Category: Exploring Second Life

Following my recent return to The Wylde to catch-up on more recent development there at the request of region holder Jazaar Silvermoon (Jazaar Heartsong) – see: Back to the Wylde and time in a Nightgarden in Second Life –, I received a further invitation from Jazaar to visit another of her Full region designs, that of The Elvenwood.

Occupying a Full private region leveraging the Land Capacity bonus, the region is a seamless blending of what might be seen as four somewhat different settings, all equally available from the Landing Point.

To the west and north-west respectively, lay Delfai and Enoshima, both reached via the same stepping stone path and initial bridge as it spans the gorge separating Delfai from the landing Point. Comprising ruins and a large bathhouse, Delfai carries with it a Greco-Roman styling.

Delfai obviously suggests Delphi and the oracle Pythia, and the ruins appear to be the remnants of a temple in Pythia’s honour – a large statue of the oracle still standing within them, complete with offering on the dais before her. The path from the bridge meanders through a small walled garden area more suggestive of Italian / Roman heritage in order to reach the ruins. From there, steps climb up a short rise to allow the path to make its way on to the bathhouse.

Located just above a large, open-sided pavilion possibly of ancient Greek design, and with a large terrace to one side of the main entrance, the bathhouse perhaps leans more towards a Roman design than Greek. Dancing can be enjoyed on the terrace, and steps lead down the side of the cliff to further remnants of a structure at at the water’s edge as the channel separates Delfai from Elvenwood.

Reached via a bridge spanning the channel between it and Delfai, Enoshima offers – as the name might suggest – a strong Japanese theme. It sits on an island in the north-west corner of the region, with gardens featuring water and Zen elements. Home to two large buildings, one of which offers a quiet, almost meditative retreat, Enoshima is, like Delfai, neatly self-contained and offers a lot to see in its own right, its paths and boardwalks encouraging exploration.

The two largest elements of the setting are Elvendell and the Fairy Forest. Sitting to the south, Elvendell actually encompasses the region’s Landing Point, together with the Elvenwood.

Backed by high hills along part of the region’s southern side, Elvendell is perhaps liable to stir some thoughts of Tolkien and Imladris whilst having its own unique styling. The large house sits above the waters of what is clearly an artificial lake, its halls and rooms offering places to sit while its terraces offer open walks and dancing.

Close by sit a council chamber and stairs providing access to a path rising to the highest point in the region rising to a temple-like structure mixing eleven and classic elements.  Guarded by miniature versions of the Gates of Argonath – the giant statues carved in the likenesses of Isildur and Anárion – this temple sits within its own plateau garden and offers another retreat.

The plateau hides a secret. To find it, look for the gates beyond the council chamber and the wooden pavilion to which they provide access. You should be able to find your way from there. The Elvenwood, meanwhile, lies below the eastern side of the hills of Elvendell, and offers its own routes of exploration. These should be followed carefully, as they also can reveal places otherwise hidden from casual view.

Occupying the north and east of the region the Fairy Forest offers its own mix of beauty and expression, with tall towers rising into the sky, a wizard’s house, gardens and statues, and meandering paths. Again, time should be taken in exploring in order to reveal all the secrets – including how to reach the little island nestled into the south-east corner of the region between both the Fairy Forest and the Elvenwood without resorting to flying or getting your feet wet.

The beauty of this region lies not only in the way it has been built, but in the care Jazaar has taken to ensure that everything flows together naturally and fully, despite the many different (and what otherwise might be considered contradictory elements – Japanese, Greco-Roman, fantasy…) styles within it. This means that rather than being a set of four vignettes in and of themselves, Elvendell/Elvenwood, the Fairy Forest, Enoshima and Delfai very much flow together as a whole. Even the choice of bridge styles to link the different aspects of the region together simply adds to their sense of wholeness.

Finished with both an over-arching EEP setting and the considered use of ambient sounds, Elvenwood really is a visual feast, with far more to see and appreciate than I’ve mentioned here. And if you’re interested in shopping, Jazaar’s can be reached via the teleport disk at the Landing Point.

SLurl Details

• The Elvenwood (Realm of Light, rated Moderate)

Occupying a Homestead region, Three Finger Pines is an imaginatively engaging location brought into being by Kitten Caboose. It presents a visually rich mix of natural beauty, science fiction narrative and an underpinning commentary / warning about humanity’s continued self-centred abuse of our own world.

The narrative is offered via a notecard which can be obtained at the setting’s Landing Point. This should be read in full in order to appreciate the full context of the region’s story, and I’ll merely précis here.

After eons of unchecked pollution and climate change, the once bio-diverse world of Seva is on the brink of total collapse, its atmosphere toxic and its land sterile. Hoping to discover a means to reverse the damage they have wrought on their world, the Seravarians dispatched ships into the galaxy to study worlds with similar atmospheres and biodiversity as had once been found on their own planet. One of those worlds is a planet we call “Earth”.

The story notes the Seravarian vessel didn’t so much arrive quietly on Earth – within the forested hinterlands of the place we call Canada – so much as it crash landed (the wreckage is still to be found within the setting).

It’s not clear if the craft was crewed or not, but it is evident that either its crash landing or the data it returned to Seva prior to its demise prompted a crewed rescue / follow-up mission: hovering in the sky above the crash site – three rugged lake islands surrounded by high peaks – sits a massive spacecraft, docked against what appears to be a free-floating tower, both happily ignoring the generally insistent demands of gravity.

There is a strong hint of Kubrick / Clarke’s USS Discovery from 2001: A Space Odyssey about the vessel (a kitbash by Nia Angel (NiaHalley) utilising elements created by Beth Delaunay (Isilmeriel) of Delaunay Industries / Isil Designs fame). Given the back-story, I’m sure this is simply inspirational, rather than indicative of any intended link between the setting and the film / novel. Certainly, there is no doubting the imposing beauty of the vessel.

Down on the islands, meanwhile, the crew have clearly been busy. On the longest and southernmost of the three islands sits a cultivation dome where vegetables, fruits and fungi are being cultivated, presumably for study. Close by, containers are being moved back and forth between this and another station on the middle of the three islands.

This second structure has been built into the ground somewhat, and is a further centre for plant research.  Both of the research facilities can be reached on foot by means of a large slab of rock towards their eastern ends, where it arches over the narrow channel separating the two islands.

A cliff-side path also descends along the middle island’s south side to reach the lowlands at its western end. Combined with the path leading up to the south island’s biodome and the rocky arch, this offers the best means to explore both the southern and middle islands to their fullest public extent with both trails offering opportunities to sit and / or photograph local wildlife. A second path close to the Landing Point on the southern island also offers the opportunity to explore the lowlands between the two islands.

I confess to not having found a means to directly access the small northern island save by flying, but this also offers a walk up from its low-lying western end to its mid-point peak, and also down to the crash-site of the original Seravarian scout vessel.

One point of note – and as stated in chat at the Landing Point – is that there is a private residence at the eastern end of the middle island. It intentionally has no direct access to it by foot to emphasise its private nature, and if you try a direct TP, you will earn the ire of the local security system – so don’t! 🙂 .

In all, a very well designed and creative setting, complete with several places to sit and relax while exploring, and which offers plenty of scope for both photography and story-telling.

SLurl Details

• Three Finger Pines (Nevernever Land, rated Adult)

It’s been a decade since I last visited Cammino e Vivo Capovolto, the setting which for many years formed the home for Mistero Hifeng’s mesh sculptures and the Ocho Tango dance venue. In fact, not long after my last visit, both locations relocated to a new region – and for reasons unplanned, I stopped visiting.

I mention this as an entry in the Destination Guide caught my eye recently called Another Song of Freedom – and it just so happens to be set within the region to which Mistero and Ocho Tango relocated back in 2015.

While Ocho Tango appears long gone, Mistero’s gallery / store remains in the sky (with a couple of teleports reaching up to it from the ground level), allowing the ground level of the region to present a conjoined, flooded environment of two halves, the water (and railway tracks) serving to bring them together.

To the south, the region offers a setting for Mistero’s work. With minimal landscaping, a few props (notably wrought iron gateways) it sits as a gallery space in which Mistero has placed various works to form a series of artistic vignettes.

To the north sits Another Song of Freedom. At first glance there is little to tell the exhibition space and Another Song … apart; both have the same waters flowing through them, both sit under the same sky, both utilising Mistero’s sculptures, both comprise a series of scattered vignettes. Only the fact that Another Song … has more in the way of supporting props perhaps sets them apart to the casual eye.

However, there is very much a difference between the two. Designed by Veronica Elara, Another Song … carries within it a central theme, which Elara describes thus:

The land is a surreal transposition of some of the most important biomes of our planet Earth, focusing attention on the evolutionary path of the human being that has often led to sad scenarios of pain and war. Another Song of Freedom wants to be a sincere wish and a voice of hope that can remind us human beings how wonderful the world we live in is and an invitation to respect it and take care of it, with all our deepest roots and traditions.

– Another Song of Freedom Destination Guide entry

The first part of this theme – humanity’s evolutionary path and our penchant for war and destruction – is framed directly at the Landing Point. Two sculptures (by ValiantCo) mark the ascent of man from hominid to human as they march forwards, apparently towards the towers and skyscrapers of New York, a place where the Statue of Liberty lies broken, a mushroom cloud rises into the air and a lonely globe turns above more roiling clouds, a symbol of humanity’s global dominance – and the danger of our destructive tendencies to bring it largely to an end.

Serving as a gateway, this tableau then leads people into the rest of the setting, and its multiple vignettes.

From the polar wilderness to the colours of Polynesia and Africa, and encompassing echoes of our long history here on Earth and our ability to create wonders such as the pyramids, each vignette has something to say about the beauty of the world in which we live, and in our kinder, gentler nature – our creation of music and dance and entertainment; our ability to tend the land and its creatures and produce for ourselves and others; our capability for compassion and understanding.

What is to be made of all this is up to the individual visiting, and I’m not going to put words into anyone’s mouth here.  I’ll simply leave you with a further comment from Elara, and allow you to see where Another Song … might lead you.

 The land is full of different scenarios to take photographs, spend peaceful moments in the company of nature in a climate of serenity and social reflection.

– Another Song of Freedom Destination Guide entry

SLurl Details

• Another Song of Freedom (Retrospect, rated Moderate)

The partnership of Vally (Valium Lavender) and Dandy Warhlol (terry Fotherington), as region holder and designer respectively, is back with a new Full region offering called Vox Populi – voice of the people. With its formal opening due on July 18th, the region enjoyed a soft opening on July 9th, for those wishing to explore it beforehand.

Like many of the joint designs Vally and Dandy offer for public enjoyment, Vox Populi has a rugged look to it that is immediately enticing and which, for a number of reasons, put me in mind of some of the furthest reaches of Cornwall’s southern coast caught under a summer sky.

With the landing Point sitting not far from the region’s middle, and located atop the main bulk of the landscape, the direction one might wander when exploring is simply a matter of choice. While there are footpaths and trails to be found, they are few in number for the most part, although some are obviously marked, while others take a little spotting.

At the time of my visit, a radio on the picnic table alongside the Landing Point was playing Dire Straits (Sultans of Swing) as an acoustic guitar piece, which was enough to keep me hovering around the area for a while.

The music is accompanied by a the bubbling splash of water as a stream tumbles over the rocks from higher up the hill, pooling for a while in a small pond overlooked by the picnic table before it bounces on downhill as a fast-flowing brook as it turned north towards the deep, almost square cut of cliff-sided inlet the sea has cut into the land. As it does so, the water skirts around a dry stone cottage, long since converted into a shelter for the sheep grazing either side of the stream.

To the east of the Landing Point lies one of the setting’s trails, which drops quickly to a rugged bay with standing rocks stranded off-shore and signs that the high tide has been busy down the years trying to burrow through the neck of a headland. Perhaps one day it might may eventually complete its work, and leave the end of the headland pointing up out of the shallows.

This headland can be reached by climbing the hill to the right of the path accessing the bay. While there is a fence partially blocking the way out onto the rock, it is easily skirted and it is possible to walk all the way out to the beacon marking the tip of the promontory.

Part-way along the walk to the headland is a second path, offering the way up to the Gallery 9.5 / Vox Gallery.  Utilising a converted greenhouse and with an outdoor ice cream kiosk and parasol-shaded seating, the gallery is set to be the home of art exhibitions, the first of which features a small but engaging collection of monochrome SL photography by Catherine Nikolaidis. The exhibition officially opens on the 18th July along with the region, but is available for appreciation now.

Nor is the gallery alone in offering events. Away to the north (relative to the gallery), and occupying a broad headland sits a thatched-roofed cottage sitting with its back to the cliffs and the sea below. Called the Vox Pub despite its cosy residential interior, It is the venue for DJ-led music events (possibly mixed with live music sessions) “a couple of times a month”, as well as being a general meeting place.

A second music venue is to be found off to the south-west of the region, where an old fortification (castle, fortified manor house, take your pick) again stands with its back to cliffs as they drop into the sea, its flat rooftop converted into a place to enjoy music.

It is the western side of the region which to me, offers another hint of the Cornish coastline. It is dramatically rugged, with the paths widely split to encourage exploration. One of these – the main one up to the venue mentioned above – is perhaps the most obviously, being main of steps and paved footpaths cut from stone. It passes by a seafood snack bar that perhaps leans more toward the USA than anything likely to be found in Cornwall, but the bar and its grounds look out over what are obviously treacherous waters – just like the Manacles, lying off the coast of the Lizard Peninsula. Indeed, even the wreck lying off Vox Populi carries the same name as a popular wreck diving site at Mullion Cove on the Lizard.

The western side of the region is also given over to ruins and the remnants of past life. Some can be clearly seen from almost any part of the landscape; others only come into view when exploring: solitary walls standing atop rocky plateaus the sea has long sundered from the rest of the land; a long deserted chapel, etc. A lighthouse warns ships not to stray close to the northern extent of this side of the region, a sandy beach to its back.

As always with Dandy and Vally, a highly-engaging setting well worth visiting and exploring.

SLurl Details

• Vox Populi (rated moderate)