Maxis vampires are overrated.
Basically, Maxis vampires suck.

Maxis witches, however, are dead useful.

I give all my CAS Sims Vampirism as a turn-off. (Except for Andrew, my very first CAS Sim -- he doesn't like beards or moustaches.) I think that shows what I think of vampires. I also ban them from community lots.

I really don't want witches in my game. Of course I've got a family of fairies in Veronaville, which may seem a bit odd in a (sort of) realistic game. But I have to admit I rather like them. I may one day persuade Oberon and Puck to give up their face paint, as it really doesn't do anything for them. In Strangetown Buzz Grunt thinks that Olive is a witch. He may have a point -- having carnal knowledge of Death really does sound rather like witchcraft to me. He also thinks she should be burned, but I don't hold with that sort of barbarism. I'm not really wild about Strangetown anyway -- it's a sort of sci-fi neighbourhood with medieval attitudes. It has a bit of a 1950s Roswell vibe too.

. . .

When I start up my game I nearly always start up CAS and let it generate a few Sims to randomise the randomisers. I'll usually take one of the later ones and "individualise" them. Today I got this girl:
Her name was Cora Leslie. I always give them names, which is probably a mistake, as it then makes me feel bad when I don't save them to my game. Calling a Sim by name makes them sort of "real" to me. She generated in this outfit consisting of two Maxis base game separates, but I think it coordinates well. She generated with Face 18, which I tweaked a bit to make her unique. She has green eyes. Originally she had that awful Maxis hair with the sticking-out ponytails, but I changed it to this custom hair, which I think is a great improvement. She also generated with the Cancer birth-sign, which I tweaked a little to make her a little nicer but not quite so neat. I also changed a couple of her other outfits -- she had generated with the same simphany.com green bikini for both undies and sleepwear. By the time I was finished, I really liked her and wanted to keep her in my game. I reckoned she'd be an asset for any neighbourhood. But I'm now trying to play through my Sims to get my game ready to add the Pets EP. And about the last thing I need is more Sims. I've already got several new Sims in the Family Bin, waiting to get into my game. So I exited to the neighbourhood without saving her. And I feel bad about it! To get her into my game I'd have had to either make her into an adult or give her a parent. At least I've got a picture of her and a description (in this post), so she might still get into my game in some form in the future.

Why do I get so emotionally involved with my Sims -- even ones who never make it out of CAS!

In my game, Heri Shin is an Atrociously Evil Witch (without the green skin or the green glow) who curses every sim that crosses her (of which thankfully there are few). Ripp Grunt is her live-in consort (three lightning bolts) and he is an Infallibly Good Warlock (for Benemoodus Populous and Apello Simae). Tank Grunt (who also moved out of the general's house with Inteenimator, so he can pursue his dream of being a world class ballet dancer) is Heri's enemy (even though they have three lightning bolts for each other), meanwhile Ripp and Tank have made up. (But Buzz is enemies with Ripp, Olive, Pollination Technician #9 and Lyla [who has custody of Buck].) Johnny is also enemies with Tank.

I kind of like Strangetown (even though the terrain is boring), and I especially like La Fiesta Tech for the Davis brothers and Stella Terrano. I intend to turn Lazlo or Ajay into a werewolf next, to see how I like werewolves.