Book of Life (Some Spoilers inside)

[Bri]

Within the game, there is a way to cheat death.  Not as simple as the Death Flowers in the Sims 3, but there is one in the Sims 4.

First, you have to get to level 10 in the Writing Skill.  Then, completing the Best Selling Author Aspiration should allow you to write 'The Book of Life' on a computer.  When you finish the book, if you click on it, you should see "Capture Epic Saga of..." for any nearby Sim.  Obviously, you have to do this before a Sim dies.  Then, if a Sim does die, if you click on the "Book of Life" you should have another command come up, "Summon".  Press this, and the Sim should reappear.

I still have to do a little more testing whether you need to write a book for each Sim, or if one is sufficient for all Sims.

[ReubenHood]

Hi Bri,

I know this post is 14 days old and you've probably already run into this, but I wanted to add:

Each Sim requires their own book, as the book becomes permanently bound to the Sim after you capture their epic saga, and it will vanish when the Sim is restored to life.

Also, if you read the Book of Life after it is bound to a Sim, but before the Sim has died, you'll get the option to "Read [Sims Name] Epic Tale." Selecting this option will restore the recorded Sims needs to max, all of them. Also any Tense moodlets' duration will begin to drop as if the Sim was being comforted (like when taking a bath). It doesn't matter who reads the book, it will only restore the needs of the Sim it's bound to and doesn't seem to have any effect on that Sims age. This does not consume the book so it can be used as many times as you'd like. A message appears after the book has been read that states that the recorded Sim has been invigorated by the epic tale.

It takes a Sim about 20 minutes to read the book and a Sim with the Speed Reader trait can read it in 5 minutes, so any Sim who can write this book could keep his family very happy easily.

[Bri]

Thanks for the additional information!

And that is what this forum is for: to share information, and help fill things in  

[lvrugger]

Hi ReubenHood -
Can the book be bound to the writer or only to other sims? Do you know if the sim who is restored to life is at the beginning of the age he or she died in?
Thanks for all the info!

[ManiSims]

I really like this. I'll admit in Sims 3 I didn't have my Sims do much writing unless their LTW was directly related to it, but this seems pretty neat and I'll definitely have to get my sims to write more.  

[ReubenHood]

Hi lvrugger,

The writer cannot bind a book to himself and the one who is restored to life is restored at the very beginning of the age he or she had died in (at least the one Sim I revived was 6 days from the Adult stage and returned to life with the full 20 days until the Adult stage.)

Also giving an unbound Book of Life to another Sim won't work (I tried this the first time I wrote one), that Sim will only get the options to Put Away the book or Place in World. Only a writer who can write a Book of Life will get the option to Capture an Epic Saga. In my game I had my writer give a Book of Life he had written to one of his children who had just gained the Poetic trait and she was able to bind the book to him.

[Carl]

Excellent info guys! I haven't even tried Writing yet, but am glad to know how this works. I can already imagine this book being banned in future challenges. It's the most powerful thing I've heard of so far!

[ReubenHood]

The Ghost Update has changed the way the Book of Life functions a bit. Now, instead of bringing dead Sims back to life, the Book will summon the Sim's ghost to the current lot as a visitor. The Ghost arrives regardless of time or place (I was able to summon a ghost to the Park at 7 am.) The Ghost arrives as a normal visitor would (appearing in the street), unless their Tombstone/Urn is near, in this case the ghost appears next to it. The only exception I encountered was an Urn on an end table, the ghost arrived as a normal visitor rather then appearing near the urn. Unlike before, when Summoning a Sim brought them back to life and consumed the book, summoning a dead Sim does not consume the book, allowing it to be re-used to summon the dead Sim at will. But having the Sim available at will makes adding them to your household and bringing them back with Ambrosia much more easy.

The summoned ghost seems to stay for a while, on my home lot I summoned three ghosts at 11 am and they all started to leave at 9 pm. However, in the case of the urn on the coffee table the ghost appeared unable to leave the lot, she just hovered in place complaining (peeing on herself and such). When I moved the urn onto the ground the ghost immediately headed over and dissolved as normal, no doubt a bug/routing issue.

If you click on a Sim's tombstone/urn and select "Realse Spirit to Neatherworld" the Book of Life is no longer able to summon that Sim's ghost. The Sim appears to still exisit in the game as their Tombstone/urn still displays their name, they're still in the relationship panel, and you still get an option to "Read [Sim]'s Epic Tale" from the Book of Life. Until another method to bring a dead Sim arrives in-game this seems to be irreversible.

Finally, since dead Sims now appear like normal Sims (other than being Ghosts) in the relationship panel instead of being sorted to the bottom and greyed out, I wanted to see if you could bind a Book of Life to a Ghost. Alas, dead is dead and even Ghost Sims cannot be Bound to a book it seems, I even tried inviting a ghost into my household and they still could not have their tale captured in the book. So the rule of only capturing the tale of a living Sim is still in place. Oddly enough, I was able to bind the Grim Reaper to a Book of Life but this had no additional features. I wasn't able to Summon Grim, only "Read his Epic Tale." For all I know, capturing Grim's tale in the Book of Life was available pre-patch and I just never noticed it.

[Carl]

Thanks so much for the detail. I'll edit this as soon as I can, as that is quite the change. I might not have noticed myself, since I tend to have to move on, so it's very much appreciated. I will need to do a guide to Ambrosia early next week so that visitors get the info they need to make it quickly.

Edit: got it changed right away, since that information was 100% wrong at this point. Thanks again.

[ReubenHood]

I'm glad I could help, this was my go-to site for all things Sims 3. I don't think I ever needed to look up anything for that game anywhere else, ever.

[ReubenHood]

I just discovered today that the Book of Life can still bring Ghosts back to Life. If a Ghost reads his own Book of Life he gets an option to "Restore Life." The Ghost then reads the book and when finished is returned to life just as if he had eaten Ambrosia.

Just noticed today after I had used the book to summon a ghost and then added them to my household. I saw the option when I had the Ghost put away the Book after it had been left on an end table.

[ManiSims]

A bit off topic, but everytime I see a commercial for the movie "The Book of Life" I think back to this thread. Also, I'm glad to hear that ghosts can still be restored using the book. I admit I was a bit sad when I found out ambrosia would basically be replacing the Book because I thought it was a cool new idea but I'm glad we can still opt to use the book!

[Carl]

Thanks for the info on Ghosts. I was editing the Writing Guide to talk about writer's block again, and while there got the info on ghosts being able to read their own book re-published. I have a strange feeling I'll be messing with that one again...