This Sims 2 blog follows the lives of the Nuidya tribespeople of the southern plains, as they try to survive, thrive and figure out what exactly it means to be a dragonspark. Along the way, there'll be drama, romance, utter silliness, high-fantasy worldbuilder rambling and lots of cats. Just watch out for those storm demons - they're sneaky. :)

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

The Stranger Side of Kulo Seeri

Since it's Halloween today, I thought I'd share my method for dealing with the Nuidya tribe's supernatural and alien heritage across generations.

There have been plenty of supernaturals and aliens in the tribe over the years, including the first Nuidya, the semi-legendary Sena. She just happened to be a green lizard Sim found in the wreck of a spaceship as a baby. She also had a flowering shrub for hair, which I suspect may be some form of alien symbiosis or something. So, I thought the descendants of the more unusual Nuidya should have a chance to inherit some of those traits.

Specifically, there are currently two alien traits and two supernatural states that can be inherited. As well as Rommy and Jill, Kulo Seeri's witch/warlock couple, there are two clans with werewolf blood.

The two alien traits - originally four, but my random rolls caused two to die out in the second generation - are Scales (I use scaly facepaints for this trait) and Herbivore (as with TS3 vegetarian Sims, eating meat will make any Sim who has this trait ill). The other two were Plantsim (close as I could get to alien plant symbiosis) and Sunbathing (the first term that came to mind to reflect a need to bask in the sun like a lizard).

(Gaaaaaah. I'm getting frustrated trying to type one-handed. Silly me cut my hand trying to carve a Jack O' Lantern... out of a butternut squash... they were out of pumpkins. It came out pretty well, actually. But I digress.)

Without further waffling, How It Works:
All examples from my game use the zan-Ace/zan-Sophie werewolf gene.

If a Sim has one parent with any of these traits, they have a 50% chance of inheriting that trait.
Adult siblings Ben and Aurora zan-Sophie are the children of werewolf Sophie Miguel, from her second marriage to non-werewolf Russ. When I did my initial rolls for these two, one rolled a number over 50, and so is not a werewolf; the other rolled a number from 1-50, and inherited the trait. I won't say which is which yet.

If both parents have the same trait, their children have a 90% chance of inheriting it.
Rommy zan-Ace is Ben and Aurora's half-brother, son of Sophie and her first husband, Ace. Ace was a werewolf as well, so any number between 1 and 90 on my d100 would have meant Rommy inherited lycanthropy. As it happens, he narrowly missed it, rolling a 91 if I remember correctly.

Here's where it gets more complex: I wanted the chance for things to skip generations occasionally. So:

If neither parent has a trait, but at least one grandparent does, there is a 15% chance of the child inheriting it, increasing by 15% for each grandparent (so one scaly grandparent gives a child a 15% chance of being scaly; four scaly grandparents give a 60% chance.)
Rommy's children, Wolfie, S'Ahmisa and Zareb, have two werewolf grandparents, so their chance of inheriting lycanthropy is 30%. Only one rolled below 30; ironically,it wasn't Wolfie.

If no parents or grandparents have a certain trait, but at least one of the great-grandparents has it, each great-grandparent with the trait adds 5% to the chance of inheriting (so in the unlikely situation of, for example, eight werewolf great-grandparents who haven't passed on their werewolf trait at all, the great-grandchild would have a 40% chance of becoming a werewolf.)
Ace and Sophie currently have four great-grandchildren: Turi, Anyu, Oramar and Kiokara. Each of them has a 10% chance of inheriting the werewolf trait. Unsurprisingly, none of them rolled a 10 or below.

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So, that's my system, adapted from a couple of other ideas I've seen around (unfortunately I forget where, but credit where it's due). Typing one-handed is getting annoying, so tht's it from me for now!

2 comments:

  1. Oo I like your method, I might have to borrow it

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  2. Thanks, feel free to borrow it. I'm trying to add more excuses to roll dice to my game. :)

    ReplyDelete