It is said that on All Hallows Eve the barrier between the realms of the living and the dead is at its thinnest. Who’s to say that other such barriers become thin, perhaps between the realms of Angels and Demons?
Maybe the Angels go and play in Hell, or the Demons in Heaven? Do younger Angels dare each other to go take a selfie in Hell without getting caught? They’d need to dress the part so they don’t stand out. They also have to dim their natural aura so they don’t light the whole place up, which was a skill difficult to master for some.
The Demons really don’t like this game the Angels play, but there’s not much they can do about it. The touch or any physical contact of an Angel will turn most demons to dust like a vampire in the midday sun, even just their aura is painful. All a demon can hope to do is chase them away, or have human slaves attempt to capture and drag them to a crossing point. They did try an assortment of projectile weapons against the Angels, but generally this turned out to be pretty futile.
So while the Angels play their games, the Demons just go torment the Living instead.
One of my favourite songs is Wish I Had an Angel by Nightwish, it has some very enticing lyrics and every so often I’m inspired to create an Angel avatar. This time there’s a second reason to create one, the Fallen God & Goddess Contest 2023.
While I was exploring the Renaissance Festival event I thought about how I would stage the photo. I wanted a classic pose, but one that didn’t put me in a position that would obscure the details of the Fallen Gods items. Which was when I came across this gorgeous harp, which was perfect.
Last dance, first kiss Your touch, my bliss Beauty always comes with dark thoughts
If you want to participate in the Fallen Gods contest, entries are open until 7th October and voting begins on the 9th. Details of how to apply and the rules can be gound on the Fallen Gods Blog.
Last night I attended the Bard Circle weekly event held at Centauria, home to the Ancient Order of Centaurs in Second Life.
I’ve written about Centauria before but this was my first visit to the Bard Circle event.
When I arrived about 20 mins into the session it was all very quiet. When I made my presence known, I was greeted warmly (as always at Centauria) and it was explained to me that they were all busy writing. Last night the attendees had been given 15 minutes to write a poem or story on the subject of armour. I chose just to observe and listen. When the time was up, the poems were read out in Voice by either the author (or the event host if the author preferred) as well as being displayed in local chat.
The resulting texts were very entertaining and a few times surprising that some had been able to write so much in such a short time.
The Bard Circle is held each Monday at 1pm SLT at the Centauria Tavern.
It’s that time again to wander, slightly bemused at what we see, around another wonder by Cica Ghost. This latest creation is called “Nostalgia” as usual it’s best to let the pictures speak for themselves because there is a lot to explore here:
So it’s just as well there’s a few places to sit and enjoy the view.
Exploring the latest version of Goatswood by Hera, a beautiful location in Second Life.
Back in 2019 I wrote about Goatswood, created by Hera, who has created a wide range of stunning locations over the years. What I visited back then was a reinvention of a much older build; now a larger version is back again for us all to enjoy one again.
As before your arrival point is in a rural railway station, but this is not Goatswood itself, it is a place called Mortchester. You must travel to Goatswood by clicking it’s named platform sign, there’s another sign for Houdstead, but for now I’m headed to Goatswood.
Leave the platform through the station building and you emerge onto the main street.
The layout of the village encourages you to head straight down the main street, but I find usually there’s more interesting stuff if you take a less direct route, so I went down the path to the right. This leads you through to the back of the buildings, where you’ll find various animals before arriving back on the street.
It’s these little details that make Hera’s creations and bring them to life, because many of the houses on the streets are empty shells but give the feeling of a busy place.
Where I came out onto the street was adjacent to the Wild Man Inn so I obviously had to investigate.
The inn is as cozy as beforThe inn is the same, but the artwork on the walls has changed.
The inn is the same one as that from my previous visit, which was to be expected with it being the same village. Here though there is a lovely beer garden out the back where you can enjoy a drink or two if the weathers nice.
Leaving the inn back onto the main street you can see how much larger this incarnation of Goatswood really is.
I shall stop my step-by-step wandering here and just show a few of the places you may see when you come to explore for yourself.
This version of Goatswood is much larger than the one I explored in 2019 and is full of little gems of detail to be found as well as places to just chill out with your friends.
I would suggest bringing a lantern or torch with you, in case it’s dark when you visit, putting your environment settings to Midday may allow you to see where you’re going but some of the atmosphere gets lost. I made seperate visits at different times to experience the different atmospheres of day and night.
The new Second Life starter avatars are now available and they’re called Senra. Their names are Blake and Jamie.
It isn’t just the avatars that are new though, the “New User Experience” (sign-up) has had a dramatic overhaul, letting you customise your new avatar at the point of registration (see this Second Life University video for more on that), before you even log into the viewer. Previously your only choice was from a selection of complete avatars with no customisation options at all, so this is great progress, if a little late in coming.
This approach will let new Residents see how avatars are put together, allowing the process of customising their new avatar with purchased items to be much less painful.
Existing Residents will now find a folder called Senra in the Library section of their Inventory.
I put together a few avatar looks using solely the Senra items. Some are admittedly better than others, but I wanted to show a range of the different options available for the new starter avatars. I’ve used both the Male & Female versions, so GUYS SCROLL DOWN.
In the Jamie folder you have quite a range of basic avatar components (6 skins, 6 shapes, 9 hairstyles) and a selection of clothing.
I know that the face of Barbie looks like a Ken in drag, but that’s the shape of the face and I wanted to leave stuff as it was out of the library.
And onto Blake….or is it just Senra? I opened up the folders and started adding stuff, replacing the Jamie parts with Blake ones and they’re remarkably similar. The Blake body shapes are obviously quite different, but the hair style selections are the same, as is the clothing. I did try to use as many item combinations as possible, but it was tricky after finding Blake had the same warderobe as Jamie.
Senra Blake – shape 6
Senra Blake – skin – 6
Senra Blake – hair – style 5 – black
Senra Blake – top – puffer jacket – green
Senra Blake – bottom – relaxed jeans – denim black
The poses and facial expressions in the photos are those in the included Animation Controller object. It’s good this is there, but there’s no options for choosing animations. This is why they all seem to look deptessed or sad, there’s no option to make them smile.
So in conclusion it an improvement on the Classic system-layer based avatars, that were cutomisable but not mesh, it is an improvement on the previous mesh avatars that you couldn’t customse at all. However the range of options just isn’t there yet.
The best thing to come out of this release is that it can be done at registration, on the website, that’s the major improvement here. They are after all “Starter” avatars and if they were actually really good, people wouldn’t spend money to upgrade them. So for a new Resident they’re much more acceptable, if you already have a mesh body, head and existing warderobe, leave Jamie and Blake in the Library.
I don’t usually re-blog other people’s posts, I think this may actually be the first time, but this one made me want to.
When I was roleplaying in SL Gor, I really hated the combat element. Not just because I was dreadful at it, but because I like stories and good roleplay allows the creation of great ones which I felt the combat spoiled. I played the local tavern keeper, which gave me a safe place to create those stories, because taverns are traditionally “safe-zones”.
Header image: An old screenshot from 2019 showing a griefer dressed as a Star Wars character,abusing the combat system right outside my tavern in the safe zone.
I’m not sure how I feel about the term “true Gorean”, because Gorean is a fictional term (I’d compare that to calling yourself a Jedi Knight or something) but in this case it refers to role-playing realistically in relation to Gor story-world lore. If the requirement is to have actually read some of the books, then I meet it and what a feat that actually is and shows a players dedication.
I’m glad my old friend Mariko is advocating for a less combat-oriented community, it was a contributing factor to my departure as the nearby panther tribe became more focused on combat than stories.
On the rare occasion I was in the tavern on Friday night or at the weekend you couldn’t concentrate for the noise. I had panther camps on three sides of my location, so there was a ridiculous number of combat meters flooding local chat with messages about who shot who. Which apart from being very annoying, from a story point of view, it was information I’d have no way of knowing from within the tavern compound.
I know meters aren’t going anywhere, too many people like them and non-creative, combat-focused “pew-pewer” players use them to initiate stories by starting fights. It would be nice though if this wasn’t the focus of roleplay in SL Gor. So I invite you to read what Mariko Marchant, a long-time and respected member of the SL Gor community has to say on the matter:
Well if you are a true Gorean and you read some or even all the books of John Norman would you expect that a craftsman, a weapon maker in a city would have a document with the standards a weapon should have to be approved? I ask myself, approved by whom? There is no such […]
The new Mega Event to benefit the American Cancer Society is here! It’s been long-awaited after a schedule change, the doors open at 9am SLT today and runs until 31st July.
There’s lots of activities going on over the 10 day event across the 8 regions, you can find the details on the Events Schedule page of the Fandom Website.
You will find a number of portals at the Welcome Hub that will take you to each of the different regions, I’d suggest creating a Landmark there.
I’m wearing the Silver (with Black options) version of this suit but there’s an Event Exclusive Blue one at the Mindgarden Creations Booth that is a 100% Donation vendor.
The poster says “can be worn with other body types”, which is the case in my photo I’m wearing my regular Maireya body. The outfit parts can be worn sepeartely from the suit, if you wanted a more skimpy look and pasties are provided in the box, if you chose to do so.
Inferno is the creation of Hera, creator of the Drune series of Dystopian Cyberpunk cityscapes,Goatswood,Golgothica as well as Gigerpunk that I have yet to visit.
Inferno
This was only out for a week so here it is again.; I have wanted to do something Hell like for a long time, then just recently I did something totally unrelated that inspired me. I have used a very familiar layout which I like because it is just a set of focal points rather than a whole sim full of space to fill with nothing in particular.
(From Notecard at arrival point)
I however didn’t read the notecard until later, I prefer to be surprised when I visit somewhere new. When you take the teleport you arrive in a suitably dark doorway with a very ominous view.
A few steps foeward out of the shadows and you see, yes it really does look like Hell.
To either side you see a series of rather narrow looking bridges connecting together what are best described as temples.
The centre path is the one I chose though on my journey through the perilous paths.
Here the paths branched off to the other destinations. These little temples were what you would expect here, creepy statues and decor, but not all the same, so it’s worth exploring!
As you can see in the quote from the notecard above, last time this build appeared it was only for a week. I asked Hera how long it would be around this time and the reply was “probably not very long.”
So get a move on if you want to see this place before it’s gone!
(That goes for GigerPunk too apparently, so I and you will have to dash to see that one as well!)
As any regular readers can’t have missed, it was Fantasy Faire recently. Last year I got all wrapped up in the world of SecondLife Centaurs after the Faire, this year it’s Mers. There was lots of chatter and pictures of forthcoming releases prior to the opening of the Faire so I dived in and bought myself a Mernaid tail.
I wrote a post during the Faire featuring a Mermaid, but felt I now needed to explore more of the undersea world of Second Life. Fortunatley my good friend Sheree who is a regular marine explorer had a good place to check out. The place is called Esprit Marina and Gardens.
There is a Rezzing area here for your marine vehicles, but I was interested in what lay beneath the calm waters of the harbour.
After a little exploring we found this lovely little dance spot to swish around to your hearts contnet.
There was more to see though…
Come bring your tail or scuba gear and see the place for yourself.
