I figure the best way for me to start writing out my Wish-list and To-Do Projects List is to start by describing my hood so i know what I'm aiming for. Over three pages later and barely scratching the surface, I knew I had to stop for the night.

Q: What the heck is heget's 'hood?

 

Short answer: It doesn't exist yet.

 

Q: What will it be?

 

 

A Sims game based on my interpretation of The Silmarillion by JRR Tolkien. And trying to balance the elements and constraints of Sims versus the Silmarils. I'm using the family trees, characters, and story as basis for world-building and to give myself templates in which to grow my game. And like my Steampunk/Victorian/Meiji Japan/American Wild West/Regency game (yes, they were all sub-hoods for one neighborhood system), other series and creations will sneak in under the radar. For those unfamiliar with the less well-known work of the Good Professor, as he will be alluded to, don't worry. You'll learn more than you ever wanted and I have handy ProfessorElf!heget's Lecture Series to help.

 

I'm still planning and testing stages, but my main roadblock is finding the perfect neighborhood map for the main hood. This is what all my sub-hoods will branch off from. Since I don't have the program to make the maps, some wonderful people at the Keep have made them for me, but I still need a few more.

 

Main Hood:

This is the main focus, at least in the beginning. Sim Valinor, Aman, the Undying Lands, etc... And the one large landmass with lots of story and action happening on it that the Good Professor DIDN'T make a detailed map for. Most of the story starts here, most of my families have their roots here, and I have no map.

Thus I plan to request one. Once I have something that'll work, I'm doing the Clean neighborhood install to get rid of the unwanted townies and start building the 'hoods.

 

Most everyone living here are elves- and not the woodsy tree-dwelling elves in leafy green clothing living in communion with nature. I call them my city elves, because for the most part they are, and aside from the pointy ears the look and feel of this 'hood is Tudor England if they had synthetic paints and good hygiene. On the hygiene alone this makes it high fantasy. As for the paint- well, it saves me having to research what shades would or would not be accurate. Plus, in the story it's pointed out the elves early on learned to make synthetic gemstones that were more dazzling and bright than originals. If they can make that, and clean-burning blue light stones in place of lanterns (though I'll stick with candles in game and only use that tidbit of knowledge to explain away any light with a light-bulb instead of flame), well they can certainly make non-vegetable dyes.

Why Tudor? Blame Cate Blanchett. Not only did she play Galadriel, but her role as Queen Elizabeth I informed my vision when I read of how as a younger maid Ga-laddie would compete in athletic events, was a high lady of much accomplishment, and was the only lady noted to pick up a sword and fight for her mother's people. So yeah, Queen Elizabeth in armor. Plus as the highly advanced elves from a more sophisticated land, using time periods of fashion to highlight the levels of advancement is a logical step. And I'm using the terms 'advanced' and 'sophisticated' with my tongue lodged 'twixt my teeth.  If most of Middle-earth is going to match up to some period of the Middle Ages, then some areas will be the Renaissance. This idea of the era in decline from an earlier period of higher culture and glory was not unique to the Good Prof; you can see it in Greek and medieval thought. But dang if it isn't one of the heavy themes. So I'm playing off it.

 

 

So among the various projects for this hood as a slew of Elizabethan and Tudor clothing, ranging from the turn of the 16th century all the way up to the early 1600s at the start of the Cavalier Age. Yes, going up to that point because I'll be honest, as much as I love some of the early Tudor looks, my modern eyes have trouble with drum ruffs, and the male bodyshape with the peasecod waist and grossly padded codpiece do not agree with me. Think The Tudors instead of Tudors, and you'll have a closer idea of what my elves look like. Plus, I'm sorry, I love the fashions of the 1600s, but as a transitional period it's harder to find enough to make it. So the boys will be far less accurate and ranging further a-field on the timeline than the ladies.

 

Unless stated otherwise, most of my creations are going towards building up this hood.


 

 

 

College Sub-Hood:

Thing is, if I'm going to build a hood based off a story, I shall begin at the first chapter of that story. And with The Sil., the beginning is really The Beginning. Genesis level beginnings here. The book starts with the One singing the universe and everything in it into existence. And if that isn't a metaphor for the long loading screen, what is? The first thing created are the Ainur, the demi-gods if you will, that function as the lower pantheon of worship of everyone on Middle-earth and who live in said world on the continent of Aman. Or as I like to think of it in Sims' terms: Generation One.
Yes, I am playing my college hood before my main hood.

 

There are ways to set the Sims that are the 'divine' apart from the normal Sims as elves and humans visually, and I use a few methods. First up, I picked a different skin and eye set to tell them apart, and I'll use this method to divide each species. As for clothing, there's the tried and true 'dress your gods in drapery and togas'. Boring.

I downloaded some 18th century clothing from AAS because I love that period look and decided there was my answer. I had already made the elves living close to the 'gods' a style and time period that happened chronologically after the medieval period, even though story wise they came before. Therefore the Ainur, the godly first generation of my neighborhood, would wear clothing befitting the royal courts of Marie Antoinette. And seriously, why aren't there more fantasy novels set in a counterpart Age of Reason?

 

My first big clothing dump coming in a few days will include two new meshes and 192 recolors of men's clothing for the Rococo period. I'm still working on the complementary large women's clothing dump. Soon I won't have to worry about outfitting the 20 or so characters that qualify as this subset.

 

The other element is that as divine, not earthly beings, the physical form is only a false shell. The Ainur look like how they choose to look, which means they can ignore laws of physics. How else can I explain some of the Peggy and Newsea hair meshes? In fact, some of the more absurd hairs I picked just because their outlandishness meant they'd work perfectly for a spirit of fire that pilots the sun. So heavy bangs, hair-sprayed, and implausible locks are good to use. And since the city elves have contact with and at least a small fraction derive fashion cues from the Ainur, there will be non-historical fabrics and hairstyles and other anachronisms to the "Elvish Tudor" look -that is purposeful.

 

 

And I'm starting everyone off as University Sims. Because it makes sense as they start off developing into their godly roles and creating the world to be, plus it's a fresh why to start, and the most important reason of all: I can make a pair of brothers in CAS with different last names without fiddling in SimPe.

 

 

The College neighborhood itself is Almaren Academy, a quip of the Garden of Eden-like Isle of Almaren where the Ainur first lived during the prehistoric beginning. So a fancy university complex on an island is pretty simple- plus I've attempted to build it a few times and know what I need. This is why I've gone out of my way to make so many book-related content early on, to fill the libraries and study halls.

 

Architecturally I want to also bring in some Post-Renaissance influence. There's a build set by Simnuts that I wish was fully re-posited so I could make a set of recolors.

 

Once I've grown all the Ainur to full adulthood, it will only take a few cosmetic tweaks to use this university for the college-bond nobles of the city elves.


 

 

Downtown Sub-Hood:

Beleriand. Home of vampires, werewolves, in darkness before the birth of sun and moon. This was a no-brainer. Starting the hood off will be the other group of elves, our closer to the typically imagined wood elves. Still, a large group are concentrated at the king's thousand-hall underground palace and should have a high degree of sophistication. Thus I'm using the Italian Renaissance meets muted gray caverns to inform the look of that group, with some German and late Middle Ages Burgundian for the northern reaches. Thus we continue our fashion time line in reverse via geography and divine exposure.

The hunter-gather elves I'm a tad torn on. I think I'll stay with the late Medieval/early Renaissance, but keep them in shades of green as according to the books. I'm sorry, but the only Sims that will wear any sort of leaves as clothing will be the Ents.

 

 

Dwarves have beards. And all the smithy object downloads. Aside from that, I really want to give them all dreads and other 'ethnic' hairstyles because I get tired of those going only to 'orcs' or tropical islanders.

 

 

The humans, when they start to migrate in, will be mostly Bronze Age level tech until through the power of legacy playing and money accumulation they can build better houses. By the second or third generation they'll be mostly Viking and or Anglo-Saxon in look. One group is definitely the inland Vikings, while another group is basically Highland Scots. That group of men I've already made a few fake tartan patterns (And yes, tartan is so NOT medieval, but I'm blaming the elves making it up for them and I plan on using the more accurate checked pattern when I need more than a solid field of color). I also want to play with different forms of housing for the groups, but none will have the grand stone castles of the elves.

 

 

There will be a group of men, the 'Easterlings', that immigrate in later. I agree with others that they have a Turkish, Magyar, or Slavic. (The Hungarian in me votes Magyar). For them, I really figure they can benefit from the fantastic yurts over at the Keep. Gives me an excuse to have them in my folder.


 

 

Business/OFB Sub-Hood:

Third Age Middle-earth. More detail later. The Shire might be it's own thing so I don't have to worry about size. Gondor is totally the High Medieval period, with the wars against the Corsairs of Umber filling some of the role of the Crusades.


 

 

Vacation Hoods:

Numenor for Far East.

Dale and/or one of the Dwarven Halls for Mountain.

Any of the 'edge of map' regions for Tropical.

 

Details later.

If you finished reading that, feel free to demand a request.