Category: Reviews

Lightning Bolt is the name selected by Valarie Muffin Meow (Zalindah) for her latest region creation. It’s an interesting name that appears to be less connected with the region’s presentation than with the fact that it is likely only to be around for a limited period of time, as the About Land description notes:

Made for a special wolf. A temporary nature escape to explore & spend time with love ones. Full of animal friends to hug.

I assume the wolf in question is Dice Starlight, Zalindah’s SL partner – but the region is going to appeal to anyone who appreciates the more unusual, and / or places with a focus on animals and / or with a lean towards the oriental and / or who enjoy whimsy and a twist of fantasy.

Those who visited the now-closed Kintsugi – which I wrote about back in May 2020 –  will know that Zalindah very much the eye for creating environments that are captivating and which can, as with the now departed Kintsugi, tickle the grey matter.

With Lightning Bolt, this eye for design and attention to detail is very much on display through the setting, although rather than tickling the grey matter, this is a location intended to simply delight the eye and lift the spirit, and it does so quite marvellously.

Forming a curving island that captures within its open arms a north-facing bay, the landscape rises from the landing point on the western headland to the hills enclosing the bay, before dropping gently down to lowlands on the eastern side.

From bamboo groves to walks between tall fir trees and over razor-backed ridges and through grass and wetlands and with a mix of building – some with a Japanese lean – scattered throughout, the setting offers a lot to take in without even getting to what makes it even more appealing to eye, heart and camera.

This comes in the form of a series of animal-focused vignettes, each of which exists within its own space and can be taken as being independent of the rest whilst also being fully a part of the overall setting. From lions to deer to cats to dogs, with pandas, otters, pine marten  foxes, rabbits, bears, red panda lynx and orca, all in the mix. Lightning Bolt is even a place where we can even say, “here be dragons!”, as witnessed at the landing point and up on the hills above the bay. And,of course, there are the wolves.

Not only do these animals come in a multiple of species, they also come in a wide variety of forms, large and small and even entirely plushy and  / or cuddly. The best way to see them all is to follow the path from the landing point as it winds up through the bamboo and fit trees and thence around the hills.

Doing so with introduce you to the lynx, lion and the first of the dragons, before moving you on to some of the smaller critters – and be sure to take a careful look at the stone tiers of the garden on the slopes below to catch the otters.

From the top of the hills the path curves onwards past the strangest collection of sheep you’re likely to see, to dragons that look to have a hint of gryphon blood in them. The route then drops down to the eastern side of the island, where more awaits.  A nice touch is that as you explore, you’ll more-than-like encounter collision triggers that will use local chat to display a description of the vignette you are about to enter.

Within the buildings spread across the region are further scenes to appreciate. These range from the cosy / romantic and little places simply to sit and pass the time, some of them including their own little critters to appreciate.

There are also numerous outdoor spots to visit, from the wolves in their ruins through a little bamboo pond of koi, to my favourite the piano (surprise!) on its own little island where you can play to an appreciative red panda, enjoy a cup of tea and watch the orca in the bay.

Throughout its design, Lightning Bolt offers a tremendous amount to see and enjoy. No specific region environment has been set, so I do recommend experimenting with your EEP setting as the region’s depth can be greatly added to with a well selected Fixed Sky setting.

Given its proposed short-term availability of the setting, I strongly recommend that if you haven’t already done so – hop along and pay visit.

SLurl Details

• Lightning Bolt (New Horizon, rated Moderate)

Skrunda-2 is a Full region design that has – and quite rightly -been receiving a lot of attention since it opened. Held and designed by Titus Palmira with the assistance of Sofie Janic and Megan Prumier, the build is a representation of what was once a top secret Soviet facility that throughout the cold War era was never acknowledged to exist, but which today is now a most unusual tourist attraction.

The original Skrunda is a small and fairly unremarkable town in western Latvia, with a population of some 3,000 people, and granted “city” status in 1996. However, five kilometres to the north lies Skrunda-1, and it is this enigmatic place that is the focus of the design by Titus, Sofie and Megan.

In brief, Skrunda-1 was established in 1963 as a radar surveillance and early warning centre intended to track incoming ICBMs using two Soviet Dnepr (NATO code-name “Hen House” on account of the two enclosed arms of the array resembling two lines of chicken coops). As a military garrison, the base was essentially a self-sustaining town, a home to an estimated 5,000 personnel and their families when at its peak, and with all the facilities and amenities one might expect of such a town: its own power and water supplies, 10 large apartment blocks to house families, a school, gymnasium, theatre, swimming pool, and of course all the facilities required to support the base itself – workshops, administration offices, an officer’s club and so on.

During the late 1980 / early 1990s, attempts were made to update the base with three installations of Russia’s latest phased array radar early warning systems. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union means this work was never finished, although the Russian Federation continued to use the base and the Dnepr radar until 1998, when they withdrew after negotiations to continue to lease the base to the start of the 2000s, fell through.

In leaving, the Russians took with them all sensitive material and equipment, but left the 60 buildings of the town as something for the Latvian government to deal with – and they pretty much left the structures to rot where they stood. It is in this decaying, deserted stated that Skrunda-2 in Second Life presents the town – and does so very impressively.

Titus notes that the build was “inspired” by Skrunda-1, suggesting that it uses the original as a foundation before striking off on its own. however, while there is some artistic licence (Skrunda-2 appears somewhat coastal, whilst the original is more inland), the overall attention to detail and care taken in design means the Skrunda-2 is actually very reflective of the overall look and feel of its namesake.

Take, for example, the landing point at the town’s main gates. It is marked by two aged block houses and iron gates with a road barrier beyond. They perfectly echo the original entrance to the Skrunda-1 base as can be seen in numerous Internet photos of the ageing town.

And while the hulking, featureless forms of the apartment blocks here may only number four rather than 10, they more than reflect the great white blocks of Skrunda-1 as they sit in lines facing one another across overgrown lawns and broken roads. Meanwhile, beyond the apartments sits a low-slung bunker that, while it lacks the out-flung “chicken coops” of the radar arrays, is an easy stand-in for their central block house command centre.

After twelve years of neglect, the Latvian authorities decided to auction Skrunda-1 as a development site in 2010. It did not go well: bids started at just US $290,000 for the entire site, rising to U$ 3.1 million – only for the winning bidder and the runner-up to then pull out of any deal. A second auction was hastily arranged, with the town selling for just US $333,000 – but it remained abandoned for a further five more years.

In 2015, the Skrunda municipality purchased the site for just over US 14,500, ceding half of it to the Latvian army for training purposes and with the idea of redeveloping the other half. However, during this time the town started to attract tourists, drawn by its Soviet-era mystique (perhaps the rumours that it once being a centre for mind control experiments gave its allure an extra edge. While plans are apparently in-hand for the demolition and replacement of some of the buildings, the local government has acknowledged this interest  – by charging admission to the town at US $5.00 per head.

Skrunda-2 perhaps represents the original not too long after its abandonment: old vehicles are still to be found in parking bays close to the apartment blocks, rubbish bags are still piled in some places, and so on, all of which adds to the location’s atmosphere. indeed, there is something to capture the eye literally at every turn, making the setting a photographic delight. And there are also little gems and secrets awaiting discovery – such as the inner workings of a bunker to one side of the town, or the Soviet-era posters and paintings, and the post-Soviet era graffiti and wall paintings that give Skrunda-2 its own unique sense of place.

But for me, the most fascinating little gem awaiting discovery is the one that might be so easily missed. It sits within one of the apartment blocks: a set of rooms still occupied – perhaps the home of the last inhabitant of the town, who departed towards the end of 1999. It’s a quite wonderful setting, that conjures mental images of someone perhaps elderly and clinging to a way of life that has now passed.

Feeling a lot larger than a single region, Skrunda-2 is a tour-de-force in design and presentation; a place that really does carry within it a sense of history, offering insight into a past era that encourages one to go diving into the Internet to seek out more information on this strange town. At the same time, it offers the visitor and the photographer alike a grand amount to take in and appreciate.

Kudos again to Titus, Sofie and Megan for a superb design.

SLurl and Details

• Skrunda-2 (Rockford, rated General)
• Selected websites on Skrunda-1
  • Abandoned Spaces, April 2020
  • Ex Utopia, February 2016
  • The Baltic Times, April 2015
  • Skrunda-1 Wikipedia entry

Golgothica’s story has yet to be written … The detailed, rich mysterious, Gothic landscape will hopefully inspire those who come here to discover with others what it’s story is and why things are as they are. It is an open book, the first chapter is a simple description of the place and the locations. But who lives here, what they do, and why, is in the creative minds of those who come to dwell here?

So reads, in part the introduction to Golgothica, the latest region-wide setting that has sprung forth from the eye and imagination of Hera (Zee9). Sharing the same Full region as the latest iteration of her famous Drune cyberpunk environment (which sits high in the sky overhead), Golgothica is – and I say this without any hyperbole – a simply magnificent build.

Located on the ground level of the region and reached via the main landing point that also offers a way to the current iteration of Drune, the setting is presented as a medieval style coastal town or village, with a small wharf, numerous houses and places of commerce, a church that at first glance appears to perhaps be under repair, and with outlying farmlands, woods and roads that cross the countryside while the high walls and towers of what might at first be taken as a mighty castle rise to the west, dominating the skyline.

It all looks typically Middle Ages on being seen for the first time – it is only as visitors explore, that the darker side of the place, caught in the growing shadows of twilight, starts to reveal itself. The local inn, for example, carries the name The Slaughtered Lamb and has hanging over its door the image of a severed wolf’s head on a pike; thus neither name nor sign are particularly welcoming – although inside, all is undoubtedly cosy.

And what is one to make of the Romany camp  at the edge of town, the caravans carefully arranged around a stone pentagram lain within the ground, or the riverside statue seeming to celebrate the blood lust of werewolves? What sinister rites might be performed out at the henge where fires burn – one within the rune-inscribed round stone at the centre of the henge, and the other at the feet of the great wicker man watching over the ancient stones, apparently awaiting someone to occupy its woven form…

A walk in the opposite direction to the henge raises further questions: what has happened to the local church?  A visit to it will reveal that rather than being in a state of repair, it has in fact been left to ruin, with nature slowly claiming it as a place of her own, all former signs of devotion long removed saved a single statue – and even that is far from saintly.

Across the waters of the local stream, the woodlands add to the mystery, strange lights illuminating the tree trunks, casting haunting light across glades that offer the unexpected, from statutes to shrines that hint towards unnatural acts.

Then, beyond this all sits the castle that is in fact a monastery – at least according to the map that can be obtained at the main landing point, or which is automatically delivered as visitors land aboard the vessel moored at the village quayside, and which marks the start of all journeys through the setting. With its foreboding walls and towers and great gates, it has all the look of a fortification designed to keep people out, rather than welcoming them in for worship, whilst the shape of the many watchtowers that line its walls imply something of a far eastern influence.

Caught against the setting Sun in the default environment for the setting, this great complex is no home to the chanting of your usual monks, Gregorian or Buddhist, however; although it is clearly the seat of some form of learning, given the Maester’s library on the upper level of the southern keep-like structure.

Instead, this appears to be a place where deities of a more forbidden kind are paid homage, as can be witnessed by the Bosch-like murals in the sleeping cells of those who reside here and through the design of the main chapel. And what of the dungeons lying below that chapel, what do they say of those who might occupy them – and the fate that might awaited them?

Two interlinked elements are always apparently within Hera’s builds that makes them ideal for visitors and role-players alike. The first is narrative: all of Hera’s builds from the 2019-XS pre-Drune, through Drune (covered numerous times in these pages) to the likes of Venesha and on to Golgothica carry within them threads of narrative and imagine just waiting for those coming into the region to pick them up and follow them or weave them together.

The second is attention to detail that both helps to strengthen these threads and gives the more casual visitor touches to be appreciated. Take, for example the beehives behind the mead house; a small detail they might be – but an important one. After all, what is mead without honey, other than water with some added fruit for taste? Add to this the fact that the major structures within Hera’s builds are of her own design, thus making each setting genuinely unique in form and character.

I have yet to be disappointed in any of Hera’s designs; they never fail to to engage, surprise and enamour. However, with Golgothica I cannot help but feel she has created something very special, perhaps her most engaging, immersive design to date. I’ve no idea how long Hera intends to keep Golgothica open – I suppose that very much depends on her creative spark – but it is quite genuinely not a setting to be missed. or avoided.

SLurl Details

• Golgothica and Drune main landing point (Blissful Summer, rated Adult}