jonnyparable

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I've not played much in Selvadorada at all or used the Jungle Adventure pack features, mainly because I was worried it would be an underwhelming and buggy immersion breaking mess, but decided to try it out, in my Dragon Isles save file.

Welcome to Bandayang, ancient capital of the Pranajaya civilization. What's left of it anyway. Like I said, I just really like the stupa ruins from For Rent and they make so much sense here, they look so haunting and majestic in the jungle. The little outpost village is just so peaceful and chill, even unmodded, it is one of the nicer worlds on my opinion.

I created a bunch of locals for the area and didn't expect so many of them to show up in the market square, peddling wares and interacting happily with each other, which is a nice surprise. It does give the place a sense of community, and as a visitor, you do feel like you're an outsider in a small tight knit community. Just for fun I also added in some more Euro-esque archaeologists and academics and it's cute to see them wandering around and even selling supplies/artifacts.

The ambience of the jungle once I started getting into the ruins in general is just really well done too, and this is honestly the most fun and immersion I've had in the Sims 4. The way the stupas sit nicely over the portals really makes travelling through the portals look like entering a ruin and of course, I love that. The jungle is really pretty and even without any extra decor from me, the ruins look great, I actually feel kinda bad for customizing it since I do feel that alot of attention and care did go into their design, but alas .

I do like that the Omiscan ruins is based on Mesoamerica, but for the sake of this save file, I gave the ruins a slight Southeast Asian flavour, with the Pranajaya based loosely on the Srivijaya. My favorite lot is the royal baths, which I didn't expect to be a lot at all, let alone an editable one. It reminds me of some world building concept art I did years ago of a flooded ruin for a novel I never ended up writing. But anyway thanks for reading all that, happy holidays everyone!

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The Dragon Temple

I generally like my lots to have a function, and this lot, while labelled as a National Park, serves as the historical site, and a spiritual center for the islanders.

The temple has a For Rent spirit house for making offerings, as well as market stalls, and also serves as a lot to facilitate some festivals. I really love these big stupa ruins that came with For Rent and was happy to discover that they have a very small footprint, making them perfect for placing in lots and to not have them completely block everything. Hidden within the temple as well is a public toilet, so this lot deftly takes care of most sim needs.

By using some walls to make a room within the temple itself, you can make the building "enterable" by blocking off the areas you don't want sims to clip through, funneling them to the entrance. This room isn't closed off with any door or arch, as that would cover the entire stupa in interior lighting. Although that can easily be worked around, I just left the room open. The black void is just a kind of screen that sims can pass through, meaning the interiors can be dressed up any which way.

You can put anything inside really, I dressed it up in stone and hid a scaled down wishing well in front of a dragon statue, fitting for the Dragon Isles. The well is usable, and perfect for giving my sims a reason to visit lots outside of their homes. Its great cos the wishing well that came with Romantic Gardens is so European, but comes with some very fun Sims 2-esque gameplay which I never used.

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The Lotus Festival

Testing out an idea I had to use TOOL mod to place some Kinara candles in the off-lot shallows of The Dragon Isles (Sulani), which are part of a holiday custom for the Lotus Festival, as well as other holidays like the Ghost Festival. These areas are a beach in the main island, and the tidepool area on the smaller island.

I'm happy to report that the candles are usable, and this also has the added advantage of giving the lotus pond I created some use. The candles are hidden within a scaled up lotus lamp from City Living, and placed on tables, which are moved out onto the traversable shallow water areas using TOOL mod.

I must say, it's very pretty and certainly does encourage me to think more creatively about how to use the holiday traditions in different cultural settings. Not sure if anyone's done this already but here's hoping this was useful.

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Naga Islands

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Another Misty Valley Post

There's definitely potential for a story here. This town is filled with kooky and shifty cluedo-esque characters and NPCs, from monks to courtesans, poets, scholars, and aristocrats. Every time they interact, it always seems to me like they're up to something.

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Snowy Valley

Up to my tits in mods with this world.

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Autumn in the Valley

Gotta say, Misty Valley looks great in autumn. Right now this world exists on its own, and don't hold me to it, but I do feel like expanding this world to include other cities in the same file. Like maybe a Tibetan one where an empty Komorebi is and an Imperial Capital city in Newcrest, thanks of course to Blowtorch and The latest Mud Roads mod.

Here you can see one townie walking around, along Da Suan Lu (Garlic Street), where the shops in town are located. I mean there's only 5 lots are we really calling this a street lol.

Anyway if anyone is interested, with TOOL mod, I thought the big hole in the rock where the town's only water source comes out could use a little bit more whimsy, so I stuck a scaled up statue's face in it and called it a day.

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The Poet's House

Still loving how Forgotten Hollow looks in my game! The Poet's House, in Misty Valley, is where Gong Lu Ru, noted poet lives with his wife, Ru Yin, in their old courtyard house. The story is that he's hit a depressive slump of late, and has not been writing any new poems and ballads for some time now, and living solely off royalties. This is rumoured to be due to some unknown tragedy (spoiler, its vampires), and the estate is slowly falling apart.

They are served by the one maid, Yi Rong, the only one who stayed behind while the rest of the staff left when the money started drying up. The work of a maid in pre-industrial Misty Valley is never done, and Yi Rong is in charge of cooking, cleaning, maintaining the house as well as the upkeep of the small farmyard at the back.

Also, I don't know who needs to see this but I discovered that you can hide the mixer that comes with Home Chef Hustle in the mortar and pestle from For Rent. Scaled up the mortar twice, and shrunk down the mixer, and voila, when the food is being mixed, it sits spinning nicely inside the bowl, as if by design!

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Seawitch's Lair

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Summer at the Vineyard

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The Sprites

Trying out the new Expanded Plantsim mod by Spinning Plumbob, the same creator behind the fairies and expanded mermaid mods. The mod is truly incredible, and even comes with Satyrs, and feels very much like it is just part of the game. Anyway some followers of Cottage Hills might remember the Four Sprites and here they are again albeit in TS4 form. Each of them represents a season and they live under a big ol' tree in a series of underground chambers.

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C-Drama Shenanigans

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Rain in Misty Valley

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Evening at the Hollyhock Inn

Loving these Makin' Magic townies. Yes, that is Mara the Fae Queen (iykyk)

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Koh Sapa Remade

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Morensong Remade