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.
Last night I attended an introduction to Roleplay at Ancient Order of Centaurs (AoC). I’ve written about this place before, most recently covering a couple of their Fantasy Faire events.
This intro was about the type of RP they do there, both formal and informal, along with an introduction to their roleplay HUD based on the Unity system.
They have lots of different races at AoC, but mostly all are variant of “taur” which is usually a mix of human upper body and animal lower body.
We had a chat to begin with about who had what kind of roleplay exerience as well as about the different races and houses that you can be a part of at Centauria. Next we were taken to collect AoC Roleplay HUDs, based on the Unity Maxim system.
Left: Main Unity HUD. Right: AoC Setup HUD
If you can just about read the text above my avatars head, I chose for now to be Merchant Class, but we shall see if a story develops along that line or not, but it’s easily changed.
The system allows the use of items and currency that we can exchange and use in Roleplay, this is currenty what I have after yesterdays induction:
Tonight was the Annual Parade of the Centaurs through (part of) Fantasy Faire. It’s the second time I’ve taken part in this event and it’s always fun.
Before the parade there is always a group photo session of all the Centaurs and variants thereof.
There was quite a lot of photos so I thought a quick flick through them would be easier to get a sense of the event.
The parade itself was pretty chaotic, as any large gathering can be, let alone a galloping one! I did find a spot where I was able to catch a few of them parading past however:
Last night I attended the Centaur Bazaar at Necrum Moon and to be honest it was the most beautiful and sedate roleplay I’ve seen in a long time. Usually to make a storyline or plot you have an antagonist of some kind, or situation that raises tension, suspence or excitement. This roleplay was totally different, there was no storyline, it was just a marketplace with people happily trading goods and wares in harmony.
Outfit Credits:
Upper body skin and clothes: Dynasty from Fallen Gods
Hair: Spectra – Rigged – S.E. Ombre Tempt V1 from Butterfly Kiss Boutique
Juggling ball: Jinx : Necturn Moon Hand Orb – Darken Red
[13:02:03] Ava Bloodrose Delaney (Ava Bloodrose): You know what folks? This has been the most beautifully sedate rp I’ve seen in a long time. Other places there’s always some kind of friction as part of a plot or not. Tonight this has just be lovely to watch.[13:02:30] Julala Demina: ((thanks Ava)) 🙂
[13:02:41] Brytestar (Bryte Starlight): ((Thank you Ava!! <3 hats one of my favorite parts about it))
[13:02:45] MiroAIIB: ((come visit us at AOC some time, ava))
Jail ‘n’ Bail is a tradition at Fantasy Faire, whereby a well known resident ends up being arrested by the Pawlice (not a typo) on some spurious charge and people make donations into charity kiosks to pay their bail/bribe the Pawlice. Yesterday was the turn of Julala Demina the owner of Jinx who produce a line of Centaur avatars.
Following up on my previous posts featuring my new Centaur avatar and the Centaur Parade, I’ve come to visit the Ancient Order of Centaurs (AOC) . Although today I visited as a different “Taur”from Jinx called the Felintaur, which has the body of a large feline instead of a horse and was kindly donated to the Blogger room.
You arrive at a large circular landing point with four exits leading in different directions.
Arrival point
I opted for the one located directly behind me because I saw something interesting in the distance.
There was an intruiging arch that seemed to be mad of some large creatures rib cage over the path.
The AOC grounds cover four regions styled in a High Fantasy medieval appearance. There are long winding woodland paths everywhere connecting all the various places.
I visited the Order of Centaurs
Leading to some lovely places to see and explore. Some of which are available to rent, I only spotted the “Private Property” outside the first one on the way *out* however.
No fantasy location would be without an abandoned castle..
If you want a nice aerial view over the place, there’s a handy lift:
There’s even a market where you can shop for many things Centaur related that I may well be returning to soon.
As usual with my blogging photo trips it’s not usually good for SLT so no-one around, but they do have regular meetups, a timetable is located at the landig point. I think I’ll try and make it to one of those at some point in the near future.
The Centaur patrols the pool below the waterfall, enjoying the cool water on her legs when everywhere else in the forest is warm.
She sees movement in the trees and becomes alert, she relaxes its just a faun come to drink. She doesn’t mind her watch shifts in the summer, she gets to stay cool in the water, it’s the best position to guard the cave behind the waterfall that contains her races sacred Sphere.
She calls out from her cover out of his sight. “Who goes there? What’s your business in this part of the forest?”
She calls out from cover
There is no response and the Human is even looking in a different direction, as if they had not heard. Curious now she comes up onto the shore and partially out of cover, her bow raised and aimed in no uncertain terms at the man..in a flat cap, this is most odd.
She calls again louder this time and the stranger responds this time. “I hope you’re not going to be loosing that that thing at me” he says. “That depends, what are you doing here in this part of the forest? Are you lost?”
He looks rather confused and asks “Am I not still in the park?” she eases the pressure on the string but doesn’t lower it just yet, “Where do you *think* you are? she asks a little concern in her tone now, this guy is clearly not all there. “Avebury?” he replies, clearly coming to the realisation that he wasn’t. Clearly he’s accidentally done something in the stone circle and transported himself to the Faire Lands.
He’s clearly confused, she lowers her bow
She lowers her bow and gestures along a path, “Follow that path you’ll come to a cirlce of stones and there should be a glowing archway, walk through there and you’ll be back where you belong…then you will wake up from this weird dream you’ve been having about Centaurs. OK?” The man looks embarrassed and heads off along the way she had indicated.
She goes back to the waterfall and checks on the sphere behind it, satisifed she assumes her sentry position once again.
She checks on the spere before resume her sentry post
There was a whole collection of eggs available at Fallen Gods, in 100% RFL Donation Vendors. Sadly they are gone now. Perhaps you’ll be able to get some next year!
Location: The Seventh Valley
Credits:
Centaur Body: Jinx : CenLighTaur- Jinx
Centaur Coat: Jinx : Fantasy Faire 2020 Special Skin by Cinnamon – Jinx
Upper Body 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
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
