#vedraloga

[equinoxts2]

Abraxius Platinum, Archmage of the Pink Order, former prisoner of the Vedraloga turned second husband of Headwoman Etan, wasn’t sure he liked this new guy. Granted, he understood the cat-person eccentricity - no one became an archmage without developing a few quirks of their own, and affinity for cats was a common one - but.

The newcomer wasn’t one of Etan’s husbands, so Abraxius didn’t feel nearly as obliged to put up with him as with London. Yet something inside him kept coming back to the same thought: he could be. Anton was the sort of young man Etan would find hard to resist - for all her reputation as a fair leader, the headwoman was known to have a weakness for flattery, and nearly every bad call she’d ever made was the result of her attraction to some man or another.

He was also well aware that most of the tribe thought of him as one of Etan’s bad calls. Not without reason, either - he’d never admit it, but he was jealous, and that was hardly a done thing in Kulo Sena, especially if you happened to be an unsuitable consort to the village’s leader. So he invited Etan over while London was out hunting...

Despite all his magical gifts, all the bands of study and practice, he didn’t know much about love charms, and that out-of-love spell was only useful when the targets were already together. It looked like Abraxius would have to resort to his more mundane charms to keep his place in Etan’s court...

[equinoxts2]

Kulo Sena story posts are about to resume... at two in the morning, because I work best when no one else is up for me to complain to about building. :) I’ve played two lots (the Vedraloga and lorekeepers) and I’m about to move on to Headwoman Etan’s consorts. There are two of them, but households of less than three frustrate me, so they have a lodger (not affiliated with Etan) and I have a new face to introduce!

Long story, so ramble below the cut.

Now, I mentioned the lorekeepers: the adorkable pairing of Yoshan zan-Kim and @esotheria-sims’ Dominick Irving, who have seen a whole pile of drama since they got together. One top moment was Yoshan accidentally marrying his partner’s long-lost father Alistair after a bit too much partying... but that was annulled two seasons ago, Yoshan and Dom tied the knot a few starbands later, and everything’s fine, right?

Well. There happens to be a law in Kulo Sena that says that you can’t get together with anyone who’s ever been married to a direct ancestor (only the parent who gave birth counts as “direct” in KS though) and, since there’s never been any mention of Dom having a second parent, his and Yoshan’s match has been challenged a few times by the KS rumour mill. Luckily, the pair’s aetherling daughters - currently aged 13 - had a brilliant plan to keep their dads together...

Enter: Anton Jaye, out-of-work actor from Port Alma. He’s also totally Dominick’s brother. Prali and Alisa (the aforementioned aetherlings) sent out a message asking for someone who could provide plausible evidence that Alistair is not Dom’s carrying parent... and yeah, he has a different last name to them, and his elven lineage is more skypath elf than sylvan, and the girls were hoping for someone older to play the second parent themself... but he can mimic Alistair’s accent, and he said he’d do it for cheap, and he was willing to move down to Kulo Sena, no questions asked! And one of the few things the girls can agree on is that he’s cute, and technically the pair of them are part of Yoshan’s lineage... what do you mean, suspicious? He’s cute! [disengaging hormonal narrative mode]

[equinoxts2]

I need a plan of action for this new Kulo Seeri rebuild... I have 136 sims to recreate, not counting the sacred cats, hunting dogs and the assorted pets brought over by the Credence settlers. I don’t want to have to recreate them all and I certainly don’t want to build for them all.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been kicking around the idea of cutting back on the number of sims. I hate doing it but I feel like I need to - Story Progression didn’t quite work long-term for me, and I’m not invested in half the households’ stories. The only sims I actually feel like I want to keep are Yoshan & Dominick’s household of seven, Headwoman Etan and her eldest twins Luyisula and Tabiltamyuli, Shaman Mari and vir apprentice Vinya, those two head warlocks who randomly spawned several rebuilds ago, possibly Sophos (perennial troublemaker who’s just aged to elder) and Shazia (Yoshan’s best friend and somewhat-lapsed Vedraloga warrior) and two pairs of younger teen twins, one pair being voidling alphas and the other being demigods. That’s a total of twenty, not counting critters. I can work with that.

But I don’t like cutting sims... maybe I’m too protective of them but it feels so mean. :( Guess I’d better start before I change my mind...

[equinoxts2]

Building Kulo Seeri pt1: Vedraloga Camp

Since people seemed to be interested in my rebuild rambles, here’s the first in my series of lot-building tours from the building hood. This one is the home lot for the Vedraloga, a sisterhood of warriors devoted to the patron ancestor of battle and victory: Vedrafe zan-Ave.

This is what I have placed so far: two tents surrounded by invisible rooms, a campfire with a couple of log seats, and two archery targets from the recent set by @sunmoon-starfactory​. Let’s see how it develops from here:

Here’s a shot of the sleeping tent, with temporary floor tiles to help me work out what I can place where. Unlike the other households, there are separate beds in different corners of the lot (as opposed to in a pile in the middle) as the Vedraloga are required to swear off all that ACR nonsense. After all, marriage and parenthood were literally the death of Vedrafe.

Zooming in to that table, I place a few skill-teaching objects from sophie-david’s Opportunity Set: a mystic symbol (since the Vedraloga are as much Vedrafe’s priesthood as they are defenders of the Nuidya territory) and a crystal for teaching the Physiology life skill (since they will need that skill in combat!)

I also added an OMSP for lights, to go on the same tile as the crystal ball. With Feenwald’s Lamp Hider underneath, I can make it look like the crystal itself is emitting light at night.

Another Sun&Moon set that will be used here is the griffin set. While most Nuidya keep sacred cats, hunting dogs, and possibly - if they’re high-status clans - dragons, griffins are the companions and mounts of the Vedraloga. The order has four members at the moment, and I’m giving each of them a griffin to care for. After I took this picture, I moved them round to the side of that tent, instead of the back.

The bones of the training ground: invisible duelling dummies by @nixedsims​ and those archery targets I mentioned before. I put a converted TSM staff between the duel dummies, mostly to help me remember where they are once I turn them invisible.

I use these five objects to create little household altars. In the middle is one of Buggybooz’ niche repositoried end tables, with the late Sunni’s prayer altar painting on the first slot and a little roof thing that I think was converted from Witcher by lydiasuzanne at PBK (correct me if I’m wrong) on the second slot. On either side is a representation of a sacred animal: the dragon, ancestor of the tribe, on one side and the cat (aka Inge’s teleporter) on the other.

Entering the combination kitchen and recreation tent, there’s a variety of games for the Vedraloga to play when they’re not training: a card table, probably traded for, in the back left corner; a chess table on the other side of the room; and the one at the front is just a regular table but does have deco dice on it.

The kitchen half of the tent has a few stone counters, a pitcher for washing pots in, and a chopping board and canning pot. I also placed a cauldron stove, from @fireflowersims​ Glazed Pottery Super Set, over another Sun&Moon fire.

Round the back of the sleeping tent is where I hide all the not very KS-appropriate hacked objects I need to place on every lot. I have @lazyduchess​‘ Mod Setup flamingo, a batbox turned into the TS4 vampire urn by @shastakiss​, a Season & Weather Control vase from SimWardrobe, @midgethetree​‘s RCC, Cyjon’s debugger, @hexagonal-bipyramid​‘s Trait Randomiser, Inge’s school changer and iCad’s shower/bathtub want fulfiller thingy. Credit where it’s due :)

Now that I’ve got all the objects I need placed, time to landscape. I added a bit of scrubby terrain paint where the sims are most likely to be walking a lot, a few trees, and a bit of Voeille’s grass around the edges. I also put BOBs around the tent edges, so I don’t get sims’ feet clipping through the rocks holding the tents down.

I decided that, since I’m turning the ACR and Visitor controllers and the Sim Blender into hydrangea bushes to match the stay-things shrub, I needed an excuse to have lots of them on a lot all year round. So in Kulo Seeri they are known as everblue plants, that flower regardless of the weather or season. I’m a fantasy worldbuilder, I can make all the excuses I want for things not being seasonal.

And.. done: I’ll be turning the BOBs and training dummies invisible when I actually move sims in, but until then, have this overhead shot. :)

[equinoxts2]

We now return to Kulo Seeri!

After having to return to a backup... again... KS is back, and regular story posts wil resume from rotation 1, household 4: Zera’s family, the last one I posted about before I restored the backup. Here’s a run-down of the stuff that went on off-camera:

Lydia zan-Avira and Keru zan-Tia’s marriage is most definitely on the rocks. I don’t even know why, but Keru spent the last three iterations picking fights with everyone and their cat... this time, that includes Lydia. I wouldn’t mind but I haven’t even played these two yet...

Arafa sho-Carmela, the tribe’s elderly herbalist, started training an apprentice: Alana zan-Avira. Arafa’s granddaughter Zema also seems interested in learning the healing arts.

No fewer than four of the six Vedraloga awarriors are struggling to keep their vows of chastity. They may need to rethink that aspect of Vedraloga life!

On the last night of the Vedraloga rotation, Sparrow zan-Ace was whisked into the spirit world while watching for omens, returning pregnant.

And finally, Headwoman Etan caught her future husband, Abraxius, flirting with Zera at the village centre. She immediately bounced back with Zera’s uncle Melchol... one of Etan’s many exes, who broke tribal law by divorcing her.

[equinoxts2]

While Etan and Sparrow argue over the love note, Zera greets another “coincidental” walkby, Shazia zan-Ave. Shazia, daughter of Vedrafe (who the Vedraloga are named for) is the last of her clan, but would much rather be a Vedraloga herself than continue the zan-Ave line. She’s been conflicted over it all for moons - after all, zan-Ave is one of the core clans.

Tegan returns from her solo hunting trip with two ducks and a boar. Butchering kills is men’s work, so Tegan calls one of the better butchers in Kulo Seeri, Chase sho-Carmela, to the Vedraloga tents to pick up the critters. And... what was that I said about Sparrow attempting to break the order’s vow of no ACR?!?

Briar gives Zera a stern talking to. She wonders if Tegan is the only reliable member of her group - Zera was supposed to be the disciplined one, and she had no problem with Chase kissing her. Shazia: Please, ancestors, release me from all this core clan nonsense so I can join up! I’d have no problem with celibacy, and anyway Vedraloga life looks a lot more dramatic than motherhood...

[equinoxts2]

Time to start posting Kulo Seeri gameplay! I started my first official rotation in the Vedraloga household. Just to recap on my worldbuilder rambling posts, the Vedraloga (”followers of Vedrafe”) are a warrior sisterhood devoted to Vedrafe zan-Ave, Nuidya patron ancestor of battle and victory. Since Vedrafe died as a result of marriage and parenthood, her devotees are the only Nuidya who are absolutely required to steer clear of men and all that ACR business.

Briar zan-Tia (second from left) is the leader of the Vedraloga - a role that is somewhere between “high priestess” and “commanding officer”. She returned to Kulo Seeri after spending a few years away, and now holds the responsibility of keeping the three younger members in line. Headwoman Etan looks to her to protect the Nuidya territory.

Sparrow zan-Ace (second from right) is the second most senior member of the group, though still rather stubborn and childish. No one is quite sure why she joined up - she’s not the most reliable sim, and it’s common knowledge that she has a crush on the headwoman - but there’s no denying she’s useful to have around when a raiding party is spotted.

Tegan sho-Ace (left) is one of three voidlings - the Seeriverse high-fantasy equivalent of alien offspring - born to Sparrow’s brother’s boyfriend Calvin before his death, and also one of the few sims her “aunt” Sparrow gets along with. Of all the Vedraloga, she’s easily the best with a bow and probably the least socially awkward too.

Zera sho-Ku (right) is the youngest of the four, and the newest recruit - but has taken to the Vedraloga life better than any of the others, except maybe Briar herself. She has a lot of self-discipline and determination, and unlike Tegan, didn’t join up solely to escape the stigma that surrounds mpreg offspring.

They had a pretty eventful day - can’t wait to share it!

[equinoxts2]

Sparrow is midway though cleaning the camp when she spots her older brother Caleb, one of the village elders, walking past. She goes to greet him, but he turns down a friendly hug and is not at all impressed by her boasting. As a Vedraloga, his baby sister isn’t even supposed to be sending love notes to the headwoman! Then...

Caleb: “Hello, Etan!” Sparrow: “You really think I’m going to fall for...” ...... Sparrow: “Oh. Hello, Etan...”

[equinoxts2]

It doesn’t take Sparrow long to figure out that she has the place to herself. Excited at the thought of some alone time with Headwoman Etan, she heads to the kitchen tent to compose a note asking her to come over.

Etan, however, doesn’t seem remotely interested in helping a troublesome Vedraloga break her vow of chastity. Guess it’s time for Sparrow to start in on that cleaning duty?

[equinoxts2]

Briar is barely out of bed when she finds herself dealing with tentmate drama. Sparrow, who she shares her sleeping tent with, starts insulting her  - a fairly standard Sparrow thing to so, but this time she seems to be challenging Briar’s leadership of the Vedraloga.

Well, if Briar stood for this kind of disrespect, she wouldn’t be leader for long. She informs Sparrow that she’s on cleaning duty today, and won’t be going out hunting with Tegan, before heading off on the morning patrol with Zera.

“I’m sorry,” Tegan whispers to Sparrow, but as she grabs a spear and heads for the forest, she’s wishing her “aunt” was at least a little less hot-headed.

[equinoxts2]

Previously on Kulo Seeri, Melchol gave birth to twin voidlings, revealed that the vengeful Beguiler had a mole in the village and died. His grave will be moved to the burial grounds next rotation - in KS, you don’t anger a spirit by turfing it out of its home straight away!

The rest of the rotation passed uneventfully, but here are some highlights of the last couple of days:

Immediately after Melchol’s death, ACR kicked back in with a first kiss between Zyulo and Wild Kiss. Is Sophos crying for his brother, or is it because his love interest has just got romantic with someone else?

The twins had to be adopted out, since there are only three nursing mothers in KS. Since one is Melchol’s ex and another is a Vedraloga, Lark zan-Ace was the only choice. She came by with her brother Caleb to take the babies back to her tents.

A litter of skuncoons are on the way...

...and Melchol is not taking kindly to the fact that the kitchen has become a mess in his absence.

[equinoxts2]

Sim advice needed

I think I’ve accepted that I will never have another TS2 hood besides Kulo Seeri. I’d have to keep them all in separate Sims 2 folders to minimise purple soup, but I hate having to update mods in more than one cut! Believe me, I’ve tried... and no matter what else I set up, I always feel dissatisfied with it and come straight back to KS. Especially since I also despise building with a fiery burning passion.

This means I will have to scratch most of the ideas I had off my TS2 bucket list, and that I’ll probably never use any of the hundreds of gigabytes of non-KS-appropriate CC on my external hard drives, so it’s a little bit of a depressing revelation. It means I’ll never actually play any of the following: - that Elephant Sea uberhood I keep wanting to do - Turnstone, the haven for misfit supernaturals I planned out last year - my Plants vs. Zombies 2 inspired 15-gen legacy idea with each generation named after one of the mint families - or even the mining subhood I was planning to attach to KS in this iteration.

Worst part? Kulo Seeri itself sort of feels like it lacks purpose at times. I mean, it’s my escapism and my comfort blanket, but at least I had a goal fifteen years ago when it was a third-rate alphabet legacy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t actually want to play to a challenge ruleset - escapism and bookkeeping are polar opposites for me - but most of the time, when I go into the next household in my rotation, I’m like “what do I even do with this bunch?!”

Gameplay becomes a little repetitive. My sims don’t farm, have careers or businesses, or even use that many of the Sun&Moon manufacturing stations. Very few of them actually have a role - just the headwoman, shaman, loreleepers and Vedraloga - and not much distinguishes those households either. I’ve added ACR and other romance mods back to my game, and I’m sort of regretting that decision because I already have four pregnancies in KS and I’m only on household 3. My sims look like they’re wearing uniforms - I wish I had a more varied and colourful clothing selection, but I couldn’t mesh or texture my way out of a paper bag, and most of what’s available for tribalish settings turns my aroace stomach.

I think I need a little more time for soul-searching. I want to play, but I can’t focus because of all this. Half my mods were added in anticipation of having a subhood that does actually trade and farm and stuff, and now that’s rendered useless by purple soup, and I have too many conflicts again and it’s frustrating me. But I refuse to redo anything while I’m still testing positive.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading! Any advice is appreciated :)

[equinoxts2]

Pup’s son Vitena didn’t seem to appreciate his dad’s ACR shenanigans with Zera. He knew he was wasting his time confronting Zera about the whole thing - however marginal the zan-Ku family’s status as a Nuidya clan might be, Zera was still a matriarch and Vitena hadn’t been a man much longer than Zyulo. That said, he wasn’t sure he wanted to put up with a scatterbrained ex-Vedraloga as a stepmother.

Zera: Come on, Vitena - it’s not like we were planning on starting a family or anything!

Vitena: Sure, *cough* tree-chopper.

[equinoxts2]

Kulo Seeri is semi-playable!

One thing that works really well for this chronic buildophobe during rebuilds: build the first three homes, some essential community lots, then make the  families for those first three homes and start playing. After that, it’s a routine of build - create - move in - play, so at least I’m getting some game time in during that first rotation.

My game also has a tradition of throwing me a curveball (which, as some of my simblr friends know, I refer to as an “incidental penguin”) during the early rotations. Usually, this involves me forgetting to block NPCs with the Visitor Controller - and this time is no different.

This garden club lady, with the name Wild Kiss (yes, I use a quirky name mod because NPCs rarely spawn in KS) and an uncanny resemblance to a young Serendipity zan-Carmela, wandered onto the first lot I opened. Atana is curious about the newcomer, while his foster mother Tetali is more concerned about getting him back to the walking lesson.

I feel like making her playable. The rebuild before last, KS took in two head warlocks who have been causing major Drama ever since. The last iteration gave me a firefighter who joined the Vedraloga - I correctly predicted that her first trait would be Evil. At least with Credence in the mix I have an explanation for where these strangers might have arrived from. (Note to self though: change her name before tumblr starts zapping my individual sim tags...)

[equinoxts2]

Story posts are back, yay! Picking up from here... 

Talking to Hudana, as Yoshan had expected, didn’t make everything clear. He’d just told the lorekeeper, in no uncertain terms, that there was “no point wasting time spreading gossip” and then walked off. A little suspicious, Yoshan thought.

The excitement of newly recruited Vedraloga, Vinya, was also slightly worrying. Not yet through the rites of womanhood, Vinya was practically buzzing like a whole swarm of bees about the prospect of bringing a traitor to justice - maybe not surprising, given that the tribe hadn’t had a major threat to deal with since that battle against zombies generations ago. Yoshan’s grandfather Shansam, who had died during the harvest season, had been the last veteran of the warband that drove them off. He hoped the intensity of the Beguiler’s threat would sink in for the young girl soon.

Even making casual remarks about his daughters’ growing talent for crafting things was starting to feel unnatural. Something had to be done before the entire village tore itself apart looking for the spy - and there was only one place Yoshan thought to look.

[equinoxts2]

Introducing the first household of Rotation 4! I’ll be posting a recap at the start of each household’s play, since one-day rotations don’t give much time for readers to get involved in what’s going on. I may change my rotation length after R4. But this rotation, it’ll be a summary of what’s happened in the unblogged rotations and a bit of last iteration of the hood.

So without any further ado, Previously on Kulo Seeri...

- Shazia zan-Ave (top pic) joined the warrior-nun order of the Vedraloga, swearing off ACR and leaving her only living relative (cousin Tetali) as zan-Ave matriarch, not that there was anyone else in the clan for Tetali to be matriarch of.

- A powerful mage named Abraxius Platinum managed to slip into Nuidya territory undetected and curse the burial grounds. He was taken prisoner by the Vedraloga, but managed to escape by schmoozing Shazia while she was on night watch. By sunrise, she’d broken the no-ACR vow - though Abraxius was quickly recaptured.

- A couple of quartermoons later, Shazia found out she was pregnant... and was suspended from the Vedraloga (not kicked out, as they need as many members as possible with a vengeful deity having recently escaped the Void) until the baby was weaned. She moved back in with Tetali, Tetali’s cousin Demetrius, their arkal (servant) Lark and Lark’s two sons, teenage Akali (bottom left pic) and toddler Ribuvam.

- It was quite crowded enough in Tetali’s home without a baby, so when Atana (bottom right pic) was born, Shazia moved out with him to one of the extra lots I placed. Akali was sent with her, both to help out with Atana and to make a little more space. Akali, however, is not particularly fond of children...