The Centaurs of Fantasy Faire 2021 gathered last night in The Wandering Woods for a a parade. They first all posed for a huge group photo. Then they rode out through the woods and across into Featherfall, out of the dark and into the light and back. The photos don’t do the atmosphere of camoradry justice. I’m new to the “taur” community so it was amazing to watch as they all chatted and socialised. They have a community known as the Ancient Order of Centaurs that meets regularly, I think I may well go along in the future and investigate.
My previous “New Shiny” post The White Witch of Petrichor wasn’t really an entirely new store, so whether it counts for “My New Shiny” challenge is debatable. However now I’ve found a truly new one to write about!
My last few posts have featured a Dryad , a Mermaid and a Demon looking after their respective mysterious “Sphere”. I was considering which other Faire races would have been given such relics. Two that came to mind were fairies and centaurs. I’d started looking at and asking around about Petites for a fairy avatar when someone mentioned a store called Jinx. The main selling point being their Petite supports BoM (Bakes on Mesh) and not just appliers for different skins, so I could use it with my new Petrichor and Fallen Gods skins.
I headed over to the Jinx store in Amethyst Rift and had a bit of a surprise, Jinx creates a whole host of animal avatars. More to the point for me was that they make Centaurs as well as the Petite.I opted first to get the Centaur made up, since there was a FF exclusive skin right there,as well as one for the Felinaur (more on that later).
I was a little concerned how it might work with my existing human (Maitreya) mesh body, but it was so easy! You just add the Centaur body and alpha the lower body then attach the included AO (animation override) which makes it all move correctly when you walk. Your existing AO will continue to function for your upper body, so don’t detach that. That’s it, you’re a Centaur!
For the top half I opted for some more Faire merchant goodies, a Fallen Gods skin, Raven Bell hair, Artoos Ink tattoos and a bow from CKF Falconry.
Location: The Seventh Valley
Credits:
Centaur Body: Jinx : CenLighTaur- Jinx
Centaur Coat: Jinx : Fantasy Faire 2020 Special Skin by Cinnamon – Jinx
Skin: Bifrost – Nirvana – Fallen Gods Inc. FF2021 Ragnarok/Jail n Bail Exclusive
Hair: Raven Bell – Nereid -Raven Bell
Tattoos: Artoo’s Ryoko: Assassin White Bright – Artoos Ink
The young Mer goes about her weekly chore, she knows it’s important but she still finds it tedious going up to the temple to collect the artifacts and bring them down to the pedestal that marks the leyline. If the location is so vital, why didn’t they build the massive temple directly over the leyine? So now because of some architectural miscalculation from a distant ancestor she has to bring the Sphere and symbol of the Gods out and place them on the pedestal and watch it as..nothing..happens. After the prescribed amount of time she carries them back to the temple where they are secured once again, til next time she has to do her duty.
It was hard work sorting through the layers of mythogy and history layered on the site of the ruined Chapel. So many peoples had held this spot sacred and look at it now, crumbling stones. This being the latest addition to the place, attempts by modern religion to stamp out worship of the Old Gods.
I was here though for something that was far older,long forgotten and should not have been. No doubt below the earth there would be remnants of other buildings or worship structures, likely circular.Â
The significance of of circles had become distorted over time, commonly accepted as reference to the planet or the cycle of life, death and re-birth, it formed the basis for many variants of nature based religions. They were of course wrong. Old tales and legends talk of circles, but it’s a mistranslation. The correct term is Sphere. They did not refer to theoretical concepts, they were physical objects and I’d found one.
Looking at it now I can understand why there were misunderstandings. Demons had called it the “Zygot”, meaning egg. Which makes much more sense when it’s seen closed.
This particular relic and its accompanying symbol of the Gods was entrusted to my race, Demons. Legends told that each race had been entrusted with one, I’m sure somewhere they might be a Dryad or other fae sat in a comfy chair in the warm, unlike me in a draughty ruin. Regretfully my people had neglected their duty of protecting it. Or had they?
As I sat on the bed in the ramshackle shelter I’d built inside the ruins to provide some shelter, I thought how better? People can’t destroy or steal something if they don’t even know it exists, let alone where it might be found.
So some rather smart soul in the last couple of centuries had buried it, but not just anywhere. The legends also told that these relics needed to be near leylines to serve their purpose and this site was at a junction where two lines crossed. They must have had some human help obviously, the ground would have been freshly consecrated back then and no Demon could have got near the place, let alone bury something in the crypt.
Perhaps maybe that’s exactly where it belongs, or thereabouts. The Human Relations Department may have to try and officialy obtain the land, since the place is long abandoned, but that’s fortunately not my job.
There’s a whole collection of eggs available at Fallen Gods, in 100% RFL Donation Vendors.
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Credits:
Skin: HEL female + Fallen Gods Inc. FF2021 Ragnarok/Jail n Bail Exclusive
Sphere: ~Libertine~ Collectable Egg 59 “The Secret” – Fallen Gods
Dress: SF:: Uitzuger – Scarlet Fey
Eyes: [n.a.p] Hoard Eyes – Fatpack – Not a peep
Boots: //R3D// Boots Runar – maitreya – R3D Studio
Hair: Raven Bell -Luxe Hair Front [F1-1] Long -Raven Bell
Wooden Chest: Icealand – Chest – Iceland
Ruins: TLG – Chapel Ruins – The Looking Glass
Shelter: TLG – Dead Mans Island Castaway Camp – The Looking Glass
Wandering through the greenery she passes almost unnoticed except by the wildlife. Her dappled skin was perfect for remaining hidden from unwanted intruders.
There’s been a lot more of those in recent times, the humans massacring vast swathes of the precious forests. So many dryads have had to flee their homes to the cries only they can hear of their beloved trees before they are promptly silenced forever.
Little do the humans know that despite these great losses the Faire Folk will survive as they always have, more and more retreating to the Faire Lands each year to rejuvinate them. But would they care if they did know?
One of the keys to keeping the magic of the Faire Folk alive is the Spheres. These artifacts created long ago are sources of great power and different ones were distributed among the different fae races, both light and dark. Apart but connected at a spiritual level with simple instinct to survive.
As far as she knows each race of Faire Folk keeps their Sphere safe and secret place below or next to the symbol of the Gods, as close to a leyline as possible. This is the tradition they were taught and have followed it for generations. She has no way of knowing if they did or not, or if they remembered the importance of the relics, but she prayed they did.
Today she did something that she knew she shouldn’t, but did it anyway. She took the relics from their hiding place and sat with them on the table in front of her, the glowing letters of the symbol of the Gods and the moving tree inside the Sphere calmed and reassured her. She certainly needed that today with the news of another woodland lost.
There’s a whole collection of eggs available at Fallen Gods, in 100% RFL Donation Vendors.
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Location: The Seventh Valley
Credits:
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Skin: [Stargazer] Variety Skin Set BOM – Envy SE
Tattoo: *Rainbow Sundae* Dryad Skin Overlay 02
Hair: Raven Bell – Nereid Hair [Fatpack] -Raven Bell
Dress: (*<*) 1313 Jasnah Dress – Olive – 1313
Necklace: [+Oblivis+] Gehenna Key – Oblivis
Sphere: ~Libertine~ Collectable Egg 61 “The Golden Leaf” – Fallen Gods
Throne: Forest Throne – Wythburn
Table: Forest Table: – Wythburn
Symbol of the Gods (Faire Symbol) : Deluxe Quest HUD Box from any Arrival point
I was walking through the Wandering Woods region of Fantasy Faire, having a browse of the stores, when I came to the statue. I’d seen it before of course having done a marathon run through the Faire previously. However today I just had the urge to pose for a snap with it..just because. This is a massive masterpiece of creation, but trying to get all of it *and* an avatar at ground level is almost impossible. Almost. You can just see little ol me at the bottom of the photo below and get a grasp of the scale of this thing!
Hunting huge reptiles is a tricky business. Some of them are slow and easily escaped from, others will outpace you in seconds. They also have rather tough hides that are definitely more like armour than skin. So you need a strategy, you need somewhere you can get close enough that you can almost look into their eyes,since that’s where you’ve gotta get your arrow. Then somewhere you can retreat to immediately so that any others in the area can’t chase you. So this particular foray is extremely risky, I’m likely to be exposed for longer than I’d like and the entrance to the Scrimshaw Warrens caves behind me is futher then I’d like as well.
A year has passed since the spectacular explosion among the stars that was the self destruction of our sister planet, Cassiopeia (a Faire Folk story I wrote last year) by its remaining inhabitants. We mourn their loss but they had let the memories of our origins be forgotten. They had stopped performing the rituals that kept the subterranean beasts of our twin planets where they belonged, underground.
They had become shallow lip service festivals instead of a nescesity for survival. These rituals reinforced the spells of magical confinement enforced on the reptilian beasts that would consume us all.
The responsibility for this fell to the descendants of the original spell casters, that were marked by brightly coloured patches on their skin. It was a pale remnant of ancestors whose bodies were covered in such and could weave great magic. Strangely this didn’t always follow in families, sometimes an unrelated child may be born with the marks, the dormant powers floating around in the population gene pool to surface randomly. Some saw it as blessing others as a curse, but regardless, all knew the child would have to seek us out and be trained for the sake of our races survival.
Most of the time we wore long hooded robes and kept to ourselves, some among the population resented the power we could wield, even if it was much diminished from our ancestors. But twice a year at the Solsices we emerge and perform the required ritual to reinforce the magical barriers that keep us all safe.
Location: A’Dracunas
Credits:
Skirt: ::GB:: koshikimono (F) / – Gabriel
Gauntlets: ::GB:: Cross obi tops & Gauntlets / Black – Gabriel
Ava reaches the valley of Valhalla weary but energised by the sight of the great waterfalls and towering statues, she is home.
Rounding the bend in the path she sees the waterfall in it’s full glory and the platform at that top which is her destination.
Her destination awaitsGlad to be home
She scales the mighty steps for the first time in a long time and enters one of the great halls.
She takes a moment to refresh herself and change out of her travelling clothes before taking a seat in the hall.
She doesn’t intend to spend long there, she knows she has a ritual to prepare for! Once she feels rested somewhat she leaves the hall and makes her way to high platform of the tree.
On her way down she pauses to admire the valley in all it’s glory.
The children of SEE attend the auction to bid against the Rift Knights for the Horn. In the preceeding discussions and during the auction, things get particularly tense and friction rises between all present.
The Rift Knights said they would listen to the Childrens evidence about the Fractal creature, but ONLY if they handed over the horn at the auction, otherwise they would no longer be allies and they would consider the Children theives for bidding against them for the stolen horn.
The Children countered that they would hand over the horn if they won,ONLY once the Knights had listend to the Fractal creature and their evidence.
So a stalemate. When the Children won the auction the Knights still pleaded with them, like sore losers, to hand over the horn claiming it was a simple matter of Right and Wrong. The Childrens point was how can it be Right to destroy a creature they believed was an emodiment of the Knights ancestors.
The Knights
The Children
The Horn being auctioned
I’m wondering how Knights in dark armour can be the “good” guys as they claim. Can they break a stereotype?
The Knights departed with threats that the ritual to destroy the Fractal creature would go ahead swiftly with no delay.
