The Forgotten is a Full region I stumbled upon entirely by chance whilst thumbing through the Destination Guide trying to remind myself of an entry I’d seen a while back but had failed to make a note of. I didn’t find it, but in coming across The Forgotten, I found a region that is quite fantastical and just slightly abstract and well worth a visit.
The work of Elfie Lionsheart (who has the delightful user name of Elfing Shenanigans), The Forgotten is a region that deserves to be seen rather than merely described; a place that is without a singular theme per se, but where imagination and reality intersect to present a place of beauty, mystery and depth.
A magical swamp born from sorrow, lighting the way for explorer’s to follow. A castle in ruin, gardens left to despair. Eyes of lost statues left only to stare. Whispers of sadness from voices long gone, dancing fairy dust left to sing its last song.
– The Forgotten, About Land Description
Sitting under a dome of stars – or perhaps star stuff, given the fact the a massive full Moon hangs in the sky beyond – there is a sense of timeless age to the setting, together with a sense that it is a place where the tales of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien mix without being overly swayed by one or the other. Or perhaps mix is the wrong term – it is perhaps a place that combines the imaginations of both men to present a place they would both feel comfortable in walking through.
The landing point sits towards the north-west of the island where a huge plateau that rises above the rest of the region, a stone-and-grass table on which sets the castle ruin of the About Land description. A cavern on the opposite side to the path leading up to the ruins is the home of the landing point, fronted by wooden board walks that wind out from it over the swamp also mentioned in the region’s description.
This swamp is a mix of water, green growth, strange plants, giant tress and unexpected creatures – although finding your way free of it might take a little care (hint: look for the anthropomorphic street lamp on a deck and the log bridge to drier land (or alternatively, visitors can continue to follow the and lanterns board walks over the swamp waters to the places that lie within them).
The rest of the landscape comprises a mix of trees, rugged, low hills, overgrown paths, unexpected dwellings and the most engaging ruins and statues, some of which speak to elven influences, others to human while some provide pagan echoes – all of which again combine to add a depth to the setting that is utterly unique. More than depth, they suggest a sense of mythology for the region.
The most impressive of these statues is a great carved stag standing over the swamplands, a proud beast placed on a shoulder of the castle’s plateau, it is the work of Elicio Ember, and its presence marks the second time I have seen it within Second Life in the space of a week, and for me it suggested a spiritual link between the elven influences of The Forgotten and with Elicio’s Mythspire Ridge at the 2022 Fantasy Faire.
Away to the north-east a flat headland pushes a rounded snout out into the water, topped by a wild garden watched over by a dryad. South of this, across a shallow inlet that cuts into the land, sits a more human abode – a store in fact, where one of the region’s more unusual inhabitants patrols: a fat-beaked dodo (and it is not the only oddity perambulating across a part of the region). Not far from here, up a stone stairway, a trio of Romany caravans sit, although whether they belong to people or the cats that have claimed one of them is open to debate.
But as I said, this is a glorious region that should be explored rather than described – and I’ve left a lot of what is waiting to be found out from this article to encourage visits. It is a place that is, despite the sadness within its description, a genuine playground for the imagination.
SLurl Details
- The Forgotten (Peaceful Shore, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 