Category: Exploring Second Life

Fate recently called upon me to travel to the Transylvanian town of Bistrița, and from there into the Inner Eastern Carpathian Mountains. It was no ordinary trip, for I was following the footsteps of cleric and solicitor Jonathan Harker, who had travelled there to complete business with a client from the region, only to seemingly disappear and causing much distress to his fiancée,  Mina Murray. 

Or at least, that is how the start of a visit to Castle Dracula: A Gothic Horror Experience might read when written as a journal entry by someone participating in its interactive adventure. The work of long-time resident and content creator, Wanders Nowhere (also famous for Prehistorica), this is an adventure reputedly “14 years in the making”.

How literal that might be, I’ll leave to others to cogitate upon; what I will say is, for anyone who is a fan of Gothic Horror and / or enjoys Bram Stoker’s classic novel, this is an Experience-led adventure which is engaging without being overly taxing, whilst offering a twist on the opening elements from the novel to offer a first-person narrative which takes Harker’s visit to Castle Dracula as the jumping off point for a related tale of an encounter with the Count. 

The adventure begins within a welcome area, reached either via the SLurl above, or by taking the teleport portal from the main Prehistorica lading point. This area contains all the information visitors require in order to enjoy the experience – or participate is a second, also set within the Castle and entitled Carmilla: The Love of the Dead, which can be entered into on payment of L$200 and which offers special rewards for those completing it. I opted to save this for a later option, focusing solely on Castle Dracula. 

I’m not going to trot through all of the info at the welcome area – it offers clear enough notes; suffice it to say you should accept the local shared environment and to have local sounds active. Whether or not you have Shadows enabled is a matter of choice; I actually found things a little too dark with them on.

Once all the notes have been read, the adventure can commence by stepping through the teleport portal to Castle Dracula; just be sure to Agree to the notes which will pop-up in a dialogue box when you attempt to do so, and also accept the local Experience – the latter will enable automatic teleports and also equip you with the necessary progress HUD.

Passing through the portal delivers you to the first of three locations – a train carriage as you sally forth from Bistrița to the village of Vesnic in the mountains, following the invitation of Harker’s mysterious client, Count Dracula. The carriage ride provides a narrative introduction to the adventure (s noted at the top of this article) and also introduces participants to the quest element of the story: locating 16 pages from Harker’s journal, which together might reveal his location – or fate. 

To get participants started, the first page of the journal is located alongside the carriage doors, providing a visual reference of what should be sought when looking for additional pages. When touched, the journal will deliver its page on-screen, allowing it to be read, after which clicking on it will place it on the game HUD, which is also the repository for other papers and notes, etc., found when exploring. Any item in the HUD can be expanded again by clicking on it.

Stepping “out of” the carriage doors on arrival at Vesnic will deliver participants to the garlic-strewn interior of the local hostelry, amusingly called The Stake and Hammer. It is here that the second page of Harker’s journal might be obtained, sitting on a table between arrivals and the exit.

More garlic is to be found outside the tavern, notably in the form of wreaths guarding the doors to local homes and places of business, with great sacks of cloves placed – strategically? – around the square as well. Outside of the church and the tavern, there is not a lot to see here,  but there is a horse-drawn carriage awaiting those wishing to reach the castle. Approaching it will bring a greeting from the driver, and sitting within it will start you on your way to your final destination, by way of a climb up through the mountains. Personal experience may vary here, but I found I needed to use the Camera floater and controls to get my camera out of the bottom of the carriage in order to see anything of the lands through which the ride passes – but I do use a custom camera preset rather than the SL default (and given the scale of things, Castle Dracula does seem to be built in expectation of oversized avatars using the SL default camera position).

It is on your arrival that the fun begins. From being greeted by the Count himself through to attempting to find the remaining 14 pages of Harker’s journal, there is a lot to see and explore – and potentially touch for interactions. There are some very nice touches to be appreciated – such as the count himself, a phantom NPC which is perfectly animated. Through the castle’s many rooms are elements from the novel as well as from other Gothic horror influences (perhaps most notably Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus) to touches of Giger-like neo-Gothic, together with what might be taken as nodes to M.C. Esher and others.

After being shown to your room by a rather chatty Count, you are free to commence your explorations – where they may take you is down to the route you chose on starting, and the branches you take thereafter, so I’m not about to give a room-by-room account. However, entering major locations in the castle – the entrance hall, the library, the ballroom, the Gallery, the Midnight Garden and so on – will be recorded on the HUD map in the form of clickable points you can use to jump between rooms, if necessary. But do take note – these are not the only locations within the Castle; you will need to explore carefully, as some of those which are not recorded on the map may well contain elements of Harker’s journal.

There is no reward to completing the quest per se outside of learning of Harker’s fate and the luxury of reading his journal entries – which follow most of the events found in the novel relating to his time at the case – in the correct order. However, finding all 16 pages will trigger the start of your own fate: will you be able to escape the Castle before the Count finds you (and without simply teleporting away!), or will you find yourself his next victim?

And even then; is it death that awaits you – or will you awaken in the hold of a ship bound for England (a hold in which you may well find yourself able to collect a few little mementos of your time at Castle Dracula before heading home)? Why not pay a visit and find out?

SLurl Details

• Castle Dracula: A Gothic Horror Experience (Fort Nowhere, rated Moderate)

It’s been almost a year since my last visit to Vivian Ewing’s Where Our Journey Begins. At the time of that visit, the region was dressed for winter 2022, and I wanted to catch it before the autumnal setting vanished in favour of something more in keeping with the turn of the year – and in the process adding autumn to my previous posts on the region, I will have now covered all four seasons at the region.

For autumn, Vivian has turned to a palette of hues and colours common to the time of year – yellows, browns, splashes of greens, reds and so on, which extend into the environment settings for the region as well, the sky cast in bronze on the horizons, darkening as it moves overhead before brightening once more, the clouds a patina of orange and yellow, dark underbellies hinting at the prospect of rain.

And the sun took a step back, the leaves lulled themselves to sleep, and autumn was awakened. Immerse yourself in a world full of autumnal colours and peace.

– Where Our Journey Begins, autumn 2023

To the north the lands are raised, curtain walls of cliffs helping to both separate them and bind them with the off-region surround to east and west. A tramway bursts forth from the western cliffs, exiting a tunnel mouth to pass between the tall arms of a grand wrought-iron bridge raised on tall stone-faced plinths as they across the river splitting the land in two from north to south, in the process spanning a shallow valley as it cups the waters in its arms.

Across this bridge – which is joined in spanning the river valley by an equally wide boardwalk on its own row of footings as it forms a pleasant place on which to stroll and watch the activities on the water below – sits a small borough fashioned around a central square. The modern 2- and 3-storey buildings arranged around three sides of the square suggest that this is part of a larger township even whilst it stands alone. The square itself is given over to a very pleasant café with seating indoors our under its broad awning. With the local clock tower standing guard alongside the café and the screen of surrounding trees illuminated by strings of lights winding through their boughs with leave turned to rust, it the square has a certain sense of romance about it.

Facing the café is a brick-built rich providing access to a shoulder of hill sitting above the river. The arch provides access to a path as it meanders around the hilltop, providing a suitable walk for lovers complete with a romantic folly presiding over things at the top of a raised thumb of rock. Those taking the path with find it circles half-way around the folly on its proud seat, then descends down towards the river.

Here the waters appear to have narrowed rapidly after passing beneath the bridge to the north, the ground lush with grass, the water a narrow ribbon running between banks. However, looks can be deceptive – as the slender boardwalk running out from behind a riverside  deck and hot tub quickly reveals. Rather than growing along the eastern bank of the river, the grass in fact marks the presence of a lush, shallow wetland extending out into the main channel of the river, a wetland which continues south, trees rising from its waters and its actual edge marked by a drystone wall as it borders the track running south from the foot of the folly’s hill.

A second narrow boardwalk spans the river towards its southern end, where the lowlands spread outwards to east and west, looking like golden pastures while again actually being a mix of solid ground and wetland under the carpeting of grass. To the west, the lowlands flow past another raised shoulder of land bordered on two of its remaining side by the aforementioned stream (itself crossed by a very sturdy wooden bridge which has seen much use / repair over the years). This triangle of land is home to a small ranch / farm, complete with a horse rezzer for those wishing to take a ride.

Those who do might try their hand at herding the cattle wandering along the local track – or perhaps head south and east to see if they can persuade the cows grazing out on the grass of the lowlands that it is perhaps time to come home! If such an exercise does not appeal, then a walk / ride along the dirt road running east will bring visitors to a low-slung bridge spanning the narrow neck of an inlet cutting into the land. With an old wooden gazebo and a hut-like tent offering places of retreat, this is again perhaps a location for those with a romantic heart.

With a modest farmer’s market (with a touch of quirkiness in it – those staffing the stalls appear to be some of the local deer and squirrel populace!) also sitting along the track leading to the inlet, these is much more to be found along the southern side of the region than might initially appear to be the case. As always, Vivian has certainly created a rich, photogenic setting ripe for exploration and spending time within – so enjoy it before winter steps in!

SLurl Details

• Where Our Journey Begins (Ilha Ipanema, rated Moderate)

If you are looking for a low-key, engaging setting for Halloween, a place where you can share spooky stories, explore, take photos, have a dance with someone close to you or just sit before a blazing log fire and relax without being overloaded by spooks, goblins, ghost, monsters and scary noises and the other accoutrements often poured into Halloween-themed settings, then you could do no better than to visit Maia Macabre’s Moochie All Hallows 2023.

Through the witching season, visit All Hallows for haunted meanderings, autumnal hoodoo, darkly roaming, and Halloween encapsulated. Be strange, but don’t be a stranger…

– From the Moochie All Hallows introduction

Now in its eighth year, Moochie All Hallows retains the familiar central clearing and focal point for Maia’s seasonal designs, ready for dancing and  surrounded by various little vignettes (one of which appears to be an invitation to dance at the end of a rope after a spot of bobbing for apples, just to keep up with the more macabre feel of the season!). It sits under a dark night’s sky (be sure to Use Shared Environment (World → Environment) which is also suitably atmospheric, while the ring of paths and trails winding outwards from the clearing. Some of these paths might only lead a short distance while others might wind onwards under the trees, occasionally branching to offer various routes of exploration, all of them beckon explorers to follow them.

One of these paths actually descends into the clearing, sloping gently down as it does from the Landing Point. The latter is located alongside familiar railcars, where might also be found notes on how best to appreciate the setting, a couple’s HUD rezzer for those wishing to walk together whilst exploring, and a HUD book outlining some of the history of some of the traditions associated with Halloween. Whilst predominantly focused on those traditions for the season hailing from Ireland (I’d have liked to have seen some inclusion the Scottish form of guising, given it has something of a direct line to modern trick-or-treating), the book makes for a good read and offers a solid introduction to the Gaelic festival of Samhain, which very much encompasses activities (mumming, guising, the use of bonfires, etc.), carried down into modern populist forms of celebrating Halloween and the season it represents.

Walking the various paths spreading outwards will bring visitors to the likes of storytelling circles deep in the woods, seating arranged around a warm fire just awaiting a storyteller or two and an audience, or to ruins and a chapel, the inevitable pumpkin patch (this one nicely laid out as a means of bordering a meandering path, rather than the perhaps more familiar fenced-in square or rectangular patch), a romantic wishing well (the smoochie Moochie well? 🙂 ), and more.

Follow some of the paths far enough and you’ll come to boardwalks running alongside the waters surrounding the region, or reaching out to decks sitting over the the dark waters. These offer a mix of places to sit, treats to enjoy and even a game or two to play. Tents, either on the boardwalks or under the eves of the trees, offer further snuggle-points for couples and / or places to sit and tell stories or simply think and pass the time.

A nice touch throughout is that just about everything has been set to Phantom (outside of things like the boardwalks). This means that when trying to navigate paths marked by pumpkins, torches, chairs, and so on, you are not constantly bombarded with the annoying thunk-thunk-thunk of object collisions; thus, the local ambient sounds can be appreciated without distraction. Add to this the use of burning torches, pumpkin lanterns and strings of lights hanging from tree boughs, and the setting is provided with enough suitable illumination so that navigation is easy without the lighting spoiling the sense of night-time mystery.

Maia is rightly well-know for her seasonal settings at Moochie and I’ve frequently enjoy visiting the region in its winter guises. However, this my first time there with Moochie dressed for Halloween, and as someone not particularly into all the modern (i.e. 20th century onwards) aspects of the season, I really appreciated exploring the very relaxed manner in which it captures the ideas and fun of Halloween without being in-you-face with heavy-handed references or getting bogged down in belabouring spookiness.

 SLurl Details

• Moochie All Hallows 2023 (Moochie, rated: Moderate)

Halloween is rolling around for 2023, and once more we’re starting to see region designs marking the time of year pop-up, whether along “traditional” Halloween settings with pumpkins and a light touch of ghostliness and spookiness, or with a deep footing in horror and / or bloodthirsty goings-on. As such, it is often hard to choose particular regions and locations to cover; after all, when you’ve seen one pumpkin patch, you’ve seen them all, regardless of whether or not they feature a small boy with a blanket steadfastly awaiting the gift-giving arrival of a mythical creature. However, there are exceptions.

For example, the annual Halloween regions delivered to the grid by Ty and Truck and the team at Calas Galadhon (of which I’ll have more in the near future) or – for this article, the realm of Witherwood Thicket, the latest Frogmore instalment from the imaginations of Frogmore owner Tolla Crisp and her companion-in-building, Dandy Warhlol (terry Fotherington).

A Gothic Tale told in shades and shadows upon an English Moor, inspired by works of Edgar Allen Poe.

– Witherwood Thicket About Land description

The above description does much to sum this setting up, providing sufficient information to inform visitors they are about to enter a world edged in mystery-horror; one with a slant towards the English moorlands (take your pick, we have a fair number which are all known for their outstanding beauty and wilderness feel, starting far down in the West Country and then scattered all across England (as well as Scotland and Wales also having their shares of equally enchanting moorlands). However, it also leaves more than enough unsaid to practically demand a visit.

Whilst it is an American master of the of the macabre mentioned within the region’s About Land description, the broad strokes of some parts of Witherwood Thicket might bring to mind images of mist-filled nights deep within the mires of Dartmoor, and the tall, slender form of Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes leading Nigel Bruce’s Dr. John Watson as they attempt to track a certain demonic hound. At the same time a certain part of the setting might have some imaginations edging towards thoughts of Tolkien, whilst throughout are elements of horror, the occult and monsters which might well give H.P. Lovecraft a reason to smile.

Which is not to say the region is in any way mishmash; far from it. Everything here has been well placed, with multiple buildings dressed to encourage visitors to step inside, with the passage around the region nicely set to present something of a visual narrative – although precisely what the story within it might be is left up to our imaginations.

Journeys through Witherwood Thicket commence at the landing point, well to the south and west of the region, where sits a fortified gatehouse, now roofless and all but deserted. It sits on a narrow spit of land with water on three sides, but it is not hard to picture the route through its twin arches having once provided access to wooden wharves where vessels might have at one time sailed for and to, laden with goods both coming and going. Or if not docks, then perhaps the mind might picture the tongue of land straddled by the gateway marching onwards a distance before the opening out once more beyond the region’s edge, the waters to either side allowing the stone walls of the gatehouse and the great gates which doubtless once stood under its arches form a natural defensive point.

Beyond this ancient structure, the land rolls inwards to a second arched gateway flanked by defensive towers, the path between the two bordered by the skeletal ranks of trees either side and they stand-in for any curtain walls which may have – if the imagination runs that way – between gatehouse and gateway. Once through the third arch, the path become further hemmed in on either side by a tall crop of something or other watched over by a scarecrow as spooky as the watcher standing guard over the path running from the gatehouse.

Once past the crop and its guardian, the setting becomes more moor-like (so to speak), the path turning into an unpaved road curving through a small village. Here, lights spill out from shaded windows and / or doors stand open, inviting people in. Yes there are hounds here that may not appear entirely friendly (but are hardly demonic, to return to my earlier reference!), but the houses deserve time to look inside, as each presents its own sense of mystery and / or the occult. As the road passes between them, so it reveals the looming form of a castle perched up on a hill and watching over affairs. Perhaps the old gatehouse once formed a part of its defences – or perhaps not.

The village, riven in two by the passage of a deep gully with choked waters at its bottom and best crossed by the sturdy bridges, is actually more extensive than might first appear to be the case. There is, for example, the moulding manor house to be found at the end of another rocky promontory pointing a crooked finger out to sea and, across a small bay from it and directly below the village, the crouching form of an old cabin which might look quite at home deep with America’s bayou country, giving a further little twist to the setting. There’s also the village church and graveyard and, acting like a magnetic, the castle sitting high on its rocky perch.

The castle is best reached by passing through the village and following the road as it becomes more of a trail heading back eastwards and then south to where a lighthouse rises out of the mist in impressive fashion to vie with the castle in terms of providing the highest view out over the landscape. It is here as well that the touch of Tolkien enters the imagination. Climbing the rocky incline leading up to the castle, it is hard not to look back at the lighthouse and expect to see a fiery eye staring unblinking out over the landscape as Sauron’s was said to have done from the highest point of Barad-dûr.

As for the castle, this offers its own sense of mystery. While the halls and rooms within its walls and towers are empty, its courtyard is set for some form of event – although what this might be is again left to the imagination. Then there is the second great house, no more than a stone’s throw from the lighthouse and sitting ablaze at the water’s edge, a burning ship close by. They both beg for visitors create a tale for why they are burning, be it the result of the demon on the terrace leading to the house or something else.

Rich in detail – much of it intentionally not covered here – and presented with a fitting environment setting and a soundscape heavy with the cry of crows (possibly standing-in for ravens, given the Poe reference 🙂 ), Witherwood Thicket is a place you’ve want to spend a decent amount of time exploring and which (it really goes without saying) is highly photogenic.

SLurl Details

• Witherwood Thicket (Caracus Island, rated Moderate)

Angel (BabyCatHead) IM’d me recently to suggest I visit Otter Lake, Sharon Hinterland’s ever-evolving setting in Second Life. As it’s getting on for a year since my last visit, I thought I should take her suggestion and drop in once more. Originally a Homestead region and Sharon’s home in SL – and a place I first visited back in 2019 after Sharon opted to make it a public destination (and to which I’ve returned on a number of occasions since) – the location has since moved on to a Full private region product, with Sharon continuing to re-develop it on a regular basis and offer new sights and touches.

With this iteration in particular, she has created two distinct but connected / related settings, the first at ground level and the second on a region-wide skybox level, 1250 metres overhead. They are distinct, because whereas the ground level setting retains the general rural vibe of the last iteration of the region I wrote about, the sky platform presents an entirely urban setting. However, linked as they are by a collision teleport disguised as a road tunnel, there is a suggestion that the urban setting lies on the limits of a larger conurbation, a place of mixed age and use, whilst the ground-level setting is the countryside just a short drive away from the town / city.

While retaining the rural vibe from the previous build, this Otter Lake ground level build is by no means just a continuance of the prior design – it very much has its own look and feel; one that to me, making a first return since the last time I covered it in November 2022, gave the suggestion that rather than being completely removed from that prior design, I’ve perhaps moved a modest number of kilometres along the same stretch of coastline to find myself in the current setting.

This is a place sitting within what appears to be a broad bay, a single tongue of land connecting it to the surrounding hills and providing a point of emergence for the tunnel which appears to dive under them to provide passage between coast and town. A paved road runs around the periphery of the landscape, linking the landing point to the north with the tunnel mouth to the south. Two wooden drawbridges help the road cross the channel of water separating the spit of land on which the landing point sits with the bulk of the landscape, so it doesn’t matter which direction you opt to take at the start of any wandering around the setting.

That spit of land, a long ribbon running west-to-east along the length of the region, with a lighthouse and small beach at one end and an aging gas station and garage at the other. Along the way the road between these two extremes passes a camp site, the landing point, cabins (some in better condition than others!) and a little café.

Across the water and particularly visible from one of the bridges is a building of mixed ancient / modern design which immediately caught my eye – Marcthur Goosson’s NO Cottage Bizar. It’s a structure I fell in love with after first coming across it at the start of 2023 courtesy of Clifton Howlett (see: A Highland Retreat on Second Life), and which I went on to purchase and kitbash for my own purposes (as related in The NO Cottage Bizar in Second Life). Here it has been used as a rather interesting residence, one of a number across the landscapes – none of which are private residences, but are instead open to the public.

As well as the houses, there are other structures awaiting discovery, particular along the rutted track cutting across the landscape. This offers the chance to find the haunted chapel ruins – a nod to Halloween, perhaps. Also waiting to be found are ponds, a stream with its own falls, meandering paths and numerous places for sitting and cuddling all of which adds up to an attractive sitting rich in detail.

Step through the tunnel and you’ll arrive in the town. Unlike the undulations of the ground-level setting, this offers a single level location encompassing a run-down industrial area where the main factory has long been shut-down and deserted, except for a single warehouse which has taken on a new lease of life. Across the road, the old steel works is now a club-come-bar carrying the name The Forge, whilst the rest of the western side of the setting has a similar aged and careworn look and feel to it.

This transition as one moves eastwards, the roads passing though and between tired apartment blocks with businesses along their ground floors to reach an open park bordered on two sides by much neater and news apartments / townhouses. Some of the buildings along they are mere façades, while others are furnished and inviting explorers to step inside. Those who climb high enough through some of the building might find some rooftop retreats for those who might want to spend time tucked away.

Sharon always produces richly detailed environments ripe for wandering and photography, and this iteration of Otter Lake is no exception.

SLurl Details

• Otter Lake (My Otter Lake, rated Adult)