Keeping Up with the Vatores

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Welcome to another side adventure! The idea for this initially came about when Caleb's ghost accidentally got culled again, and I had to remake and kill him off for the third time.

Sorry, Caleb.

At this point keeping him as a ghost was turning out to be much more of a nuisance than I had anticipated, so I decided that this time around, I should probably let him be a living sim again.

Now, there wasn't really any fun in just leaving him as a human straight out of CAS, so I decided to make it into a little challenge for this spin-off rotation. Luckily for Caleb, Realm of Magic had just come out, and there were a couple death-related spells in the spellbook...

So, I thought it might be fun to turn Lilith into a spellcaster, and have her learn enough magic to bring Caleb back to life. :)

I moved them into one of the fancy uptown apartments at the start of their rotation, and did a tiny bit of redecorating.

The first floor wasn't too bad so I didn't do much, but I did re-purpose a few of the rooms upstairs for Lilith. First, she got a little witchy room to house her cauldron...

...and a little workout room attached to her bedroom, with a sparring machine.

I didn't touch her bedroom because I was feeling a bit lazy, but I did decorate this magnificent bedroom for Caleb, and it is hands down my favourite room in the apartment.

Considering Caleb didn't have a bedroom in Carlotta's apartment - or even a coffin - it only felt fair to give him something luxurious in this new one.

I also spruced up the outdoor balcony a bit, although neither of them ended up using it in the two weeks that I played them. Oh well.

And as you may have already noticed, Lilith also got a bit of a makeover herself.

I absolutely love that jacket on her. It fits the witchy/vampire aesthetic very well, and while I'm not normally a huge fan of yellow, I really like this particular swatch because it's the perfect nod back to her default game look. :)

Finally, Lilith also got another change of careers - I decided to switch her over from professional athlete back into the detective career. I figured it'd give her a little more to do besides practising magic all day.

Plus, I'm debating having Jasper go into it - I haven't quite figured out what I want to do with him career-wise yet - so it'd be nice to have a familiar face hanging around the police department if he does. 

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I was a little disappointed that there wasn't a lot trait similar to the registered vampire lair one, but it was nice to see that spellcasters still get a little package in the mail once they hit a certain rank.

Honestly, my vampires never get much from the vampire lair trait anyways, so maybe it's better this way. Leaves me with an extra trait slot that could be used for one of the more beneficial traits. That being said, I still would have liked a trait similar to vampire nexus, where spellcasters would be more likely to turn up to a lot. Or just a general one for all occult sims...

 

The Magic Realm serves as a decent gathering spot for spellcasters, at least. I sent Lilith out to there at least once a day, in hopes that she'd come across some of the tomes she needed for the ghost summoning and resurrection spells.

It didn't take too long for Lilith to learn the Necrocall spell, which gave her the ability to summon Caleb's ghost at will.

I'd yet to spot him hanging around as a ghost yet, so this spell turned out to be quite useful for getting him to make an actual appearance.

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Even after she cast the spell I had a hard time tracking down Caleb, but I was eventually able to find him wandering around outside.

I had Lilith invite him to join the household, so that I could keep an eye on him while she worked on learning the resurrection spell. I was concerned by how stinky he appeared to look, but after making him take a few showers, I realized it was because I gave him the poison death type. Oops. :P

I had him rejoin the stylist career, since ghost Caleb didn't actually have a job, so he spent most of his free time levelling up the painting skill with the tablet.

Lilith, on the other hand, worked on levelling up her magic by brewing some potions, which led to her becoming cursed for a little bit.

I was able to cure her pretty quickly, but I've almost killed some of my spellcasters in other saves trying to remove a few other curses. The one that makes them prone to being overcharged can be quite lethal!

The familiars are very useful from preventing death by overcharge, so I equipped Lilith with one once I found a suitable familiar in stock.

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I really like how the ranking up works for spellcasters now. The tomes are great if you want to give your spellcaster a certain set of spells, and being able to level up magic by practising spells or experimenting with the cauldron is much more enjoyable than sending them to study at a podium for a few hours, like my witches did in TS2.

Plus, them being able to magically manipulate the tomes and cauldrons once they hit a higher rank is a nice detail.

Caleb really seemed to like breaking the hot tub out on the balcony, which gave Lilith a great opportunity to build her magical rank by repairing it a couple of times a day.

I also gave her the mote vision perk, so she could earn a little experience from collecting and eating them. 

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Lilith managed to reach a high enough rank to learn the resurrection spell in my second week of playing them, and Caleb was finally brought back to life for good.

Like Lilith, he also got a bit of a makeover when I initially remade him in CAS. As much as I liked his old makeover, I wanted him to bring in some of the red from his default game look, and give him a bit of eye make-up.

Since I had a bit of extra time at the end of their rotation, I played Caleb through a little more of the stylist career. I did consider sticking him in the new photography career from Moschino, but I already had plans to play through that with another sim.

Plus, I think photographers can actually confer/collaborate with stylist sims as one of the career tasks, so it might be fun to see Caleb pop up there. :)

I'm not sure which patch - if any - fixed the tasks for this career, but I was also finally able to get Caleb to check in at a community lot!

Taking a picture of someone's outfit did the trick this time.

The next step on Caleb's redemption arc required him to do a little primping, because he's got someone very important to meet...

 ...Morgyn Ember.

I was so, so pleased to see the devs giving us some more LGBTQ premades this year. Leila, Oliana, and Lia in IL, and now Morgyn with RoM! I know that sims is a sandbox game and you can make an entire save full of queer sims if you want to, but it's just nice to see some representation in the sims that ship with the packs. :)

Anyways, I thought these two would pair well together the moment I saw Morgyn in the trailers, so playing a little rotation with Caleb gave me the perfect chance to set them up.

This version of Caleb has been edited to recognize Jasper as his son, and Isobel as the mother, but he doesn't have any sort of actual relationship with her anymore, so I think it's a good time for a change in partners.

The two of them got on very well together - much better than he ever did with Isobel, I might add, and it didn't take much flirting for Morgyn to agree to be Caleb's datefriend.

I don't think I'll actually have them get married or anything - I'd like to keep Morgyn as one of the three sages - but I might go back in and have them get engaged somewhere down the road.

And with all of my goals for Lilith and Caleb complete, it was time to throw a little New Year's party to wrap up their rotation.

Honestly, I mostly threw a party because I wanted an excuse to put Lilith and Caleb in their new, matching party looks.

I get strong What We Do in the Shadows vibes from the red pimp coat they originally put Caleb in, so obviously I had to bring it as his party wear.

They didn't go into town to party, but I did invite Morgyn, Jasper, and Cas, along with the rest of their uptown neighbours - Diego Lobo, and Victor and Lily Feng - to their apartment. Carlotta did not get an invitation.

Lily's still kicking around as a vampire in my game - I don't know why, but she just gives me strong vampire vibes! - and Diego Lobo has been turned into a spellcaster, because he gives me glamorous, freewheeling bisexual warlock vibes.

He's the Magnus Bane of San Myshuno, if you will.

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And that wraps up our little spin-off rotation for these two!

I've updated their stats in the households section, to reflect their new makeovers and current occult status, but I've also been updating portraits and stats for all my other sims, so maybe don't check that out just yet if you don't want any spoilers for University. ;)