Category: Reviews

December brings with it a last visit for 2025 to Alpha Auer’s Alphatribe Island. I did so to spend a little time wandering through Quollidays, Alpha’s end-of-year setting which continues a theme seen with Ginger Bread and the Woodies, Quirklewick Hollow, and Critterflop Hallowpop, and which here is inspired by quolls.

For those who didn’t know – like me, so I’m relying totally on the likes of Wikipedia here – quolls are carnivorous marsupials found in  Australia (4 species) and New Guinea (2 species). Furry and tailed, adult quolls tend to be between 25 and 75 cm long in the body and between 20 and 35 cm in the tail. They vary in size by species, with the northern quoll being the smallest, an adult male averaging 900 grams; and the spotted-tailed quoll being the largest, with males averaging around 7 kg. All six species are denoted by long snouts, pink noses and spots across their black, brown or sandy fur.

Once numerous across Australia, numbers have declined since European settlers arrived, with all six species suffering predations from feral cats and from foxes, with urban development destroying many habitats and many quolls falling victim to pest control poisons. In the wild, things have been made hard for them by the introduction of the toxic cane toad to Australia in the 1980s. As a result, quolls are now considered endangered species and subject to conservation protections and programs, including attempts to reintroduce them to areas where they have previously been thought extinct.

By nature, Quolls are apparently solitary creatures, generally only coming together in winter months – which makes Alpha’s Quollidays high suitable in nature, as it brings together quolls in a celebratory mood and within a wintry village setting. Here visitors can wander along the little winding streets between snowy cottages and houses there green roofs often decorated for the season, stands of bare, frosted trees gathered around them as snow drifts down from above.

Along the streets and among the trees the local inhabitants can be found, individually or in pairs or groups, often wrapped up warm against the cold and / or sporting colours of the season and touches of fancy dress. Some have clearly been having fun building snowmen whist others are content to stand and chat, noses truly pink in the crisp air.

Travel far enough along the paths and you’ll likely arrive at the Christmas carousel guests can ride upon. The carousel sits alongside a little skating rink, complete with a sign offering skates for those wishing to join some of the locals on the ice.

Easy to explore and offering opportunities for photography, Quollidays is a charming, easy-going location to visit; one bound to bring a smile to the face and lift the heart. For those interested in Alpha’s workflow in making these settings, do make sure you grab the information notecard from the snowman at the Landing Point. Should you wish to go home with one one of Alpha’s quolls as your own, make sure you visit the Alpha Tribe store in the north-east corner of the region.

SLurl Details

• Quollidays (Alphatribe Island, rated Moderate)

The last week has been a little rough on me with things health-wise throwing a bit of a wobbly – probably not for the last time, things being what they are, but c’est la vie as they say. So to try to get back into things within Second Life, I decided to hop over to see the 2025 winter setting at Lam Erin’s Cherishville.

This is a location I’ve been visiting pretty much annually (at least) since 2017. As a landscape photographer himself, Lam has the eye for putting together settings that are always pleasing to the eye and well-balanced, and this attracts me to his designs. There’s also the fact that whilst each iteration of Cherishville is unique to itself, can oft carry motifs and themes forward one to the next, and I’m a fan of such themes and motifs.

Some of these motifs clear to see for regular visitors to Cherishville, such as the little town theme running through several of his 2024 Cherishville designs, other of which are more subtle in nature

For 2025, Lam offers a genuinely delightful winter setting which offers a new landscape perfectly blending with the region surround to create a very real sense of depth to the design, but which again presents little familiar nods to past designs, even if they might not be recognised as such by the casual eye. There’s also – to me at least – a little quasi-literary touch to be found by lovers of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The first of those potentially familiar motifs seen with Lam’s designs comes at the Landing Point. This takes the form a railways platform, which here is indirectly linked to a small station house and with a single line of track also close to hand. The latter runs straight eastwards to an engine shed, whilst to the west it doglegs around what looks to be a permanent fairground sitting with its back to the frozen waters of a ribbon lake.

The lake in turn snakes between the high mountains surrounding the setting as snow falls from a leaden sky to blanket almost everything it touches. These mountains in turn help to give the impression this is a place far inland among a snow-capped mountain range, thus given Cherishville that sense of depth. The depth is furthered by the way in which the frozen water cuts through the region, neatly splitting it.

Again, for those familiar with past iterations of the region, this use of water to split the land in twain is a motif frequently found within Cherishville designs. Here, the land is divided between north and south, with a single bridge linking them located at the western extent of the setting.

Splitting the landscape like this further enhances the feeling of depth within it, giving as it does a real sense that human habitation here has been forced to crowd itself into the narrow lowlands sitting between the passage of the lake and the sharply rising slopes of the mountains.

It is here that the visual allusion to F. Scott Fitzgerald – whether intentional or purely an invention of my imagination – might be found. Cross the tracks from the Landing Point and walk towards the two steam locomotives and you’ll find, just off to the right, a little wooden pier jutting out over the frozen waters of the lake.

The pier sits almost directly opposite the grand house on the far side of the lake. When standing on it, it’s hard not to have thoughts of Jay Gatsby standing at the end of his dock staring out over the waters towards East Egg and the bulk of the Buchanan mansion, the Christmas lights outside of the grand house here standing in for the green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock.

Another attraction – for me, at least – with this version of Cherishville is the fact that while Christmas-y touches are to be found throughout, they are not overwhelming. Thus when they are seen, they tend to feel more like a seasonal addition to a place that has long been in existence, rather than the entire setting built in celebration of the holiday season.

As always with Lam’s Cherishville, this iteration has a lot of detail tucked away within it, indoors and out, with the entire setting highly photogenic. So, do be sure to go and visit – and do be sure to use the local environment settings to see the region at its best.

SLurl Details

• Cherishville (Tuscan Hills, rated Moderate)

My first and – at least until a few days before writing this piece – only visit to Pususaari, the Homestead region setting designed by Lu and Leelou Von Perkle (Lu Carrillo and LeeLou Graves respectively) for 2025 was made back in April, just as spring was about to burst forth. It was a location that immediately struck a chord in me, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it back then, as I noted in Pususaari: romance and kisses in Second Life.

Well, the year has clearly rolled on by since then, and 2026 is not that far off. As a result, much of Second Life turning to winter settings and wintery things to do, in keeping with the northern hemisphere – including Pususaari. Given this, I felt it was time for me to make a return visit and take in how the region has been transformed into an entirely natural wintertime setting.

Enjoy winter on Pususaari.

Glide on the frozen lake, drift over white hills, or ride through snow. Warm up at the café, slip under the northern lights with your date, and let the night soften around you

Maybe you’ll be the one to find the butterflies?

– Pususaari’s winter 2025 About Land description

The first thing that struck me on my arrival – alongside the sheer beauty of the setting – was the manner the landscape, whilst different in form and content, echoed in part the rugged handsomeness that had marked Pususaari when I first visited in April, albeit it this iteration of the setting only having a single rocky highland over which Nature has thrown a blanket of snow.

The Landing Point faces this highland area from across the region. It sits on a large deck reaching out over the icy waters from a snow-covered beach. The home of a little café, the deck offers a striking view to the north across the island and west towards the revolving eye of light as it is cast around by the lamp of a tall lighthouse.

Sitting between the beach and the highlands is a broad meadow, again somewhat mindful of the April 2025 iteration of the setting. Within it, horses and donkeys roam through tall grass. Across it, and sheltered in part by the lee of a large table of rock extending southwards from the setting’s higher slopes, sits a barn in which the local chickens and turkeys are wisely avoiding the snow.

The well alongside this barn offers a rapid ascent up to the snowy peaks, being an Experience-driven teleport. Clicking on it and accepting the local Experience will play the teleport animation and deliver you to the local Office up on the hills. The sign is one of a number scattered across the setting offering opportunities to do things – teleport, dance, obtain skates for use on the local frozen pond, rez a sled, and so on.

The sled (and skis) can be obtained from the little office on the hill, the western slope of which is ideal for getting back down to the lowlands when using them (or indeed, for walking up to the office). Whilst there is a slope to the east of the office, using it for sledding or skiing might be inadvisable, given both the gorge barring a part of the way down and the fact that were the slope does descend to the lowlands, it does so steeply and ends abruptly in the waters of a cold stream dropping down from the lower plateau.

For romantics, there is a little hideaway sitting on this plateau as it reaches south towards the meadow, and which can be reached easily enough by walking part-way down the eastern slope of the peak – or by turning off as you climb up the western slope. This little cabin is one of several places waiting to be found around Pususaari which offer nice little retreats. Some are easily spotted when wandering, others might need a little more work to find, such as the little greenhouse converted into a cosy cliff-top nook.

It is these little locations, each one neatly furnished and offering its own particular attractiveness to visitors, which make wandering the setting on foot more than worthwhile. As is reading the various signs scattered about the landscape, not just because they might offer opportunities for activities, but because one in particular will help guide you to the butterflies mentioned in the setting’s About Land description. I’m not going to tell you where this is; suffice it to say that the butterflies reside in a little suggestion of warmer, snow-free months, thus reminding us that even in the depths of winter, summer is not that far away.

With skating available on the large frozen lake, a mix of wildlife that suggests this is very definitely a northern hemisphere sub-Arctic / Arctic location, all caught under the snow / star spangled sky with a rippling aurora, Pususaari – Where winter comes to rest is an engaging and peaceful wintertime setting.

SLurl Details

• Pususaari (Bisous Island, rated Moderate)

Lake Ruby is a Full region held by Donna Helendale (Donna Pavlova) and Rakir Helendale, leveraging the Land Capacity bonus available to Full private regions and which is currently the home of Lake Ruby WinterLand 2025.

This is a richly engaging and very visual setting which – as the name implies – is currently dressed for winter and which has, for those willing to seek them out, some surprises that might be missed by the casual visitor.

The Landing Point sits along the northern edge of the region, on a cobbled street running between a parade of shops and the platform of a railway station and caught under gently falling snow.

Two billboards sit between the cobbles and the station’s platform. One of which will provide two notecards: the first will provide a list (extending across two further notecards) of winter-themed regions across Second Life and the other (obtained by clicking the little gift sock on the same billboard) providing a hint to finding a gift forming a part of a hunt. Most of the shops, meanwhile, appear innocent enough – although one does contain a secret of its own (albeit it clearly signed, which I felt somewhat spoilt things, even if I understand why it is so labelled).

And it is at the station that the first touch of the magic imbued in the region might be seen: a steam locomotive is departing the station, hauling carriages behind it as it rises into the sky along magical tracks that fade into the twilight – perhaps as the train will as it goes on its way.  Directly under the train and tracks sits a frozen extent of water where visitors can enjoy the ice skating referenced in the region’s About Land and Destination Guide descriptions.

To the south, behind the little row shops, the land climbs sharply, stepping its way up to where the towers and Gothic spires of a tall castle rise. A fast-flowing stream tumbles from these highlands to form a partial barrier between the castle and the Landing Point.

Crossing this stream without actually entering it demands visitors follow paths, steps and bridges, all of which lead them on a journey of exploration of the rest of the setting; an exploration in which they will discover some – but not necessarily all – of the other secrets sitting within the snowy and rugged landscape.

Some of the latter include a little model village; a cosy cottage carved into the bole of a great tree and another occupying a fallen tree trunk; wooden carvings and stone statues; lantern-draped trees; gazebos hiding in plain sight; what might be a Viking’s tomb; and places to dance and places to sit.

There is no singular path by which the region can be discovered; instead it branches here and there, sometimes clearly, sometimes perhaps less so. Stone steps rise and fall, bridges cross streams, sometimes sturdy in form, other times less so. But whichever path you take, there is something waiting to be seen, and when you’ve done with one route – particularly should you reach the castle – does not mean your explorations are at an end; backtracking to a fork or to where a set of steps might rise or fall could well be in order if you are to discover everything.

The castle itself offers a large cobbled courtyard before its doors, the ruins of a chapel to one side within which stone-carved chess pieces appear to be engaged in a battle royal. Between castle walls and chapel ruins one of those many paths snakes around the southern side of the island, presenting a way to reach the Wizards tower and stone-built lighthouse, the latter occupying the region’s south-eastern headland.

Within the castle there are rooms to be explored, from the grand entrance hall to the library with its flying books and banquet room with its floating candles, while a fire warms a comfortable lounge as rabbits play on cloud-like islands outside.

It is also with – or rather, below – the castle that the deeper secrets of the setting await discovery.  To find them one must pass through the gates to one side of the castle’s cobbled courtyard to where an ice dragon reigns supreme. Here, to one side, the darkened maw of a tunnel entrance awaits the opportunity to swallow you (complete with stalactites and stalagmites sitting tooth-like as once commences once descent within).

I don’t want to give too much away about what lies blow the castle, as this would spoil the surprises. Suffice it to say, go deep enough, and you’ll pass beyond the ice and cold and reach a point where three further routes of exploration wait within the walls of a great crypt.

Depending on the door picked, these involve a circle of chambers where hot pools and crystals and more might be found, together, perhaps with in some Riddles in the Dark (Tolkien fans will understand when they see); a path to a hidden retreat of a wine cellar and the way back to the Landing Point (by way of that “secret” within one of the shops I mentioned earlier) or tunnels (complete with a literal mouth at their far end!) leading to a cove sitting below the castle’s walls.

Rugged and beautiful with a definite twist of mystery-magic and full of places to sit and / or dance, Lake Ruby WinterLand 2025 is engaging visit.

SLurl Details

• Lake Ruby WinterLand 2025 (Lake Ruby, rated Moderate)