Week Five: Castles in the Ayre

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This week was an exciting turning point in building Ayre.  I have finally downloaded enough build and buy items, and wrapped my mind around building in the middle ages style, enough that building started going a little quicker and easier.  It’s looking feasible that I may be able to begin the first round for the challenge by the last week of November.  During the work week the only thing I accomplished was making the Wise family, but today I built three lots and created a family.

Here’s the Wise family.  They are the peasants who grow and dry the hay, and their name comes from the tradition that their family passes down the knowledge and practice of midwifery, and also serves as a leader among the followers of the Goddess.

(Left to Right) Marigold Wise, Ella Wise; Gertrude Wise, Mildred Wise, Haylan and Bentley Wise.

Ella and Gertrude are sisters-in-law.  Their husbands, who were brothers, were both killed in the recent war.  Mildred, in the blue grey, is a popularity Pisces, and she is the midwife.  I chose her to be the midwife because the Pisces personality is the most nurturing.  Ella is a romance sim, Marigold is a quiet pleasure sim, and her cousin, Gertie, is a Leo fortune sim.  Mildred’s twin sons have different personalities, with Haylan being a Virgo and Bentley being a Cancer.

Baul and Haelen Wise were actually killed by meteorites, default replacement satellites.

Here’s the CAS picture including Baul and Haelen.  I also aged Mildred to Elder after Baul died.

I really liked them and it was really hard to go ahead with killing them off, but the family was randomly rolled not to include them, and  I had created them and used their genetics with their wives to create the children.  I wanted the family tree to be a little more complete and the kids to have memories of their fathers.

Poor Haylan having a bit of a fit during the wake.  I left the Wise family at dawn, with $5 ready to start the challenge.

It was nice to get the Town Green built so that as I set up families they can go get the water they need.  When I set the Wise family up, they kept having fits over low hygiene.  They can collect only one bucket of water from their roof every four hours, so it wasn’t enough for anyone to get a bath.

Here’s Gertie meeting Hadley Gothard at the community well first thing in the morning (testing the invisible seating at the well and getting photos).

The town green only has a well, single swing, and invisible soccer net, but it is also a holy place for followers of the Goddess.  Water is important to followers of the Goddess; a lot of the holy sites are at springs, streams, or lakes, so It made sense to me that going there, gathering water, and chatting with other followers of the Goddess there would boost faith and zeal.    Community lots can be set to be holy places using Almighty Hat’s religion mod.

I like the way the Wise home opens onto the Town Green

I also re-did the ruined church of the Allfather, since I had found ruins pieces converted from Oblivion by Tye.  I think I found them at the Conversions thread at Plumbbob Keep but it may be one of the gifts in a different thread.

The church of the Allfather is where most of the nobility and gentry will go on Sundays, and be married, and buried.

The church has been burned and pillaged.  There’s a lot of work to do to have it usable again.  Gabe, who is a follower of the Goddess, finds something quite entertaining about the ruins.

Then I built the goat herders’ hovel.  I’ve been looking forward to making a lot like this since I first saw Sun & Moon’s auto hogs on the Keep a few months ago.

Their house is the simplest design of the four hovels.  I did add a loft for sleeping even though technically we are only supposed to have one floor for peasant hovels, because in medieval times, children slept in the loft sometimes, according one of the books I read recently.

Thank you to Beradan who pointed me to the Keep for the beautiful willow fencing.  I had downloaded it in the Got Your Goat set, but somehow accidentally deleted it and then couldn’t remember it was part of that set till Beradan gave me the link.

The Gothard’s have a small pond which is going to be extremely convenient so that the goats can get their water for three seasons without the sims providing it.  All that great grazing grass is also part of the set and the Gothard’s should only have to feed them hay in the winter.

Here’s the Gothard family.  I think they are adorable.  I hope their nose and eyes get handed down through the generations.

Left to Right:  Bonnie Gothard, Daralis Gothard, Gabe Gothard, and teen daughter, Hadley Gothard. 

Gabe is Daralis’  father-in-law, and his son, Red, was killed in the recent war as well (although actually of old age via the insimenator).  I took this screenshot before killing off Red, to make it easier to get them to stand still and pose.

Here’s the whole family in CAS.

Hadley is inspecting a nanny goat.

To Do List (Which I’ll do as inspiration strikes)

1.  Build the Hefty Hedgehog (Hedge Tavern), the Porter’s home, and make the Porter family.  He’s a single teen Yeoman.
2. Build the Honeycutt’s home. (They are Yeoman beekeepers).  They are a small family of three.
3. Build the Squire’s home and make the Knight family (of 4).
4. Build the Barracks and make 8 single men.  This village full of widows and teenage girls is in sore need of marriageable sims, and I started with a completely clean template and the notownieregen mod so the only other sims right now are the Sister (that comes with the Religion mod), the newspaper boy and the mail person.  I’m practically as desperate as Mrs. Bennett to match some of these sims up with soldiers.
5. Build the Almshouse and move Mildred’s other elder sister in as caretaker (she will be a nun).  In the Medieval Charter Challenge, the player is allowed to build an almshouse for sims to receive charity when they can’t manage on their own.
6. Build a glen with lake, which will be a holy site for the goddess
7. Build a forest lot for the woodcutters
8. Create the Woodcutter and Forager families (both large families, this will take a while).

I can imagine getting to the point of starting to play now!