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Winter Is Never Coming
Welcome, one and all, to The Sims Medieval: Goon of Thrones!
Imagine a suitably badass opening theme playing while the camera rolls around this little map.
A spin-off from the main The Sims series, The Sims Medieval is meant to give a slightly more structured, gameplay-oriented Sims experience set in Ye Medieval Tymes. The game is still ultimately a Sims game though, so we have the usual colourful cast of cartoony characters, complete with fake language, clothing customization, buying and selling furnishings, mood management, and so on.
The medieval aspect gives the game more mechanics than the main series. Gameplay is broken up into quests, completed by heroes who are created and controlled like regular sims. These quests influence and impact the wellbeing of the kingdom, and the rewards for completing them allows the recruitment of more heroes, construction of more buildings, and general expansion of the realm.
This Let?s Play will follow the rise of one such kingdom, one quest at a time. Since Sims Let?s Plays are ripe for 
user participation, this Let?s Play is going to get a lot of direction from all of you.
Here?s how that?ll work. When we have a decision to be made, I?ll open up voting at the end of my post. If it?s for a new hero, you may either submit a candidate yourself or vote for a submission someone else has already proposed. If it?s for what quest or building to pick next, I?ll list the options in my post and you simply vote for which one you want. Vote switching is allowed, so if someone submits a candidate you like better I?ll count it if you post that you?re changing your vote.
Like the Sims themselves, expect a fairly light and slapstick tone, but the tools are there to be serious if that?s where you, the audience, wants to lead. Submit nobles with period-accurate last names and choose quests that focus on intrigue and you?ll get a slightly more serious story. Choose a wizard based off of Twilight Sparkle and pick the quest about protesting wearing fur, and you?ll get a more wacky sort of world.
From the title screen we are invited to choose our ambition. An ambition is an overall goal you can set for a particular kingdom, such as building every building, annexing all neighbouring lands, raising a team of legendary heroes, and so on. You?re only given a limited number of quest points within which to complete this objective, however. For our purposes, there?s an option for playing without any particular ambition and instead has infinite quest points to pursue as many quests as you want. Let?s start a game.
This is the main menu and play area between quests. Here we can choose our next quest, see the state of the kingdom, buy upgrades, hire new heroes, and generally poke around. There are a number of buildings to be built from this screen, which I will list when we have some resource points to spend on them.
Our kingdom has stats, much like a Sim. The health of the kingdom is ranked on four metrics - well-being, security, culture, and knowledge. These all start at zero, with a maximum capacity of 2. In order to improve our kingdom then, we have to increase our capacity (by constructing buildings that increase that capacity) then actually gain points in those stats (by doing quests that give those stats as gains). Our kingdom is stable for now, but as our renown grows our need for all four stats goes up, and we need to keep the stats up to avoid consequences.
We also collect renown and resources. Renown is our score, of sorts, and grows whenever we gain resource points (but does not go down when we spend resources). Certain events are driven by our renown score, and as it rises our need to increase our aspects also grows. Resource points are used to purchase new buildings, and new buildings allow us to recruit new heroes - if you want a wizard, we need to build a wizard tower.
This is the quest list. After completing a quest, a random selection of new quests is offered. Some quests have prerequisites before being offered, such as requiring certain heroes, alliances, or discoveries. Each quest offers rewards in the form of experience points for the participating heroes and resources and renown for the kingdom.
Of course, it wouldn?t be a Sims game if you couldn?t spend much too long customizing your little virtual characters. The kingdom is filled with premade non-hero characters, but whenever you make a hero you get to make them yourself. The options are slightly less robust than most Sims games, but still quite good.
Another part of character creation is choosing two traits and a fatal flaw. These give each character different social options and affects their reactions to others. Some quests allow a hero to overcome their fatal flaw and become legendary, replacing their flaw with a special trait of their choice. I?ve listed the traits and flaws later on in this post.
Right, that?s quite enough information to get us started.
Across the Endless Sea lies the land of men. A disparate race and quarrelling race descended from seafarers, man drove the elves and Dire Chinchillas before them, tamed the wilderness, settled the land, and founded their new realms. From the water a new settlement is visible, the spires of a recently-completed castle rising up above the cliffs.
Builders from Crafthole had been paid lavishly, sparing no expense in the construction. Though the land had never known war, it was built as a fortress against attack. Though the land had never known a master, it was positioned to assert dominance.
The castle lay just outside the village of Rabit Holl, an unremarkable little town along the sea coast. Settled by early colonists from across the sea, the town had never been a center of trade or culture.
Between this new fortress and old town lay little more than wilderness. The land was undeveloped and unclaimed, another stretch of wilds in the space between kingdoms.
The peasants of Rabit Holl thought little of the castle. Life had always been quiet, peaceful, and boring in their homeland, and the rumoured arrival of a noble ruler had not captured their imagination.
All this would change soon, however, for one came to take the royal seat and establish dominion over all they surveyed. They had already won the support of the merchant princes of Tredony and the smith masters of Crafthole, and soon they would assert their direct authority on Rabit Holl and the surrounding land.
All this new kingdom needed was a name? and a master brave enough to drag it to glory!
So with our introduction out of the way, we?ll need our first hero - the Monarch of our glorious realm! The realm will also need a name, too, which will work like voting for a new hero. To remind you, the way this will work is you can either submit your own candidate or vote for someone else?s submission. The submission with the most votes will be chosen. In the case of a draw I?ll declare a runoff and let people vote between the tied candidates. Since we?re voting for both a name and a hero this time, you can submit/vote for both.
Along with a name, gender, and some character background, we?ll also need two traits:
Adventurous: An adventurer will set out from time to time to explore exotic locales.
Chivalrous: A believer in courtly virtues, chivalry is still considered romantic in this earlier time.
Creative Cook: A master of flavours, a good cook was a rare treat in the age of gruel.
Dedicated: A hard worker who goes the extra mile in their responsibilities to the kingdom.
Earthy: Loves being outside and has a talent for collecting plants and minerals.
Eloquent: A knack with words, the Eloquent can hold people?s attention and inspire them.
Evil: Evil! Laughs in the face of (other people?s) death, even their dreams are wicked.
Excitable: Unstoppably enthusiastic about even minor things.
Friendly: A people person, builds up friendships and alliances very quickly.
Fun-loving: Simple, really - loves having a good time. Is drawn to the carefree and fun like a moth to a tavern drinking contest.
Good: Charitable, comforting, and without a cruel thought in their head. The good are ripe to be made miserable by more medieval peers.
Greedy: All about the simoles, never pays back a debt and feels joy just from having the most cash.
Haggler: Knows how to cut a good deal at the Village Shoppe.
Hopeful Orphan: Never knew their parents, but hopes they?re still out there somewhere.
Jokester: A jester in the making, tells all the best jokes.
Loves Family: Loves their family and sets a heart-warming example for others.
Scholarly: A big fan of reading and eager to examine just about anything in the kingdom.
Solitary: Prefers the company of themselves, a good choice for solo missions and a bad choice for public speaking.
Unkempt: A slob of a sim who eats spoiled food, sleeps wherever they feel, and is generally a mess.
Vain: Loves admiring themselves in a mirror almost as much as talking about themselves to others.
Whale Ate My Parents: Exactly what it says on the tin. Can lead whaling expeditions and curse the sea.
Beware though, we will also need a Fatal Flaw. Some of these can really be downright fatal in the wrong situation:
Bloodthirsty: Needs a fight to get through the day, and a war to get through the month.
Compulsive Gambler: A day without the thrill of a little risk is a bad day.
Cowardly: Anything seriously scary or stressful is a problem, never mind just going outside at night.
Cruel: Sometimes anger just needs to come out, regardless of the victim. Don?t think friendship will protect you either, as the cruel will throw a punch at anyone.
Cursed: Some people are just unlucky. When feeling especially cursed, they may as well not get out of bed.
Drunkard: Mastered by drink, the drunkard has a hard life in the time before AA meetings and coffee.
Fool: A slow learner and absent-minded, fools are soon recognized as such by all but other fools.
Glutton: Just can?t stop eating. Will be the first to go in a famine.
Hubris: Quick to become full of themselves for every victory, real and imagined.
Insecure: Needs constant assurance from others, or else becomes depressed and even unpredictable.
Insomniac: Won?t sleep a whole night through, liable to be tired and irritable as a result.
Licentious: A seedy romantic who needs regular action to feel good.
Misanthrope: Just plain hates people. Will only tolerate good friends, and good luck getting any.
Morose: Sometimes you just wake up on the wrong side of the bed. For them, that?s both sides.
Puny: Weaker, worse at fights, and gets tired faster while doing strenuous activities.
Uncouth: Say what they feel, regardless of good sense or common courtesy.
Weak Constitution: A high chance of illness and a low chance of winning a fight. Put this on the Knight and watch me laugh, and laugh, and laugh (don?t do this please).
I?ll take care of their appearance, though if you want to give a rough style description by all means do so. Otherwise, get to work! Glory and renown await us!