Category: Relay For Life

Fantasy Faire 2016 will once again celebrate the written word through LitFest, featuring writers from across Second Life, participating in discussions, readings, tours and more, together with some of the top literary groups in SL.

LitFest will be focused on the pavilion in Otherworld, Elicio Ember’s magnificent build for this year’s Faire.

This year the emphasis is on creation, as a number of the leaders of creative writing groups in Second Life bring their regular events to the Faire, and welcome newcomers who want to join in with such events as the “Poetry Prompt” with Leslye Writer, where people are given a prompt word and write for 20 minutes then share what they’ve written or the “SL Flickr Photo Story Challenge for Beginners” with Prettyflower Vale.

There will also be daily writing challenges for everyone to enjoy: put your Fantasy Faire experience into words. There are stories, tales, legends, songs, and poems to be found around very corner in the Fairelands. How do the builds and the people, the places and the creations touch you? What stories do they whisper to you?

The LitFest Tours

To help inspire you with your writing, Fantasy Faire 2016 will include a series of tours to ten of the Fairelands realms, these will depart the LitFest pavilion  twice daily at 10:00 SLT and 17:30 SLT. Each tour lasts for an hour. To  participate, simply:

• Join a tour at the start of a session, and travel to the selected destination.  Explore and open yourself to the voices there; see how they inspire you
• Return to LitFest home base (or your own personal quiet space) and realize in words the narrative and feelings inspired by the region featured
• Share your work in draft or final with the rest of the tour in a voluntary open mic, or submit your piece within 24 hours – either in-world or by email – to be posted along with others inspired by the same region. Sharing is voluntary.  Individual writers retain creative ownership of works shared.

Date	10:00	17:30
Thursday, April 21st (17:00 only)	—	The Golden Delta
Friday, April 22nd	The Golden Delta	Lucentia
Saturday, April 23rd	Lucentia	Twilight Illusion
Sunday, April 24th	Twilight Illusion	Echtra
Monday, April 25th	Echtra	Serenity
Tuesday, April 26th	Serenity	Dangarnon
Wednesday, April 27th	Dangarnon	Bright Haven
Thursday, April 28th	Bright Haven	Breeze
Friday, April 29th	Breeze	Tinker’s Hollow
Saturday, April 30th	Tinker’s Hollow	Blackmoor
Sunday, May 1st (10:00 only)	Blackmoor	—

Other LitFest Events

Note; the official schedule was still a work in progress at the time of writing – please check with it for any updates or amendments. All times SLT.

Date	Time	Activity
Friday, April 22nd	11:00 – noon	Caledonia Skytower reads short stories
	13:00 – 14:00	The Tales of Ashenborne with Ketsui Naidoo
	15:00 – 16:00	The Short Story Discussion Group with Destry Recreant

Date	Time	Activity
Saturday, April 23rd	All Day	Shakespeare Day: a Fairelands-wide commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the bard’s passing
	06;00 – 07:00	Poets’ Plunder Klannex Northmead
	11:00 – 13:00	The Coldshot Players
	13:30 – 15:00	A Midsummer Night’s Dream – a special Fairelands Players presentation of this popular comedy by Shakespeare
	18:30 – 20:00	Tall Tales with Ceejay Writer (author Lori Alden Holuta)

Date	Time	Activity
Sunday, April 24th	11:00 – 12:00	Going Down the Tubes with Ceejay Writer, sharing a chapter from the 2nd novel in The Brassbright Chronicles
	13:00 – 13:45	Boudicca Reads with Boudicca Amat
	14:00 – 15:00	Self-expression & Discovery through Poetry & Stories
	16::00 – 17:00	Literature Alive with Desideria Stockton

Continue reading “Fantasy Faire 2016: come gather for the Litfest!” →

Fantasy Faire 2016 has opened its gates, and will run through until Sunday, May 1st. It brings together everyone with a love of fantasy  – enthusiasts, creators, performers and designers  – for eleven days of commerce, special events, live music concerts and more, all to help raise funds for Relay for Life of Second Life.

Rather than write a long preview to this years event – which once again offers some of the most fantastic region builds seen in a virtual world to present visitors with a set of connected realms – I decided to put together a preview video. I hope you enjoy it, and I look forward to seeing you in the Fairelands!

Faireland SLurls

• Fairelands Junction
• Blackmoor
• Breeze
• Bright Haven
• Dangarnon
• Echtra
• The Golden Delta
• Lucentia
• Malfience
• OtherWorld
• Sapphire Mirror Lake
• Serenity
• Tinkers Hollow
• Twilight Illusion

 

This year, Fantasy Faire once again presents the hunt in an expanded, story-based quest in which visitors to the Fairelands are invited to participate.

As the Bard Queen’s Emissary to the beleaguered races of the realm once called Belfience, but now cast under the darkness of the Unweaver and called Malfience,  those joining the quest are tasked with finding the Exiles from that once peaceful land, and with their support undo the evil of the Unweaver and bring healing to the land.

To help you play your role to the fullest, here are some hints and suggestions to start you on your way.

Getting Started

There are two versions of the HUD available through the special RFL of SL vendors, which are prices as follows:

• L$250 – provides you with the quest HUD and tools to get you going
• L$350 – provides you with the quest HUD and tools to get you going and male and female Emissary costumes so you can be more in character – and it will help you recognise other Emissaries, so you can help and support one another!

When you have purchased your HUD package wear it, and then touch it to unpack the contents to a folder in your Inventory called FF2016 The Tale of Exiles. This contains 3 game elements which must be worn: the Game HUD, and two attachments simply called “Attach Me” and “Attach Me 2”.

On wearing the HUD, a scroll will open on your screen with some important information. – please read it through and then click it to close it.

Your viewer’s World Map will open, together with an invitation for you to join The Tale of Exiles experience (shown right) – you may have to move your world map to one side to see this.

Make sure you click YES to accept the experience, as this will ensure that things behave correctly as you go.

The HUD

As with most HUD-based activities, the HUD tracks your progress, provides hints, and for the quest, provides access to various options, of which Teleport and Inventory at the top let and right are probably going to see the most use – toggle to open / close.

Teleport opens a list of the Fairelands (above left), clicking on the name of one will display the World Map, allowing you to teleport to it. Note that the destinations are not necessarily where the Exiles are – although some might be closer than others!

Inventory records the various items you collect during the quest (above right). You can page through the items using the back and forward buttons and – at the appropriate time in your quest, click on Use to make use of the displayed item.

Click Help to obtain a note card describing the rest of the functions.

Saving Progress

You don’t have to complete the quest in a single go; the HUD will record your progress and items collected, allowing you to leave and do other things, and then return to the quest later. You can remove the HUD (and other attachments) on leaving the Fairelands / breaking off from your quest, and then re-attach them when you return to the Fairelands or want to resume your quest.

However, if you want to be completely assured your progress has been saved before stopping, click Setup > Save.

Reloading Progress

Occasionally, things do go wrong in Second Life. If you find your HUD is misbehaving, or failing to display the right information, click Setup > Reload. This should force the HUD to reload information from the quest database and correct problems.

Game Play Guidelines

Gameplay comprises a number of chapters (indicated by the HUD) which can be divided into four parts: Heed the Bard Queen, Seek the Exiles, Find the Eggs, and Heal the Lands.

Part 1: Heed the Bard Queen

When you start the quest, the HUD will open your World Map so you can teleport to the Bard Queen – or you can use the LM supplied with the HUD package. You will also have to return to the Bard Queen once you have located and spoken to all eight of the Exiles.

• When you arrive at the Bard Queen, click on her to converse through dialogue boxes (top right of your screen)
• Part of the Bard Queen’s story will be told through videos displayed in your viewer. If the videos do not start automatically, click the screen. If they refuse to run, use the links in local chat to watch them on YouTube (please do not share or embed links to the videos in blogs!)

Continue reading “Fantasy Faire 2016: Tale of Exiles hints and tips” →

One of the features introduced to Fantasy Faire 2015 was the opportunity to nominate and then vote for the King and Queen of the Fairelands and their (strictly non-human) Chancellor.

Nominations came from across all realms of fantasy, with the top five nominated for each of the positions of king and queen (human or human-looking nominations only)  and chancellor  voted upon through the course of the Faire, with the winners announced at the Fantasy Faire May Day Masked Ball.

The duly elected king, queen and chancellor for 2015 were respectively Havelock  Vetinari and Granny Weatherwax and Greebo the cat, all of which marked a fitting tribute to the late Sir Terry Pratchett, who passed away in March 2015,, and whose life and works were celebrated and commemorated as a part of the 2015 Fantasy Faire.

But now, a year on, the first duly elected king and queen have put aside their sceptres, and the chancellor his chains of office. It is now time for the Fairelands Folk to elect those they feel should be elected king, queen and chancellor of Fantasy Faire 2016.

In order for this to happen, there must first be nominations! So who do you think is deserving?

Use the form below (or if you prefer, go directly to the same form on the Fantasy Faire website) and nominate your choices for king, queen and chancellor. Any character from the worlds of fantasy is eligible; the only major requirements being that nominations for king and queen must be human (or human-type) characters, whilst nominations for chancellor are restricted to non-human (or non-human type) characters.

As with 2015, the top five nominated individuals for king, queen and chancellor will go forward for public voting at this year’s Faire. The winners will then be announced at the May Day Costume Ball on May 1st. So make sure you nominate your choices today!

Note: last year’s winners, Vetinari, Granny Weatherwax and Greebo the cat, all from the works of Terry Pratchett, are NOT eligible for election this year.