Haunted Gravestones with Ghostly Servants

SCREENSHOTS
Downloaded 3,868 times 112 Thanks 40 Favourited 12,564 Views
 Say Thanks!
Personal Picked Upload! This is a personal favourite of the creator!
Author Sophie-David
Uploaded: 4th Jan 2020 at 5:57 AM
Updated: 4th Jan 2020 at 8:58 PM - Correcting the Description.
Haunted Gravestones with Ghostly Servants

The Story

Yes indeed, good help is hard to find! Morwen Arawn, the notorious necromancer, had considered the possibilities. Mortal maids, gardeners, repairmen and the like were a nuisance of course - never there when you really needed them, and their insistent demands for petty material rewards were intolerable. On the other hand, a residential zombie needed constant attention, to say nothing of its stench, ill manners, slowness and inefficiency. Spectral servants were as step in the right direction, but then there was the recurring annoyance of needing to reinvoke them - and you needed white magic to do so!

At last, through careful research and persistent experimentation she had come upon the answer. If the dead were brought back as spirits rather than shambling corpses, they could be more easily controlled. And if she specifically selected those spirits who had been experts in the jobs that needed doing, they would be efficient as well as quiet, clean and undemanding. Thus through the artful application of Morwen's dark magic there arose a small army of ghostly workers and companions, no longer resting in peace but ready to serve her every need.



Purpose

A) To release a set of three gravestones to control ghostly versions of the Basegame Maid, the Nightlife Host and the Nightlife Server NPCs (non-player characters). These Ghostly Workers will keep a lot clean and supply it with ample servings of free food.

B) To enable the player to configure these Ghostly Servants in any of 19 ghost types and colours available from among the suite of Sims 2 EPs. I have also provided seven custom recolours - including a completely invisible ghost. These NPCs are compatible with default replacement projects such as Sunni's Medieval NPC Replacements: Commoners.

C) To allow the player to Materialize a Ghostly Servant to take on a normal NPC appearance. Any of the optional ghostly colours can be applied to this corporal form. It is completely optional if a servant ever appears as a ghost at all, so the gravestones can be used as simple non-fantasy controllers for the Maid, Host or Server.

D) Since ghosts can be hard to find - particularly when invisible - to include a "Find" routine that zooms in on the missing Sim, if the NPC is active. In the case of a ghost who is assigned the invisible recolour, the Servant will temporarily appear before fading to invisibility again.

E) To provide the gravestones with a comprehensive set of recolours, including invisible recolours suitable for placement on top of an appropriate prop, such as a tree, rock, fireplace, transport urn or sculpture. By default the gravestones casts shadows, but there is a menu option to turn shadows off, helpful when recolouring the gravestone to be invisible.

F) To include a modified Mourn routine that increases Charisma skill, Film & Literature Enthusiasm (FreeTime & later) and Social motive, at the expense of Fun. Skill gain during mourning is enhanced for serious Sims.

G) To provide a Kick gravestone option for a small increase in Fun.

H) To code the NPCs so that they may haunt the lot they are on, even though they are not actually dead as far as the game is concerned. A Ghostly NPC responds to attention, so haunting will only occur following a session of Kicking or Mourning. If the haunting comes as a result of Kicking a gravestone, the ghost will be annoyed and hunt down the Sim who did the Kicking. "Knowledge Sims" are also singled out, to satisfy the "See a Ghost" want.



Contents

1) Romance Gravestone with Maid - cleans, gardens indoors, serves food - §341

2) Grilled Cheese Gravestone with Server - cleans, gardens indoors, serves food - §343

3) Popularity Gravestone with Host - cleans, gardens indoors, serves food - §344

These items are base game compatible and are found in the Decorative/Sculpture section of the catalogue.

The Ghostly Maid, Host or Server will not appear unless Nightlife or any later EP is available. These Ghostly Servants will perform their duties on community, residential and business lots. By default the Server is programmed to activate only minimally - in Stealth mode. In contrast the Maid and Host default to Social mode, ready to interact with Sims once the work is done.

The Maid and Server default to a Dematerialized or Ghostly form, but the Host defaults to appearing and behaving as a normal - Materialized - Sim.

Note that when returning to a saved game, these NPCs will typically not be as they were when saved. Instead the NPC will reappear from the gravestone in the same mode - haunting, socializing or working - as before. Ghosts are rather ephemeral in that way.




The Gravestones

These gravestones may be placed on any terrain or floor, indoors or outdoors. Because it is important that a gravestone not be arbitrarily removed when controlling an NPC, I made these objects immune to fire, theft and repossession. Purchasing a gravestone satisfies the "Buy Fridge" want, since a Ghostly Servant can satisfy all the critical food functions usually provided by a fridge.

If an NPC is active and you wish to delete its gravestone from the lot, please make sure to use the Retire menu option to remove the NPC first. If you do not Retire the NPC you will may have to use Moveobjects On to delete her or him later. There is also the possibility of busied out or "hung" objects if the gravestone is removed without Retiring its NPC first.



Scared Sims

When haunting the lot, the ghostly NPC may try to Scare a Sim. Knowledge Sims and Sims who have kicked the Gravestone will be specifically selected for scaring. If scared, the Sim's Bladder, Comfort, Energy, Hunger and Hygiene motives will be reduced, as it is with normal EA ghosts. In addition, if the ghostly Sim is a "Death by Coffin Scare" type, the scared Sim's Fun motive's will be reduced; and if the ghostly Sim is a "Death By Rally Forth" type then the Social motive will be reduced.

The scared Sim will also gain a "Saw Ghost" memory and the "See Ghost" want will be satisfied.

WARNING: As with the EA ghosts, it is possible for a Sim to die as a result of being scared. Kicking and Mourning are non-autonomous activities, so if you do not want to take this chance - unlikely though it may be - do not ask your Sims to Kick or Mourn at the gravestone. As a failsafe against repeated ghostly harassment, haunting can be canceled prematurely by selecting Recall, Relieve, Replace, Retire or Serve... at the gravestone.



















Terms of Use

You may include the items from this project in uploaded lots, whether for free or pay. It is nice but not necessary to provide a credit and link to this page.


Notice to Plumb Bob Keep (PBK) Users

Please Note: the Romance Gravestone with Maid and the Simple Gravestone with Hermit were released in preview form at PBK in 2012. This 2020 re-release of the Romance Gravestone uses the same GUID but unlike the original, does not use its own recolours. The Hermit's Gravestone depended on the original Romance Gravestone for recolours as its master object, so installing the 2020 version of the Maid will render the ghostly Hermit unusable. However, the Simple Gravestone with Hermit was suspected of crashing complex lots, so it may be a good idea to abandon it in favour of the 2020 ungraded Maid.


Additional Credits

SimPE, PJSE, and url=http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=92541]CEP[/url] for Sims 2 object creation
Gadwin's PrintScreen for capturing complete screenshots that include the mouse cursor
GIMP 2, IrfranView, Microsoft Paint and Microsoft Photo Editor for graphics editing, file conversion, processing, sizing and titling


Polygon Counts

Cheese Gravestone: 1003 faces, 1411 vertices
Popularity Gravestone: 1233 faces, 1992 vertices
Romance Gravestone: 1204 faces, 2034 vertices
Back to top