the land long before memory began.

Indigenous Stewardship (~10,000 BCE – present)

Long before modern borders or written maps, the lands now known as the Badlands were home to the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksikaitsitapi), the Cree, the Assiniboine, and later the Métis. These nations have inhabited, traversed, and shaped this region for countless generations. To them, the land was never empty — it was alive, rich with spirit and story. The Badlands were not a place to conquer, but a place to listen.

Windswept hoodoos and eroded cliffs were not merely geological oddities; they were sacred places, keepers of ancestral wisdom and ceremonial power. Oral tradition passed down knowledge of the land’s rhythms, of spirits embedded in stone and sky, of paths that echoed with the presence of those who came before. Many formations in the Badlands carry names and meanings that are not captured by colonial maps, but are woven into songs, dreams, and the teachings of Elders.

Even today, these traditions endure. Sacred sites still dot the region, often unnoticed by outsiders, but deeply rooted in Indigenous identity. The ancient river valleys and stone formations hold spiritual significance, acting as both physical landmarks and symbolic thresholds between the material world and the unseen.

Any journey through the Terrorsaur Badlands is incomplete without acknowledging these truths — that this is, and has always been, a storied land. One that remembers. One that speaks, if you know how to listen.  This even applies to the pulp post-apocalyptic realities of the current era.

Colonial Expansion & Settlement (Late 1800s – 1930s)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, European settlers pushed westward into southern Alberta’s frontier, carving ranches from prairie, homesteading in coulees, and mining coal from outcroppings along river valleys. With them came rail lines, supply towns, and the hope of transforming wild land into productive country.

In 1884, a geologist named Joseph Burr Tyrrell—sent by the Geological Survey of Canada—made one of the most consequential discoveries in the Badlands: a skull of a great carnivore (later named Albertosaurus). The Royal Tyrrell Museum and Science.gc.ca findings sparked a wave of paleontological interest and fueled the development of fossil hunts, scientific expeditions, and the reputations of early Canadian dinosaur researchers. Eastern Illinois University+2Geoscience World+2

As demand for fossil specimens and coal increased, small towns blossomed—only to wither later. Ghost towns and abandoned rail sidings now pock the land. One such place, Steveville, served as a homesteader town near the Red Deer River; over time, it became notable for multiple dinosaur specimen finds from the Dinosaur Park Formation (e.g. Styracosaurus, Daspletosaurus, Corythosaurus, Struthiomimus). Wikipedia

Although the great American “Bone Wars” (between Marsh and Cope) primarily took place in the United States rather than Canada, their spirit resonated in the Canadian fossil rush, where rival collectors, secret dig sites, and fossil smuggling occasionally flared up in the Badlands hinterlands.

Rise of Paleontology (1910s–present)

The early 20th century saw Southern Alberta step firmly onto the world stage as a treasure trove of prehistoric life. A series of expeditions throughout the 1910s to 1930s—led by American and Canadian paleontologists alike—uncovered thousands of fossilized specimens from the richly layered badlands of the Red Deer River valley. This scientific gold rush helped establish Alberta as a focal point for dinosaur research.

In 1955, this legacy was formally recognized with the establishment of Dinosaur Provincial Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famed not only for its fossil beds, but for its striking badlands landscape of hoodoos, coulees, and steep canyons. Since then, over 40 different dinosaur species have been recovered from the region, many of them new to science.

This momentum culminated in the opening of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in 1985, located in Drumheller—a town that had become synonymous with dinosaur tourism and research. Named after Joseph Burr Tyrrell, the museum rapidly became a hub for global paleontological scholarship and education. Its world-class fossil collection, including articulated skeletons and rare soft-tissue specimens, has drawn scientists, educators, and enthusiasts from around the world.

Together, these institutions have elevated Alberta into a symbol of “deep time”—a term that evokes the staggering scale of Earth’s prehistoric history. Nowhere is this more palpable than among the fossil-bearing cliffs and surreal badlands terrain, where the bones of vanished giants lie just beneath the surface, waiting to tell their ancient tales.

20th Century

Following the rise of paleontology, Southern Alberta evolved into a cornerstone of Canadian agricultural and industrial productivity. Once a rugged frontier, the region was transformed by a combination of irrigation advancements, dryland farming techniques, and post-war technological development. These innovations tamed the arid prairie soils, allowing vast swathes of land to support grain farming, cattle ranching, and mixed agriculture.

The mid-20th-century discovery of oil and natural gas reserves introduced a powerful new economic driver. The oilfields of Alberta became a keystone of Canada’s energy economy, drawing investment, workers, and infrastructure. Pipelines, pumpjacks, and industrial service towns became increasingly common sights alongside grain elevators and hay bales.

Population centers flourished where railways, highways, and resource corridors intersected. Towns like Brooks, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat grew around agricultural cooperatives, transport hubs, and processing facilities, becoming essential links between rural producers and global markets. This period also marked a rise in tourism, as the prehistoric allure of places like Dinosaur Provincial Park and the Royal Tyrrell Museum attracted visitors from around the world, drawn by dinosaur bones and surreal badland formations.

However, these advances came with new challenges:

·       Climate change and increasing drought cycles began to strain water supplies, especially in irrigation-dependent zones.

·       Land use disputes escalated between agriculture, energy extraction, conservation, and expanding urban areas.

·       Indigenous land rights and reconciliation efforts brought historical injustices into sharper focus, requiring meaningful dialogue, policy change, and the restoration of traditional stewardship.

·       Pressure from resource extraction, especially fracking and open-pit mining, added further complexity to a land already shaped by thousands of years of natural and human history.

At this is point of time, Southern Alberta stands at a crossroads—a landscape where ancient past, technological future, and cultural legacy are in constant conversation. In the Hodgepocalypse, this tension becomes literal: bones rise, machines awaken, and the land remembers everything.

Part 2:  From Progress to Purgatory:

The Quiet Rise of the Hodgepocalypse

Southern Alberta’s horizon has always shimmered with ambition. In the early 21st century, rural towns found themselves increasingly connected to the digital age. Fiber lines stitched across prairie fields, connecting combine harvesters to satellites and sensors to servers. Brooks, Lethbridge, and surrounding communities welcomed agricultural automation, with drones spraying crops with precision and AI forecasting yields months in advance. At the same time, quiet investment brought server farms and data centers into the rolling badlands, the fossil-rich soils ironically feeding the world’s hunger for the future.

Underneath this surface of innovation, something else stirred.

Amid the sediment of ancient giants, a hidden research initiative—long denied in official records—established itself beneath the fossil beds. Posing as paleogeneticists, they experimented with the psychic residues of bones millions of years old. The bones began to hum—not metaphorically, but literally. Certain fossils emitted frequencies outside known spectrums. Some responded to electromagnetic pulses. A few moved.

The term “fossil resonance” was coined in a fringe academic paper that was swiftly scrubbed from university databases. Privately, however, it led to the development of necro-alchemical scanners—machines designed to detect what conventional science could not: echoes, psychic imprints, and something that might have been memory... or hunger.

Across rural Alberta, farmers began reporting oddities. At first, it was just glitches—ghost images on smart tractor HUDs, security drones chasing nonexistent heat signatures. Then came the dreams: ancient screams in forgotten languages, burning ferns, thunderous feet. Some towns chalked it up to mass hysteria or bad net connections. Others whispered of spirits that had never truly left the land.

Still, the world marched forward. Modular nuclear batteries replaced failing grids. AI-managed aquifers pulled water from bone-dry soil—carbon capture pipelines carved through ghost-laced coulees. A data center in Lethbridge briefly shut down after it began broadcasting encrypted messages in Sumerian. Staff blamed malware.

Then, one winter near Brooks, an entire fossil trench collapsed without warning. Locals reported seeing a shape—massive, scaled, and laced with lightning—emerge from the dust. It vanished as quickly as it came, leaving only cracked stone, ferromagnetic residue, and a heat signature that pulsed like a heartbeat. That was the first proto-saur.

Afterward, the Red Deer River began to run warm in spring. Trees bloomed out of season. The bones began to rattle in their stone cradles.

Across Alberta, more breaches formed—brief tears in the air like oil-slicked fabric. Strange energies leaked out, soaking the earth. Crops began mutating. Livestock refused to go near the old bone pits. Fossils started appearing in places they shouldn’t. Some towns began reporting bone-storms: flurries of calcified fragments, psychic static, and voices calling from nowhere.

In Brooks, entire buildings were retrofitted with shielding runes. Rail lines shimmered with unreal heat. Local cults and corporations vied for control of arcane tech, whispering of “leyline harvests” and “psionic yields.” Some called it "The Fossil Fever."

But nothing—nothing—could prepare them for what came next.

It wasn’t a bang. It wasn’t a flare. It was a shift—a soft, seething turn in the laws of the universe. Magic, once relegated to theory and tantrums, burst through every crevice like wildfire. Roads twisted into impossible paths. Machines spoke in riddles. Ancient spirits walked out of broken bones.

One moment, the world was measurable. The next, it was enchanted — and angry. The past clawed its way into the present. Dinosaurs, spirits, arcane storms, and dreamtime predators all roared into being. Civilization did not fall in a day, but it fractured. The modern world cracked like fossilized marrow, giving birth to the Hodgepocalypse—a realm of bones, circuits, memories, and magic.

And deep beneath the badlands, something still breathes.

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