Otherworldly

The countryside inn is rustic but reasonably clean, with a more pleasant odour than its city cousins. Even so, the woman in fine linen of bright colours and with her hennaed hair elaborately dressed looks out of place. A high class meretrix, perhaps, meeting with a man where neither of them will be known?

The Civitas series of buildings and decor from Del-ka Aedilis are fantastic for creating Roman or Romanesque locations, whether just for photos or for roleplay. For these photos I have used the Tavern and the Stable, plus the Tavern Table and various decor pieces from the Culina series to fill out the first floor of the tavern further. There’s also a second floor with rooms for travellers wishing to stay. The Stable can accommodate two horses in stalls and a couple tied outside. The build includes three horse props but if you want to use your own horses you could unlink and remove these.

The dress is from the Dreaming Thicket and the hair from F&M Oblivion. It is actually a Game of Thrones-inspired hairstyle but looks remarkably close to some Roman styles; I had never really reflected over the fact that some of the styles featured in GoT drew inspiration from what a Roman woman might wear. But given their (odd) decision to make King’s Landing Mediterranean, I suppose it fits.

Night has fallen over the desert. By the fruit trees and date palms of the oasis, a large, striped tent has been erected. There’s no sign of activity outside of the tent, but inside someone waits…

The sand storm delayed her and left few tracks to be followed, but eventually she found the site of the battle. But she was too late.

Be My Mannequin? is a pose store that I discovered quite recently and then was fortunate enough to get accepted as a blogger for. They offer single, couple and group poses of the “storytelling” variety, meaning they are great for building a scene around. That suits me perfectly, since I rarely have much of a need for straight-up modelling poses but instead want to show a moment from a story.

This particular pose included two variants for different shapes and I found that even though mine and Ran’s shapes tend to differ a bit from the SL average, the fit of the alternate version was very good. I also wanted to show how different a single pose can look depending on the angle, so I setup two similar shots from different angles.

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.

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.

You still have a few days to visit the current round of We Love Role-Play, where—among many other things—you can find the Evrim outfit from the Annex. I knew I wanted that one in gold as soon as I saw it (it also includes a sheer version, btw) but then Skin Fair came between me and setting up a desert scene for photoing it. When I finally did get around to it, I had picked up a couple of more things for the scene such as the beautiful lantern from the Dreaming Thicket and the ornate tack set by Cheval D’or.

I am loving the Autumn we’re having right now. Much less rain than usual (knock on wood, though it is sure to come) which really lets that crispness in the air which is both a scent and a feeling linger. The colours have been a little slow to come in, but now they are starting to get there. In Second Life, Autumn is definitely in full swing and with it all things Halloween. It is a pretty good substitute when I start feeling nostalgic about not having The Secret World to play anymore; Halloween was definitely the natural season for that game too.

With the help of Del-ka Aedilis, I’ve headed deep into the woods to mix up some potions. Perhaps you would like to come by for a visit?

The massive new release from Fanatik is now out (11 new products, plus two new group gifts), which prompted me to return to the showcase sim yet again, this time in the guise of a wanderer exploring the rugged landscape. The new landscaping items and the sim built with them are inspired by St. Kilda, a remote Scottish archipelago in the North Atlantic, so it is no wonder that it reminds me a lot of the coast of Northern Ireland where we went on a tour a few years back to visit various filming locations for Game of Thrones. To visit the sim, head over to Fanatik’s main store and click the teleporter right at the front of the store. That is also where you will find all the new products.

A brief, late-night post. This beautiful garden feature from Simply Shelby caught my eye among at Redeux, not the least because of the informative notecard which taught me what a medieval turf bench is! I love when people really research their creations and this is great example of when doing that also results in an unusual and very original piece of decor. The turf bench comes with and without the central tree, allowing for various usage options, and includes single poses for men and women as well as some couple poses.

We Love Role-Play opened its June round a few days ago and this is a good one that you will see more posts on from me. The first one is a quiet, contemplative scene with an evening walk among some moody ruins. The dress by Dreaming Thicket has a gypsy/boho feel which I love together with the gorgeous Delicate hair from Truth. I am also wearing the diadem and pendant from the Priye set by Adam n Eve.

I have blogged a few pieces from Del-ka Aedilis in the past and was recently invited to blog more of their buildings and decor items. Seeing as they align very well with my own interests, I was more than happy to agree! To introduce the brand properly on my blog, asked them to provide a short description of what they do and why:

“As passionate roleplayers we discovered the need of low-prim, well-built and nicely textured buildings, especially for Fantasy, Medieval and Ancient Greek or Roman settings.”

Today I am going to feature the Slave Quarters from their Civitas series. It is essentially a complete district from a Roman city, with apartments, a small slave auction, a brothel, a forge and some storage areas. This offers many different options for roleplay as well as many photo opportunities. Since I don’t have a Roman city built up on our sim, I paired the Slave Quarters with their Villa Iunia for a more complete scene. I have to say I love the attention to authentic details, such as the graffiti! In the last two photos, from inside the brothel, you also see the Whore’s Mattress which includes solo, couple and threesome animations.

The footprint of the Slave Quarters is 33 x 16 m and the total land impact with all decor is 136 (102 for just the buildings).

Today is the final day of Fantasy Faire for this year, the final hours before the Fairelands disappear into the mists once more. But, they always return, in one form or another. For my final post, I thought it was fitting to commemorate this by incorporating some items from previous Fantasy Faires together with some key pieces from this year.

It can hardly have passed anyone by that the biggest skin event of the SL year, the Skin Fair, opened on the 13th of March and will continue until the 29th. Right now the two sims are still pretty packed, but it has started easing up a tiny bit, at least when it isn’t peak hours. I’ve got a booth there myself this year, with four new Kanon shapes, though the one I am using in this post is actually not one of them. I had made mine to go with the three exclusive skins by Adam n Eve, and then sachi went and added a fourth just as the fair was about to open! So, I’ve made a shape for the Rafferty skin using LeLutka Erin, but I haven’t had time to package it yet.

The animals (that’d be our two dogs and our horse) have kept us very busy the last two weeks, so I am sadly having very little time for Second Life. But I have had this one photo I have wanted to do for a while and yesterday I finally managed to get the setup done.

It all came down to this lovely, rustic bridge from Dutchie (and no, there isn’t an adult version!) which I have been trying to blog for, well, months. The problem has been that I have been too lazy to re-landscape a section of the sim to incorporate a large enough river. In the end, I decided that the river that runs under this bridge used to be wider, but has narrowed over time. Then it worked perfectly with the riverbed from Fanatik.

Christmas is over and the last day of the year is approaching fast. I was laid low by another round of cold, barely two weeks after the last one, so the video showing off my presents to myself that I picked up on the 25th had to wait until today. I had been eyeing several new releases from Teegle and for the Teeglepets and finally decided it was time to treat myself. I picked up the new Clydesdale Teeglepet, a baroque tack set for the Friesian Teeglepet and a side-saddle animation set. In the video, I show how to add the tack set and how to install the animations. I also show off a lovely new gown from the Dreaming Thicket. For me, that is, not the horses. ;)