Occupying roughly one-third of a Full private region is MoonWillow, a completely delightful realm designed by Mille Bliss to present a place of enchantment and mystery, packed with opportunities for exploration and photography.
This is a place I very much fell in love with whilst exploring, although I would note that I’m not sure the selected Shared Environment shows it to its best advantage, being a tad on the dark side of things. This being the case, please note that some of the photos later in this piece use one of my personal Day EEP settings.
This is a setting with a west-east orientation as it runs along the southern side of the host region, with the landing Point located on a small island at the west end of things.
Welcome, traveller, to MoonWillow, a lush, mythical realm nestled deep within the folds of time, where magic lingers like mist in the morning air. Here, every leaf has a story, every shadow hides a spell, and every step draws you deeper.
– MoonWillow Destination Guide entry
A large map of the setting is located at the landing point and highlights many of the locations awaiting exploration. Many – but not all; some are marked by symbols which the map legend defines as What Could This Mean?, together with And This? – both of which pique a sense of intrigue and a desire to discover.
Touching the map will deliver a wearable HUD version – which is nice. Unfortunately, there is no way to minimise it, so if a copy is taken for reference, it has to be constantly added / removed – and odd clicks on it will cause to it to offer a Landing Point landmark, which can get a tad irritating.
Getting across the waters here should – according to the map – be a case of taking the local ferry. However, printed signs at the quays and piers apologise for the fact that the ferry is currently broken. Instead, visitors are asked to cross the waters by means of the magical lily pads which have been set out to keep feet dry!
Across the water sits a little shoreline hamlet, its waterfront taken up by the local apothecary, tavern and teahouse as well as the local market. Behind and above these, perched on the cliffs and rocky buttresses are little houses (open to the public) whilst across the mouth of a fast flowing stream there rises the tall finger of a wizard’s tower.
Reaching the latter is by means of another lily pad crossing, whilst a walk on the beach facing the tower provides one of the routes of entry to the setting’s eye-catching lagoon.
However, from the village there are in fact multiple routes of exploration climbing up into the hills behind it, some of which pass directly by the little houses perched higher up, others of which are more circuitous in nature – which you take is entirely up to you.
The attractive element with all these paths and routes is that most of them intersect one with another, so whatever turn you take, you’re going to arrive somewhere or easily circle back to somewhere you might otherwise have missed.
There are locations within the setting the eyes and feet are naturally drawn to – the lagoon within its circle of stone, the castle up on the hilltops, the village itself. However, do be careful when heading for just these, as there are caverns, a cave hinting an magic rituals, a hidden waterside place to sit, tree and rock sheltered avenues and climbs and a magical stone circle all waiting discovery.
Travel far enough to the east and you might find the many-bridged path leading around falls and water to where an old mine provides passage through the intervening mountains and cliffs to the rest of the region (or you might come across it by way of the cavern tunnel!).
Called Nymunarby, this is the work of Lotte (Lotte Warwillow) and presents a mist-shrouded setting very different to MoonWillow, complete with its own mysteries. Largly open ground backed by crags and rocky hills (some of which have a path winding up them (and a cavern under), this is a place of ancient standing stones, ruins and a Viking outpost – although follow the path to where a boardwalk leading out over the waters of a small lake and you might find yourself humming the opening Sunrise fanfare of Also Sprach Zarathustra.
There is not a lot more I can say about Nymunarby; but it does form an interesting adjunct to a visit to MoonWillow for those who wish to discover it as well.
As to the latter, I thoroughly enjoyed exploring its many parts and paths; Group membership will bring rezzing rights if you wish to rez props for photographs, but as ever: do please remember to pick bits up afterwards!
Slurl Details
- MoonWillow (Celenor, rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 