Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld

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)