Otherworldly

Opera is this year’s grand vision from Alia Baroque, a place of “baroque decadence, whispering curtains, bucolic debauchery”.  So, when I dressed up in a dramatic ensemble combining pieces from Petrichor, Find the Fish and Seydr, it was to Opera I went for a background to fit the mood.

Petrichor released a huge amount of different items for the Faire and here I am using both the Arvylinde dress and the Kyrkonen Veil. The latter kind of makes me think of the Vorlons of Babylon 5 and I love how it, together with the tattoo and the halo from Find the Fish, give a very priestess-like quality to my avatar. Adding an extra touch of magic are the Flayre Eye FX from Seydr, a kind of animated “eyeliner” that curls like smoke under your eyes. Beautiful effect.

The mists are parting and the Fairelands are almost with us again…. From the Press Release:

“Celebrating its fifteenth year, Fantasy Faire 2023 is the largest gathering of fantasy designers, enthusiasts, roleplayers and performers in the virtual world. From Thursday, April 20 to Sunday May 7, treat yourself to shopping, dance and theater performances, DJ parties, auctions, questing, our Literary Festival, fantasy art, events and roleplaying as thousands of Second Life residents and creators bring their own visions together to support the American Cancer Society’s vision of a world without cancer.”

I will be bringing you as many photos and videos from the Fantasy Faire as I can manage to squeeze in and I am starting with a little sneak peek featuring Petrichor, KMH and Dreadfully Dark. A spell is being cast to summon the Fairelands back to us.

The April round of We Love Role-Play opens today and you can whet your appetite with the Shopping Guide as well as with the blog posts that are starting to crop up. Such as this one!

For this post, I am mixing up the releases from lassitude & ennui, Moth & Moon and Misteria, the result being a fae who rides in the Wild Hunt, here on the prowl on her on with her black steed. The soft green skin from Moth & Moon blends nicely with the Dryad gloves from Misteria (BOM layers and appliers included), and the Wild Hunt shoulder piece from lassitude & ennui adds a touch of menace. This is not a fae you want to meet in the woods on the wrong night.

I am also using a new release that isn’t from WLRP but which deserves a special mention because I find it so neat. RVN Store is a new-to-me store which I came across at the Level event and they have several different add-on deformers for mesh heads. Now, I have seen deformers for mesh bodies before, which allow you to achieve shape variations that the sliders can’t do. But with such body alterations you run the risk of clothing not fitting, so I haven’t found them that interesting. But face deformers? I had not seen those before and I am excited. The set that I am using pieces from here is called Chic Cheeks and it alters your upper and lower cheekbones. Perfect if you like sharper cheekbones. I am also really intrigued by their nose deformers since I am a sucker for strong noses, so I may have to give those a try too.

How fortunate that I sent Ran to shop the Salt & Pepper retirement sale, because a few days later it turned out that a naughty priest was just what I needed for the couple pose “the Noose” from Be My Mannequin.  Clearly, the temptation of the beautiful concubine was too much for this man of the cloth. 

I am wearing the very revealing Keraves dress from Petrichor & Ersch, a one-piece outfit with plenty of texture options for the fabric and the gems. Here I went with gold and red to match the utterly stunning Theodora Circlet from Old Treasures. That has to be my new favourite piece of jewellery in SL. And it fits very well with the beautiful new Morgana hair from Magika, a must-have style.

A pinch of magic, a pinch of engineering. That’s what you get when you mix the Potion Crafter’s Cauldron from Contraption with the outfit from Petrichor & Ersch for the Engine Room. 

The cauldron is a fun scripted prop which includes a few animations (the second image shows one of them, the others use poses from chanimations) and options for the look of the cauldron and whether it is setup to boil or not. The potion bottles it hands out also have a few scripted special effects for either throwing the bottle or drinking it.

The Verayne outfit consists of several items with HUDs for further customisation of both textures and what pieces are shown. The belt, for example, comes with several different attachments that can be shown or hidden.  The earrings are not part of the set, I picked them up at Dark Mouse at one of the weekend sales. Very pretty and fits both modern and fantasy looks. And the pretty lace gloves are from lassitude & ennui for Chronicles & Legends.

Finally, the braided hairstyle is from Wasabi and comes with an optional shamrock accessory.

Mixing it up with a bit of We Love Role-Play and a bit of Skin Fair. The impressive horns by Vae Victis and the altar by the Eschaton belong to the former and create a nice Sword & Sorcery feel for the scene.  The horns can be extensively customized, here I am not showing the drape or the pendulum accessories.  The altar set also includes a dais that isn’t visible in this closer shot.

From Skin Fair comes the beautiful skin from Petrichor. Amatheia Summer, here in the Korianal version, includes both a full skin and a tattoo overlay to use with other skins. It also has options for either a regular BOM face or an EvoX face, something which I very much appreciate given that I still have some non-EvoX heads that I like to use. That said, this is the EvoX face and it is very pretty! The skin includes a female as well as a male version.

I featured the Prima body a while back, but for Skin Fair it has been updated to 1.2 and if you already had the Elite version that means you get the two new breast shapes for free if you redeliver.

Finally, we have a sleek new hairstyle from Wasabi for Access, with four different style options to how it frames the face.

The latest outfit from Petrichor and Ersch seemed like a good excuse for some pinup-inspired photography using my old collection of Boudoir Rouge poses.  The Zelai dress is made up of two halves joined by straps, though it is more open than not! There is a regular and a scaled version and several HUDs with different fabric types and patterns.  You’ll find Zelai at the current round of Kinky Monthly.

We Love Role-Play has opened its February round. The sim has changed from Riverhunt to We Love RolePlay, so make sure to use the new address!

Del-ka Aedilis has released the At the Lupanar - Chelidonis set, centered around a large daybed with additional accessories in the form of a paravent, a sidetable, an oil lamp, a set of flacons, a washbowl and an amphora. It is a set designed for a Roman brothel, also called a “Lupanar”. The animations in the daybed are selected for this purpose and feature one menu of single poses and the rest are either for couples or threesomes. 

I decided to set it up in one of the Roman houses released by Fanatik a while back, imagining it as the “front parlour” of the brothel, with an upstairs available as well. Not historically accurate, but then neither is what I am wearing. ;) But for a fantasy take on a Romanesque setting, this Petrichor & Ersch collaboration makes for a pretty fetching outfit for our “Lupa”. I did forego some parts of it, which was easy because it comes with a HUD that allows you to full control over what to hide and show. Very handy!

I love the combination of the revealing gown (which can be switched between long and short with the HUD) and the mask for hiding your face in this collaboration between Petrichor and Ersch for Midnight Order. Wear just the gown and the shoes (and alright, maybe a panty) and you are set for a glamorous evening. Add on the mask and you’re going to the meeting of a secret society. Finally, wear the various floating crystals and you look like a seductive enchantress. The various HUD packs also allow for varying your look and affecting the chosen textures with your choice of materials. With seven supported body options, the odds are good that the outfit will work for you.

The tied-off pigtails style is from Wasab for Uber and comes with the option of a whole collection of little hair ornaments. These can be turned on and off in batches and coloured per batch. The style also includes optional bangs and options for having the pigtails over your shoulder or brushed back.

I don’t apply for a lot of blogger positions any longer, things are busy enough as it is, but I did send in for Petrichor’s latest blogger search since I do like blogging intricate fantasy outfits and jewellery. So this is my first post, featuring the Zarys outfit. This is a release from a little while back that was created in collaboration with Ersch and consists of a dress, optional sleeves (one or both arms) and panties with leg chains as well as some spiky armor pieces (not shown). There are several different packs available with different texturing huds for the fabrics as well as the metals. The opacity of the dress can also be altered via the huds. Sizes included are eBody, Kupra, Legacy, Legacy Perky, Lara, Lara Petite and Mounds.

The hair is Wasabi’s New Year’s Edition of Mystique and the skin is LeLapeau’s Elsa with body skin by Velour. I am stepping out of Fanatik’s Stalker Castle and using a pose by Serendipity.

They were not ready for what answered them…

F&M Oblivion has two cool fantasy hair styles at the Hair Fair with this one, called Selene, being the most spectacular. As it reminded me of horns as well as the curve of the moon, something magical seemed an obvious choice. Fortunately, I had just won a Discord giveaway from Petrichor for the very cool Kelstreia outfit (which consists of many more pieces than what I am showing) and I think it goes really well with the hair to sell the idea of perhaps a succubi or other demonic creature having been summoned. The summoning circle is from Roawenwood and includes animations both for a central figure and for people praying and summoning in the outer circle. Placing it deep within the cave system from Fanatik added an underworldly touch to the proceedings.

Maxwell Graf, the creator behind Rustica, has been on a longer hiatus from creating in Second Life. But yesterday he dipped his toes back in with the release of a versatile mesh fire, intended as a high-quality replacement fire for fire places, torches etc. Of course, since it is fully modifiable, I decided to do something rather different with it and created a demonic landscape with black crystals and fire. The fire can be turned on and off with a click and you can also edit the way the three different meshes that make it up fit together by editing linked parts.

The pose is Dark Matter by Be My Mannequin? and it is perfect for showing off the striking Draugr skin by Fallen Gods, here with the addition of the Orthae tattoo in silver. The hair is by Mythril and it allows you to set various specular maps; here I went for one with a fiery effect to match the surroundings.

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.

La vie en pose has opened its anniversary round and I am going to share two more items from the event. From Spyralle comes another set of Pinnacles, meant to set you off against fantastic Windlight/EEP skies. In this set we have the Colonnade (seen here), Column and Monument. These sets are great for fantasy photos but also model photos as long as you are able to rez them somewhere up in the sky. The poses used are from Diversion and while this set is actually for teasing a partially removed bikini, I liked the attitude of them so much that I couldn’t resist using them with a fantasy staff instead.

It is too bloody hot so my brain has melted (apart from the part worrying about global warming, which always works just fine) and this will be rather brief. I am having cravings for a swim again and as a result I keep doing beach/ocean photos in Second Life. This time I am out on a cute raft by Nomad for Fifty Linden Friday, lounging around in a gift skin from the Plastik/Petrichor for SL17B and a mermaid bikini from Aleutia, plus the latest hair style from Wasabi.