Dunne&Ias' Sims 2 Stuff

This was actually hard to pick between, because they both sound difficult to fit into the hood, and also exciting.

I'm going with the first one, I think, or a variation on it at least (I can change whatever I want because I am the creator)

The relationship between the different islands and Luna Island, the island of the werewolves have always been friendly, but distant, built upon mutual respect and suspicion. But people talk. They talk to the werewolves, they talk about the werewolves, and the idea of community and no overlords is certainly compelling for many of the poorest members of society.

And why could not the human sims live like that too, they ask themselves? Really, who said Mr Pelehan could own land in the first place? Especially land that he could not use himself?

Certainly, once the idea has been discussed around the dinner tables on Golden Island, it actually seems preposterous.

In the younger generations especially, there is soon produce a pamphlet. It's handwritten and crude and not really that persuasive, but it is enough.

A group of young men and women destroy the private ships and boats belonging to Mr Pelehan in order to show that he is vulnerable to the people. They're never caught, but taxes are raised in retaliation, and that's enough for everyone's parents to put a stop to any "foolish talk".

The pamphlets are never confiscated though. Owning one is punishable by law, and turning someone in is rewarded.

Suspicion is now an abundance on the islands.

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Projects

Looking for fish: two weeks left

School: one week left.

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The forge is done!

This is the home of the Smith family. They have a smelting/forging workshop and a small shop space where they will sell the things that they make on their land.

Melva and Ridley don't have any children yet but they are both family sims so I assume the game will take care of that right away.

They incurred a debt of 6.000 simoleons when buying their land, and hope to be able to pay that back before their children are adults. Rules are, no one with debt is allowed any savings, so if they're still in debt their kids will either all have to stay on their lot, or they won't have any options except become servants.

And that's not what a humble blacksmith wants for his children, surely.

Melva spends her days foraging and tending to the farm. She also makes Grandma's Comfort Soup and sells to passers-by.

Their duties are as follows:

Every season, they need to deliver

2 large pieces of metalworks (a stove or a tub etc) to Mr Pelehan

1 serving of soup to Mr Pelehan

10 boxes of nails to the future carpenter.

Anything else they make they can either keep, or they can sell it in their small shop.

Every season, they'll also owe

50 simoleons per adult in taxes

25 simoleons per child in taxes

250 simoleons for their plot of land in taxes

Anything else they have above 1K will be used to pay their debts.

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That's much better!

Ah, so now there are no options. One project can finish early, and I say it's disease prevention.

The project was concerned with what to do if disease started to spread on the islands. The community thought this would take quite some time, but then they heard a rumour.

It was the wife of the blacksmith Ridley Smith, Melva, who held the key to it all. Melva, you see, knew of a recipe. A recipe of a magic soup that had been handed down to her through generations. This soup could cure any ails and aches that anyone could have, and Melva would gladly make it for anyone who needed it.

The community now has an abundance of health. Good for them.

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Melva Smith is thus a family sim. She'll sell grandma's comfort soup from their home lot which will also sell the things that Ridley makes in his forge. The dies say the Smiths don't have children (yet), so I can make them and their house now, yay!

As a smith, Ridley has to deliver 2 larger items such as a tub or a stove, to Mr Pelehan every season, he may also have to deliver nails to a carpenter, but we don't have a carpenter yet. In addition, the family has to deliver one serving of comfort soup to Mr Pelehan every season.

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Medical is not a job that is unlocked at start in any of my BaCCs, but once there's been three medical emergencies (deaths, serious accidents, or miscarriages), Melva has the first right to it. She may not get promoted further than level 5 in that career because she is an uneducated peasant. Smiths are considered the same class as farmers in this community.

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Ongoing projects:

Fish: three weeks left

School: two weeks left

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Ooh, interesting choices for this card. So far, the spring cards are delivering on the fun!

The farmer and servant classes have long been kept ignorant. Education is low (I keep children at a C+ grade at the most, using Inge's school objects) and teenagers only learn their parents' skills and not much else. As a result, it's hard to better one's self and many of the poorest families feel despondent at their next generation having little to not future.

The community would like to build a village school.

What would it take? How would it be run? This is the project for this week, and it will take 3 weeks to complete and to let everyone talk it over.

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Ongoing projects:

Fish: three turns left

Disease prevention: 4 weeks left

School?: 3 weeks left.

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We only have one project and I don't want that one to fail, so...

Supplies are ruined. The supplies would've helped us stave off the disease spreading among the lifestock on Golden Island. They all die, but thankfully it does not spread to the sims.

As a result, none of the farmers can have lifestock or poultry for the first generation.

Also, because of the wolves, no one can have that on Forest Hill either. This means there's very little meat on these islands.

New project: Research what could be done to prevent spread of disease in the future, in animals as well as humans. This will take some letters to the mainland and we have to wait for their response, so I'm going to say 4 weeks.

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Ongoing projects:

Looking for fish: 5 turns left.

Disease prevention: 4 turns left.

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Summer is indeed a time for food, especially in a hood that won't be able to gather as much food in the winter as during the summer.

Food grows from the earth, but we're not going to ignore that we live on an archipelago, and are surrounded by water. So, a project is started to chart the waters around the islands to see where the best spot is for fishing. This project is going to take 6 weeks, one per island (I can't do more than 6) and will help alleviate the food scarcity.

I went with the second question. The person to leave is a woman of the highest social class.

Arienne Pelehan was a well-educated, accomplished, young woman who had grown up always first to her brother Terrence in everything but birth and their parents' importance. It was fucking annoying is what it was. An aunt had left her 10 000 but everything her parents owned went to Terrence.

But Arienne was not the type to take such insults to her own person lying down. Rather than be married off to some old duke or wealthy merchant, Arienne packed her bag one day, withdrew all her money from her bank, and got on a ship. The ship would never return, but sometimes, a letter would arrive from Arienne in far-away lands. She eventually got married, her wife a native of a southern island, and there'd been, as Terrence understood it, some children. He'd send them gifts for their birthdays when he remembered, which was rarely but enthusiastically.

Arienne and her wife became the owners of a large estate somewhere else, where they prospered in their new society and never had any intention of returning home. Their wealth far outmatched that of her brother and forebears.

-- but now I have a branch of this family I can use to introduce a new sim somewhere down the line, and isn't that just awesome?

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I'm trying out the name Arbor Harbor for the hood itself. For now. I suck at naming things after the fact, I've realized.

So, the spring section of The Quiet Year is done, and it's time for a little recap.

So far, six of the 7 islands have a name and they all more or less have a purpose in the hood. Town Center Island, Forest Hill and Golden Island are mostly undeveloped but that's because I need more information on the families themselves before I can do anything about those lots.

The map is rich in lumber, iron and silk fabrics, but still low in food, technology, outside connections and education.

Through gameplay, the following characters have been named and given rough shape:

Terrence Pelehan, a gentleman who owns all the land and thus collects taxes and tithes in the form of resources from everyone else.

Adria Ledford, his young ward.

Ridley Smith, a blacksmith and iron miner

Elizabeth McCleary, a merchant of books and rumoured (but not accused) to be a witch.

Meredith Weaver, a charismatic young girl whose family has abandoned their sheep in favour of silk worms.

Atticus the werewolf, Saga the werewolf, Philomena the werewolf and Jonathan the werewolf, the social outcasts on Luna Island.

I have 21 more sims out of the initial number to name and give purpose. If I don't use all of them up, I'll roll the die to see who gets extra family members. Obviously Meredith Weaver has parents etc.

Forest Hill has dangerous wolves and a magic, possibly cursed, well in the woods. It also has an iron mine and a logging community lot.

Pelehan Island has Pelehan Court, a residential lot

Luna Island has pack lands, a residential lot.

Sacred Isle has a temple and Sacred Grove.

Lighthouse Island is still empty

Golden Island is also still empty.

Unnamed Town Center Island has a square and some townhouses I've already decided to tear down to make them smaller.

Oh, exciting!

The old machine that is discovered seems to have come off a ship that wrecked in that recent storm. After much examination and also consulting the werewolves who know of weird things, it's determined that this machine is a weather changing machine.

Such dark magics are not allowed on these islands. Why, the farmers would want rain, but others would want sunshine for their picnic! Surely a weather machine would quickly turn into a source of strife, maybe even conflict.

Mr Pelehan does not want conflict. He does not want his people to know how to fight each other. What if they one day decide to fight him instead?

The weather machine is destroyed by carefully being taken apart, and split into seven piles. The pieces are thrown off each of the seven islands, in the deepest places, to ensure that no one may put it all together again.

The sea giveth. And the sea taketh away.

This was the last card of Spring of the Quiet Year. One quarter of the way done. Things will become more difficult from now on.

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Oh, boy, this is very well timed because the timer ran out on the project to find out if someone is a witch.

I rolled and had to get higher than 8 on a d12 for there to be a witch. I got a 7. I'm choosing to interpret that as someone is rumoured to be a witch.

The die say this person is a member of the Merchant class.

I haven't talked a lot about the merchants yet, so I thought I'd do so now.

Merchants run shops. Because they're merchant class, they don't have to make the things themselves, because they can import things. Merchants are not allowed to sell things worth more than 250 simoleons and may not sell things that could be produced by a tradesman or farmer instead.

So, the witch.

A woman walked along the beach early one morning in spring. It was a few days after a storm and the sea had not yet reclaimed the debris that had been washed up. The woman kept a keen eye on the ground because she had heard that a wealthy ship had ran aground in the storm and had hoped there might be something on the beach that she could sell. She so wished she could afford a wedding ring so she could marry her young man before the winter.

Her eye caught something glimmering in the sand. Was it gold?

It was not gold, it was a knife handle made out of cherry wood inlaid with copper. It was stuck into the belly of a fish. The woman had grown up on a farm and did not hesitate to pull the knife out. She wished she could have thrown away the dead and half-rotten fish but as she pulled on the knife, it guts spilled out.

They were full of paper scraps and they landed on the sand with the blood and the innards of the fish in a pattern that the woman immediately recognised as a skull.

The woman had heard about things like this happening before. It was a bad omen. A sign that a witch held ill-will towards the community. But who could it be? They hadn't found a witch in the forest, that was true, but maybe the witch wouldn't be a stranger?

Maybe it would be one of the townsfolk? The woman looked at all the paper. Such a strange thing to find inside a fish! She thought of... Elizabeth McCleary. Always reading, always peddling those books of hers, always writing letters to the mainland. Always so clean and proper. Knowledge was dangerous, she knew that. Maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth McCleary, the bookseller, was a witch?

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5 sims are now named, plus the four werewolves. 21 left to identify.

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I don't think I know enough about the community's younger members yet, so I went with the first one.

I rolled a die to see if this would be a new adult, or an orphan distant relative of someone, and it landed on the second option.

Another die determined that this would be a distant relative of the landed gentry and since I already know this hood will only have one member of that class, this person is now a ward of the Pelehan family. It is a child and it is a girl. According to the name generator, her name is Adria Ledford. She comes with an inheritance that will help her get married, so, good for her.

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Projects:

The silk worm project is completed. Instructions have arrived from the mainland and Meredith Weaver, the charismatic young girl, convinces her parents to get rid of all their sheep and stop making wool fabrics and instead make silk. The Weaver Family is now silk fabric producers. They must deliver five bolts of fabric and five spools of thread to the Terrence Pelehan every season but may sell the rest, or take on additional delivery contracts if someone wants to buy a bigger lot of fabric.

Is there a witch? This project has one more week left.

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So when it comes to new sims, the plan is this:

Sacred Isle is relatively complete. Some more hood deco around the beach and I have not yet decided if this island should have a residence for a High Priest/ess or if no one should live here.

This is the Temple, a place for weddings and gatherings in the fresh open air.