Fairies, withces, whitelighters and expanded mermaids
I have put aside the "Wonderful Whims" to pursue something with a real sense of wonder: Spinning Plumbbobs' supernatural mods!
(I kept Carl's realism mod though, because the rain of money and happiness in the basegame kind of made magic a bit pointless, you know?)
The mods provide an overhaul and rebalancing of magic, offering new options for mermaids and introducing three other groups of supernaturals to either replace or supplement the Spellcasters. Naturally I had to try them all!
The guy in the yellowish robes in the couch is Victor Heieland, a Whitelighter. They are some kind of semi-angelic people from old TV shows I haven't seen. They can remove curses, heal, boost and train people who dabble in magic, and that they have formed a pact with. They can have several such clients, or "charges", at the same time. Their skill tree is fairly limited and has only 5 levels. Their role seems to be fairly limited. They can teleport, and their clients can call on them, teleporting them to wherever the client is. So that is handy if you get sick on a community lot or something.
The other starting character was Tuva, who became a fairy. You can see her on the left edge of the picture, with wings. Fairies can have wings, which they can turn on or off. It took me some fiddling in CAS to get it right, but a wide selection of wings come with the mod. They float instead of walking, do the backflip animations from Sims 3, and can cause plants to age up, although not to bear fruit. This is handy because the game still reset plants to seedlings when you fertilize them, or just randomly when their quality level goes up. Fairies can restore them to full maturity, while at the same time training their fairy skills. They also have a selection of other spells, mostly renamed spells from Realm of Magic (required for the mod to run) which again are often renamed effects from the science career of Get to Work. Fairies can not brew potions, but they have their own little realm in an upgraded Sylvan Glade, where there are plenty of townie fairies and a trainer.
Fairies can draw magic from one of several power sources, like nature (plants), music, electricity, water, ice, darkness or the moon. Changing your power source takes time and effort, and the choice can influence how early you get certain spells and how reliable they are. However, you can do a "convergence" with another fairy who has a different source. For some sim hours afterwards, you get the benefits of that other power source.
Fairies can not brew potions, but witches can. Witches do not have a realm of their own, so they can only do convergence with the ancestral witch, a ghost who appears in order to train them. You will have to create and play other witches in the neighborhood if you want more variations. Their spells and power soruces are the same as the fairies, something I mildly resent. I think the plant spells should be unique to fairies, while witches could have the curses, or preferably necromancy spells, which was their origin according to the lore in the mod. Yes, the mod has lore, which pops up occasionally as your supernaturals advance.
Our resident witch is none other than Liberty Lee. She came over every day anyway, often twice on the same day, so we eventually asked her to move in. She is obsessed with computer games and likes that better than magic. I can hardly fault her, given how much time I spend in front of the computer myself. Then again magic is somewhat limited in Real Life.
The woman in the swimsuit is not our resident mermaid, but rather a spellcaster from the Realm of Magic, Mona Hasegawa. Their skill set is different enough for them to be used alongside the other types. For some reason, Whitelighters can teleport to the Magic Realm, although it doesn't seem like they can do anything special there, it is just a library to them as far as I can see. But that's where he picked up this gal. The real mermaid is here:
Finally we have our resident mermaid and future Sea Witch, Yumi Yamada. She's another passerby who came by again and again, often late at night, so we eventually took her in and moved to Sulani so she could become a mermaid. And no, I did not name her yummy, she had that name when she first walked by our house in Newcrest. Now our magically diverse household lives on a small island in Sulani, off the grid, and there seems to be much fewer passersby. Thanks to the upgrade from the mod, mermaids rarely have any need to get out of the water. They can dive for kelp and fish anywhere, they can sleep in the sea, the sea is their toilet, and they still have dolphins for company. I belive mermaids could already woohoo in water, although I don't think they can give birth there, so that may be the one exception. Well, unless you have other hobbies. Or like socializing with other sims.
When you live on an island, it is natural that there's a lot of bathing. (Even though I don't ask them to.) And that means a lot of swimsuits. Be proud of your body, sims, whether you are chubby or scrawny! Luckily we are all friends here. Even though witches and fairies are traditional enemies in this mod and feel unease being around each other at first, they overcome this easily when they get to know each other, and now everyone's relationship is Good Friend, despite the challenge of Carl's difficulty mod. Of course, this may have to do with me selecting them based on how well they got along, rather than looks or money. But it probably works in real life too. I wouldn't know, since I am 95% introverted and prefer small people I can pause while writing. You can't do that with small people in Real Life.
It is amazing how much garbage you get from a household of five! Even with two freegans in the house, the containers are usually full. Luckily Mona can cast Repairio on the chairs and tables and such that Victor can't fix with his handiness skills, so they have a steady income from this and a bit of gardening. There are also all kinds of exotic fruits and ethnic foods in those containers. It is truly magical how dirty plates and glasses can become such a treasure trove! My theory is that neighbors sneak by off camera and throw their own trash in my sims containers. I know this happened with alarming regularity in my previous apartment. Even after I had no one living upstairs anymore, I still found my garbage can stuffed before emptying day. If I wanted to throw away my own trash, I had to do it earlier in the week. I did not root around for exotic foods, though!
Witches, spellcasters and fairies can all duel each other, which helps them a little bit in their magical progress. To learn new spells or perks, however, takes a longer concentrated effort for witches and fairies. I haven't tried with sea witches yet, I am not sure if they are integrated with his other mods yet. I may come back to that later, perhaps. Or perhaps I'll just flitter on to something else again. But so far I've had a decent amount of fun from these mods, even though having more than two people in the same house is a bit stressful to me.
(I kept Carl's realism mod though, because the rain of money and happiness in the basegame kind of made magic a bit pointless, you know?)
The mods provide an overhaul and rebalancing of magic, offering new options for mermaids and introducing three other groups of supernaturals to either replace or supplement the Spellcasters. Naturally I had to try them all!
The guy in the yellowish robes in the couch is Victor Heieland, a Whitelighter. They are some kind of semi-angelic people from old TV shows I haven't seen. They can remove curses, heal, boost and train people who dabble in magic, and that they have formed a pact with. They can have several such clients, or "charges", at the same time. Their skill tree is fairly limited and has only 5 levels. Their role seems to be fairly limited. They can teleport, and their clients can call on them, teleporting them to wherever the client is. So that is handy if you get sick on a community lot or something.
The other starting character was Tuva, who became a fairy. You can see her on the left edge of the picture, with wings. Fairies can have wings, which they can turn on or off. It took me some fiddling in CAS to get it right, but a wide selection of wings come with the mod. They float instead of walking, do the backflip animations from Sims 3, and can cause plants to age up, although not to bear fruit. This is handy because the game still reset plants to seedlings when you fertilize them, or just randomly when their quality level goes up. Fairies can restore them to full maturity, while at the same time training their fairy skills. They also have a selection of other spells, mostly renamed spells from Realm of Magic (required for the mod to run) which again are often renamed effects from the science career of Get to Work. Fairies can not brew potions, but they have their own little realm in an upgraded Sylvan Glade, where there are plenty of townie fairies and a trainer.
Fairies can draw magic from one of several power sources, like nature (plants), music, electricity, water, ice, darkness or the moon. Changing your power source takes time and effort, and the choice can influence how early you get certain spells and how reliable they are. However, you can do a "convergence" with another fairy who has a different source. For some sim hours afterwards, you get the benefits of that other power source.
Fairies can not brew potions, but witches can. Witches do not have a realm of their own, so they can only do convergence with the ancestral witch, a ghost who appears in order to train them. You will have to create and play other witches in the neighborhood if you want more variations. Their spells and power soruces are the same as the fairies, something I mildly resent. I think the plant spells should be unique to fairies, while witches could have the curses, or preferably necromancy spells, which was their origin according to the lore in the mod. Yes, the mod has lore, which pops up occasionally as your supernaturals advance.
Our resident witch is none other than Liberty Lee. She came over every day anyway, often twice on the same day, so we eventually asked her to move in. She is obsessed with computer games and likes that better than magic. I can hardly fault her, given how much time I spend in front of the computer myself. Then again magic is somewhat limited in Real Life.
The woman in the swimsuit is not our resident mermaid, but rather a spellcaster from the Realm of Magic, Mona Hasegawa. Their skill set is different enough for them to be used alongside the other types. For some reason, Whitelighters can teleport to the Magic Realm, although it doesn't seem like they can do anything special there, it is just a library to them as far as I can see. But that's where he picked up this gal. The real mermaid is here:
Finally we have our resident mermaid and future Sea Witch, Yumi Yamada. She's another passerby who came by again and again, often late at night, so we eventually took her in and moved to Sulani so she could become a mermaid. And no, I did not name her yummy, she had that name when she first walked by our house in Newcrest. Now our magically diverse household lives on a small island in Sulani, off the grid, and there seems to be much fewer passersby. Thanks to the upgrade from the mod, mermaids rarely have any need to get out of the water. They can dive for kelp and fish anywhere, they can sleep in the sea, the sea is their toilet, and they still have dolphins for company. I belive mermaids could already woohoo in water, although I don't think they can give birth there, so that may be the one exception. Well, unless you have other hobbies. Or like socializing with other sims.
When you live on an island, it is natural that there's a lot of bathing. (Even though I don't ask them to.) And that means a lot of swimsuits. Be proud of your body, sims, whether you are chubby or scrawny! Luckily we are all friends here. Even though witches and fairies are traditional enemies in this mod and feel unease being around each other at first, they overcome this easily when they get to know each other, and now everyone's relationship is Good Friend, despite the challenge of Carl's difficulty mod. Of course, this may have to do with me selecting them based on how well they got along, rather than looks or money. But it probably works in real life too. I wouldn't know, since I am 95% introverted and prefer small people I can pause while writing. You can't do that with small people in Real Life.
It is amazing how much garbage you get from a household of five! Even with two freegans in the house, the containers are usually full. Luckily Mona can cast Repairio on the chairs and tables and such that Victor can't fix with his handiness skills, so they have a steady income from this and a bit of gardening. There are also all kinds of exotic fruits and ethnic foods in those containers. It is truly magical how dirty plates and glasses can become such a treasure trove! My theory is that neighbors sneak by off camera and throw their own trash in my sims containers. I know this happened with alarming regularity in my previous apartment. Even after I had no one living upstairs anymore, I still found my garbage can stuffed before emptying day. If I wanted to throw away my own trash, I had to do it earlier in the week. I did not root around for exotic foods, though!
Witches, spellcasters and fairies can all duel each other, which helps them a little bit in their magical progress. To learn new spells or perks, however, takes a longer concentrated effort for witches and fairies. I haven't tried with sea witches yet, I am not sure if they are integrated with his other mods yet. I may come back to that later, perhaps. Or perhaps I'll just flitter on to something else again. But so far I've had a decent amount of fun from these mods, even though having more than two people in the same house is a bit stressful to me.