Tag: hera

Hera (Zee9), working with collaborator, Kacey Stratton (KaceyStratton) – who has in the past assisted Hera by provisioning AI-backed characters to add depth to Hera’s environments such as Brutal City (see: Hera’s Brutal City AI in Second Life) is back with an enticing build. This time the two present Goa Beach, another visually stunning setting presumably inspired by (even if in name only!) India’s famous tourist region, world- renowned for its beaches and places of worship.

Epic, Beautiful Beaches, clothes optional, Indian temples, Shiva shrines, clubs, bars, Nude, Sun, Sea, Sex Sand. Peace, Love!

– Goa Beach About Land description

The note in the About Land description brings me neatly to a couple of points worth raising in advance:

• Goa Beach is adult-rated and nudity and adult sexual activities are allowed – so be advised (although on neither of my visits were there any apparent sign of bonking going on). Also, be aware that given this, Hera and Kacey request adult human avatars only are used during visits.
• Secondly, Hera’s builds tend to be mercurial; they can arrive and vanish within a very short space of time. So if you intend to visit, sooner rather than later is the key.

Actually, there is a third point of note: the Rules located at the Landing Point note that “Only Goa Beach is open to the public. All other areas are private”, with a warning to keep out.

When I first arrived I wasn’t exactly sure as to how and where this warning applied; there are a number of islands sitting off the main bulk of the land, and one of these, to the south-east corner, is a private residence sitting within its own parcel. I assumed the rest of the islands were similarly off-limits, but didn’t realise how literal the phrase “only Goa Beach is open to the public” would literally be until my second visit!

If you’re one who visited Hera’s 2022 India (see: Hera’s touch of India in Second Life) there will be much about Goa Beach that may well be familiar – particularly the main structures, the bar area and some of the carved works to be found around, such as the cobras. This is not a critique of Goa Beach; one of the things I always find attractive in Hera’s builds is the manner in which she constantly recombines and redresses elements of past builds to offer something entirely new to explore – and such is the case here.

The main landmass is surrounded by the beach (allowing for a couple of rocky areas), making it possible to walk all the way around – or if you prefer, rez a wearable horse and trot around. Following the beach is one of the ways to reach the west side of the island from the Landing Point and what might be regarded as the grand entrance to the terraces and towers of the main temple complex. Those looking for a quicker route to this space from the Landing Point should hang a right and a left on leaving the latter and follow the stairs down.

Directly opposite the grand entrance, on the east side of the island, is a bridge providing access to a tall tower with a small dock extending to one side below it, complete with a sloop-style sailing vessel alongside. A smaller deck extending wharf offers the opportunity to rez a sailing boat, and it was this that gave me my answer to the private areas.

Mid-way though gently sailing around the main land-mass I found myself (albeit briefly) some 10 metres above the boat, which continued a short distance, before I was back in the surf. So yes, “only Goa Beach is open to the public” can be taken to literally mean, keep yourself to the sands when near some of the nearby islands! With this in mind, if you do rez a boat, it’s probably best to keep your sailing to the east side of the main land area (but well clear of the already noted private residence in the south-east corner).

Returning to the larger siling vessel for a moment, this has a large bed / sitting spot suspended from a yardarm, one of several such elevated paces for singles and couples to pass the time to be found suspended at several points around the setting. Nor are these the only places for sitting and relaxing or – to borrow from a Roy Scheider film, “getting it on” – which might also be found.

As noted above, there is much here that visitors to the likes of Hera’s India will find familiar – such as the club / bar area with its décor, the tigers gathered around the west-side grand entrance, the pavilions and so on, but so is there much that is (I believe) new to this setting. With so much to see and photograph, I’ll leave it to you to discover more for yourselves – but (again) as already noted, don’t leave it too long before visiting, lest Goa Beach vanishes!

SLurl Details

• Goa Beach (Themyscira, rated Adult)

Please note: Hera’s setting can be transient and can vanish quickly, depending upon her mood. Therefore visits are recommended sooner rather than later.

I first visited Shangdu, a region deign by Hera (Zee9), all the way back in 2022 (see: The natural beauty of Hera’s Shangdu in Second Life), and found it to be an engaging visit, flowing into itself so many ideas, suggestions and intent. Like many of Hera’s designs it was not long available to visit  – see the note above.

Since that time, I’m not aware of it having made a reappearance in Second Life (although I might easily have missed it!). So, on learning it is indeed once more back and occupying a sky platform with the region where Hera’s latest Blade Runner inspired build can be found (one more directly related to Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 than the Brutal City AI version I dropped into back in November 2024, and so very much worth a visit in its own right), I had to jump over to the shared Landing Point for the two settings and poke my nose in.

As I noted back in 2022, the name Shangdu might be a familiar name to some, being that of the summer capital of the Chinese Yuan dynasty (c. 1271 to 1368), and more familiarly referred to in the west as Xanadu; a place written about and romanticised by the likes of Samuel Purchas and – more particularly – one Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

However, and again as I noted in 2022, Hera’s Shangdu is not intended to reflect Coleridge’s famed poem – although with this iteration, it comes with a poem penned by Hera, and available from the Shangdu notecard giver at the region’s main Landing Point (through which visitor must pass to reach the setting).

Within the card, Hera notes something she passed on to me back in 202 concerning the inspiration for the build, and I’ll again repeat here:

The difference here being the opulence is in natural beauty. I first did this about 20 years back in Unreal Tournament; I was looking for something completely different to create and I found these beautiful paintings of a Chinese water Village. [However,] this is a complete fantasy, I have not tried for any particular accuracy in the buildings, although the textures are all taken directly from photos of the village.

– Hera (Zee9)

In other words, in her Shangdu, Hera presents a 3D painting of a Chinese settlement, perhaps from the Yuan period. Given it is designed to be seen as an immersive painting, it is a largely static build when compared to her more recent builds, which have often utilised AI NPCs, with the interiors of building designed to be seen rather than offering significant places in which to spend time – with one or two exceptions. 

One of these exceptions – and new (I think) to this version of Shangdu is a pagoda and garden tucked into the south-west corner of the town, and itself overlooked by one of the meditation points beyond the walls of the town.

Closer to the main gates of the town- which you must pass through after walking from the set-down area you’ll be delivered to after teleporting from the region’s main Landing Point – is the temple, unchanged from the 2022 version of the build and pictured in my previous piece on Shangdu, whilst facing the gate is the furnished house I also visited during my original visit, the the artist’s little shop alongside it.

However, just across the bridge from the house and shop, is a raised terrace outside of another building where food might be enjoyed under little paper lanterns, and which forms another little location I don’t recall from walking the streets of the town three years ago.  These added attractions encourage exploration along the footpaths bordering the town’s narrow waterways and over the bridges crossing them, and well as presenting opportunities for photography.

Engaging and photogenic, Shangdu makes for a worthwhile visit, either on its own or as a part of a visit to Hera’s Blade runner build.

SLurl Details

• Themyscira Main Landing Point (rated: Adult)

Hera (zee9) opened a couple of new settings for people to enjoy in the run-up (and hopefully over) the holiday break (Hera’s builds do tend to vanish rapidly, so an early visit is always recommended!). Entitled respectively Decopunk Metropolis  and Neverever Land, they offer very different settings one to the other, with a hint of each of their natures given in their names. Both can be reached from the primary Landing Point, and given the introductory notecard to Decopunk Metropolis is offered at the Landing Point, I’m going to start with that setting.

Decopunk is one of the many offshoots of the original cyberpunk genre which have sprouted down the years. As the name might suggest it is centred around the art deco and Streamline Moderne art styles, folding into itself the likes of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) and 1991’s The Rocketeer. Technically a subset of dieselpunk (interwar period through to the 1950s), Decopunk remains firmly anchored in the period running through the 1920 to early 1930s.

All of this is presented in Decopunk Metropolis, which neatly echoes Hera’s Blade Runner / Drune style of design, in that we are placed within a city-style environment. However, it is one very different in styling and presentation; not Blade runner hints here; instead the references touch on Lang’s film whilst folding into itself physical-world Deco touches (perhaps most obviously New York City’s Chrysler Building).

Within it, and in difference to builds like Brutal City (which I wrote about here), there is no clearly defined “ground level”; the buildings rise from the mist, lit windows staring out like so many eyes, their upper reaches pillared and ornate, lit by streams of yellow falling along their flanks and spotlights thrown bright pools of light into the heavens, all watched over  by giant rooftop statues staring into the night.

Which is not to say the setting is without roads; they are most definitely present – they’re just as suspended as the buildings, ornate arches rising over them as if holding them aloft as they wind between (and through) the towers. Occupying two levels, they are linked via great vehicular elevators, with the lower level of roads offering three routes of exploration from the setting’s airport, the arrival zone for those coming from the main Landing Point.

Two of these roadway routes form a loop of which almost reaches completely around the setting. It is just cut short from doing so on the south-east corner of the city, where the road ends at one of the vehicular elevators mentioned above. The western around of the road, however, makes its way all the way around the city to a point directly opposite the airport. This is home to the Cortez Hotel, a place crowned by an ornate tower and also to be reached by taking the arrow-straight road also departing the airport to cut across the setting, north-to-south.

In making the crossing, the road bridge passes through the tallest building in the setting, which has a spire rising from it that looks almost as if it is expecting an airship to nuzzle up against it. This tower is also home to the Moka Efti lounge, with its very Chicago meets Cabaret vibe, and the local casino. These offer their own attractions and  – should you find them (it’s not hard) each offers a light-draped footbridge spanning the gulf between it and the east and west towers. Paralleling the road bridges, these each have a elevator station at their far ends waiting to take you to their particular points of interest, be it the apartment house high up on the eastern tower (and reach by way of taking the elevator up from the walkway to the road bridge, and then again up from their to the apartment), or to either / both of the Starlight Jazz Club and the Shanghai Dragon (again passing by way of the elevated road level).

Another way of getting around is via the local The Fifth Element style taxis; only rather than flying your from point-to-point a-la Corbin Dallas, these will whisk you around via teleporting. Just touch the taxi sign on a waiting cab and then pick a destination from the list. Those finding their way to the garage at the airport might also avail themselves of the motorbike that can be rezzed there, whilst also, and for the keen-eyed, there are various metal catwalks and stairways which may additionally lead to little places of interest, if followed and climbed.

Neverever Land, by contrast, offers a somewhat tropical setting, located at the region’s ground level. It is reached by way of the main landing point, and then an intermediary point, where more about the setting can be learned.

As might be guessed from the name, Neverever Land draws inspiration from Peter Pan – more J.M. Barrie than Disney – and the various additional works to which it has given rise. Comprising a series of interlinked islands set against a tropical back-drop, each of which contains setting based on both J.M. Barrie’s work whilst perhaps casting a wider net, the easiest way to describe this setting is that of a Neverland where the inhabitants are grown-up, but who have never quite lost touch with their spark of childhood sense of adventure and imagination.

This is actually setting which Hera last revealed in 2021, and which I wrote about in Hera’s Neverever Land in Second Life. however, as with all of Hera’s builds this in not just a rolling-out of something she’s had in-world before; there are differences. Perhaps the most noticeable of these – and one which extends to Decopunk Metropolis, is the use of AI NPCs.

These come in multiple forms throughout both settings – human, automaton, animal, bird – even, should you find it, a sandwich which has having an existential crisis concerning its purpose (being eaten) and its desire to continue (clue: look towards the left-hand end of the bar in Moka Efti). Hera started experimenting with AI scripted agents with the help and support of Kacey Stratton (in fact, one of the scripted agents from Brutal City pops-up in Decopunk Metropolis, but with a different persona.

I enjoyed my interactions with several of the character in the Brutal City build, but confess I didn’t gain the same level of enjoyment with the majority of the characters here; whereas the AIs at Brutal City were largely conversational in nature, I found the AIs at both Decopunk and Neverever Land too expositional in their multi-paragraph replies. In mentioning this to Hera, she indicated there had been an oversight in keeping the AI responses more constrained. Whilst unfortunate in the way it – for me – killed interaction, it most certainly does not spoil a visit.

Rounded out with a nicely curated audio mix on the audio stream that fits the Decopunk Metropolis setting perfectly, I thoroughly recommend the city as a place to visit, and Neverever Land as a nice addition.

SLurl Details

• Decopunk Metropolis / Neverever Land landing point (Themyscira, rated Adult)