Tag: #HerbandFable

Summer Solstice Ritual 2025

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.

Image from Gyazo

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.

Image from Gyazo

“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.

Image from Gyazo

Outfit Credits:

  • Outfit:UNA. Haley – UNA
  • Belt Pouch: UNA. HaleyBag – UNA
  • Wreath: LODE Head Accessory – Summer Garden Wreath [red] – Outlet Sale
  • Gloves: *RE* Corvus Gloves & Rings 1.1 – RE Shop n Hop Booth
  • Arm Tattoos: fable. all mimsy 100% – Fable Store
  • Chest & Leg Tattoos: Lara Roses Upper and Leg Tattoo – [CAROL G]
  • Hair: Raven Bell – Lavender Hair – Raven Bell Store
  • Boots: Phedora ~ Hyunjin Unisex Boots ~ Maitreya/LaraX – Phedora Store

Herb & Fable: Strawberry Moon Quest

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.

For more details you can read the  Announcement post.

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.

Herb & Fable links:

Herb & Fable – Beyond Lavendell – The Public Beta Quest

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!

Image from Gyazo

(The hovertext says V.1.01, the Beta version says Beta 0.11)

Herb & Fable links:

Lavendell’s Green Witch – Herb & Fable Faire Quest

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.

Outfit Credits:

Previous Herb & Fable posts:

Bench location: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Lavendell/145/201/92

Herb & Fable: Tea & Cake

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)
Image from Gyazo

Grinding Almonds and in the back, the juicer is working on my Lemons

The Cake Ingredients

Image from Gyazo

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.

Herb & Fable Links:

Preview: Herb & Fable from Jinx

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 HUD
When 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 from
Gender 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 Well
Head 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 planting
Prompt to confirm planting seeds
Cleavers 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 Juicer
Dialog: select what kind of juice you want to make
Confirm 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.

Image from Gyazo
The pestle and mortar can be used to grind several things
Image from Gyazo

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.

Herb & Fable Links: