7 - The storm

It all began when Noel invited Taylor back to his place so she could see the rest of his rubber duck collection.



The minute they stepped through the door, Noel turned on the charm offensive, and they were soon locked in a passionate embrace. Taylor was smitten, threw all her inhabitations to the wind, and ended up staying the night.


Well most of the night. Noel fell asleep easily, but Taylor began to wonder what on earth she was doing there. She was meant to be staying away from him! It could never lead anywhere. Taylor snuck home in the early hours, feeling even more confused than before.



She avoided Noel for the days, whiling away her time writing articles and working on her new sci-fi novel. She wasn't feeling great; nauseous and bloated all the time, craving weird things like onions with her bread and jam sandwiches. Two days later she knew why....she was pregnant. She couldn't go through this alone, even if she and Noel could never marry, surely he would support her?

The first shock came when she rang the Maloney household to speak to him. "He's moved out", informed Noel's father. "Spread his wings and all that". Taylor asked for his new address and decided to head straight there. Her stomach was in knots...she had no idea how Noel would react to her news.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Taylor! What a, erm....surprise". Noel closed his front door behind him without inviting her in. Was he hiding something? "I'm pregnant". She blurted the words out, and watched his grin freeze and then falter. They stared at each other, and it felt like an eternity until Noel limply raised his arm and patted her shoulder. "Urm, well done, that's well....very well done".


"Well done? It's ours Noel. Yours and mine". Noel sighed and crossed his arms. "I have a new life here Taylor. I'm trying to make something of myself away from my family. This should never had happened. I'm sorry". Just then, the door clicked open, and beautiful sim that Taylor had never seen before peeked out. "Noel honey, dinner is ready". Taylor's jaw dropped. She felt as though she was staring straight into a mirror. This beautiful sim had the same high cheekbones, the same dimpy nose, the same dark pigtails tied with neat bunches at each side of her head. The same swollen stomach safely cocoonoing a new sim life.


"Coming darling". Noel sighed and turned back to Taylor. "So now you know". His arms were still folded, and he stared callously at Taylor. "You bastard". It came out as a whisper, she knew that if she raised her voice he would hear the well of tears cracking beneath it. She had no more words. "Please leave now", Noel shooed her cruelly. "With pleasure. You will never meet your child", she spat.


With that, she turned on her heel and started the long walk home. Her knees trembled all the way, and the tears rolled freely down her cheeks. But her head was held high. She would make this work, just her and this new little life that was flourishing inside her. She never did look back.

6 - The calm before...

Taylor arrived home that night with a revised version of “Noel Mahoney – What a load of baloney rubber duck enthusiast”. She had a feeling that he would love it. Cooking was hardly her forte, but she whipped up a mean Mac & Cheese for the occasion. Noel arrived right on time and devoured his faster than Taylor could find her spoon.

Later, they settled down on the couch for a chat, and Noel made it perfectly clear that he would not be washing up. He loved his article though, especially the bit about the rubber ducks.

Four days later, Noel was spotted leaving Sacred Spleen Memorial Hospital alone with quite a smug look about him, but what happened in between...........?

5 - Forbidden love

When Taylor woke up in her new bed the next morning, there were three things of which she was absolutely positive: First, Noel was rich. Second, there was a part of him–and she didn’t know how dominant that part might be – that thirsted for her blood. And third, she was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

Ok, maybe she was getting a bit carried away with the second part, but it was the first one that really troubled her. She could never marry Noel. This was one of the commandments of the Legacy bible that she could not break. She had religiously lived by the Legacy, and was sure to be damned to the grim reaper's hell if she starting sinning now. She decided to forget about Noel, but it was by a cruel twist of fate that she bumped into him the minute she stepped outside that morning.

"Hey! I thought I recognised you". His grin made her knees wobble, and she inwardly cursed the Sherlock Holmes disguise that obviously hadn't disguised her at all. "Did you find what you were looking for in my garbage yesterday?". M.o.r.t.i.f.i.e.d.
Taylor remained a brilliant shade of beetroot while they chatted, and before she knew it she had invited him over for dinner with the promise of a preview of the piece she was writing on him.


They shared a final lingering look before parting ways, and Taylor sped to work to start a new article on Noel. She would have to scrap "Noel Mahoney - What a load of baloney". Thank goodness she had all day to rewrite it!

4 - Money well spent

Taylor was ecstatic when she arrived home. Her house had been transformed, and it had turned out just as she imagined...


The interior design still required a bit of work, but on a salary of 1568,00 simoleons a day, and with book royalties of over 4000,00 simoleons coming in every week, Taylor knew that she would have the place perfect in no time.

3 - Noel Mahoney

With the 32,000 simoleons she had saved, Taylor decided to hire an builder and decorator to buff up her little home. Can't have a successful career woman living in a bedsit forever. While the contractors worked on her house, Taylor found herself having a good old rummage in the Mahoney's bins. One thing that she learnt during her days as an investigative reporter is that if you really want a juicy story on some sim, you need to get in amongst their garbage!



It was dirty work as always, but the fear of getting caught was an adrenaline rush unlike any other. Taylor found some intriguing artefacts belonging to her nemesis, Noel Mahoney. 2 rubber ducks, a large meteorite, and an old newspaper. Gripping stuff. Taylor decided to head out to the park disguised as Sherlock Holmes....she had to track down Noel Mahoney to see what else she could extract from him for her article.



Success! Taylor found Noel ambling through the park on his way to work. After a bit of a schmooze, and under the false pretence of a front page article in "The Snob Times", Noel agreed to an interview. He really laid himself bare, but Taylor left feeling frustrated...and confused. He was just so....nice. A hopeless romantic, charming, funny, and determined to make his own way in the world even though he was born into one of the wealthiest families in Sunset Valley. Taylor felt her heart take an involuntary flutter when he mentioned that he was single. "He was quite the looker too", she sighed to herself as she headed home.

2 - The working girl

Taylor's first day at work as a paper girl was a roaring personal success. She was initially mortified when she realised that the Mahoney household was one of her delivery stops for the "Snob Times", but a great aimed throw of the paper whacked an unsuspecting Noel Mahoney square on the head. Epic success.

Taylor headed straight to the library after work to type up an article named "A Guide To Well Aimed Paper Lobbing". The article was snapped up in minutes by a renowned publisher, earning Taylor 100 simoleons.

Taylor's creative juices flow, especially when it's bringing in the simoleons. With over a dozen articles published, and a steady flow of promotion bonuses, Taylor finally has enough to build a modest house...well a bedsit really, but it's home-sweet-home Alabama.



28 sim days later, Taylor has published 5 best sellers, written some damning articles on the residents of Sunset Valley, and fought her way to the top of the Journalism career. Her happiness may last a lifetime, but with all her time consumed by her drive to the top as a Star News Anchor, Taylor has realised that her love life is seriously lacking. "Who will carry on my legacy?", she despaired. Time to find love....pronto.

1 - A dustbin and a mailbox...

The arrival of Taylor Phoenix in the plush Summer Hill Springs area of Sunset Valley has caused somewhat of an uproar amongst the wealthy residents. The beautiful manors of the Alto family and the Mahoney family have neighboured each other on the private cul-de-sac for many sim generations, enjoying undisturbed views over the tranquil Summer Hill Park and Sunset Valley mountains. Both families are said to be very disturbed at the recent purchase of 15 Summer Hill Court. Rumour has it that the new girl in town has so much as the clothes on her back, a standard sim council dustbin, and a shiny new mailbox to her name...

Taylor has not had the warmest of welcomes in Sunset Valley. Her first visit to the park saw the untimely death of Margaret Menzes. A crowd gathered when Margaret suddenly passed away, and the grim reaper appeared to stake his claim. Margaret died of natural causes - she was an old biddy.

Taylor looked suitably traumatised, and is heard to have screamed "I don't want to die, I have a legacy to uphold!". Luckily the grim reaper left without so much as a sideways glance at her.



Spurred on by her brush with death, Taylor immediately headed to "Doo Peas Corporate Towers" and applied for a position as a paper girl. She has decided to follow her dream career as a Journalist. Being a paper girl seemed the most natural step in that direction. Well she'll be handling newspapers...that's what journalists do right?

The Legacy Challenge

The Sims 3 Legacy Rules

These rules were copied here from the More Awesome Than You forum (and Crystal's blog...lol) and are fully copyrighted by their Pinstar, creator of the Legacy Challenge. (View source here).

Legacy Challenge

The Legacy Challenge is a long, 10-generation challenge where you start out with a single founder and very humble beginnings and try to lead the family to fame, fortune and success over the course of 10 generations.

Starting out
Create a brand new game file. You will be using this file exclusively to play your Legacy Challenge. You may use an existing game file, but your Legacy family must immediately become the “Active Household” and not cease to be active for the duration of the challenge. You may select any neighborhood.

The challenge begins with a single founder. Make this founder in Create A Sim. They may be male or female. They may be any age that can have children (YA, Adult and Elder for males, YA and Adult for females). You have full choice over their look, color and clothing. Custom content may be used if you like, including create-a-style custom patterns and colors. You may choose all 5 traits as well as their three favorite likes (food, music and color) and a lifetime want. No other sims may be created in the founder’s family. Be creative with the family name, you’ll be seeing it for quite some time.

Now to place the founder. While you are free to choose either standard town, there is a very specific lot that must be used. If you move into Riverview, you must move into “345 Riverblossom Hills Drive”. If you move into Sunset Valley, you will be moving into “15 Summer Hill Court”. The common thread between these lots is that they are large, empty and cost $14,700. Yes I know that leaves you with only $1,300 in cash to build a house, that’s the point. All legacies start out with very humble beginnings and expect your founder to live like a hobo for awhile. If additional neighborhoods are made available with mods or EPs, or we gain the ability to plop our own lots down, they may be used, as long as the lot in question is completely empty and costs at least $14,700.


Rules:
No cheating. Plain and simple, no money or mood cheats. You may use custom objects, as long as their price and mood effects are in line with similar ‘official’ objects. Objects purchased from the Sim Store are considered 'offical' as well as the ones included with the game.
Aging and story progression must be on and lifespans set to the normal level.
You are allowed to play with any Mod that does not give you a signifigant advantage over a player without the mod. The only specific mod I know of at the moment, Awesome Mod, is allowed.
The Legacy family must be the “Active Household” during the entire challenge. You may never switch the active household to another family. If you want to take a break from Legacy play, it is recommended you play in another saved game slot.
No Ambrosia! Your sims may learn the recipe for Ambrosia, but may not cook or consume the dish. Nor may ambrosia be used to ressurect ghosts.
You may not ressurect dead sims via the Science lab.

Black Market Restriction:
The used goods market is being monitored by the local police. As a result, it is next to impossible to pawn stolen goods for cash.
Items obtained "Illegally" may not be sold for cash. They may be placed on the family lot and used by the family or kept in inventory, just not sold.
An "Illegally obtained" item is the following:
Any item stolen by a Kleptomaniac
Any item salvaged from another sim's trash can
Any item obtained automatically while a sim is in the criminal career track.




Moving Sims in:
Any sim may be moved into the Legacy Family via marriage or move-in except for the following:
Sims created by the player
Sims/households downloaded and imported from the exchange
Sims that had previously lived in the Legacy household but had since moved out
Sims that are identified by your sim as "Rich'

All other sims are fair game. You are allowed to create/download/import sims and families into your Legacy neighborhood, they just cannot join the family.
No sims/families may ever be merged into the Legacy family. If you wish to add members, they must be done in game.



Challenge concepts
Generation: Order of birth in relation to the family at large. Your founder is generation 1, your founder’s son/daughter would be generation 2, the grandchildren of the founder would be generation 3 and so on. The challenge ends the moment generation 10 is born.
Founder: The sim you create in CAS who starts the family.
Heir: The sim belonging to the family bloodline who is slated to bring in the next generation once he/she is old enough and finds a mate.
Spare: A sibling of an heir, who can become an heir should anything happen to the current heir. Spares may be fed to the time stream or kept on the lot if you wish. They are eligible to earn legacy points for the family.
Fed to the time stream: Moving a controllable sim out of the legacy house. A sim fed to the time stream no longer can generate legacy points for the family, but still may be interacted with. Legacy points that have already been earned by this sim still count towards your total, even after you move the sim out.
Legacy Points: Your score for the challenge, earned in a variety of ways described below. The goal of the challenge is to get as many legacy points before the 10th generation.
Legacy House: The lot initially moved into by your founder. You may not move the family to another lot during the entire challenge. All heirs must be born in this house (or rather, born from sims living at this house, even if they use the hospital to give birth)
Bloodline: Any sim who can trace his or her family tree directly to the founder. Adopted sims are NOT part of the bloodline. Sims that are moved in are only considered part of the bloodline when they contribute to the birth of the next generation.
Mate: A sim brought in from outside the family to reproduce with the current generation’s heir to produce the next generation. When the next generation is born, the mate becomes part of the family bloodline and eligible to earn points.

Points:
You earn points for your family in the following ways.
Generation: You get 1 legacy point for your founder, and 1 point for every generation born until the 10th. You earn each point at the birth of the first child in each generation. Further births in that generation do not generate more points. Thus you can only earn a maximum of 10 total Generation points by completing the challenge and birthing the 10th generation.
Lifetime wants: You gain 1 point for every unique lifetime want fulfilled by a family member. The sim in question must be living in the legacy house and be part of the family tree to earn this point. Once a specific liftime wish has been fulfilled by a sim, further sims fulifilling that wish will not earn you a legacy point for doing so. There are 32 unique liftime wishes in the game, meaning you could earn a maximum of 32 points in this category.
Portraits: 1 point for creating a portrait of a family member and keeping it on display after their death. Like above, the sim must be part of the family tree and living in the legacy house to qualify for this point. You earn this point after the portrait is created, you do not have to wait for the sim in the portrait to actually die. Portraits are still worth their points even if the family member pictured is moved out of the house later on. The skill of the artist doing the portrait does not matter, as long as it features the sim in question it counts. Portraits may be of any size or style. Keep in mind that a sim must have a painting skill of at least 5 to get the option of painting a still life (needed to capture a sim’s picture).
Legacy House: Earn 1 legacy point for every $100,000 in net worth the house is worth. Use the "Furnished Value" of the house to get this figure. Do not include the net-worths of legacy family members that have been moved out of the house. Round up. Your family's weath in cash does NOT count tword this number.
Aspiration Rewards: If a sim is able to earn 100,000 points worth of aspiration rewards, they earn your family 1 legacy point. You are free to spend aspiration points as you gain them, it is your lifetime total, not your current total, that matters for this point. Like the other sim-based points, this may only be earned by family members. You may earn an additional point in this category from a sim if they somehow earn 200,000 points in their lifetime. .

Birth and growing up
Whenever a sim is born or ages up, they will often obtain new traits. Sometimes these traits are randomly assigned by the game. Other times the game lets you pick them. In the Legacy Challenge, all traits are random. If you are given the option to pick traits for any sim, you must hit the random button and accept the trait that is randomly assigned. The only exception is if you are playing with the "Family Trait" optional rule. If you are, and the family trait is one of the options, you may select that trait rather than hitting the random button.
Death
Sims that die on the family lot may be kept around as ghosts, or may be moved to a cemetery. It is up to you. If a sim dies and you forgot to get their portrait, making a portrait of their ghost does not count. If the bloodline is cut short by death, the challenge ends immediately. It is always a good idea to have at least one spare in case the heir perishes. Even if ghosts become playable, they may not earn any further points for the family. Ghost babies are not considered part of any bloodline.

Bringing in the next generation.
In order to bring in the next generation, a new sim must be born. Adoptions do not carry the family bloodline and thus don’t count. (You are still allowed to adopt sims if you really want to, but they won’t help point wise) If the heir is male, you must move their mate into the legacy family house before having a baby. If the heir is female, she may move her mate in, or simply get pregnant while off the lot. In either case, the heir and their mate don’t have to be married. Sims may be born at home or in a hospital, whichever you prefer. The moment the next generation is born, the heir’s mate officially becomes part of the family bloodline (and thus can earn lifetime want, aspiration perk and portrait points for you, provided they are living in the Legacy House).

Optional Rules
These are optional rules you may play with if you wish. They don’t affect your score in any way, and are merely tools to help establish a theme for your family.

Family Trait
When creating your founder in CAS, choose one of the founder’s 5 traits to become the ‘family trait’ for your legacy family. There after, every sim born to the legacy family must possess this trait by the time they reach young adulthood. If they do not inherit it at birth, you must choose that trait the moment you are given the option to. The remaining traits still must be rolled for.

Matriarchy/Patriarchy

Whatever gender your founder was, this must be the gender of every heir. Meaning if you started with a female founder, only female children may become the heir to bring in the next generation. Children of the other gender are still counted as part of the family bloodline and may still earn the family points, they simply may not bring in the next generation.
A male dominant family is called a Patriarchy, a female dominant family is a Matriarchy.

Story Teller

A popular practice is to write a story for your Legacy family and upload it in chapters. If you feel the creative energy, why not try uploading your own story? There is no in-game bonus for doing this, but the addition to the community is always welcome!




FAQ

Why do I have to buy such a big lot. I barely have money in the beginning.
Early poverty is a hallmark of the challenge. A large plot of land not only drains the available cash from your starting funds, it gives you the ability to build some epic sized legacy homes as you play through the generations and get more wealth.

If I’m playing with the family trait option, does my sim’s mate have to have that trait too?
No.

Can I move in/marry sims into the legacy home that aren’t going to help bring in the next generation?
Yes, keep in mind that they don’t earn any points for the family. Even sims that are destined to help bring in the next generation won’t count as part of the family until the next generation is actually born.

Does the first born have to be the heir?

No, as long as they are part of the bloodline and born on the legacy house they are eligible to be an heir, regardless of order of birth. They must be the proper gender if playing with the matriarchy/patriarchy option.

Are collection items, such as rocks, insects and seeds subject to the black market restriction?

No, you are allowed to sell any collection items you find...as long as they weren't stolen out of someone's house or garbage.