#lylanir

Since I haven’t let the town actually run yet, the festival grounds (the open area with the haystacks on it) aren’t set up yet, so I’m not sure what they’re going to end up looking like. But on the right side of the pic, there’s the city hall rabbithole and on the left are some shops, a tavern, and a residence.

In the forefront, a couple of residences. The tent structure in the back serves as a stadium rabbithole. Originally, the Dragon Valley school rabbithole was there but A) I don’t want a school in this world because, if nothing else, travel times are too long and B) the DV school is huge and its architecture is very elvish-looking, which is nice and all, but it just doesn’t fit in with this place. So, a “stadium” it is. I wish it was a little smaller, but we’ll deal. If the residents want their kids to be schooled outside of their homes, they can be sent to the playable, non-rabbithole monastery-sponsored boarding school that I’m going to set up. That was a more common strategy (for those who could afford it!) in the real middle ages anyway.

On the left, an apartment block with areas downstairs that could be used for shops and whatnot. On the right, the same tavern you can see in one of the pics above.

Right now, I’m just working in Edit Town mode. I’ve moved in a placeholder Sim (who will be annihilated when I start adding the real population; I love that you can do that in TS3) so that I can let the world run a bit so that it generates service Sims. Currently, I’m deleting some rabbitholes I don’t want and adding some that I do. Also, some lots for some of the Ambitions functions. Like, do not want school but do want stadium, police, and military, so I’ve deleted/put those down. 

Also do want:

A spa. Partly rabbithole, partly playable. I want it to be a hot springs. Gonna use one of the world’s empty 64x64 lots for it, I think. Maybe a little smaller, but still a big lot. The DV spa rabbithole is pretty elvish-looking, so I might use a rug instead...or I might decide elvish-looking is OK for a spa. Mostly, I just want it to be pretty and relaxing.

A junkyard. I wish there were more period-appropriate junk piles, but I’ll make do with the “normal” ones. I also want to look at the “Inventing Overhaul” mod I have. I think I remember that you can replace the inventable objects with other things. I’d like some more slightly-advanced but closer to period-appropriate things than the advanced tech that mod uses. Like, inventing telescopes, for instance. Not sure I’ll be able to do that because I have zero TS3-modding skills, and if I can’t, I’ll settle for them inventing anachronistic stuff, mostly because I just love inventor Sims and the blacksmith’s house in the village is already furnished with an inventing station.

Business, criminal, theater, and science rabbitholes.

An art gallery that’s really more of a studio, with easels and sculpting stations and that Store glass-blowing/jewelry-making thing. maybe the toy-making thing from the Store and stuff like that. I’m going back and forth as to whether this stuff should be part of a residential home for a Da Vinci-like Sim or if it should be a community lot so that everyone of an artistic bent can use the stuff. I’m currently leaning more toward the latter.

A non-rabbithole, playable boarding school for the less-agrarian kids. Not sure what I need to do in TS3 to make that work. Need to do some reading/thinking about it.

Something for vampires, but definitely not a typical “Vampire Lounge.” I’m thinking....Well, the town has a monastery. It has a big, explorable, and very gothy tomb under it. Kinda thinking the “brothers” will all be vampires.

Maybe want:

A hospital rabbithole. I can’t decide if I want the medical careers (including custom ones I have, like nursing) in this world. I know I won’t be sending people there to birth babies -- mostly because of travel time -- so otherwise its only function would be careers, so....I don’t know. The world’s alchemy-heavy, and I have some custom elixirs for curing illness and such, so maybe a hospital is unnecessary.

A salon. Makeovers might be nice. A super-gay medieval stylist would be hilarious. Tattoos...maybe. In the real world, tattooing goes back to at least ancient Egypt, but I’d need to download some more appropriate designs than what the game comes with. I’m not sure this is important enough to me to go to that effort.

Wish I could have: A fire station. But that requires the fire truck and that’s pushing anachronism tolerance waaaaaay beyond my threshold. :)

Then, I need to go into all the prebuilt lots and edit them as needed. Like, I know because I looked that some of them have all modern kitchen appliances. Do not want.

Once all that’s done, all the service Sims ought to have been generated. So the next step will be making them over so they look right. Because they generate like this:

Yeah, that’s not gonna work. *laugh* But, I’ll only need to change hairs and everyday outfits, so it shouldn’t take long. What will take a long time will be making the playables, given the CAS lag I have. Which hopefully won’t be as bad since this Mods folder will be much lighter on the hair than my “normal” folder...

So, some ideas about this place’s environment and culture and all that:

Its climate will be temperate with all four seasons but on the cooler side. Longer autumn/winter/spring, shorter summer. Mostly to make farming a little harder. Lifespans will be longer to match because I like to take my time with things. Horses, of course, will be integral to this world.

Traveling won’t be allowed, so it’ll be an isolated culture with no one immigrating or emigrating once I’ve got the population set. UNLESS I decide to “network” in one or two other historical worlds of a similar era using the Traveler mod. I don’t know that I’m up for setting up more than this world, though. *laugh*

I’ve been putting in some thought about this place’s culture and while I don’t have much figured out yet, I DO know that this place is definitely going to be fantasy with only a medieval-esque veneer. But I also want it to have an unusual culture, not an LOTR-like sort of epic fantasy. This means it’s going to diverge a lot from the real Middle Ages, and I’m not gonna care. Given that, I’ve decided to go all out on some fantasy things.

Like, I’m going to use the dragons that came with Dragon Valley. I’m not quite sure how yet. I might limit them to supernatural Sims having them, maybe only one kind of supernatural having them. Maybe as a sort of witch familiar? Not that I don’t want witches to have cats, of course! *laugh* Maybe dragons can be fairy companions...

That said, obviously supernaturals will be integral here. :) But there won’t be superstition or stigma about them. No witch trials/burnings or anything like that. They’ll just be...people. Well, OK, if I do a feral werewolf colony, they’ll probably be feared, but otherwise? People will be cool with the supernatural, even embracing them and seeking to become one, i.e., those monastic vampires. Even though the vampires are probably gonna kill people. For population control, if nothing else.

For the supernaturals....I’ve downloaded a bunch of skin color ramps, I think they’re called. The things with ranges of unnatural colors on one slider. I’ve never used them. I think I’m going to use them for at least some of the supernaturals, designating a color family for each type of supernatural. I also have a mess of unnatural hair color presets, and I’ll do unnatural eye colors, too. I want to do this partly because I think it’ll be visually interesting and very different from what I’ve done in all my Simming before, but mostly because I’m curious to see how the Advanced Genetics that are part of NRAAS’s Story Progression (as well as a mod I have that blends parental hair colors) will handle such things. I’m hoping for some interesting results, especially with supernatural hybrids. 

Speaking of witch burnings...Religion. If there is one at all in this world, I’m definitely not doing anything from the real-world West. Probably won’t even do anything like the Sims Medieval style of religion. I’m not sure if the “monastery” will be related to religion at all, in fact. Currently, I’m leaning toward it being the vampires themselves who are worshipped by everyone else or at least by all the humans. Like, people could send them sacrifices to be drained in exchange for...something. :) I have no idea what right now. But I’m toying with a “backstory” about vampires that they are perhaps technologically advanced and not even former humans. Maybe they’re aliens, maybe they’re time travelers. Maybe they’re stranded in Lylanir, maybe they came deliberately as observers or something. Mostly, I’m thinking this because I want to be able to use the science station to make forbidden fruit seeds because I want to use Plantsims. *laugh* I can utilize that big-ass tomb under the monastery to hide some more advanced tech. 

But one cultural thing that I am certain of: It’s going to be an egalitarian society. None of this female oppression bullshit. I don’t want it to be female-dominated, either, but just....equal. So, women don’t have to be married and push out a dozen babies if they don’t want to. And they can wear comfortable, practical clothing, including pants. And they don’t have to cover their hair. And they can be badass warriors if they want to be. All that stuff. 

A bit of culture I’ve invented, following on from women not having to cover their hair, is that women above child-age will wear braided hairstyles, and the more elaborate the braiding, the higher the status she has. Because only those with status would have time to sit for hours and braid (or have someone else braid) their hair. I’ve downloaded a bunch of elaborately-braided hairstyles, and I’m looking forward to using them. 

And I want to think of something similar for men, but I’m having a hard time coming up with something. I’d be fine with complex braids for them, too, but alas such hairstyles don’t seem to exist for males. At least, not very many of them. Maybe tattoos, if I make them more expensive than the game charges for them? If that, then I need to move a salon up to the “Do Want” list.