Category: Second Life

Back on May 2022, visited The Wylde, a quarter-region design by Jazaar Silvermoon (Jazaar Heartsong) and AmiandAeon Silvermoon (AmiAndAeon), presented as a public garden for people to visit and appreciate as it sat alongside – but entirely separate from – their private home (see: A walk in The Wylde in Second Life).

Since then, Jazaar and AmiandAeon have acquired the rest of the Full region on which their home and The Wylde stand, allowing them to expand the latter whilst also offering a second public space to visit, which they’ve called The Nightgarden. The latter is both separate from The Wylde with its own Landing Point, but also connected to it – at least it is for those who are observant and willing to explore carefully! With the expansion, Jazaar kindly sent me an invitation to pay the region another visit.

The landing Point for The Wilde remains on the west side of the region, immediately adjacent to one of the gates and walls marking Jazaar and Ami’s home, which occupies the south-west corner of the region and is not open to public exploration.

The public path heads north, very quickly branching into a Y to offer two choices of exploration. Which you opt to take is entirely up to you. One leads the way through the trees to where a small cuddle deck sits out over the waters of a brook (and more), the other offers a meandering path through the woods with multiple discoveries to be made along the way.

As I noted when writing about The Wylde in 2022, there is a mystical look and feel about it, with the paths offering much to see – rabbits, unicorns in a hidden meadow (where people might also dance), statues, ponds, gazebos, streams – all of which allow the setting to speak for itself as it unfolds before the eyes as one wanders. Luminescence hangs in the air and graces exotics plants, teardrop lanterns hang from boughs, and the density of trees and shrubs ensure you’ll want to keep a keen eye in order to observe everything.

Depending where you wander, you explorations may be aided by the timely intervention of a bridge to span a stream or body of water – or you might find stepping stones to help keep your feet dry. Rotating rings of stone blocks, a bubbling cauldron and statues of fae folk and (perhaps) pagan deities add further mystery and magic to the setting. The centre highlands are dominated by two large structures, a mystical rotunda sitting between the stubby peak of a frosted mounted topped by an eleven garden. There are at least two routes up to the rotunda (one passing under a Fantasy Faire “gate”) – but again – I’ll leave you to find them!

The Nightgarden is, as already noted, the latest addition to the setting. Occupying the south-east quarter of the region, it stands both on its own as a place to visit via its own Landing Point, and as a place which can be explored alongside of The Wylde, to which it is connected by hidden paths (one of which I found and will say only this: bridges here don’t only span a gorge, they might also heave beneath them a part hidden in plain sight and which doesn’t end at a waterfall).

Welcome to the Nightgarden, a mystical world of starlit serenity. Follow the paths, explore the phosphorescent flora, bask in the waterfalls from the floating islands, and discover the portals that lead you into even more discoveries.

– From The Nightgarden’s About Land description

Surrounded by steep rock, The Nightgarden offers a deep water lake which can almost be circumnavigated, the shoreline awash with luminescent plants and rich foliage, as  blue water tumbles from islands of rock floating overhead. Some of this pools in depressions atop the cliffs prior to tumbling down one more, some falls directly into the lake. Strange plants also float above the deep waters, sharing the air with the rock islands – the largest of which has a garden of its own waiting to be visited – and lanterns.

Watching over this is a house of glass, an arboretum rich in exotic, glowing flora. It stands back against the cliffs, inaccessible save via the teleport boats, one moored on the waters of the lake, the other serenely moored against the arboretum, each with an touch-teleport ring mounted upon its deck. Nor do things end there; below the waters is a further realm, again alive with colour and filled with detail, just waiting for people to slip below the waves and explore.

Throughout all of this – The Wylde and The Nightgarden alike – are many places to sit and relax, cuddle, dance and generally lose yourself. Well worth visiting and exploring.

SLurl Details

Club of Friends is rated Moderate.

• The Wilde
• The Nightgarden

Jim Garand and his SL partner PaleLily have re-developed Jim’s Homestead region of Grauland to present another photogenic setting with hints of mystery and story to tickle the imagination.

This iteration of the setting offers no themed title. However, the overall look of the setting blends characteristics seen within past builds to offer what might be called industrial-artistic, bringing together multiple elements into a unified whole. In places it comes across as familiar, but when taken as a whole is new and unique to itself.

For this iteration, the region has been split into two, north-to-south, the larger western portion of the setting home to the Landing Point and a large, abandoned industrial facility, part of which straddles the waterway and appears to have once been used to load / off-load barges.

The smaller and lower eastern side of the setting is dominated by the remnants of a brick-built lighthouse which presumably once helped guide vessels into the channel between the two landmasses. With most of the steel lantern house now gone and holes blasted in tits sides, the ruin look as if it at some point faced a bombardment of some sort, making the lighthouse an interesting feature.

Also on this smaller spit of land are concrete cubes, some solid and some hollow and with large holes cut into their sides. Those familiar with past Grauland builds may well recognise them as a familiar artistic piece; they do the same here, whilst mixing in one of those elements of mystery narrative the imagination might want to chase: who set them there and why?

Then there is the question of quite what was manufactured in the industrial units – or what they have may have been used for, and why does the warehouse still appear to be in use?

However, among the larger settings are smaller vignettes which tickle the imagination. What are the cars in field, and who brought them to this isolated place? Why does one have a windscreen that looks like some tried to shoot the driver? Who is using the “club room” on the ground floor of one of the buildings – and who has turned the upper floor into an adult-like film set? Is it s one-off use, or is the place now a sight for illicit film-making? The more you explore the more the opportunities to ask questions of yourself and create little stories.

Right across the island there are dozens of opportunities for photography, together with plenty of places to set and pass the time – and again, contemplate suitable back stories for all you can find. The places to sit are widely varies, from the wooden deck with its sun loungers and the pool rings and floats inviting people to try the water, to the chairs up on the catwalk over the big tanks.

Another fascinating and engaging build from Jim and PaleLily.

SLurl Details

• Grauland (Liberia Isle, rated Adult)