Location: Doing Geomancy
"So I can move your island," Jokay Wollongong began.
"No, let it stay as-is," I replied.
It's not as though I dislike the idea of a giant Tesla coil visible from my land. Not at all. At the same time, that's not very 1847. It also blunts the immersion I want on this space.
So I decided, from right behind the Usher family cemetery Poe briefly mentions in his tale, to raise some mountains. The Mountains of Nevermore: sounds like a lost Yes recording from 1972.
The OpenSim terrain-edit tools, just like those in Second Life, remind me of the good old days in Sim City 2000, right down to the bulldozer icon. They lack subtlety at the strongest settings, hurling needles into the sky much like a Lovecraftian landscape where mad gods flop about to the discordant music of eldritch flutes held in nameless paws.
There. I got to use "eldritch" for the first time since college, when in my D&D game we had an artifact called "The Eldritch Cleaver." My snark has a long history...
So to make the island of Nevermore more immersive and interesting, I massaged the land ever upward, then put a line of dark pines into the passes between the hills and at the shore's edge. Soon the sparkling coil could not be seen, even by an avatar who wanders into the water at the shoreline. When I'm done, there may be NO shoreline beyond a few rocky inlets. I want that Poesque feeling of claustrophobia and depression to haunt my visitors. I've enough prims to make things difficult for them by providing no long vistas of the space.
With luck, I'll hide some clues on those eldritch slopes for my fall class that will use Nevermore.
3 comments:
"much like a Lovecraftian setting where mad gods flop about to the discordant music of eldritch flutes held in nameless paws."
This part had me riveted to my seat, cowering under my Safety Blankie and hoping my hastily-assembled collection of candles, holy water and various arcane and eldrich substances would be enough to fend off the horrible advances of the dread Nylarlathotep...
I am actually not a fan of Poe's poetry, and Usher began as a joint project with a colleague who is no longer at our university and who loves Poe. I do like Poe's fiction, and the SL content was done, so I stuck with Poe.
But Miso, I'd have done an HPL themed literary experience in half a second. Perhaps based on Miskatonic University...
Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.
But I don't think a Lovecraft experience would work in a PG grid.
In his house in R'lyeth dead Cthulhu waits and dreams.
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