Timeless Surprises of Nornish Proportions

Aging is a part of life, yet I still get caught off guard when it happens for the first time in a world. However, this time I was completely surprised when I found the first elder… Iridollae?! There were four Norns who were older than her, including Bolanderi and Candidum. They were nearby, and she decided to take her creaky old bones over to show off her new old lady gait. Who wouldn’t want to flaunt that? Candidum was sleeping off her latest pregnancy, Bolanderi wondered why he wasn’t the father, and Iridollae splashed about in a perfectly timed picture. She wasn’t about to waste old age doing nothing!

I headed off in search of the youngest Norn, Souliei… Oh. Dear. That’s not right. The old body data and sprite project I never returned to came up in a conversation recently, and this pose really made me realize that I need to get back to that project. Fast! These issues are purely cosmetic, yet I feel like they give Creatures 1 an unpolished image, which it doesn’t deserve. Older games can sometimes be less appealing based on their graphics, even if they have some of the best and unique features. I have an idea about how I can at least create some sort of “temporary” collection of fixes… I say “temporary” because the scope of the entire project encompasses hundreds, possibly even thousands, of images and text files. That will take awhile with my busy schedule.

Fortunately, there were no other body data issues to plague my mind… For now. Nanum had almost snuck an entire pregnancy under my nose, courtesy of the way the Observation Kit only shows a small number of Norns at once! Martagon looked quite pleased, and it wasn’t until Nanum was almost ready to lay her egg that I realized why. She deposited her little bundle of joy in the treehouse, near the cable car bay, and went straight down to the happening scene: The lair of the deathcap mushroom. Then she did something a Norn seldom did: She pushed the up button on the lift. Might I point out how the deathcap mushroom was still intact when she left? She ignored it! Go, Nanum! Maybe she can teach the others a thing or two about how to survive.

Souliei soon came to terms with the way her body would always be completely off, and she kind of enjoyed being able to appear partially invisible. I found her contemplating this, when I realized there was something new about her, and it certainly wasn’t invisible. She was carrying an egg! Martagon was prowling around the treetop, but in a nice sort of way. He was very nice to anyone who happened upon him, unlike some of the other males. This pregnancy means that everyone in the world has at least one child, thereby securing their legacies. I have two more Norns to add to this generation, yet the world is already somewhat overcrowded with 10 Norns and 4 Grendels. Likely we won’t meet those last babies for awhile, although there seem to be plenty of antics that can happen in the meantime!