City of Bones

Parts of the ghastly city of bones long-buried beneath the sands on … have been carefully excavated by the … team.

The city appears to have been built by a primitive alien society millions of years ago, on a continental stretch of desert. The lack of other building materials in a waterless desert likely contributed to this long-lost society's use of bones in construction... though what manner of creature the bones came from remains unknown.

A targeted excavation has revealed neither a complete skeleton belonging to the species from whose bones the timeworn city was built, nor any examples of similar fossils from beyond the city. The question of where the lost civilization on … obtained the bones they used to build their macabre city remains.

Our researchers have begun to hypothesize that the bones may have been taken from a symbiotic or livestock species, kept only in the city's proximity. Further study should reveal more.

Our scientists have at last unraveled the origins of the bones used to create the macabre city on the sandy dunes of …. Recent findings have proven the bones belong to a long-extinct species of reptile native to the planet -- a species which developed a rare genetic disease, causing explosive organ growth and soft-tissue ossification.

The lost civilization on … appears to have noted the spread of this disease and then exploited it, selectively breeding the affected reptiles in order to cultivate a steady supply of building materials on the sandy, desolate wastes they called home.