Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

Sharon Hinterland dropped me a note suggesting I might want to hop over to The Cursed Coast, a Full private region leveraging the additional Land Capacity available from Linden Lab.

It is a design by Sia Aurora (Fushsia) with the support of Tricia Farella, and offers a curiously engaging mix of themes and opportunities with it.

Probably the best short-form way to describe the setting is via Sia’s own description:

The Cursed Coast is a mysterious tropical island where ancient ruins, pirate wrecks, hidden caves, and forgotten legends lie beneath a dense jungle canopy. Explore crumbling temples, haunted shores, secret passages, and dangerous wilderness as you uncover the island’s mysteries, solve puzzles, and discover treasures left behind by those who came before—and perhaps learn why so few ever escaped. 

This is a place mixing piratical going-on from great sailing ships and walking the plank, to Victorian-style (and slightly Jules Vernian) underwater exploration, dollops of humour, Western style horse riding  – and even an touch of hang gliding and zip line riding!

And if you think all that sounds a right mash-up, you’d be absolutely right; and I haven’t (until now) even mentioned the chance to play dress-up and visit a museum! BUT – and it is a big but – it all works: Cursed Coast is an enjoyable and vey photogenic visit.

Before getting into some of the details, I would not a couple of things: the first is that at the time of my visit Sia was busy smoothing off some rough edges and still adding bits and pieces – so you might encounter one or two new or different elements to me; that’s all to the good.

The second is that the default Shared Environment for the setting is that of dusk, and the lighting had been set-up to reflect that. However, the region lends itself to a wide range of EEP settings (as evidenced in its Flickr group), and I leant more into using my own settings during my visit.

The setting is built around a tropical island and the core theme of the setting focuses on the so-called Golden Age of Piracy, which ran roughly from the mid-1600s through to around the mid-1700s.

This saw pirates and privateers (not the same thing although the latter often committed acts of piracy in their, uh, “spare time”) operating around many of the seas and oceans of the world, with pirates from European nations particularly active in the Caribbean, where they were often referred to as buccaneers.

The Landing Point sits to the north-east of the island above the golden sands of a beach sweeping out from a broad, deep bay. An information giver provides notes on the setting, whilst a board-mounted map highlights key points around the island – hover your mouse over a location to teleport directly to it if you wish, or just touch any other part of the map to receive a copy as a wearable HUD – although you may need to resize it to read the annotations clearly.

Also available at the Landing Point are some pirate trinkets you can use to help to kit yourself out (more bits can be found in a sunken wreck) – and visitors can explore dressed for the part, if they wish.

Beyond the Landing Point there is much to explore. The big bay is an obvious destination. It is here that Rapscallion’s Revenge lay anchored. I’ve no idea if the name is an intentional reference to the EP of the same name by Dave Seaman, I’ve no idea. However, the ship – one of Lia Woodget’s excellent Black Spot vessels – can be reached via teleport.

It is on one side of the bay that things turn somewhat Victorian: deep sea divers are getting ready to plumb the depths of the bay and join one of their colleagues exploring the wrecks and corals beneath the waves whilst keeping a wary eye on the local sharks and ignoring the pirates up on the surface. The dock used by the divers also features a mini sub Jules Verne would likely have found pleasing, and visitors can take it on a dive.

I don’t want to say too much about what else lies in wait – the map gives fair hints, but the fun is in exploring – particularly finding one’s way down into what I’ll call the Carousing Cavern (you’ll see why when you find one of the ways into it!) or to Mama Zafira and her swamp. The key thing is to follow the paths and keep your eyes open – there are lots of details to take in, including the often hidden entrances to the caves, caverns and the swamp.

There are also plenty of places with people can simply sit back and relax and a fair number of natural beauty spots to be appreciated, all of which can be reached following the pathways around the island.  Oh, and do watch out for the occasional blazing boulder, kindly spat into a ballistic trajectory by one of the local volcanoes and which follow the old adage of what goes up…

One thing I will mention is the Pirate’s Museum. Located up in the sky, and also accessed via a teleport doorway just outside the palisades of one of the island’s villages, this provides information on many of the pirates of the Golden Age, including John “Calico Jack” Rackham, whom legend would have it first designed and flew the infamous skull and crossbones “Jolly Roger” flag (although the legend in this case dates all the way back to 1959 and the novelist and playwright Hans Leip – perhaps better known in some circles for writing the poem / song Lili Marleen!).

Also included in the museum (among others) are Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who both reportedly sailed with Rackham (yes, piracy was not an exclusively male pursuit!), Henry “Long Ben” Every, a Royal Navy servicemen who turned privateer / buccaneer prior to switching to outright piracy, François l’Olonnais (Jean-David Nau, the “Flail of the Spanish” (the Spanish were the common target for both English and French pirates) and – of course – Edward Teach.

For those who like quests and the like, Sia and her team are planning a series of activities and events within the setting, whilst those who find their way to Mama Zafira in her cabin can touch her to be given a first quest – find the ingredients for a potion that “may help keep you alive in the caves on the far side of the island”!

All in all, The Cursed Coats is very well done and a fun visit. Some may find the inclusion of so many static characters not to their liking – but I like the way they add to the character of the setting and offer little vignettes for us to build stories around. Oh, and the Pie Rates mentioned in the title of this piece? Check below, courtesy of Sia 🙂 .

My thanks to Sharon for dropping me a line about The Cursed Coast and to Sia for chatting with me whilst I explored.

 Slurl Details

Retropolis is rated Moderate

• The Cursed Coast Landing Point
• The Pirate Museum