Author: Inara Pey

For summer 2023, Jim Garand offers a new iteration of his Grauland region (and home to his M1 poses store, located in the sky over the region).

Partially surrounded by off-region landscape elements (ALT-zoom out a distance and then tap ESC to race your camera back to your avatar if the off-region elements don’t render – this will hopefully cause them to pop-up), this is an engaging simple region design of a tropical or sub-tropical nature that mixes a cocktail of features and locations and encourages the imagination to take a sip and take flight.

Sliced almost entirely in two by the presence of an east-west oriented water channel, the region presents a landscape similarly oriented along the same cardinal points across both of the resultant land masses, with the uplands to the east and lowlands to the west, where sits a saltwater mangrove swamp. To the east and within the uplands, a waterfall drops from sheer cliffs into a broad pool, the water from it flowing east to enter the wetlands to mix its waters with the sea – although how much longer this is to remain as the sole route for the out flowing water to take is open to question.

This is because all that separates the pool from the waters to the east is a low rock-and-shingle bar, its presence suggesting the cliff at this point which may have once connected the two land masses has collapsed. It forms a low barrier ripe for the tide to wash away as it seeks to reach the cove, watched over by a single thumb of rock sitting just beyond the shingle.

However, the major point of interest for this setting lies with the ruins scattered across the landscape. Comprising hewn but unfaced blocks of stone, these take a variety of forms of mixed potential use. For example, one might be taken to be the remnants of some form of small fortification, with the footings of three round towers linked by curtain walls form a triangular courtyard; another overlooks the wetlands as the water channel passes below.

Across the water – spanned by a stone bridge – is a more extensive collection of ruins. In part, these suggest they may once have been a part of a western religious centre; the layout of the main structure resembling as it does that of a Norman-era church. However, the stonework seems to by far older than might be associated with such as structure. Perhaps the neighbouring ruins predate the church, and their stones were used in its construction. Let your imagination offer up stories of its own.

A stone stairway climbs the hill behind the ruins to where what’s left of a tower sits alongside of an open pool forming the head of the waterfall. From here it is possible to look back to the southern highlands and the strange arrangement of stones crowning the hill there. Quite what these are is also open to the imagination. Are they all that are left of the raised floor once belonging to a temple or palace, or something else?

More mysteries can be found down in the waters of the wetlands. Here among the mangroves and pines are two statues on raised plinths, offering hints of both Roman and Greek mythology. Also to be found over the waters here is a hanger belonging to the Grauland Flying Service – a place connected to the land via a wooden boardwalk. Its presence suggests this might be a remote destination for charter flights by those wishing to explore / study the ruins.

One the same side of the setting as the hanger is a cabin. Makeshift in nature it nevertheless offers a cosy retreat – but to whom is again open to the imagination – although whoever it is would appear to be a keen musician.

As with all of Jim’s builds, this iteration of Grauland offers multiple opportunities for photography, while the places to sit also scattered across it give plenty of choice for those wishing to sit and pass the time. And don’t worry about the jaguar (possibly acting as a stand-in for a panther?); he’s more interested in keeping to the shade (or having his picture taken!) than in hunting anyone!

SLurl Details

• Grauland (Liberia Isle, rated Adult)

I recently received a personal note from Hera (zee 9) Informing me that she has once more brought back her famous Goatswood build to Second Life and inviting me to drop in. It’s a place I first visited roughly a decade ago, and to which I most recently returned during its last iteration in-world in April 2022. It’s a place which Hera has always updated in some manner with each appearance, whilst also retaining the core of this very English rural township with strong vibes of medieval origins in its looks.

The latest iteration of Goatswood, which opened earlier in August (and which Hera informs me will remain available for about a month), continues this tradition in offering the familiar setting with some new elements. It share the region in which it is located with a new build, Houndstead Abbey, which very much carries on – in a manner of speaking – from where Whitby Abbey left off, having previously shared the region with Goatswood back in April 2022 (see: Revisiting Hera’s Whitby in Second Life), as well as enjoying a number of iterations at Hera’s hands.

Throughout all of its iterations, Goatswood has offered one of the most naturally immersive environments for casual role-play available in Second Life, bringing together a rich mix of fantasy, Victorian-era elements (notably the railway station and stream train), the aforementioned medieval look and feel and a strong infusion of magic (be it dark or light).

Some of this history is celebrated within the short stories scattered throughout the setting (and thus encouraging carful exploration in order that they might be found and read) and which may help those interesting in doing so to enter the region’s photographic competition, which runs through until September 2nd, 2023 with a total prize pool of L$12,000 – of which L$8,000 will go to the first prize winner. Details of the competition can be obtained from the region’s landing point.

Retaining the sense of a Cotswolds origin, this version of Goatswood brings with it the familiar windmill, the Roebuck Coach House and the church, together with hints of daily life from work at the smithy through to an abandoned attempt at cricket on a green which has perhaps seen better days (and which is set before The Shunters Social Club, which some of us from the UK might seen as a little nod to both railway social clubs and a certain television series of a few decades ago).

One building I don’t recall from previous iterations is the circular keep sitting to the north-west of the town. This appears to have once been outside of the main walls of the town, reached via the road beyond via the road beyond the stream following along that side of Goatswood and using a solidly-built stone bridge to span the stream’s steep banks to reach the curtain walls of the tower’s courtyard. However, given more peaceful times now prevail, some of these curtain walls appear to have been dismantled, allowing the tower to more directly join with the town, little more than a low wooden gate sitting between the well-tended gardens which now occupy a good part of the tower’s courtyard and the street leading back to the Roebuck.

The tower is one of several furnishing buildings within the setting, and it offers a curiously attractive blending of fantasy with classical romanticism (such as the painting within the boudoir-come-bedroom on the middle floor, with its suggestions of Guinevere and Lancelot – or perhaps Tristan and Isolde, as both fit), medieval practicalities (the tapestries draped on the walls) and genteel English afternoons of the landed (afternoon tea and a spot of painting). All with just a flavouring of the magical essence that permeates Goatswood.

There is much that I could write about this corner of mythological / imagined England, notwithstanding my previous writings on Goatswood in these pages. However, it remains a place that should be best seen and experienced than written about – so I will leave you to catch the train from the landing point (touch the Goatswood sign over the platform, rather than  – as with past iterations – touching the open door of the carriage). Instead, I’ll turn my attention to Houndstead Abbey, the second part of the setting, and reached via the sign on the other side of the landing point’s railway platform to that for Goatswood.

As noted above, Houndstead is something of a spiritual successor to Hera’s previous Whitby build, inasmuch as it shares the region with Goatswood and has, as its focal point, the ruins of a large abbey. However, this model – once again an original by Hera, as is the case with the majority of her buildings and structures – is modelled after Abaty Tyndyrn (Tintern Abbey), situated on the Welsh bank of the river Wye as it forms the border between Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire.

Whilst the  Dissolution of the Monasteries brought about Tintern’s fall into ruin, the abbey was, and remains of historic importance, being the first  Cistercian abbey founded in Wales (1131) and only the second such abbey to be founded in Britain, founded just three years earlier in Waverley, Worcestershire. As they stand today, the ruins at Tintern represent the much larger, Gothic abbey structures which were constructed over the original buildings, starting in around 1269 and which almost completely replaced them, although hints still remain in the ruins available to visitors today.

Houndstead shares much of a history similar to that of Tintern. Like the latter, it sits within a river valley – in this case the mythical Wyvern – and thrived up until Henry VIII stomped on things. Thereafter, and as Hera notes:

It was fair game for anyone who needed stone for building, and eventually it was reduced to just a shell of its former glory. In the early 1800’s a well-known artist of the period installed a statue of the Elven Queen at its centre. And soon after, a local theatre group performed Shakespeare’s A Mid Summer Nights Dream amongst the ruins [and] the ruin began to acquire a reputation as a place of strange happenings and fae magic.

– Hera’s notes accompanying the Houndstead Abbey build

This reputation as a place of mystery and magic was probably due in part to the standing stones standing guard around a low mound not entirely out-of-place among the surrounding hills. However, whilst its form match match the gently rounded slopes of the hills, likely caused by the passage of ice in ages past, the mound is anything but a natural feature. As Hera again notes, it was found to be the burial mound of Saxon chieftain – thought to have perhaps been the original founder of the settlement of GatWode not far distant, and which in time became Goatswood.

Exactly where the town lies in relation to the Abbey ruins is hard to say. The presence of the stream suggests it is not too far from Goatswood, and the path running north from one of the bridges over the stream might well offer a route between the two – even if it does peter out after following the stream for a short distance. However, the sense of separation from the town gives the abbey a further edge of mystery – one greatly enhanced by the onset of night, when the light of candles (maintained by whom?) and lanterns illuminate the otherwise darkened abbey, and flames of naked torches guard the path to the burial chamber.

As always with Hera’s builds, both Goatswood and Houndstead Abbey offer a lot to see and appreciate – and the photo competition may well make a visit quite rewarding!

SLurl Details

• Goatswood / Houndstead Landing Point (Themysciya, rated Adult)