Discworld Legacy

Chapter 9

Brenda

Welcome back to the Discworld legacy, it's been a while. Last time the heiress, Brenda, made her way through university gaining a degree and a partner. The hosts for this chapter are a sim that you may have met before (if you read my other legacy) and a sim you definitely haven't, but will soon. As ever my sims will tell their story, and will continue to do so as long as I can be bothered, so as I have nothing further to say I'll hand over to Brenda.

My name is Brenda Discworld and I am currently head of the largest and most powerful (not to mention richest) family on the Disc. As its head I feel it is my duty to maintain a record of the lives of it's members for future generations. This is a duty I will pass on to my heir and he to his and so on as long as the line continues (may it be a long time).

It was my grandfather, Great A'Tuin Discworld, who first settled here and was the first head of this family, that honour then passed to my mother, Angua, and then to me. I have included in this record documents that give their part of the family history to ensure it is complete. I have also included my own journals from my childhood and student days, so I will start from when I returned home to take on my new responsibilities.

The home I returned to was different to the one I left. My parents had taken the opportunity of an empty nest to completely remodel.

It wasn't long after I arrived home that the new house saw its first big event, my dream wedding. I had met Marion at university and knew very quickly that she was the love of my life. Neither of us wanted to wait to be married and neither of us saw any point in waiting so we married as soon as she graduated.

As many of my friends and family that would fit in the house were invited.

Oddly many of them chose to watch from the walkway at the back of the house rather that sitting in the chairs provided.

Mum was absolutely thrilled at my marriage. It's always been her dream to see six children married and now she had (Bon Anna couldn't steal my thunder that time at least).

After the ceremony came the celebrations.

They weren't all as dignified as I'd have like, Marion enjoyed them though.

It was dad who proposed the first toast, he wished us great joy, comfortable wealth and not too many children.

After that I lost count of the number of toasts, they were all pretty much the same - health, happiness, children usual things.

There was a bit too much toasting really for some guests.

After a while Marion and I made our excuses and made for our new bedroom, it was then that the first of our many children was conceived.

It was fun too.

The wedding party was a huge success (and the honeymoon was wonderful, but that's private).

In fact the wedding was all anyone could talk about for days on end.

After the wedding things quickly settled into a routine. My first priority was to become the most feared Criminal Mastermind on the Disc but it was a while until I found my opportunity to join the criminal community. Until then I painted, I had learnt at university that there is an almost endless demand for pretty pictures and sims are prepared to spend silly amounts of money on them so I took advantage of that.

Dad was also making money $100,000 of it to be specific, he'd gone back into the business world after his dabble in the criminal one (which he doesn't know that I know about), and was steadily working his way to the top again.

Marion was less interested in making money and more in starting a family of our own.

She was so delighted when she knew for sure that the first of our children was on the way.

It didn't seem long before I was woken by Marion's cries of pain early one morning.

Fortunately mum was around to give her support as the birthing process is just not my thing.

And then it was all over and Marion was holding our first born, a girl we named Cheri. [Cheri, originally named Cheery, is a dwarven alchemist and member of Ankh-Morpork city watch where she is the forensic expert. She is also the first admittedly female dwarf in the books and she starts a chain reaction amongst the dwarven community.]

After the birth Marion found an opening in the Law Enforcement career track as Police Chief.

Which was not great for me as I had just found a job as a Smuggler and was finally nearing my dream.

In fact the very first time I went to work I was promoted to Criminal Mastermind, I ran this town. It was then that I started to hear rumours about some kind of Hero who delighted in messing with the plans of the criminal elite. It wasn't long before I captured one of the amateur do-gooder that worked with this big hero. I discovered his pathetic real identity and he gave me a lot of money not to reveal it and to let him leave town, but not before he gave me a couple of leads as to where I might find this troublesome "Captain Hero".

A couple of days later I followed them to a very familiar part of town

and to my own home.

And then I saw something that would change my life forever, I saw who Captain Hero really was

it was Marion.

I remember well the dilemma that discovery left me with. On the one hand I loved my job, I loved the power and wealth it brought me and I had longed dreamed of doing it, on the other, Marion was the sim I loved most in the world. One thing was clear, I had to chose, I had been lucky so far and we had never met, I knew that luck could not last.

In the end the decision was easy.

My job I could live without, my wife I couldn't.

I quit my job the very next day and found a new one in Show Business. In the end I found as much power and wealth there as I ever did in crime, and Marion never had to find out what it was I did all those years.

Not long after changing careers I completed the ultimate dream for a sim like me.

I had amassed a grand total of $100,000, and in a much shorter time than dad too.

I'll admit it was all I talked about for some time.

While all this was happening Cheri had become a teenager. And there were three more children around the house.

Carrot, [Carrot is a dwarf by adoption and is a Captain in the Ankh-Morpork city watch. He is also quite probably heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, but he isn't really interested in that. He is about 6 foot 6 and very muscular and has bright red hair (he is the whole reason I wanted the chance of red-headed children this generation). He is honest, good-natured and honourable in all his dealing and believes that everyone is decent underneath and would all get along fine if they just made the effort. He is genuinely, almost supernaturally likeable, and he is astonishingly simple, something many people confuse with stupidity, he sees the world shorn of all the little lies people tell themselves to make things feel better. He currently has a thing going with Angua (making it slightly odd that she's his grandmother in my game) the fact that she's a werewolf just means he has someone to come with him on he walks around the city.]

Coin [Coin is the eighth son of a wizard making him a sorcerer. He takes over the leadership of Unseen University and starts a magical war that nearly ends up destroying the Disc and is about 10 years old at the time.]

And Conina. [Conina the daughter of Cohen the Barbarian and so is genetically a barbarian heroine, but she wants to be a hairdresser.]

Oh, and mum and dad had got old.

Dad's luck didn't improve any with being an elder. He yet again got demoted from Business Tycoon to President for exactly the same reason as before.

He cried about it for days, but it was all his own fault, why he had to try and build that seaport again I don't know, it didn't work last time, what on earth made him think it would work this time?!

He did eventually make his way back to the top and then retired before anything else could go wrong.

Once Coin and Conina were old enough to go to school it was time to get them, and the older two, into private school - nothing but the best for my children.

Dad did an excellent job of impressing the headmaster, not that it needed that much effort, after all we are the richest family in this place.

And mum made one of her famous recipes to further impress.

Of course my children were accepted by the school, I would have expected nothing less.

The evening she was accepted into private school Cheri left for university. She took with her a nice lot of scholarships, $7,750 to be precise.

But it was just as well really as we needed the room

for our fifth child Casanunda [Casanunda is a dwarf, unlike other dwarves he isn't interested in mining, instead he spends his time on other things. He business card describes him as the worlds greatest lover and outrageous liar, when questioned on this he admits he's only the world's 2nd greatest lover, but he tries harder.]

Life wasn't always perfect, it seems that as a ex-Criminal Mastermind my house was a tempting challenge to wannabe crooks.

Fortunately my days as a criminal had taught me how to defend my property.

And Marion's contacts in the police force led to a speedy response.

It was really very satisfying to watch the burglar get beaten up by a cop (once I wouldn't have thought that way at all).

The cop won the fight (they wouldn't send a lousy cop to the home of an Icon and the Captain Hero now would they) we were given a small reward for our assistance (the reward was a pittance really, but money is money).

After the burglary Carrot decided it was time for him to leave home for university, he didn't do quite as well as Cheri and only earned $6,750 in scholarships.

Soon after Carrot's departure there was yet another baby in the house, this one we named Christine. [Christine is a singer at the Ankh-Morpork Opera House. Bad voice, good looks. Not too bright, except when it comes to making an impression.]

Oh yes, somewhere around this time mum and dad celebrated their golden anniversary. Everyone invited were family members, even Cheri and Carrot found time in their university schedule to come.

They also invited Bon Anna, I will admit we have grown closer since we were children, and it was actually quite nice to see her, but creator help her if she tries to steal my limelight like she did when we were children. Overall the party was a great success and made mum very happy.

The following day Coin left for university having pocketed a nice amount of scholarship money.

This was soon followed by yet another addition to the family, are you seeing the pattern here? [While I wasn't going to have tons of kids this generation Marion changed my mind. She had an almost constant want for another child in her want slots. The only time it went away was for about a sim-hour after giving birth and when there were 8 sims in the house, then as soon as the number of sims fell below 8 back it would come.]

Actually that should have been additions. Straight after giving birth to Cassandra Marion handed her to dad and went back into labour.

I think she was the most surprised of the lot of us. It wasn't long before the second of the twins, another girl we named Clancy, was with us.

[Clancy is the name of War's daughter. Cassandra is a rather "horsie" girl who went to the same girls boarding school as Susan Sto Helit (Death's granddaughter).

Cassandra and Clancy are both very minor characters but I'm running out of girls names again.
Oh, and they were cheesecake twins not natural]

Life with two infant girls, two children and a teenager was tough, and it was about to get tougher.

While the twins were still babies dad passed away at the age of 79.

And the very next day so did mum, she was only 76 when she went but I think she just gave up when dad died. On the bright side their insurance paid out well over $10,000 each for the family so things are looking good financially.

[Dominic Discworld may have been a fortune sim but his life was taken over by babies when he married Angua but he didn't seem to mind much. He was most notable to me for his inability to main his job as a business tycoon, every time he got to the top a chance card he went straight back down to President (yes I know I could have just ignored the chance card but there's just something in me that won't) the fourth and final time he got there he hurriedly retired before anything else could go wrong.]

[Angua Discworld was, of course, a family sim, and a very successful on at that, at the time of her death she had 11 children and over 30 grandchildren. Angua is notable as my first ever born in game sim to die of old age (and I've been playing this game since it came out)]

I was always close to my parents (despite the impression I may have given sometimes) and it hurt to have to say goodbye to them. I still miss them now, the occasional sighting of their ghosts (but not too often and definitely not too close).

As if the death of my parents wasn't enough the strange goings on a couple of nights later nearly did send me over the edge.

I heard a strange noisy late at night and went out onto the balcony where I knew my son had been stargazing only moments before except he wasn't there anymore. The twins said they'd been woken by a strange light and when they came out to investigate there was no one around.

Things get even stranger later, in the early hours of the morning an ALIEN SPACESHIP appeared in front of the house.

It spat my son out in the most undignified way and then disappeared again. Apart from a few bruises he was alright and soon got over the traumatic experience, but those aliens had better watch out if they come anywhere near my family again, I'll show then who's in charge.

After the trauma of the alien abduction it was time for what had become the mediocrity of yet another birth.

Once again Marion's labour didn't stop with the first child.

And so we now have twin boys Carcer and Chrysoprase. [Chrysoprase is the Ankh-Morpork troll godfather and chief of the underground. He's sleek and smooth and wears a suit and diamond jewellery, although given that trolls teeth are made out of diamond you wouldn't want to know where he gets them from. Carcer is a villain, he's described as "a stone-cold killer. With brains.". Carcer is a textbook psychopathic killer, completely lacking in conscience or empathy. A pair of villains, they'll be fun to play, especially if they inherit Brenda's meanness]

With the house full again Casanunda decided it was time he left for university, probably before he got roped into changing nappies, shame I can't do the same.

In terms of scholarships he was the most successful of my children so far and so I'm named him heir. In fact he'll be back soon so this is the end of my time in charge, after this it'll be his turn to tell you about this family's fortunes.

And this is where is shall leave you. Next chapter you'll get Marion's side of the story, so expect a lot more detail on the children.