Fantasy Faire 2024 – Whispering Pages

On By altathiemenIn Second Life, SL Events
A woman with long white hair tied in pigtails and wearing a long black skirt with a bikini top sits looking at a partly open wooden chest. The chest is filled with books and scrolls. Stone walls form the background to the right and behind. Grass grows around where the woman is sitting.

SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Whispering%20Pages/128/128/98
Sponsor: Sweet Revolutions & Telperion Designs
Designer: Mondi Beaumont & Sweetgwendoline Bailey

Shops

  • Cygnet’s Dreams
  • Collect Decor
  • Rainy Fey Creations
  • Xtal Store
  • John Dee’s Emporium
  • Global Nomads
  • Unique Obsession
  • Garden of Hedone
  • Enchanted Fantasy
  • Mindgardens
  • Sweet Revolutions
  • Dabble
  • Dark Intentions
  • K9NNOR
  • Torgon’s
  • Audition
  • Star Journey
  • Azeriz
  • Arkhive
  • Witch in a Box
  • Dreamscaped

Whispering Pages is a region that is impossible not to love; it’s practically made of books, literally. The landing point is on a gigantic opened book. Off to one side is a huge tree with pages for foliage. Some of the buildings are giant standing books. Even the ground and rocks are often covered in text. The very path down from the landing area is made of shimmering pages.

As you walk through the comfy, woodsy feeling build, you’ll see various critters reading books. Books growing from the ground. They appear almost like blossoms at the top of tall stalks.

A green forest stretches out from the viewer. The view is level with the tree tops. A giant book floats in the middle of the view above the trees. It is opened at about the middle. A green roofed pavilion sits on the opened book. In the foreground, beneath the trees, a couple of low buildings with turf roofs can be seen. Tall tree grow from their roofs.

This is a shopping region and following the main path will take you to a number of excellent merchants’ places of business. However, there’s much more to this region. Sneak past the shops into the central depression and you’ll find a memorial garden, a field of poppies, and a ruined church (full of books, naturally).

I believe the designers’ intent was to create a space that, like a good book, is fun to be in, but different every time you return to it, with surprises you missed the last time.

A picture from inside a ruined church. In the foreground an a orrery ticks away inside a brass railing on a gray-brown stone plinth. The pedestal is decorated with diagrams of constellations. Off to the left, a woman is sitting on the ground with a small child in her lap. She is reading from a book. Above them hangs a lap that looks like it glows by magic. It is suspended from a downward curving branch of a small tree growing next to them.

This place is also great for inspiring stories. I’m always happening on little scenes that just ask to be filled out with a tale of some kind. Why is this here? What are those two doing over there? How did they get here and where will they go when they’re finished? What happened to the ruined building? Who is continuing to use it and why?

A dragon with glowing blue eyes and a flame burning above its head sits by a tree that is growing out of a stone circle. The dragon is sitting on hoard of piled books. To the right, a grove of young trees sits. In the distant background the ocean can be seen.

Climbing out of the memorial garden area, you can find a wide seating area in another library. This collection is watched over by a dragon, who sits on its own hoard of books. (I heard it being pointed out that a fire breathing creature is an odd choice for a guardian of books. Maybe he has really good aim!)

I think keeping books from this library past their due date is… unwise.

Leave a comment