Belladonna Cove: Watervista Place = Baba Yaga's Hut

[strangetomato]

I've always been fascinated with the odd little witch cabin on the "hidden" (it is if you don't have a camera mod, anyway) Watervista Palace lot on the edge of Belladonna Cove. It really begs for more development, and gets me thinking about the witches and their mythology. I've been planning to build up more of a hidden town for the witches out there, where the Cordial's actually live, when they're not blending in with the rest of society as normal sims.








Do you see them? Perhaps if we pull the camera away a little...




Look at the base of the stairs! :D

I always thought this pair of staircases seemed like they were meant to look like feet, but this confirms it. Those darker patches of terrain are obviously references to the clawed chicken feet of Baba Yaga's hut.

Here are some artistic interpretations that I dug up through google image search:




Now that this has brought it back to my memory, I remember this little bit of folklore from some computer games of my childhood (the King's Quest series, maybe? They were full of myths and fairytale stuff from different sources). There's something extremely terrifying about a house with legs, not to mention the skulls. It's strangely familiar, even the first time you hear about it. I think it must be part of our collective landscape of nightmares that we have as children. 

Now I'm going to need to find some cc skulls to try to bring out this look a little more. Have anyone extracted the skull from the Resurrect-O-Nomitron, I wonder?

Don't you love finding things like this in the game? I'm always impressed at all the small details the designers have worked in there. ^_^


ETA: I just did a search on this, and there's also a very small entry (it's actually in fine print) on it in the Sims Wiki.

... and the Baba Yaga connection was already mentioned on MATY, MTS2, and a bunch of other places, so this isn't really breaking news.











Comments

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

I think the sims would need to use brooms to travel to a community lot. I played a sim out there when I first installed AL, but I don't recall ever trying to make him leave the lot, but I've since played a sim on an isolated island in Elsewhere and she couldn't leave unless she used her broom.

That's a cool lamp. Thank you for sharing that! I also found a skull by Windkeeper, so I should be able to piece something together.

[aledstrange.livejournal.com]

I've since played a sim on an isolated island in Elsewhere and she couldn't leave unless she used her broom
wow Really? I was kind of joking (for the location of the house) but never imagined sims couldn't leave a lot if it's isolated. (at least not in sims 2, in sims 3 probably for the way it works)

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

I know there are lots in custom neighborhoods that sims can't leave, so they have to be entirely self-sufficient. plasticbox has one in her Elsewhere neighborhood -- it's that little house on the island. No delivery, no firetrucks, no leaving... but they do get mail and the newspaper! Apparently by rowboat? ^_^

Edit: I fail, I didn't fully read Strange's comment mentioning the same island house! *blush*

[strange-tomato.livejournal.com]

Haha. Why be embarrassed? It's not like anyone will post your embarrassing error on simsecret or anything? :P

I think the thing about that island on Elsewhere (that's where my witch sim, Gloria Bless, lives), is that there's no ROAD there at all. The bills and newspaper are linked to having the mailbox and garbage can, but those're the only NPCs that are allowed. (And, yes, they can swim or else hold their breath for a long time. XD)

This lot in Belladonna Cove has that little strip of road, so I think it will be treated as an ordinary lot.

[pixelcurious.livejournal.com]

Heh, they just like to pick on you! I didn't even notice the dessert/desert thing, to be honest. Though I picked up a spelling error in that secret today that showed your Titania and another one.

I wonder how plasticbox placed a lot there without a road. I was going to use that neighborhood for my VDSL, but decided to go with Baskerville instead, thinking it would be easy to place beach lots in Baskerville... ^_^;; But I still think Elsewhere looks really nifty. Have you had any issues with it?