Day: February 17, 2025

Please note: Hera’s setting can be transient and can vanish quickly, depending upon her mood. Therefore visits are recommended sooner rather than later.

I first visited Shangdu, a region deign by Hera (Zee9), all the way back in 2022 (see: The natural beauty of Hera’s Shangdu in Second Life), and found it to be an engaging visit, flowing into itself so many ideas, suggestions and intent. Like many of Hera’s designs it was not long available to visit  – see the note above.

Since that time, I’m not aware of it having made a reappearance in Second Life (although I might easily have missed it!). So, on learning it is indeed once more back and occupying a sky platform with the region where Hera’s latest Blade Runner inspired build can be found (one more directly related to Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 than the Brutal City AI version I dropped into back in November 2024, and so very much worth a visit in its own right), I had to jump over to the shared Landing Point for the two settings and poke my nose in.

As I noted back in 2022, the name Shangdu might be a familiar name to some, being that of the summer capital of the Chinese Yuan dynasty (c. 1271 to 1368), and more familiarly referred to in the west as Xanadu; a place written about and romanticised by the likes of Samuel Purchas and – more particularly – one Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

However, and again as I noted in 2022, Hera’s Shangdu is not intended to reflect Coleridge’s famed poem – although with this iteration, it comes with a poem penned by Hera, and available from the Shangdu notecard giver at the region’s main Landing Point (through which visitor must pass to reach the setting).

Within the card, Hera notes something she passed on to me back in 202 concerning the inspiration for the build, and I’ll again repeat here:

The difference here being the opulence is in natural beauty. I first did this about 20 years back in Unreal Tournament; I was looking for something completely different to create and I found these beautiful paintings of a Chinese water Village. [However,] this is a complete fantasy, I have not tried for any particular accuracy in the buildings, although the textures are all taken directly from photos of the village.

– Hera (Zee9)

In other words, in her Shangdu, Hera presents a 3D painting of a Chinese settlement, perhaps from the Yuan period. Given it is designed to be seen as an immersive painting, it is a largely static build when compared to her more recent builds, which have often utilised AI NPCs, with the interiors of building designed to be seen rather than offering significant places in which to spend time – with one or two exceptions. 

One of these exceptions – and new (I think) to this version of Shangdu is a pagoda and garden tucked into the south-west corner of the town, and itself overlooked by one of the meditation points beyond the walls of the town.

Closer to the main gates of the town- which you must pass through after walking from the set-down area you’ll be delivered to after teleporting from the region’s main Landing Point – is the temple, unchanged from the 2022 version of the build and pictured in my previous piece on Shangdu, whilst facing the gate is the furnished house I also visited during my original visit, the the artist’s little shop alongside it.

However, just across the bridge from the house and shop, is a raised terrace outside of another building where food might be enjoyed under little paper lanterns, and which forms another little location I don’t recall from walking the streets of the town three years ago.  These added attractions encourage exploration along the footpaths bordering the town’s narrow waterways and over the bridges crossing them, and well as presenting opportunities for photography.

Engaging and photogenic, Shangdu makes for a worthwhile visit, either on its own or as a part of a visit to Hera’s Blade runner build.

SLurl Details

• Themyscira Main Landing Point (rated: Adult)