Otherworldly

After the Fantasy Faire, one thing stuck in my head: the dragon (or, more specifically, the wyvern, since we wanted to be able to portray a Targaryen dragon properly) from Prehistorica would be a very neat avatar to have for fantasy photos. But should I wait to see if it would be released as an animesh instead of a bento avatar? I did start with the bento avatar horse from Teegle and I still think it is fantastic, but the animesh horses are easier to use for photos since they do not require me to have an alt on playing the horse. But after inquiring and learning it could be quite a while before any animesh dragons see the light of day, I decided to take the plunge and sent one of Ran’s alts shopping.

For the first outing with our new wyvern, we went to Del-ka Aedilis Laketown build, a whole town in a rezzbox. It is currently available at an introductory promo price for the whole build but the buildings will also be on sale separately soon. I definitely recommend visiting the display build, its beautifully setup. And despite what my pictures might suggest, it escaped the visit by the dragon without any fire damage or crushed roofs.

I love well-researched period clothing and accessories and with this hennin Old Treasures has really hit the mark. A hennin is the classic “princess” headdress, a cone or steeple, often with a veil attached. They are associated with the late Middle Ages, particularly with Burgundy and France, which is why I opted for a Burgundian-style gown from the Muses to go with it. This is an older release, so it has two general fitmesh sizes rather than fitmesh for specific bodies, but that works fine for gowns.

This time around, Enchantment offers us a look at the magical and whimsical world of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. To create a portal into this realm, I setup the Oberon’s Gift statue from Fantavatar & Moonstruck as a guardian by the Dolmen Experience Portal from Fanatik. For my outfit, I opted for Dreaming Thicket’s Fairy Ring dress and added some flowery antlers from Acios.

What is an “Experience Portal”, you might wonder? It is a new line of products from Fanatik that you can use to setup automatic teleports on your sim. You need to be able to enable an experience on your sim and then you load in one or more landmarks in a portal. If there is just one landmark, walking into the portal will trigger the teleport. If there are multiple, it will trigger a menu with options. The portals come in several different styles to suit different environments.

Tomorrow is your very last chance for this year to visit the wondrous realms of the Fantasy Faire. This may be my last post for the year, unless I manage to squeeze out another one tomorrow, but don’t count on it. For this one, I opted for focusing on a couple of builds available at the Faire to create a Viking homestead.

As soon as I saw the Alicorn from Teegle, I knew that once I had shown it off with its “out of the box” appearance, I would have to transform it into one of my favourite fictional equines. Imraith-Nimphais, the blood-red flying unicorn from Guy Gavriel Kay’s The Fionavar Tapestry. If you don’t know it and you love fantasy, please give it a try. Its one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching series of books that has ever been written. Those of you who have read it will know why I included a dragon in one of the shots.

The dragon, of course, is one of the amazing creations by Prehistorica: The Dawn Kingdoms, who also created the whole of the Khol Dracys sim. I don’t think actual animesh pets are for sale (alas) but it seems for display purposes they turned their dragon avatars into animesh. And now that I saw that the avatar comes in five sizes, I have to get one (unless, of course, there’s a pet version around the corner…). But dragon or wyvern? Decisions, decisions, but I think wyvern to use for some Targaryen dragon photos.

The Fantasy Faire has been extended until the 12th of May, giving you a few more days to explore the gorgeous sims and shop for a good cause. I finally caved in and bought the gorgeous Noahne Barding from Tutto e Vanita for my Teeglepet Pegasus, which of course will mean that I know need to get a copy version of the Pegasus to have both winged and wingless copies around. You see, the Pegasus makes a fantastic baroque horse.

Together with the beautiful armour from Old Treasures, which happened to match one of the texture options for the barding extremely well, I ended up with a look that made me think of a conquistador making his (well, her) way through a lush jungle on the hunt for a lost city in the Seventh Valley.

J’adoube, sponsored by The Looking Glass, is a fascinating build filled of both whimsy and beauty. Giant chesspieces, chessboard-patterned flowers and butterflies, boats with trees sprouting from them. It feels like walking into a different reality, a sidestep away from the world as we know it. I could not resist the opportunity to blog some of the beautiful pieces that make up J’adoube, though I knew I could not possibly capture a similar feeling to the full sim. Instead, I opted for showing off some beautiful period clothing from Old Treasures and Portal (including a couple of great gifts/cheapies at the birthday round of We Love Role-Play) over a game of chess in a garden.

Tall buildings strive towards the sky, light filters through colourful stained glass windows and ominous robed figures stand watch. In the middle of the city lies a great, fallen figure, entombed in stone. Somniatoris Arx, sponsored by ContraptioN, is one of the wonders of this year’s Fantasy Faire. Others have done wonderful work capturing images of the build, I opted for something more modest and tried to put together an outfit that echoed the mood of the sim.

For that, I went to the hood by Raven Bell, pairing that with a mask from Air and a gown from Kotolier, creating a mysterious figure in black and gold.

Roughly a week remains of the Fantasy Faire 2021. One of the things you do not want to miss out on doing is the traditional quest. This year it is called “The Language of Birds”. You can buy the HUD needed to participate in a regular (L$250) or deluxe (L$350, includes exclusive outfits from Silvan Moon Designs) version at the landing points on all the Faire sims and all the proceeds go to RFL. The quest package also includes a charming little companion that will help you out with extra hints along the way.

You will need a bit of patience for the quest as you are looking for birds and they are sometimes fairly small and may not rez until you are closer by. But the rewards are well worth it, from the sim-specific gifts for finishing each part of the quest to the grand prizes at the very end. Plus, you get a wonderful free tour of the Fairelands; I definitely saw areas I had missed on my shopping tours! The final sim, The Seventh Valley, is particularly gorgeous and that is where I took this shot. It was very much a spur of the moment photo, I hadn’t actually planned to blog about the quest or the outfit I was wearing right then, hence the lack of closeups on the accessories, but I liked how it came out!

As the first entry in a clothing line, Old Treasures has released the Gentilhomme set for the Fantasy Faire. As soon as the Faire opened, I sent Ran over there to get the doublet (he felt the pants looked a little too muscular in the shading for his tastes) and he opted for the very well-priced mixed colour pack in the RFL vendor. This kind of well-made medieval clothing for men is not exactly common in Second Life, so we were both happy to see Old Treasures move into this market. And since he dressed up so prettily, he gained himself an invitation to my private chambers (mild nudity at the end of the post).

Of course I had to do a vlog for something during the Fantasy Faire this year as well! Not an exploration vlog this time, alas, I’ve had too much trouble with lag this year (starting to be time for a computer upgrade, if prices ever stop being insane). But what you are getting is a closer look at the really cool animesh whip from kosmii and Mythril, a sexy outfit from 1313 Mockingbird Lane and a stylish hair from KMH, all from the Fantasy Faire. Credits and slurls can be found beneath the video and I also added a couple of nice still shots to show off the outfit and the whip poses.

Exploring Khol Dracys is not without its perils. If you climb too high, be prepared to meet some of its larger inhabitants. They have a taste for shiny things and the occasional adventurer, so it is imperative that you stand your ground and firmly tell them to snack on something else!

Petrichor (formerly the Plastik) has an absolutely massive amount of new releases for the Fantasy Faire, including skins, clothing, accessories and even decor items. Among these is the Araleus outfit that I am wearing here, consisting of the outfit itself, armour for arms and legs and a sword. The colouring huds for each part allow for almost unlimited texture combinations and for the outfit and the leg armour the huds also allow you to hide certain parts to change up your look even further.

Even though it may seem hard to believe, there are still things other than the Fantasy Faire going on in Second Life. La vie en pose, for example, is still open until April 30th and I just had to do something fun with the Roman Bath Temple from Moonlite Backdrops & Poses and Faustino. This build rezzes out complete with all the props and the pose menu easily moves you around between different spots. I’ve selected three different ones to show just some of the many couple poses available to play with. As you can see, some of them also include auto-attaching props.

Both Ran and I are wearing gorgeous outfits from Salt & Pepper, from the Scheherazade and Golden Slave set and we’re using the two new hairs from Wasabi for the Fantasy Faire. If you want to donate to RFL with your purchase of these hairs, the Solar pack for each style is set as a donation item.

Deep in the Wandering Woods, you may come across her, the Butterfly Queen. From time to take, she takes human form to explore the woods, often delighting in playing a flute that is said to make flowers bloom.

The beautiful butterfly-inspired Asclepia gown from the Dreaming Thicket insisted on being showcased in a colourful and magical way, and the Wandering Woods sim (sponsored by Titans) was just right for it in terms of looks and hues. I added the Anemone crown and collar from On a Lark for a regal look, further helped along by the tall updo from KMH, and wore the Mystic tone of the Jemima skin from Lumae to match the colours of the gown. The lovely flute from Harshlands is the Ultra Rare from flute gacha, which means it plays all the songs contained in the other flutes.

There are many things that are the best part of the Fantasy Faire (after all, it is the Fantasy Faire, so of course it can have many best parts!) and for the last years one of these best parts has been a new Teeglepet from Teegle. First it was Fable the Unicorn and then Mythos the Pegasus. This year, the two have snuck off for a bit of romance on the side and the result is Serenity the Alicorn, a gorgeous blend of the two with the most wonderful head shape and a stunning creamy white coat with pink undertones. This may be the prettiest Teeglepet yet and that’s saying something because they are all so gorgeous. You will find that both Teegle and other merchants already have plenty of accessories for the Alicorn out at the Faire, so go crazy!

Now, mythologically speaking a valkyrie would not ride an Alicorn, but who is to say what valkyries in the Fairelands ride? I just knew I had to take some in-flight photos at Alia Baroque’s amazing Valhalla sim and the Alicorn plus a valkyrie outfit seemed like the perfect fit. As it happened, Poseidon also has a set of valkyrie poses out at the Faire and their store is on Valhalla. And so, for that matter, is Wasabi and I am wearing one of their two Faire-hairstyles. My final Faire-item is the tattoo from Nefekalum, one of several special RFL editions out for the Faire.

And speaking of RFL, while not all the items I am using for my posts are RFL items, all of the vendors at the Faire do have RFL vendors out with wonderful things that you can buy to benefit the American Cancer Society.