Fantasy Faire 2024 – Silevea

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL Events
A woman with long white hair gazes toward the right from the left edge of the picture. The rest of the frame is filled with brightly coloured underwater plants in purple, gold, yellow and green.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Silevea/121/144/66
Sponsor: Unity Maxim
Designers: Ravenstarr, Cube Republic, and ICA84

Shops

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  • Iceland
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  • Enfant Terrible
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  • Azul

I’m writing this while touring, taking pictures, and making notes in Last Stop. Multi-tasking again. Which in practice means that I’m spending a lot of time in Last Stop standing around looking like a idiot while I’m pecking away at WordPress in another window. Don’t see why my Second Life should be any simpler than my first.

While I nearly always use the Firestorm viewer, I did my exploration of Sievea in the standard Linden Lab viewer. During the LitFest Tour, one of the designers mentioned that a lot of Silevea was built using PBR, and that it looks quite different using a viewer that can properly render the new materials. I’m told that the current Firestorm beta will show PBR materials. I haven’t set that up yet while I always have a current copy of the LL viewer within reach. So, standard viewer it is… if I can remember where all the controls are.

A troll, with fungus growing out of his back, hides behind the stalk of a tree sized mushroom as a woman with long white hair and wearing a black belly dancing outfit cautiously approaches him from the left. In the foreground, tall grass height glowing tendrils of other fungi rise up. At the left, behind the woman, a path goes off into the distance. It is bordered with softly glowing blue flowers. Other tree sized mushrooms of various varieties can be seen in the distance.

Entering from Fairelands Junction, I walk immediately into a giant fungal landscape. The mushrooms and other fungi glow. Faery lights dance around the path and a troll lurks to seize unwary visitors. Or maybe not. He moves to stay “hidden” behind the mushroom stem as I approach him. He’s quite shy actually.

Besides the troll, all about, particularly near the water, sylvan fae can be found. These are the guardians of the mushrooms and the water. See how many you can spot and if you can figure out what they’re up to!

Taking the turning for the Fairechylde just on the left as you walk in. Shortly I come to a quiet little glade where there’s a small alter of remembrance. Here you can write a message to your loved one and send it to the stars. This is the Sprit Bowl, “The Spirit Bowl is a mystical artifact, revered for its ability to bridge the realms of the living and the departed.”

Continuing up the Eldriven Ridge will provide some great views of Silevea and eventually take you to the Fairechylde, the traditional Fantasy Faire live music and party boat. This year it flies over Silevea looking down on the central lake.

Under a dark blue, cloud filled sky, a Tudor style building of several stories, with steep gabled roofs, sits. There are lights on in some of its upper windows. In the foreground, ten foot tall mushrooms with brightly glowing coloured spots grow at the foot of a tall stone wall that fills the left edge of the frame. A path angles from the right foreground to the upper-right. It is bordered by pale green glowing flowers and smaller fungi.

A little further along the main path, the shops begin on the right, while on the left is dark lake lies. Huge frogs watch over it as do much smaller fae.

As the path turns to the flagship shops, the environment becomes a bit more urban. They’re housed in combination stone castle/stockbroker Tudor fashioned buildings. This is where we can see most clearly the dual nature of this region. It is both a sylvan glade and a human town. However, this is not a contradiction or a conflict. “Despite their intrinsic bond with the wild, the Sylvan Spore Fae share a
harmonious relationship with the inhabitants of Silevea.”

A woman with long white hair wearing a black belly dancer's outfit sits thoughtfully in a glade of tall twisted trees and softly glowing mushrooms several feet high. Faery lights of various hues drift about her.

Before leaving, take the turning on the left as you near the exit to Plankbarrow Harbor. This will take you into the Glen of Whispering Woods. This is a marvelous little glade where you can stop for a while and ponder whatever needs pondering. (I seem to do that a lot.)

This is a great place to take a moment and read through the page from the book of Silevea Lore you picked up at the main landing spot. (You did click on the book, didn’t you? 😉)

The creation story is the heart of this region’s lore. “Legend has it that when the world was young, the Great Mother, a deity of nature herself, breathed life into the heart of Silevea. With her breath, she created the Sylvan Spore Fae, tasking them with the guardianship of the fungi kingdom and the protection of the waters that give life to their world.”

So, I’ll come back and sit here from time to time and give some thought to the Fae, and their charge of protecting the nature of Silevea.

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