Generation One:

Tavisha Black Specter: Founder, Family/Knowledge, Retired Cult Leader
Toren Thanatos Specter: Spouse, Family/Knowledge, Retired General

Generation Two:

Tharion Thanatos Specter: Heir, Knowledge/Family, Retired Prestidigitator
Marsha Midlock Specter: Spouse, Family/Knowledge, Retired Prestidigitator
Vicontess Maura Gray-Specter: Sibling, Knowledge/Romance, Vampire
Contessa Kendra Gray-Specter: Spouse of Maura, Pleasure/Knowledge, Vampire

Generation Three:

Kylar Thanatos Specter: Heir, Knowledge/Pleasure, Child Prodigy/Retired World Class Ballet Dancer
Bella Goth: Girlfriend, Romance/Wealth
River Smith Specter: Spouse, Family/Popularity, Retired General

Generation Four:

Ardra Thanasia Specter: Heir, Popularity/Family, Cult Leader/Nice Witch
Ashara Thanasia Specter: Sibling (Twin), Knowledge/Pleasure-Seeker, Cult Leader/Mean Witch
Almeric Davis Specter: Spouse, Popularity/Family, Cult Leader/Warlock
Aldric Davis Specter: Spouse of Ashara/Twin of Almeric, Popularity/Knowledge, Cult Leader/Warlock

Generation Five:

Mikael Thanatos Specter: Heir, Knowledge/Wealth, Retired Space Pirate (Relic Liberator by concept)
Camryn Lee Specter: Spouse, Knowledge/Wealth, Retired Space Pirate (Relic Liberator by concept)
Mordecai Specter: Cousin, Knowledge/Grilled Cheese, Zombie
Clay Bigfoot: Friend, Popularity, Bigfoot

Generation Six:

Trystan Thanatos Specter: Heir, Romance/Knowledge, Music Career Track

Family Breed:

Shadow by Legacy
Mystic by Grimalkin
Ember by Balin
Crystal by Scout
Star by Cymoril
Midnight by Umbra
Contessa by Baron
Maven by Grimalkin
Skye by Kiba
Nimbus by Dakota

Other Pets:

Spook

This way I have a record of who is (or will be) in my graveyard. I will update this as things change, but if I don’t keep track of this stuff, at least for my own records, I’ll forget it. So I’m starting now while I can remember it all.

My aim for college is to have Trystan come away with a good memory of having, at the very least, kissed all three members of the band, which is his current household. He’s got three Lightning Bolts, Crush, Love and the full set of Kiss, Make Out and Woohoo with his girlfriend, Skylar. Since his relationship with Castor Nova was next highest, and there’s Attraction to consider, I decided to work on him next.

I did the ‘safe’ thing, and had them both go to a Community lot, since Castor also had Crush and Love with Allegra Gorey (Trystan’s next conquest). They got as far as kissing, and I figured with Crush but not Love it might be a good place to leave it. It was late when they got back, so I put everybody to bed, Trystan and Skylar going to sleep “the fun way”, as in automatically after Woohoo. Thankfully, Skylar has no knowledge of any of the reason behind it, but Castor ran into the room, abandoning his own love interest to slap Trystan across the face before running into the bathroom crying. He’s now Furious.

Apparently I have a -lot- of angles to be carful about here… wow. This could get really chaotic, and fast!

Meanwhile, Trystan, our diffident casanova, has moved on to college. He’s found a few other beautiful intellectuals, and they’ve put together an emo band. The real question is can the drama of their music survive the potential drama of their personal lives, or will Trystan find himself going solo after inadvertently romancing himself into the band’s breakup?

This time around it seemed interesting, though. I have no Legacy Challenges to run, I’m really enjoying my new heir, and, story-wise, there are things I’d like to do with him. For example, while I’ve already established that I’m allowing myself to Move In technically Playable Sims that aren’t unbalancing to the game (especially many of those in College who have no money and no skills), I’d like to avoid these as much as I can, unless the story calls for it (I really liked the Davis twins). Still, there were a few sims I had always liked from College that I never got the chance to play with, like Allegra Gorey and Castor Nova, that I would love to somehow include in my Legacy. So I decided, since they’ve been paired up by other simmers previously, and played off as creative types as well, I’d move them in -just- for college, and make them members of Trystan’s band. The other sim in the household is Trystan’s girlfriend Skylar Dawn, a 3LB College Townie that, ironically, had 3LB chemistry with Gen Two from the very first time I tried this Legacy, before the big computer crash. (Had a different name back then too… Trista Vijayakar, I think?) Things played out differently with second gen this time around, and that’s okay, but I’m glad somebody met up with her.

Their relationship might be a bit strange though… since playing Legacy is sort of my own personal way to “beat” the Sims 2 game before I buy Sims 3, I’m going to actually play Trystan like the Romance sim he is, and try to learn how to manage potential jealousy and Furious sims and all. He’s probably going to wind up with Skylar in the end, but it very well might be a rough road to Gen Seven.

When Trystan’s bunny turned out to be blue, I was very hopeful. When Mordecai, my grouchy zombie, produced a pink fluffy bunny after that, I was very nearly amazed.

The pictures were no trouble, as it turned out. The bunnies, provided I kept the sims that produced them busily mending their own social together, had absolutely no problem posing for me… they wasted no time at all! First social: bam! Make out! Not even a flirt or snuggle beforehand… they made out right in my living room! Bizarre.

So now Trystan and Mordecai have their Social levels just about halfway to full again, and the bunnies are still there! I have to figure out how to make them go away…

I’ve also been having some of the oddest ghost issues. Aldric day-paces. I don’t know how else to describe it… he comes out and haunts normally, then goes back to his tombstone at dawn. Then, within five sim minutes, he comes back out again, and heads back to where his bed is, cheers that it’s still there, notices what time it is, and head back to his stone. Then, less than five sim minutes later… lather, rinse, repeat… all day! I can go into buy mode and click on his tombstone during the few seconds he’s inactive, so he actually un-haunts and re-haunts! Bizarre…

Also, Almeric has died, Mikael has maxed his skills and job and is lifetime Platinum, and Trystan is a teen. On the exploration side of things, I’m planning to take my first Vacation with the adventurers. Twikki Island should be a nice place to stage their wedding, so the happy couple can head there first, and drag Trystan along. That will net me my third Voodoo doll, so all generations still living can retain the ability to Voodoo people. (Besides, I can’t wait to see how Trystan pulls off his defiant emo-goth look in a hula skirt. *snicker*)

Yes, my game has been patched. Yes, Ashara is perma-platinum and has maxed out all skills as well as her interest in Nature. Yes she has “caught butterflies”, “gone hiking”, and “hunted bugs”. Her last bout of bug hunting was near-nonstop for a week when I took her by herself to Peerless Park for the sole purpose of catching her last and only missing bug, the elusive Socialus Butterfly.

A WEEK!

…Nothing.

Ashara has a bug collection because she was maxed in nature and was a Mean Witch, and I thought a box of creepy-crawlies with her name on it would be a cute addition to my creepy house.  Had I known it would be this hard, with no verifiable returns in-game to make this worth it, I might have second-guessed my decision.

I got a jump on 6th gen… Mikael got hitched to Camryn Lee, and they had a boy, Trystan. I had a nice long stretch to play, so he’s already a child. Mikael has managed, by way of his college degree, to leap ahead of his colleague Camryn, and is already a Space Pirate. (I still see them both more as Relic Liberators as far as story goes, but Space Pirate pays better.) Oh, and one more side note about Trystan… the Specter eyes are still breeding nicely. I have yet to have a sim in this family that didn’t look awesome with the original Nervous Subject’s eyes! Mikael’s and Trystan’s are green, so that’s three colors so far. (Maybe I can find somebody with the dark blue next.) Cousin Morty spends more time platinum than my heir does, and he is most definitely drawing off of his secondary aspiration… the Specters will be eating Grilled Cheese for the rest of their lives. Ashara is still trying to get her last two or three bugs for her collection, and must be near-phobic of bees by now.

Speaking of bugs, for some reason, my current dog doesn’t get the “Try for puppy with…” prompt. I’ve done a careful count, and I can have one more pet… so it should be coming up. I’ve had my lot full before, so I know my count is right. I think she’s got enough days as an adult to last several days after one of the elders dies (at the rate he’s going anyway). So once that happens, I’ll try it again… but if it doesn’t fix itself I don’t know what I’m going to do about my Family Breed. It’s not like I can finish the category, but it’s not like I quit voluntarily either… my dog got bugged. So I’ll see if I can find some way to fix it.

To end on a good note, I happened to actually bother to glance at the household worth when I logged in today… I’ve broken a million simoleans! Yay me!

River preceded him in death by one day, and they both died platinum of old age… much better than wasting away moping over Bella. The graveyard is progressing nicely, and when generation Four passes the “new headstone count” will be double. Although the pet graves are quite numerous, and will likely continue to be so. Given that sims are bigger and less numerous than the pets, I’m giving the pet graves a little less “respectable distance” between headstones.

Speaking of dead things, I decided Cousin Morty (I know… a bad name for a dead guy, but it’s funnier this way) was not going to spend the next three generations heading off to High School every day… so I sent Mordecai off to college with Mikael. That way I can play my witchy quartet significantly into their elder years without having to worry about the Needs of the boys, and I can skill up and work on the guys without having to tend to four needy witches. A house of six to eight sims is a very busy place!

So things are moving along steadily.

I suppose by now in this family, it goes without saying, but my life has been something of an adventure. More than once, I’ve looked at myself in the mirror and said, “Mikael Thanatos Specter, sooner or later this is going to be the death of you…” But I suppose ultimately, death is what this is all about. Death, and the life that surrounds it.

I was fascinated with the idea of digging up the past in a literal sense ever since I was a child, really. The wolves would bury bones, and I would dig them up again. It became something of a game, although I was told never to go digging beyond the stone wall. The graveyard was strictly off-limits. Now, while I was a decent enough child not to go digging up my ancestors in the yard, it occurred to me as I began to learn about buried cities and forgotten cultures in school that an entire lost city would be a heck of a thing to dig up.  As it turned out, archaeology was only the beginning to what was going to be a very interesting career.

Early on, I met a colleague of mine who was into the stranger side of exploring the past. She got her start investigating UFO crash sites, which was what brought her to Strangetown. She was comparing recent wreckage with evidence she’d dug up in an ancient city, trying to make connections. Together, we met some truly unusual people in some amazing places, from the old wise man who helped us find the Dragon Scroll and told us the legend surrounding it, to the cranky little witch doctor who led us safely out of the jungle, then gave us a voodoo doll for helping him fix his house. She was fascinating to work with, and though we had our share of differences of opinion, the nice thing about this girl was that nothing fazed her. Aliens, relics, ancient mythology… all of it was common to her work. I told her that my parents had been witches, and that my aunt had turned my cousin into a zombie after he was killed in a freak accident. When I brought up that an ancient mythical figure that appeared in almost every culture known to man just might be one of my ancestors, she actually finally raised a brow. Tough audience, I’ll tell you. At least when I decided at long last to ask her to be my wife, she wasn’t at all freaked out about the prospect of becoming one of the Specters.

We were married on an island not far from some old ruins we’d been investigating. After that, we spent most of our time exploring old tombs, learning all we could about the various ways each culture honored their dead, and trying to decipher what their beliefs on the afterlife… and who would lead them to it… might have been. It was a fascinatig subject, aside from its personal relevance. What made me a little concerned for my safety was that the places of the dead often seemed to recognize some part of me. Shrines would glow softly, little eddies would stir the dust in crypts… but by far the most dramatic thing that happened was at the burial grounds of Jumbok IV.

We were fortunate enough to make that visit at night, which made the whole thing look all the more spectacular, but it did scare me half to death… figuratively speaking of course. I was bending over to stir the waters of a great temple fountain at the heart of the ruin, when there was a massive hiss from above me. I looked up and ducked out of the way just as the water that had been pouring down from above turned searing hot! A few moments later, where once there had been a fountain of water, a stream of lava now flowed downward, hissing angrily into the pool. Camryn had only just been taking rubbings of that area, and nothing had happened. However, when we returned some years later, our son managed to cause the very same response that I had.

Oh yes… we bore a son. Trystan Thanatos, after the usual family tradition. He was a strange, quiet child, but I suppose being raised partly by a zombie does things to your head. He liked Cousin Morty well enough, and he started making up little songs for him, even from a young age. Granted, they were awfully disturbing little songs, but Mordecai seemed to find them entertaining. They struck up a rather close friendship over the years. We began to worry what would happen once Trystan grew up and left for college… Mordecai wasn’t getting older, and Trystan wasn’t going to stay around forever. It was while we were hiking through an older section of the Blue Mountains that we happened to find a rather unique solution to that as well…

As we headed further up the pass, we heard some strange sounds. Peering through the trees, we caught a glimpse of a strange little house, more like a burrow than a hut. After we watched a few minutes, we caught sight of a very tall figure, covered in hair! Camryn’s idea was to try and make contact. I wasn’t too sure, but when he tried to grab her, I had to do something. As it turned out, Bigfoot seemed to really like me! I don’t know why… just “lucky”, I guess. Anyway, since he seemed friendly enough, we offered to let him come home with us. He was very excited about this. More than I was, to be quite honest, but Camryn said it was the right thing to do.

So now, I’m retired, and, in addition to my many and varied treasures over the years, I have a retired wife, a son in college studying music, a zombie cousin, a bigfoot, several wolves, the book I wrote, and a nice photo album of my crazy life. All in all, not a bad haul, I suppose.

And the best thing of all? It wasn’t the death of me.

Although the Specter home is a large one, it may not be large enough for Mikael Thanatos Specter. He lives with his overly affectionate aging “grandparents”, plus his parents were both twins, so his aunt and uncle live with them as well. As if that were not enough, all four of them are witches! Add to that a young wolf hybrid, an undead cousin, and a dozen ghosts, and you have a recipe for disaster! Mikael loves reading, studying, and learning about new places and old legends, but what he really wants is OUT. He longs to travel, to explore, to see things no sim has ever seen before, and he’ll do whatever it takes to have an excuse to get away from his family for a while… even if it means a little danger along the way.

This should be a fun generation… think a cross between Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider. With so many sims in one house, a little adventure might be just what the Specters need!