Category: Exploring Second Life

Experience the Adirondacks (click any image for full size)

The new year has brought with it a new region design for Sera Bellic’s demonstration region for her Lick Sim Designs. The rural fields and rolling hills of Belleck House, redolent as they were of the Scottish lowlands or the countryside of Ireland, have now passed, and their place taken by another outdoor scene; one this time inspired by the North American continent.

Experience the Adirondacks offers visitors a taste of the Adirondack massif in the north-east of upstate New York in North America. This is a roughly circular dome of mountains whose formation owes much to ancient glaciation, and which shelters a range of wetlands as well as being home to the Adirondack Park.

Experience the Adirondacks

In Second Life, Sera offers a similar environment to  visitors: the region is surrounded by high mountains, some of them showing rounded tops and deep v-shaped flanks, suggestive of glaciers having helped carve them into being. Within their shelter, the region offers a gently sloping landscape with rocky outcrops to one end and wooded slopes leading down to a curving bay to the east. This, in turn, is protected north and south by long fingers of wooded headlands, the northern one providing access to the region’s single cabin, built out over the water.

This is a scene from the great outdoors, where physical activity can be the order of the day, and this latter point is immediately evidenced to visitors upon their arrival. The landing point sits on a large wooden platform sitting over the flooded floor of a sheer shaded crater-like hole, a waterfall plunging into it over the precipice to one side. Unless one resorts to cheating and the use of flight, the only way off the platform is by either a walk under the water or a swim across it with the aid of a “floatie”, rezzed by touching the blue sphere floating over the water.

Experience the Adirondacks

There are further watery activities to be found as you explore: swimming is available in the curving bay to the east, canoes can be obtained from various points and used to paddle around the region’s shoreline, while for the adventurous, a climb up to the plateau at the southern end of the region will reveal an opportunity for cliff diving – just be warned the water at the foot of the cliffs is a little shallow!

For those seeking something quieter, there are a number of seating and cuddle spots scattered about the region, including a very well-appointed tent for those who take their glamping comforts seriously 🙂 .

Experience the Adirondacks

So if you’re looking for a brief break from the normal grind and fancy a little fresh, mountain air mixed with a little swimming or canoeing, why not Experience the Adirondacks for a while?

SLurl Details

• Experience the Adirondacks (Rated: Moderate)

High Water (Flickr) – click any image for full size

High Water is a languid setting; a place where the water drifts by at ankle depth, its surface broken in places by scatterings of trees, wild flowers and slender stalks of grass. Overhead, clouds pass a little more hurriedly, their scudding passage the fastest movement to be seen. Beyond them, the sky is turning deep blue as the Sun lowers itself slowly towards a distant horizon.

Designed by Morton Funk, High Water is a tranquil place where even the sounds are few; while birds circle in places, they make no noise, and although the passage of the breeze may stir the leaves and branches of the trees, it does not cause them to offer the expected sigh to mark its passing.

High Water (Flickr)

Also scattered across this watery vista are places to sit, each placed so that those using them can look out over the water, as a fine mist clings to it here and there, and simply contemplate whatever chooses to slip gently into their thoughts.

Within this tranquillity, a touch of whimsy and signs of an open heart can be found. As you explore, you may come across a pair of Cica Ghost’s cats, apparently enjoying the water, or a strange fish happily “swimming” in the air above the water. Elsewhere, beneath the surface of the water, a heartfelt message reads, if you should leave me. I have no place to go.

High Water (Flickr)

For those who enjoy a little activity, horses roam the waters, awaiting riders. Should you do so, the sound of hooves beneath you might be the only thing to break the stillness of the region. Or if you prefer, and again located just beneath the surface of the water, a dance machine will allow you to enjoy the music stream which, at the time of our visit, featured  the music of the late David Bowie.

High Water has the feel of being organic in form; as we wandered, I couldn’t help but feel that things had arrived here not so much by intentional design, but as thoughts and ideas occurred to Morton, the environment thus growing quite naturally over time. This, and the tranquil setting, makes it a place to which we’re almost certain to return, to see what else may have arrived.

High Water (Flickr)

SLurl Details

• High Water (Rated: Moderate)

Cerridwen’s Cauldron (Flickr) – click any image for full size

I adore Elicio Ember’s work. As a craftsman of works of fantasy, he is one of Second life’s finest, as anyone who has had the delight and pleasure of seeing his work at Fantasy Faire over the years will know.

His in-world store of Cerridwen’s Cauldron is a stunning delight as well, and it is easy to spend a fair amount of time there, simply wandering, climbing the Dream Tower, riding a dragon around the towers, spires and outcrops of rocks and over the gardens, or walking its halls and chambers.

It’s been a while since I’ve actually written about Elicio’s home region, so when he recently informed me he was starting work and redeveloping the ground level (on which I blogged about far, far back in the mists of 2012), I was keen to see what he had done, although time played a little against me. So when he IM’d me to say he was making some additional changes and sent me an invite and Landmark to see things for myself, I knew I’d had to make up for lost time and hop over with Caitlyn to see.

Ground level – Cerridwen’s Cauldron (Flickr)

The Landmark Elicio sent me when extending his invitation for us to visit, delivered us directly to the Emerald Lounge. This lies within a huge cavern, seemingly hewn from the living rock, and through which water gently glides while crystal lamps hang from high ceilings.

Here, in a place I personally feel is best seen under night-time lighting, is a bar serving wines and ale and slices of delicious fruit, a space paved by great hexagonal blocks open to dancers before it. Nearby, on the dusty sand close to the entrance to the cavern, or just across the shallow waters, can be found places to sit, softly lit by the glow of crystals and some of Elicio’s beautiful plants.

Ground level – Cerridwen’s Cauldron (Flickr)

Steps lead the way upwards from the waters inside the cavern, allowing the visitor to go by glass-topped walkways and platforms up to the plateau overhead, revealing the incredible beauty of this island. The plateau sits like a table on stout rocky legs carved by the sea and sheltering the cavern within their midst, while beaches, exotic plants and an ornate water temple  gathered around their feet, while water tumbles from above.

Atop the plateau lies a beautiful realm of water, light, plants and open-sided structures with a distinctly elven feel to them.  Walk through the fluorescent plants at your feet, and slivers of phosphor drift into the air around you; walk under the great natural arch of a gigantic tree of life and witness the huge decorated skull of a long-dead dragon; climb the stairs to a broad hexagonal platform and find seating and refreshments awaiting you. Everywhere you turn, there is something waiting to be discovered.

Ground level – Cerridwen’s Cauldron (Flickr)

This is a place to be explored with local sounds enabled and your speakers / headset active. Like many regions throughout Second Life, Cerridwen’s Cauldron has an ambient sound scape, one beautifully crafted to add considerable depth to any exploration over the plateau and through the spaces beneath. It is one which really should be experienced in it fullest when walking through the fluorescent grasses or wading the shallow waters or standing beneath the slowly turning fae orb.

For those who prefer, a teleport system is available to scoot you around various locations – and up to and around Elicio’s store; but to use it exclusively in favour of exploring on foot would, both Caitlyn and I agreed, be a mistake.

Ground level – Cerridwen’s Cauldron (Flickr)

Cerridwen’s Cauldron has always been a magical, mystical place of harmony and beauty, and this latest design at ground level further reflects this fact. Indeed, looking at it from a distance sitting above the sea, it offers a harmonious echo of the store itself as the latter floats  in the sky atop its own islands, and extends beneath them with its stairways and stone halls, just as the garden sit atop their rock plateau and the cavern of the Emerald lounge sits beneath them.

SLurl Details – Moderate

• Cerridwen’s Cauldron store
• Emerald Lounge

Gates of Memories (Flickr) – click any image for full size

Gates of Memories is a place where we are reminded that we don’t remember days,
we remember moments. Wandering through the region, designed by photographer shelly70, it is easy to understand why she feels this is the case: the region is filled with moments in time, each of which creates an impression waiting to be captured by eye and camera to become a memory to which we can return again and again.

Caught in the depths of winter, the snowbound region presents a rural setting where the rolling ground is blanketed in white and trees denuded of their leaves stretch frosted, gnarled fingers and arms towards a cloud heavy sky from which more snow swirls and falls.

Gates of Memories (Flickr)

Close to the landing point and just through a gated arch, sits a quaint cottage, garden hidden beneath the snow, tall lamp-posts lighting the way to the front door. Paper lanterns. the air inside heated by tiny fires burning in cradles slung below them, turn and dance in the falling snow, their colour contrasting strongly with the otherwise near monochrome setting. A second cottage sits across the region, smoke also curling from its chimney, hinting at warmth inside, the footpath to the front door swept clear of snow in welcome to visitors.

While the surrounding landscape may seem sparse under the lowering sky, there is actually a lot here to be discovered. The open spaces mean that things can be carefully placed so that they can naturally stand apart from one another, allowing the visitor to come upon them in a way that presents each in turn as a moment in time.

Gates of Memories (Flickr) – click and image for full size

Art is very much central to these moments, particularly the work of Mistero Hifeng (a factor bound to attract me, as I simply adore his work), with pieces large and small to be found right across the region, sometimes standing alone whilst elsewhere forming the focal point for a particular setting – as with the couple standing in the centre of a little skating rink, the ice around them scored and crossed by the passage of skates.

But Mistero’s work isn’t alone in being celebrated here; those exploring the region will also come across figures by Rebeca Bashly (another artist I admire) and Angelica Leiner, as well as quirky characters by Krikket Bkackheart and Raya Jonson, whilst elsewhere a touch of fantasy can be found as unicorns play in the misty snow.

As well as offering moments in time to visitors, Gates of Memories  is itself a moment in time; one beautifully conceived and presented – and certainly one not to be missed.

Gates of Memories (Flickr) – click and image for full size

SLurl Details

• Gates of Memories (Rated: Moderate)

While I’d encountered some of his work during my travels around Second Life, it was my visit to Tahiti Rae’s Love, Henry in July 2015, which particularly drew me to the architecture of Abel Dreamscape.It was at Love Henry that I first encountered the magnificence of Abel’s St Illuminatus cathedral – and it made quite an impression.

ISo when I hopped over to take a look at Timekiller II (see my post about the event) located in one corner of Abel’s Morphe Northwinds region, I decided to extend my stay and explore his work in general depth.

Anyone involved in medieval and  / or fantasy role-play may well be familiar with Abel’s designs. His buildings, while high in terms of LI, are beautifully produced and make excellent centrepieces for any suitable period environment. His range includes everything from huge period castles down to individual landscaping and building kits (the latter full perm), going by way of churches, towers, town houses and buildings, docks and peasant cottages, with expansion kits, cannon and furnishings also available.

Morphe Northwinds presents many of Abel’s building and kits in a medieval setting (complete with some ambient sounds):  a small town, complete with docks, presided over by the imposing bulk of the cathedral. Here visitors can explore the building at their leisure, examine the vendor signs, enjoy the music stream (suitably period, if not medieval), and discover some of his accessory packs.

Cross the bridge to the south, and you find yourself in Morphe Inc., the main store area, dominated by the huge edifice of Thorean Castle, with is great hall and 12 other rooms, sitting above a series of catacombs built using Abel’s tunnel kits. Across the paved road from the castle sits the full perms mall with builders kits, which is itself alongside a rezzing area where more of Abel’s building can be viewed and examined.

Getting to see any building in-world before you commit to buying it is generally a vital part of the purchasing process. With Morphe Inc., and particularly Morphe Northwinds, Abel has provided a means to not only see his builds up close, but also view them in period environment; one which also offers those interested in medieval buildings an interesting place to visit.

SLurl Details

• Morphe Inc. (Rated:  General)
• Morphe Northwinds (Rated: General)