Babysnatching and Bloodlust: I Couldn't Make This Up If I Tried

And now, a big Scumthorpe update. I haven't been able to play for most of the past week due to updating all my mods and sorting out an annoying glitch resulting from transferring everything over from the Steam version of the game to Origin in order to be able to play Supernatural and future expansions, but now things are up and running again I think it's time to reveal the new addition to the family I've hinted at in previous posts.Up until now, all the Scumthorpes have been ordinary (if severely messed-up) humans, with the closest thing to an inhuman member of the family being either Sprog or a certain spindly mutant hellbaby we all love to hate or hate to love. But yesterday, the first paranormal Scumthorpe decided to reveal himself to the world after an early life spent in near-total obscurity elsewhere in SimNation. And despite having been born and raised entirely isolated from the rest of the family and its ongoing tradition of dodgy baby names, his name is probably the most questionable of the lot:Meetthe previously-unknown bastard son of Sid Scumthorpe and an as-of-yet-unidentified witch from Moonlight Falls with whom he somehow managed to have his only ever one-night-stand approximately 30 years ago. In a truly disastrous turn of events that more or less entirely disproves the notion of a just and loving Sim god, Judas managed to inherit both his mother's ability to use magicevery single one of the catastrophic personality flaws that run in the Scumthorpe family, all the while managing the impressive feat of having both the least trustworthy name and the least trustworthy eyebrows in the history of the universe. And now, having recently learned of his direct (if illegitimate) links to a wealthy and influential family, he's come to claim his fair share of Larry Scumthorpe's money and power.So how does a magical megalomaniac go about attracting the attention of a multi-millionaire?Within less than 24 hours of his initial arrival in Sunset Valley, Judas had given local medical professionals a perfect opportunity to conduct research into the effects of hypothermia during the run-up to the release of Seasons......personally run regional tourism into the ground by repeatedly setting badly-dressed pudding-faced foreigners on fire......and turned several people into amphibians purely to amuse himself. At least, on the few occasions when he wasn't flinging pestilence curses around at passers-by like they were going out of style or compelling people to publicly lose control of their bladders.So yeah, Sid Scumthorpe's only sexual experience in his entire lecherous life managed to produce an evil sorcerer named after three legendary traitors who apparently views the non-magical world and everybody in it as his personal plaything, thus proving that the whole universe runs on Murphy's Law.Can thingsget any worse for this town?Why, yes, of course they can:Above all things, Judas Scumthorpe loves to dominate and control his fellow man, and sees raising the dead as his personal minions as the easiest and most viable path to power. He has absolutely no qualms about clearing out entire cemeteries in order to do so......and sometimes resorts to graverobbing in the most literal sense imaginable to further swell the ranks of his future undead horde. Now, most sims who attempt to raise the dead tend to be well-meaning, sympathetic characters, or at worst curious opportunists with access to dead people and magic.And wait a minute, take a look at this thought bubble:Is zombie Lolita Goth...About being happy and human and alive rather than eating brains?Is she still sentient and capable of feeling? Can she still remember her time among the living?Apparently yes.But wait, hang on, that would imply that all of Judas's undead slaves are still conscious the entire time. Even though they're zombies. Even though all they can do is shamble around and moan wordlessly, all the while looking on helplessly as their bodies slowly break down and rot away-So other than a glitch or two, that's what the release of Supernatural has inflicted on my town so far. A monstrous magical overlord resulting from a broken condom and 5 minutes of awkward fumbling around in the dark that will not rest until both the living and the dead kneel and grovel at his feet forever.And the worst thing about this entire situation?------------------------------------Now Supernatural's out, I also have the things I need in order to click on Edit in CAS with Lester Scumthorpe selected and get an accurate picture of what everyone's favourite ugly emaciated mutant baby will eventually grow into, like I did with his sisters and Sprog when people expressed an interest in their genetics.It isn't pretty.After spending the entirety of his formative years continuing to suffer from the same Tiberium poisoning he was born with, full-grown Lester is horrifyingly radioactive, built like Christian Bale in The Machinist () and only a few unorthodox facial piercings away from resembling something out of Hellraiser. Geiger counters go haywire around him. Vampires stupid or desperate enough to try drinking his blood might as well be swallowing depleted uranium. There arein better condition than him, and yet he's still the most viable heir the Scumthorpes currently have unless Judas steps in.Also, compare that picture with the ones of his sisters as young adults.---------------------------------------------Before proceeding with this post, a disclaimer: Up until my regular characters intervened in the following series of events, I had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Absolutely nothing. What you are about to see is one of the most bizarre cases of autonomous behaviour by a NPC I've ever seen in the sims series, with no efforts by the player to set it up or influence it at all. Even byit's weird and deranged, to the point where it'd actually be kind of unsettling if it hadn't taken place in such a cartoony game.So without further ado:Apart from Judas Scumthorpe abruptly barging into Larry's mansion and intimidating his illegitimate semi-uncle into providing financial backing for his evil sorcerous endeavours, this Thursday was a fairly normal day for everyone's favourite family of maniacs and morons. Lester and Lolita hung around together and had oddly precocious baby conversations as usual, Carrie alternated between building toddler skills and beating the crap out of her Imaginary Friend doll, Sprog once again ignored school entirely in favour of typing up his first crazy person manifesto and Rick continued to slide further into depression and insanity from having to take care of them all while still digging graves for a living. All fairly routine stuff for them, barring the sudden addition of a necromancer to the family.And then out of nowhere, this happened:Upon inspection, this mystery sim turned out to be a middle-aged service NPC (a bouncer, oddly) namedthat I'd never heard of before in my life, who proceeded to spend the entire afternoon hanging around outside the front door and complaining about routing errors. Initially, I figured she'd been directed onto the lot by the game's questionable AI and got stuck, so I decided to just ignore her and hope she'd eventually head back to whichever bar or club she was assigned to......Until night fell, and I found her hiding in a bush while repeatedly complaining that a locked door prevented her from getting into the house and behaving increasingly like an escaped mental patient.Since when did I even suggest that you were allowed in there, you perplexingly persistent puddle of idiocy?And why the hell are Lester and Lolita thinking about her? They've never even seen her before. She's not a social worker. They have no reason to know of her existence, let alone express any awareness of her presence nearby. It's not like they're responding to an attempt to interact with them or anything.Unless-As time went by, her thought bubbles increasingly began to revolve solely around the Scumthorpe triplets and getting into the house to be close to them.This isn't just a WTF moment anymore.Feeling increasingly concerned, I checked on the triplets and quickly noticed something overtly creepy happening: Over and over again,appeared in their action queues, only to quickly drop out when the doors blocked thisfrom entering their home.Yes, you read that correctly.I amjoking. I amlying....Oh,, I amstanding for this.Fortunately, though, crazy child-snatching middle-aged women aren't the only things that lurk around the grounds of Stately Scum Manor late at night:At this point, sticking on the Jaws theme would probably be appropriate. Or the theme to Halloween. Either version. Or perhaps this suspenseful little tune. Because Ms. Sears has absolutely no idea just how utterly, utterlyshe is right now.Sometimes, having a prepubescent Patrick Bateman in the family has its perks.A word of advice, by the way: If you're a sim and you happen to see this approaching you in the dark,Doubly so if he happens to be carrying the pistol from Desecrate's Weapons System."Heh. Exploded cranium. Brain matter. Pity, though, I wanted to keep the skull..."And so with the timely arrival of Death himself, this bizarre and disturbing chain of eventscame to an end.Thus concluded my first and hopefully only encounter with a NPC even more insane than most of my own characters.Because if you find yourself having to fight crazy with crazy... well, at least you can't outdo Sprog in that regard.Perhaps I need to balance things out a bit more. Perhaps I should make a normal, reasonable, sensible man as a counterpoint to Larry Scumthorpe, and give him a nice, peaceful, non-deranged life with a lovely wife and a pleasant career. An author, maybe--Oh, wait, no. Bad idea. Bad,idea. Based on what just happened between the game's AI and the Scumthorpes, any attempt to make a sim with a successful writing career would probably just lead to a horrifying virtual re-enactment of Stephen King'ssooner or later.