In the time it took between me buying the Pumpkin Pack and publishing my last blog post that featured it,a couple of extra activities have been added.
Pumpkin Flower Tea
I mentioned in my last post that the pumpkin growing beds also let you grow pumpkin flowers, now you can make those into tea using the rustic teapot.
When you grow pumpkin flowers and take them into your Pouch, you’ll receive three portions: HnF_pumpkin_flower: Ava Bloodrose you received 3 of item: HnF_pumpkin_flower
The recipe for Pumpkin Flower Tea is as follows;
HnF_rustic_teapot: HnF_pumpkin_flower_tea requires the following ingredients: HnF_hot_water: 1 HnF_pumpkin_flower: 1 HnF_honey: 1 It will take 5.00 minutes to make
Jack O Lantern
It wouldn’t be Spooky Season without Pumpkin carving, would it? So now you can make your own Herb & Fable Jack O Lantern.
HnF_craft_table: HnF_jack-o-lantern requires the following ingredients: HnF_pumpkin: 1 It will take 30.0 minutes to make
Obviously you need a knife and a table on which to carve your pumpkin. The Crafting Table is free as part of the Lavendell Quest and the Knife comes with the First Wand pack from the store.
In the spirit of the spooky season, Herb & Fable have released a Pumpkin Pie set along with the various ingredients in the store allowing you to make more when you run out.
The pie pack gives you enough ingredients to make three pies, which is a multi-step process.
So what to do with this lot? Let’s check out the recipe cards, you can add them from your inventory and they display on screen.
To make Pumkin Pie you will need:
1 x HnF_pumpkin_pie_mix 1 x HnF_pastry_case 1 x HnF_icing_sugar
First you need to heat your pumpkin in the Saucepan which takes half an hour. Since the pan is copyable, I’ve put three out to heat at once, they’re also Modifiable so I resized them too.
To cook the pumkin you will need:
1 x HnF_pumpkin 3 x water
While the pumpkin is cooking you can start on making the pie mix.
To make Pumkin Pie Mix you will need:
1 x HnF_cooked_pumpkin 1 x HnF_pumpkin_pie_spice 2 x HnF_eggs 1 x HnF_milk 1 x HnF_sugar 1 x HnF_sea_salt 1 x HnF_butter
So before we can make pie mix, it looks like we need to make some pumpkin spice using the mortar & pestle to grind up some of the ingredients.
To make Pumkin Pie Spice you will need:
1 x HnF_ground_ginger 1 x HnF_grated_nutmeg 1 x HnF_cinnamon 1 x HnF_allspice 1 x HnF_black_pepper
After you’ve done all that, you should then have cooked pumpkin and pumpkin spice to use as ingredients for the next steps.
Once you have both your cooked pumpkin and spice, you’ll need to mix them together in your mixing bowl.
When that’s done, you’ll have pumpkin pie mix,that can go in the oven with the pie case as per the pie recipe. When they’re baked you’ll have some pies that look lovely and which will restore yourHHerb & Fable health stats when used.
As with cooking in the real world, a lot of mess has been made of empty containers and leftover produce, so your workspace may look something like the picture below. You can see that the items now have red hovertext over them, meaning you can either recycle the containers or compost the food waste.
But now of course you probably want to make some more? No problem! You can grow your own pumpkins with the Pumpkin Beds and seeds, with the other ingredients also available in the Herb & Fable store.
GrowingGrown
If you look here though, it’s not just actual pumpkins that you can make, but pumpkin seeds and pumpkin flowers as well.
Herb & Fable in Second Life is out of Beta and into Live Phase One, starting with a new Quest: The Dandelion Trail.
Like the Beta Quest before it, the Dandelion Trail has you hunting all over the Centauria region for ingredients to make recipes. In this case you’re hunting for dandelions to make dandelion tea. You can also make dandelion cookies, which if you do all the steps yourself, can take some time! Youll require these ingredients:
HnF_dandelion_biscuits requires the following ingredients: HnF_cookie_mix: 1 HnF_dandelion_flowers: 15 HnF_lemon_juice: 1 HnF_lemon_zest: 1
You can see some of the various ingredients at the differents stages of the process in the picture above (which took a lot of time and corn to have enough to display them all!)
The lengthy part is making cornflour, which requires you to:
Grow Corn Cobs
Soak the cobs to get kernels
Grind the kernels up into mush
Dry the mushed kernels
Grind the dried, mushed kernels into flour
Alternatively you can buy some cornflour at the Herb & Fable store, like you would in the real world, but the process was educational and you gain an extra badge. When you’ve got your cornflour you’ll be able to make cookie dough mix. There are several other ingredients you’ll need though:
HnF_cookie_mix requires the following ingredients: HnF_sugar: 1 HnF_butter: 1 HnF_eggs: 1 HnF_wheat_flour: 1 HnF_cornflour: 1 HnF_whipped_egg_white: 1 HnF_sea_salt: 1
So your shopping list consists of:
Herb & Fable – Bowl (to soak the corn)
Herb & Fable – Whisk (to whip eggs into egg white)
Sugar
Butter
Lemons (to make into juice)
Lemon Zest
Eggs (to whip)
Sea salt
If you don’t have them already, you will also need Wheat, Dandelion and Maize beds plus seeds for growing your other ingredients.
Possibly that sounds a little overwhelming if you’re just starting out, but start with the tea and go from there. There’s a great coomunity of other players that can help you along the way in the Inworld Group and the Discord server.
Last night was the Summer Solstice in my part of the World and there was a group Ritual at Centauria, the home of the Second Life JINX Centaurs and Herb & Fable.
Back in 2009 when I first came to Second Life I did a random search for Witchcraft, which did take me to a related community, but their events and activities were always focussed in the wrong timezone for me. When I was able to attend, I didn’t really feel part of the proceedings, it didn’t resonate with me, it didn’t trigger an emotional response within me. However I did make some very good friends there, that I’m still in touch with today , one of which was at last nights ritual with me.
Now nearly sixteen years later,these rituals Julula puts together do trigger that meaningful response. They are a lot of fun because Julula puts in so much work with custom animations and emotional immersive audio to bring the community event to life.
“Being in Second Life, we can focus on our avatars, but also feel the benefit of this ritual in real life. We are all from different countries here, and so this space allows us to connect from wherever we are in the world. Here we come together to share space and create connection in a magical way.”
The quote above was part of the dialogue from last nigh and it’s so true. These are the kinds of activies I feel Second Life was built for. Bringing people together from all over the World in joint celebration.
If you want to do your own Ritual to celebrate the Solstice, you can buy the Solstice Ritual kit from the Jinx store at Shop and Hop. If you’re a registered Herb & Fable player there is a free add-on that allows you to perform the Ritual in a way that gains you some XP and a couple of related badges.
Here’s a snapshot of the ingredients you get with the Herb & Fable version.
Julula is working hard to tweak and make things in preparation for taking Herb & Fable out of the Beta testing phase. In the meantime she’s produced a small side Quest to celebrate the recent full moon, which was a Strawberry Moon, due it occurring when wild strawberries normally come out.
You have to collect a number of strawberry patches, a ritual bowl and the ritual itself.
The prize for completing this Quest is the lovely Strawberry Moon EEP environment that you can add to your land or personal lighting, that’s pictured in the header image.
If you’re not an existing Herb & Fable player yet, you can become so by doing the Lavendell Quest that has been preserved from Fantasy Faire or getting the Beta pack from the Mainstore. If you played the Lavendell Quest during the Faire you’re already set and you just need to add the Meter & HUDs you received then and start hunting for strawberry patches.
Your collected ingredients:
When you’ve taken them into your pouch they will change, previously the hovertext would vanish and the item would become nothing but nice decor. Now the leftover objects have become compostable waste to use with growing other things!
Get started on Centauria via the Mainstore or Lavendell linked below.
On the 1st of March Herb and Fable (HnF) went into public Beta testing, and has had a steady signup of new players.
This was boosted by players joining the game to take part in the Lavendell Quest during Fantasy Faire. If you completed the Lavendell Quest, some of this will be familiar, some not, if you didn’t complete that quest, it is still available to play at the Lavendell Quest region (link below).
For the Beta launch Julula created a similar Quest to introduce players to the different elements of the game and how it all works.
As you progress through different tasks, you’ll receive a whole bunch of Badges, that appear on your profile on the website and an object inworld that you can display, or add multiple ones to a display board.
Show spoiler
The “First Altar” sequence, is similar to the other Rituals previously released by Jinx. If you previously purchased one of the other ritual sets, there will be an update to a Herb & Fable version when they become available, that will allow you to earn associated XP and related badges.
There’s quite a collection of items you need to collect for your Ritual:
Show spoiler
List of items required to perform the Ritual
Like the Lavendell Quest, tracking these items down will have you searching high and low for them all.
One of the steps in preparing for the Ritual is carving your First Wand!
In the ritual you will learn about setting up an Altar with your various Craft tools, where to place them and their significance. These steps are the same as the ones you may take if you set up a real-world Altar at home or other location.
I set out the Rirual items on the counter in my tavern, in the corresponding directional locations:
The Chalice, representing the aspect of Water:
Show spoiler of the Chalice
The Feather, representing the aspect of Air:
Show spoiler of the Feather
You can get your Herb & Fable Beta pack in the Herb & Fable store on Centauria.
However given a screenshot posted today by Julula in the #Teasers channel of the Discord server, we may be out of Beta very soon!
(The hovertext says V.1.01, the Beta version says Beta 0.11)
update: The Lavendell Region quest was bought at the live auction at Fantasy Faire and has been moved to a new region called “Lavendell Quest” – you can go along and do the quest if you didn’t get chance to do it at the Faire. Even if you DID do it at the faire – extra ingredients have been added so you can do it again at the new location!
If you somehow missed it (how ? See previous posts linked below) Jinx released a fun game called Herb & Fable. For a taster of how it works, there’s a fun Quest on Lavendell, which I’m currently working my way through.
Here I’m part way through, grinding up some Turkeytail mushrooms that I’ve first harvested and dried. It’s an ingredient in a tea that I’ll be making when I gather the remaining ingredients, hinted at in the message you get from the starter NPC:
[07:32:18] Ella the Wise Fox: Welcome Fairelander. The first step of your journey is about collecting some healing herbs for different purposes – harvest what the land offers. Turkey Tail mushroom with its potent healing powers, saffron from the crocus – a very valuable spice, honey from bees – the saviours of our planet and cinnamon with its powerful flavour and healing properties.
Sounds like there’s going to be a few more steps for me to complete before I can brew my tea. If you get stuck, there’s a very helpful and active group of players in the Herb & Fable Inworld Group and Discord Server if you need a hint or three.
Fortunately there’s some lovely spots on Lavendell where you can sit and take a break from Questing or shopping and admire the beauty of the place.
However don’t spend too long chilling, you’ve now only got a few days before the Fairelands vanish into the mists again.
THE FAIRELANDS WILL CLOSE TUESDAY 6TH APRIL MIDNIGHT SLT
If you enjoy the Lavendell Quest, you can continue playing Herb & Fable by clicking the big sign in the Herb & Fable Faire Store for how.
I obviously had to put together an outfit made of Faire merchant items to match my chosen game class of Green Witch, see below.
Today I have more tasty treats for you on the forthcoming Herb & Fable game from Jinx.
My Herb & Fable kitchen: Each ingredient has an object you can place out inworld. Note that each of these ingredients are “used”. Once their scripted quantity was used, the scripts auto- deleted and I was left with prop items to display.
As I mentioned in my previous post about the game, my next task as an Alpha Tester,was to make a cake. So here goes…
(Remember these dialogs are from a product in the Alpha stage of development and may be quite different by the time you get to play. Also as before I am posting these preview images with explicit permission from the creator Julala Fairelander.)
Task: Nettle & Lemon Cake
This was quite a task, because it required multiple steps:
Growing & Harvesting Nettles (30 mins)
Grinding Almonds (10 mins)
Juicing Lemons (10 mins)
Mixing with the other ingredients (10 mins)
Baking (30 mins)
Grinding Almonds and in the back, the juicer is working on my Lemons
The Cake Ingredients
Mixing the ingredients
Once mixed it’s over to the Oven
Once the cake is baked you’ll then receive your inworld cake and get a link to a recipe to make the real life cake.
But you can’t have cake without a cuppa!
So Julula has introduced a recipe for nettle tea.
Task: Nettle Tea
The magic of tea is a great thing, but getting it can take a bit of work:
Grow and harvest more nettles (30 mins)
Dry the leaves (3 hours)
Brew tea in a teapot (6 mins)
Drying nettles in front of the fire (a fire isn’t actually needed for the process)
When the nettles are dry, time to make the tea:
Fortunately, like when plants are growing, you don’t have to wait around for your nettle leaves to dry. You can log out and they’ll keep going and be waiting for you when you log back in. This is just as well because as you can see I’ve got tea for two here and so had to go through all the steps twice so you got a nice photo.
However I should warn you that if you are logged in and go AFK and they finish, you won’t get your product. I discovered this the hard way and lost a load of ingredients because my avatar rejected the items being offered.
Both drinking the tea and eating the cake restore your health stats and contain multiple servings (you would hope so with the size of the cake!).
Next time I’ll be having some fun with the 3rd Party Developer scripts as well as the Storage Crates and Vendors. These sripts will allow people to make produce for Herb & Fable and the crates and vendors allow trading and selling of items.
Today I have something exciting to share with you all. Julala, the creator of the Jinx Second Life Centaur and other such creatures, is making a game. This will be a foraging and cultivating roleplay game.
I’m going to be working through the initial process of starting the game, as an Alpha tester (and am posting these previews with explicit permission from Julala). This means following a series of set tasks and providing feedback on what does or doesn’t work as expected. It also means by the time you play the game, the messages or images you see may be quite different.
The first steps are adding the Meter and HUD.
The Meter displays your Herb & Fable stats above your avatars head.The Main Herb & Fable HUDWhen you first wear these items, you will receive a welcome message in local chat and a list of starting stats.
Using the HUD buttons you will create an account on the Herb & Fable website by submitting your email address into the dialog box and following the instructions. The website then stores all your achievements and stats as you play.
Your email address will be your login for the Heb & Fable website
You will be able to customise your Profile page with a photo and change the name displayed (which by default is your login email address).
You will also choose a Class and a Gender, which includes a non-binary option. There may be some expansion or customisation of this using a label of some kind later.
There are 22 different Classes to choose fromGender options of Male, Female & Non-Binary to choose from.
You will also have two additional HUDs to wear; a Pouch for in-game currency (not Linden Dollars) and a Bag that will contain your collected items & ingredients.
The three Herb & Fable HUDs
So now I’m all set-up, time for some basic tasks to see how the game works.
Task: Boiling water
Collect Water from the WellHead over to the Fire and click the Kettle
Simples!
Task : Growing Cleavers
This consisted of fetching more water from the well and planting seeds in a soil bed, then havesting them.
Cleaver bed ready for plantingPrompt to confirm planting seedsCleavers beginning to grow
This process takes aboutt 30 minutes, you don’t have to stand and watch over them.
Task: Cleaver Juice
Once my Cleavers were grown I was able to harvest them to make juice with. It’s also possible to forage from other people’s plant beds, to gain a Foraging badge.
The JuicerDialog: select what kind of juice you want to makeConfirm making cleaver juice
The produced glass of Cleavers juice contains 3 servings and can be drunk to restore lost health points.
Task: Incense
This involved grinding some cinnamon using a pestle & mortar, before using it in an incense burner.
The pestle and mortar can be used to grind several things
I think for now that’s enough to give you an idea of how this game will work. These simple steps will all be combined to make recipes for different things, such as a cake, which I’ll be attempting next.
There are also a number of Rituals that Julula has made; Protection , Yule and Winter Solstice. These animated set peices are already available to purchase, including a voucher for an update to Herb & Fable versions when the game is released.
I mentioned the website earlier and that’s quite important. As I completed the tasks I earned badges for them, grouped into different categories/disciplines. As you play the game you may choose to specialise in one particular area.
Bear in mind that the dialog boxes and messages you will see may be quite different from those shown, by the time they’re publicly released. There will be capabilities for third-party creators to make items for the game as well.
