Preview Sneak Peek, what's next?

 In ancient times,
Hundreds of years before the dawn of history
Lived a strange race of people, the Druids.
-- Stonehenge, Spinal Tap

So, I crossed a wild rabbit with a spellcaster's familiar, and look what I ended up with! I have these things flying all over the place now. I'm calling them Fae Creatures. They hatch from buried eggs that you can find (and of course, different types of eggs are found in different places...gotta have a scavenger hunt...). You hatch them by throwing them into a fire, like with dragon eggs.

I combined this feature with another set of ideas I've been working on, Druidry. I mentioned Druids in some of the text in the Archaeology Kit 2 (Wand of Aegwareth, etc), and I wanted to flesh that out.

You can grow sacred oak trees from Magic Acorns. Sacred Oak shown at right with weeds. It creates an enchanted sort of effect nearby, improves the environment of the lot it's found on dramatically, and it talks. You can make friends with it, sing to it, and it can initiate you as a Druid. As your relationship grows, you can eventually ask it to train you in Druidry (like Grow-Your-Own-Magic-Sage, I guess).

The spells are either songs or epic poems, so your singing and acting skills have an effect. Using these magical songs drains your energy and makes you hungry. There are no skill books. The premise is that this is a pre-Myshuptanian (sp?) discipline, from before the writing skill, so knowledge is passed down verbally. You learn the songs and poems from Fae after becoming friends with them. Different types of Fae teach different songs.

I was working on another mod of Outdoor Skills that borrowed a lot of abilities from Werewolves, but that fit into this one nicely. As you gain in Druid skill, you will gain abilities that allow you to live outdoors indefinitely. Sleeping on the ground, relieving your bladder without a bush to go in, improvised shelters (a type of tent), building a campfire from scratch, as well as a temporary cooking fire that you can make herbal potions on. Basically everything that a boy or girl scout can do that Sims normally cannot.

(yes, he lives in a treehouse)

A lot of the songs have beneficial group effects, like making listeners inspired and creative, or eliminating their fear with an epic poem. Many cure various aliments or conditions, and a few are kind of aggressive. :)

There's a line from Druids to Bards in fantasy literature (as well as in real life). The eisteddfod festivals of music and literature stretch centuries back as tradition, and continue to this day, so a festival event seems appropriate. There's also an emphasis and connection to a lot's environmental state (which affects singing, etc).

Another note: I specifically made this Trait-and-Skill based instead of making a new Occult, so that you could combine it with Occults. So Spellcaster/Druids, Werewolf/Druids, etc all work fine.

Anyway, I've been working at this one since shortly after I released Family History, and it's coming along. If anyone has suggestions or ideas for this theme, let me know! As soon as I stop breaking it, lol, I'll post a preview for you to try out!

As always, thanks for your support!