When Free is not good for Business, but it could be..Linden Lab’s new Genesis Welcome Regions

There is no Teleport link to the Regions in this post, for reasons that will become obvious if you read on.

For the last few years, the mesh head store Lelutka, has released a free head around Christmas time. When they do this they acquire a few extra private regions from Linden Lab, to cope with the traffic load. Thousands of avatars old and new, descend on these islands to claim these freebies, because the average price for a Lelutka mesh head is 5000L$.

So what do you think happens when news of free Lelutka heads on a single,  unfinished welcome area region leaks?

I heard about this on Wednesday 4th, went and took some pictures and left. At that point there was one mentor and two new avatars present. Come Friday 6th the builder was sharing info on social media and the place was inundated, in the same way the Lelutka islands are at Christmas. I deliberately didn’t repost or share the information because I knew what effect “Free Lelutka head” would have on the place, and I like to think I’m a bit more responsible than some people evidently.

This place is intended specifically for NEW residents to Second Life. It has heads and bodies from all the major brands and whole collections of outfits and  accessories for new residents, 120 days old or younger. It has information about avatar customisation that has previously been lacking at arrival locations.

Imagine you’re a new Resident landing in a welcome area that’s packed with clouds, unloaded avatars, everywhere, it would be beyond overwhelming. The worse scenario is the new Resident is teleported there and gets an error message “Region Full”. Which I believe is what was happening on Saturday 7th, everyone going to grab a free head. Each one of those people was a space on the region that could have been a new Resident.

On Saturday 7th (14.05 GMT/06.05 SLT) Lelutka made announcement in their Discord server and social media channels that summarizes it a bit better:

It’s lovely to see so much joy around Otta and Otto. Thank you for all your kind words. Since the same questions keep coming up, here’s everything in one place.

What is it?
Otta and Otto are part of Second Life’s new Genesis welcome regions, a place made for new residents taking their very first steps in Second Life. It’s still in a quiet soft launch, which is why there’s no official announcement yet.

Is it an event? Will it end?
No. It isn’t an event and there’s no deadline. The regions and the heads are there to stay, so there’s no need to rush.

So why does it matter how we visit?
Because right now the regions are so full that the people they were built for, brand new residents, often can’t get in. Their first hour in Second Life decides whether they stay, and every one of us, depends on new people falling in love with this world the way we once did.

If the regions stay overcrowded, Linden Lab may have no choice but to limit them to new accounts only. Let’s not make that necessary.

How you can help
• If you’re not new to Second Life, please give the regions some space for now and leave them to the newcomers they were made for.
• If you really can’t resist, pick up your gift and head off again straight away, so there’s room for someone new.
• Please don’t share the location around until it officially launches.
• If you meet someone new, say hello and help them find their feet. That’s the best gift any of us can give.

There’s plenty more coming this holiday season, and none of it is replaced by this.

Thank you for being such a wonderful community.

When the panic fades in a week or so, then what? Well maybe the place might actually be finished and suitable for new residents, since other islands seem to be getting added already, but are currently inaccessible.

How will this new welcome hub be good for business going forward? Well as I mentioned those bodies and heads from the major creators, that’s what the new folks will see first and assume there aren’t free options, like the Legacy Special Edition already in the Welcome Pack folder in their Inventory. This means that new Residents probably end up adding payment information to their account, sooner than they might otherwise have done.

Herb & Fable: The Wayfarers Quest and Communal Planting Beds

If you played the Willowton Cuthbert & Canny Valley Quest at Fantasy Faire this year (to the end) you’ll have interacted with a Yew tree, contributing water to it along with other players. This was a test prototype of what would become Communal planting beds.

The Yew Tree fom the Willowton Cuthbert Quest 2026. Image courtesy of Softpaw, fellow Fantasy Faire blogger.
The Yew Heart, used to receive offerings to the Tree, as we now contribute to Communal Beds. Photo by Dark Bloodstome.

Communal planting beds work in the same way as the tree did, except some players must contribute seeds and not just water. When the bed has had enough seeds and water contributed, the plant will grow, then when it is harvested everyone that contributed something, will receive the grown product.

Obviously since the beds are producing more at harvest, the number of seeds and water are much higher than regular planting beds.

Image from Gyazo

So far Julala has only released Communal versions of the Pumpkin, Plantain, Poppy and Marigold beds, all the other beds will be added in due course.

Below you can see that hovertext on the beds shows how many of each ingredient is still required for the plant to grow.

Image from Gyazo

When a plant has grown and been harvested, you will usually get a message such as:

The object 'HnF_poppy_cobed' has sent you a message from Second Life:
🌿 The communal HnF_poppy_seed_head you helped grow in Bee Leaf has been harvested! Your reward is on its way.

You must then rez your HnF Mailbox from the Welcome Pack and click it to receive your items. If you’ve contributed to multiple beds, you may well have multiple pending items:

[04:47:24] HnF User Mailbox (m): Checking for pending items...
[04:47:24] HnF User Mailbox (m): Processing item: HnF_seedhead_plantain
[04:47:30] Second Life: HnF_plants-1 owned by Julala Fairelander gave you 'HnF_seedhead_plantain' ( Jinx (159,46,2457) ).
[04:47:45] HnF User Mailbox (m): Wait, while I check if there are any more pending items....
[04:47:45] HnF User Mailbox (m): Processing item: HnF_poppy_flowers
[04:47:49] Second Life: HnF_plants-1 owned by Julala Fairelander gave you 'HnF_poppy_flowers' ( Jinx (159,46,2457) ).
[04:48:06] HnF User Mailbox (m): Wait, while I check if there are any more pending items....
[04:48:06] HnF User Mailbox (m): Processing item: HnF_poppy_seed_head
[04:48:12] Second Life: HnF_plants-1 owned by Julala Fairelander gave you 'HnF_poppy_seed_head' ( Jinx (159,46,2457) ).
[04:48:26] HnF User Mailbox (m): Wait, while I check if there are any more pending items....
[04:48:26] HnF User Mailbox (m): All pending items processed.

This is all very well you may think,  but how do I find all these communal beds to contribute to?

Introducing the Wayfarers Quest!

Image from Gyazo

The Wayfarers Quest is a new traveling quest from Herb & Fable that links locations that have communal planting beds and possibly other H&F resources.

Image from Gyazo

The Wayfaring HUD, free from the Mainstore.

Image from Gyazo

Clicking the Explore button brings up a menu that lets you find available Waystone locations using various criteria.

Image from Gyazo

The current list shown when you choose “Newest” from the Explore menu.

Setting up a Waystone

Image from Gyazo

Central to the Wayfaring quest is the Waystone, each player can have a maximum of 5 Waystones which must be on different land parcels and have at least one communal planting bed.

Image from Gyazo

Click your Waystone to start the process of registering your location in the Wayfaring Directory.

Image from Gyazo

The Landing Point you set doesn’t have to be close to the Waystone, you can rez (hide?) the stone wherever you want then wander off to where you want people to arrive then click the button. So long as it’s within the same land parcel. If you have Teleport routing on your parcel, you may want to adjust it accordingly or turn it off.

Image from GyazoConfigure your Waystone listing

Image from Gyazo

Save it..

Image from Gyazo

Then Publish it so people can start visiting your place.

Communal Beds are available in the Plants & Seeds store, the Wayfaring HUD and Waystone in the Main store.

Herb & Fable Stores:

Herb & Fable links:

Exploring Oulbury – The New Postie

I’ve explored quite a few weird and spooky places over the years, but this place really is creepy in the best way. Oulbury is spread over three regions and there’s lots more to see than I’ve shown you here.

Ava approaches the ferryman and smiles warmly “Hello, is this the right dock for the Oulbury ferry?”

[09:02:40] Lestero: adjusts his cap and gives you a long, quiet look before extending one hand.

"Ticket."

studies it for a moment, then glances toward the fog gathering over the water.

"Hm."

stamps the corner of the paper and hands it back.

"You're expected. Ferry's waiting. Mind your step."

steps aside and motions toward the O Ferry rocking gently at the dock.

[09:03:32] : The ferry pulls away from the dock...Beyond the fog, Oulbury waits.

Ava steps off the boat onto the fog shrouded dock, she turns to ask the ferryman “is it always this foggy?” but there’s no one there, the captain has gone below decks and bolted the hatch until it’s time to leave in the evening.

Weird, she thinks but heads out of the ferry terminal building and glances at the letter with directions on:

Turn left off the ferry, turn right to the Harbour Masters office, then right again along the road to the Post Office.

She passes an apparently redundant security checkpoint and finds the Harbour Masters Office. It’s quite obvious no-one has manned this post either for some time, seeing only empty drink bottles and a broken vending machine of snacks in the small shack.

Her directions say right again, but she sees a doctors office across the street and goes to investigate. If she’s to be staying for a while, it’s good to know where essential services are located. She stops half way, sees the state of a possible patient outside and turns back, muttering to herself “I really hope I don’t need to go there.”

Resuming her journey she sees a noticeboard and glances at it, the papers inside are yellowing and the ink is faded, yet the information is recently dated. Very odd.

Just as the directions said, the Post Office isn’t far along the street.

She takes a look around as she enters, everything seems to be covered in a layer of dust, apart from the letters in the sorting boxes. Approaching the old lady in the corner,  presumably the Post Mistress, she extends her hand to shake and says with a smile “Hi, I’m Ava, your new postie from the mainland”. The old woman looks up from her book ignoring the outstretched hand and replies; “There’s quite a backlog, you better get started, you don’t want to be out there come nightfall. I’ve bagged up the oldest to go first and a map, on the counter”.

Ava heads for the door taking the bag and pauses,she turns back to the woman, “Wait, there’s meant to be accommodation with the job, can I see that?” The lady had gone back to reading her book and replies without looking up “I’ll show you if you get back.” Ava steps out, then realises what the old lady had said as the door closes…”If?”

Glancing at the sky she tries to guage the time, since her watch had seemed to have stopped, it should only be mid morning but with the perpetual Fog it feels like early evening. Taking out the map she looks about to try and get her bearings,  since her usually reliable compasses needle was spinning, she heads in what she hopes is the right direction for her first delivery in Oulbury.

She finds that the properties in Oulbury are very varied and rather quirky, if not rather creepy in some cases:

Having delivered almost all the letters, she stands on the beach looking across the water to the lighthouse shrouded in mist then looks at the last envelope,  addressed to “The Lighthouse, Oulbury”.

“Screw that” she says to no-one in particular and heads back to the Post Office. The old lady had said not to be outside after nightfall and there was no way she’d be able to get there and back in time, if she could even find a boat. “I’ll go in the morning” she says as she trudges back, wondering where she’ll be sleeping that night.

The Post Mistress was rather surprised to see her return. “So where am I sleeping tonight?” Ava asks. The old woman quickly recovers her composure and replies “Ah..well..you see..I didn’t think you’d make it back, so the rooms not ready.” Ava glares at her “you’re kidding me”. The old lady shakes her head “I’m afraid not dear, but I’ll give you some directions to somewhere you can spend tonight.

Turn left out the door, walk along as far as the old wooden Church on your left and turn right onto Old Salem Road, then right onto Reynolds Lane. You’ll see a green light to the right. They’ll put you up for the night until we sort out the usual room.”

Ava follows the directions until she finds the green light and swears “That sneaky old buzzard..” she mutters as she finds herself outside a rather dubious looking establishment by the name of Green Trees. Descending the stairs she approaches the counter and explains to the young woman behind the counter why she’s there.

“Oh, yeah, the post office pay for the room upstairs for the posties, since it’s the cheapest rent in town. Unfortunately the last one just vanished one day, so they stopped paying the rent and we cleared the place out. If you’re needing somewhere to sleep tonight, pick a couch and we’ll get the room ready for you for tomorrow night if you’re sticking around. I’ll be locking up shortly so you’ll have the place to yourself.”

Ava flops down onto the couch furthest from the entrance looking round at the cluttered basement thinking “what a dive” and tries to make herself comfortable for the night.

The next day she manages to convince someone to ferry her across to the Lighthouse. The mist and fog are even thicker near the lighthouse, it’s almost like it’s following her. As she ascends the steps from the dock there are strange noises coming out of the fog, the light swings.

10:23:00] .: As Ava Bloodrose gets closer the building, the lighthouse turns once.

Not toward the sea.
Toward them.

 .: The lantern glass clouds from the inside.For a moment, it reflects water where there should be sky.

 .: Twenty figures stand beneath the surface.

Nineteen look away.
One looks back.

 .: The light does not sweep across the harbor.It searches.
 .: Something beneath the lantern mechanism clicks open.
 .: The light did not save the lost.

It taught one of them how to return.

 .: The light does not warn the living.

It remembers the lost.

“What the??” Ava takes the last few steps to the lighthouse in a hurry, shoves the letter under the metal door and dashes, as quickly as she dare without slipping, back to the boat.

I’ve explored quite a few weird and spooky places over the years, but this place really is creepy. I love it. Oulbury is spread over three regions and there’s lots more to see than I’ve shown you here.

Outfit Credits:

  • Clothing: Hotdog – Lighthouse Keeper’s outfit . Striped – Hotdog Mainstore
  • Boots: Addams // Zoe Combat Platform Short Boots // – Addams Store
  • Cap: Jazabelle – Imperial Party Trooper Cap – Jazabelle Store
  • Hair: TRUTH VIP Bliss – TRUTH Store (Group Gift)
  • Gloves: R.E. Corvus Gloves & Rings 1.1 – RealEvil Store
  • Belt: UNA. ScribeBelt No Rig Black – UNA
  • Necklace: L/Fx Animated Potion Necklace – Electricity 4.6 (Which inadvertently made a rather spooky face light) – Couldn’t find at Lantian/Flox Mainstore possibly no longer available.
  • Lipstick: +KP+ Slick Lips // Lel Evo X 1 – Knife Party
  • Eyeshadow: +KP+ Mystiq // Eye Makeup // LeL Evo X // 6 – Knife Party

Get Familiar with Herb & Fable – We have Pets!

Herb & Fable now has Familiars!

This means any Witch’s black cat or crow, a Wizards frog (or animated trunk on legs) can be an interactive Familiar in the game. In practical terms of Second Life, any pet or object that has the Modify permission can be used as a Herb & Fable Familiar.

Start by collecting the Familiar pack and free Provisions pack from the Dog & Pony event, make sure you have both items or you won’t be able to do much with your pet.

Once you’ve unpacked your items, Rez the Familiar object (it’s a white cube) next to the pet you want to use as a Familiar. The first thing you must do is rename it.

Image from Gyazo

A dialog box will have popped up asking if you want to register a New familiar or transfer the properties of an Existing familiar to a different pet. Don’t press either button until you have renamed the cube.

Image from Gyazo

If you don’t rename the cube and rush ahead to linking it to your pet or put a space in the name, (like I did) you’ll get this error:

[10:26:08] Death Hand: This object's name is invalid. Rename it using 1-20 letters and numbers only, then try again.

Image from Gyazo

Once you’ve renamed the cube correctly you can then link it to your pet. If you’re not still in Edit mode, right-click the cube and choose Edit, link it by holding down Shift on your keyboard and clicking your pet, click the Link button that will have become active on the building tools window and that’s it. Close the window and the  white cube will become invisible, leaving just your new Familiar.

My chosen familiar looks a bit weird here upside down,  but that’s because it’s oriented to be attached to my hand. If your chosen pet is a wearable companion and is at a weird angle when you rez it, DON’T change it’s orientation because when you take it back into your inventory and attach it as usual,  it’ll be round the wrong way.

When you select New from the Familiars dialog box it will talk to the Herb & Fable server and come back with the following success message:

[10:28:16] DeathHand: NEW FAMILIAR REGISTERED!
name:DeathHand
prana:100
hunger:75
thirst:75
wellness:75
happiness:75
connection:100
conscious:1

Congratulations on creating your new familiar! Have a go at interacting with it - feeding, giving a drink of water, playing with or grooming it. Your Familiar will communicate with you naturally when it feels ready.

You now have a Familiar, but what can you do with it?

In the Provisions folder you’ll find a grooming brush, a play ball and a bucket of water. First I tried grooming my new Familiar

Image from Gyazo

10:45:07] DeathHand: I love this attention - it feels so good! Thank you!
[10:45:08] DeathHand: There is a steady light in you; I think sometimes you forget to see it.
[10:45:08] DeathHand: You have earned 1cxp, total: 147cxp
[10:45:08] DeathHand: Congratulations! You registered a new badge!
[10:45:08] HnF Meter - add me: 💚 prana heal +10% 💎 emowb heal +20% ☯ spirituality heal +5% 💧 essense heal +10% 💤 vitality dmg -10% 💊 wellness heal +20% 😊 happiness heal +20%

Notice that while most of my stats increased, I lost 10% vitality due to the effort of doing the grooming. I checked my Familiar stats using the included HUD and it’s Wellness and Happiness had both increased:

[10:46:59] Familiar Stat Check HUD:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current stats for DeathHand
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
prana:100
hunger:75
thirst:75
wellness:95
happiness:95
connection:100
Status: Conscious
mood:CONTENT

Next I tried giving it some water from the water bucket included in the Provisions pack. Make sure to choose Pet from the buckets menu, if you choose Eat, you will consume the water and not your Familiar.

Image from Gyazo

[11:02:39] DeathHand: Yeay, sustinance! Thank you!
[11:02:40] DeathHand: You stand in a rare brightness, my friend — do not diminish it.
[11:02:40] DeathHand: You have earned 1nxp, total: 31nxp

The familiars will communicate with you spontaneously, with messages based on their mood and average stats.

[11:04:38] DeathHand: I want to laugh, to leap, to scatter blessings at your feet like stardust.

[11:11:11] DeathHand: I am so happy that I am with you, my friend.  You are amazing! *leans in for a snuggle*

[11:11:17] BlackWolf: There is a steady light in you; I think sometimes you forget to see it.

I then tried to play with it, but it’d had enough by that time.

11:07:10] DeathHand: I think we've interacted a lot. One can have too much of a good thing.

A quick check of it’s stats showed why: 

[11:07:40] Familiar Stat 
Check HUD:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Current stats for DeathHand
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
prana:100
hunger:73
thirst:93
wellness:100
happiness:100
connection:100
Status: Conscious
mood:ELATED

Once a Familiar stats reach 80 or above you can’t interact with it further. Their stats drop gradually every 15 minutes.

You can find more precise details about how Familiars and their stats work, by going to the bottom of the FAQ page: https://www.herbandfable.com/faq/

Get your Familiar Pack at: Dog & Pony Show 2026 Teleport

Herb & Fable links:

Credits:

Ravenmere Redwoods

I discovered this place by seeing a photo posted on Primfeed of a windswept beach that looked rather beautiful, I just had to have a wander.

Arrival is at rather cute clifftop cafe, to be honest this little spot on it’s own is worth a visit. The view from the clifftop however lures you to explore further, both uphill and down. Wherever you go here, there are beautiful views and usually a seat of some kind to sit and admire it by yourself or with a friend.

Welcome to Ravenmere—a region inspired by the breathtaking Northern California coastline, where ancient redwoods meet the sea. Designed as a place of peace, exploration, and quiet reflection.

When you go Up into the trees..

When you go Down towards the sea..

When you’re half-way up

Random Stranger staring out to Sea

I’ve included here a number of my favourite views, but there’s plenty more to be found, so go check it out.

Arrival point: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Ravenmere/174/23/50

Outfit Credits:

Tales from Inverness – A beginning

Update: Sadly Tales of Inverness is now gone. As of 1st October it seems to be becoming a Sci-Fi location instead.

Tales of Inverness is a Scottish Highlands Roleplay region, set around the year 1780, which is around the time period of the first season of the (then) Amazon series, Outlander is set. I’m going to include some of the introduction notecard below:

Dearest ladies, gentlemen, lairds, and hopeful debutantes,

Welcome to the world of Tales of Inverness, where the glittering social ambitions of London’s Marriage Mart meets the rugged beauty and fierce loyalties of the Scottish Highlands.

Our story unfolds in the year 1780, amidst clan rivalries, noble intrigue, whispered scandals, grand balls, arranged marriages, secret romances, political tensions, and Highland traditions.

I heard about this place through a friend and being a fan of things Scottish, I had to go check it out.

Click The poster for SIM Info

The arrival point is in a skybox providing a bit of information about the place and interestingly has three exit points.

One is clearly labelled as such and walking through it will teleport you to the main street. The second exit is less obvious but more fun in my opinion, but you’d need to have seen Outlander to find it; it’s in the stone circle off to one side. Walking into the large vertical stone will teleport you to similar stone circle on the ground, a short distance from the town. The third exit is through a tree stump archway that takes you to a fairy ring on the edge of town.

Stone Circle Exit
Fairy Ring Exit
Stone Circle Arrival
Fairy Ring Arrival

You will find all the usual buildings you’d expect in the town; a church, courthouses, bakery, various shops, the Tavern and town houses.

Courthouse
Church
Inside Church
Something weird going on in the Churchyard
Inside Courthouse
Inside Courthouse
Shop
Bakery Exterior
Bakery interior
Town houses
Ruins outside of town
Tavern
Newspaper printers

Currently two of the shops is occupied and it’s hoped other creators of appropriate clothing & apparel will occupy the others. There are plenty of opportunities for taking up a character role in the various locations.

There is a Midsummer Masked Ball event scheduled for 26th of August at Noon SLT, which would be a great opportunity to come and meet the existing community members and see if you’d like to be part of it.

Arrival Point: https://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/ASOIF%20The%20North/157/184/2002

Discord Server : https://discord.gg/hFg4Bd7rgG

Feedspot, is it worth paying for?

I recently got listed by Feedspot in the top 25 Second Life Bloggers, at number 21. If you’d told me I’d ever type those words back in 2019 I wouldn’t have believed you, but this post isn’t about where I ranked, it’s about what the site offers and which bits you have to pay for. … Continue reading “Feedspot, is it worth paying for?”

I recently got listed by Feedspot in the top 25 Second Life Bloggers, at number 21.

If you’d told me I’d ever type those words back in 2019 I wouldn’t have believed you, but this post isn’t about where I ranked, it’s about what the site offers and which bits you have to pay for.

TLDR: Unless you make a decent amount of money from your site to pay for it, it’s not worth it. The free offering is just fine for most people. My key gripe being you can’t change your blog/site address without paying.

As most of you probably noticed by now, I moved my site from avadelaney.co.uk to this one avabloodrose.com. I changed my profile pic on Feedspot and the blog address in my profile.

I noticed that the recent listing on Feedspot still had the old address and the wrong logo image. I logged in and tried to fix the errors. It seems on Feedspot you have multiple profiles in an account, a Reader and a Publisher. I’d changed the details in my Reader profile only. I emailed them about the image, because the website didn’t seem to want to let me change it. They were very helpful and resolved it for me.

However there was still the issue of the site address that still said avadelaney.co.uk. This isn’t something you’d change very often, because frankly moving a 7 year old blog that’s about 15GB in size, is a hell of a headache. The setting on Feedspot to change this is however is Paywalled.

Their payment plans include all kinds of potentially useful features that some people may want to pay for, but on a free account with just the one included entry, you can’t change the URL without paying. If you want to list several blogs, or podcasts or whatever, yes charging makes sense it’s their business. Charging to make a change that isn’t going to be repeated very often, if at all by many, is unreasonable.

If a site is commercial (I’ll include blogs that make advertising revenue in here), then yes pay the fees and get seen. Paying lets you add useful stuff if you want to reach lots of customers. But for a little blog that runs at a loss because it’s my hobby and costs money to run, it’s a bit tight of them.

So is it worth paying? For a Second Life blogger, I’d say only if your site makes revenue enough to cover it or you want to link lots of social media accounts to it. The ones I use are already included with other services, so for me it’s pointless.

Incidentally Feedspot asked me to share this link, during my email exchange about the logo.

The top SL bloggers article:

https://bloggers.feedspot.com/second_life_blogs

Please fellow bloggers,  if you pay for Feedspot services I’d love to hear your perspective.

Update: Approximately an hour after publication Feedspot reached out to me (I put the post link in an email to them.) I can only presume they didn’t actually read the post, otherwise the reply might have been more than:

“Thank you for mentioning FeedSpot! Appreciate it.”

(That was before I added the TLDR)

Herb & Fable – Lions Gate Portal – Manifestation Ritual

The Lions Gate is the term given to a period of time when the star Sirius,the brightest star in the sky, rises above the horizon in Egypt. This phenomenon starts on the 31st of July and finishes on 12th August, it is most powerful on the 8th August. Ancient Egyptians used this event to know when the Nile river would annually  flood and nourish their crops.

Herb & Fable have released a Manifestation Ritual to perform at this special time of the year, and Lions Gate Portal to find.

Spell wording:

Image from Gyazo

Recipe:

05:31:47] HnF_ritual_bowl:
HnF_manifestation_ritual requires the following ingredients:
HnF_manifestation_spell: 1
water: 8
HnF_mirror: 1
HnF_copper_coin: 8
HnF_sea_salt: 1
HnF_yellow_spell_candle: 1
HnF_bay_leaves: 8
HnF_rosemary_sprig: 1
It will take 15.0 minutes to make

The new ingredients introduced with this spell:

Image from Gyazo

Some of the required ingredients you may already have, the others you can get from the Herb & Fable store, including the spell card pictured above. Note there’s 2 lots of Bay leaves here because you need 8 for the ritual, but they come in packets of 5.

Once you have completed the ritual you’ll get a little gift and you can then head over to Centauria (where the store is) and search the region for the Lions Gate Portal.

Herb & Fable links:

What have you still to do in Herb & Fable?

Julala recently added a requested feature to Herb & Fable website that allows you to see which badges you still have Yet to Get.

Image from Gyazo

I was surprised how many I was missing, so I’ve been working to try and catch up with the missing tasks.

Image from Gyazo

One group of badges I noticed I was missing were those for the Haynei Iris. The iris beds let you grow flowers, petals and seed pods. The latter is important,  since this plant was only available briefly as a fundraiser and seeds aren’t often available, but can be traded. Fortunately I snagged a few packets of seeds  when they were at Fantasy Faire this year.

Of the other products you can grow,  the petals currently don’t have a use,  but the flowers give you a pretty powerful stats boost of 50% across the board:

HnF Meter - add me: 💚 prana heal +50% ⚡ power heal +50% 💎 emowb heal +50% ☯ spirituality heal +50% 💧 essense heal +50% 💤 vitality heal +50% 💊 wellness heal +50% 😊 happiness heal +50%
Image from Gyazo

I was missing more of the rituals than I realised, but have decided I’ll cover those at their corresponding times of year.

While I was writing this post some other missing badges appeared on the site, Julala released the Manifestation Ritual & Lions Gate Portal. More on those soon!

Image from Gyazo

Herb & Fable links:

Julala’s answer to the title question:

Image from Gyazo. Screenshot of a Discord chat message from Julala saying So much..so much

The Second Life Mobile App Experience Mid 2026

I last wrote about the Second Life Mobile App back in December 2024 a month after it’s public Beta release when Linden Lab held a blogger call to tell everyone what was upcoming. I know they’ve been making may continuous developments, so I thought I’d give the latest signup process a go and see what … Continue reading “The Second Life Mobile App Experience Mid 2026”

I last wrote about the Second Life Mobile App back in December 2024 a month after it’s public Beta release when Linden Lab held a blogger call to tell everyone what was upcoming. I know they’ve been making may continuous developments, so I thought I’d give the latest signup process a go and see what it was like for a new user accessing the grid for the first time on a smartphone.

I’m aware some of this isn’t news to many people, but I wanted to try and be thorough.

The sign up process was pretty standard, so I’ll skip that here and go to the avatar customisation bit. This all takes place in the app after registration and before your avatar appears inworld.

Now this is all great, but there’s one big catch to it; it’s all uses Linden Lab’s own Senra body that few creators design for. Fortunately there’s the Welcome Pack now in the Library section of the inventory and its available in the app by going to the Avatar section screen, so more on that later.

I also happen to have arrived in what would appear to be a regular arrival point, with a single sign explaining how to move, same as it’s been for quite a while. However I was wrong, this place is actually among the Mobile Showcase destinations, make of that what you will.

That is where this post may have ended if I’d not seen a post by Daniel Voyager about the new Mobile Learning Centre 2026.

It seems since I created that new avatar Linden Lab have put some effort into a new on-boarding location. I logged back in with the mobile app and sure enough there was the Mobile Learning Centre on the login screen, so I went to have a look.

If I’d arrived here, I’d have been a little more impressed. It has a game-like activity to help you learn how to control your avatar. You must collect coloured stars, by bumping into them, to open doors. However some of them require you to fly (or the floor fall away underneath you), so you do learn more than just walking. On the whole a much better experience than I had a little while ago.

Unfortunately when someone on the app asks you “How do I get my avatar to look like that?”, things aren’t quite so slick.

As I mentioned above the Avatar Welcome Pack from your inventory Library, is accessible via the Avatar option on the app menu and lets you choose from a few different body types and a few outfits for each.

There’s a very big difference here from the avatar you created at registration though. These selections actually remove the Senra mesh body and replaces it with a Legacy Special Edition body and a Lelutka mesh head. This means you can now wear anything made to fit the Legacy body series, which is well catered for by designers. The Lelutka head means most skins, tattoos and makeups will work just fine too. (Note though that this body and head will get you started, they have some limited capabilities, mainly not including HUDs for making certain changes.)

So now with a head and body that stuff will actually work with, and SLB23 in full swing, there’s a Shop & Hop I can go visit to kit out the new avatar..sort of.

The app let’s you wander around the different stores at the Shop & Hop, clicking the gift boxes to receive the goodies. Sadly there’s currently no way yet to check you received the item, or unpack and wear them because there’s still no inventory access from the mobile app.

This meant I had to switch to the Desktop viewer to overhaul my new avatar with my collected freebies.

You can switch between outfits in the mobile app which is helpful, but you can’t put together an outfit there, except for those made using the avatar selection options. For those residents that might be using primarily mobile, this turns the desktop viewer into a changing room where you have to log on and put your looks together for use on Mobile.

In my December 2024 post I discuss some key features the Lab were planning to bring to Mobile. 18 Months later,how have they done?

  • Lobby – Pass
  • Address Bar – Pass
  • New account creation – Pass
  • Persistent chat logs & Group Notice Push notifications – Pass
  • Notecards – (Grumpity Linden said “Three Months Plus”) – Fail
  • Item level avatar editing – Fail

The ones that passed did so within their 2025 targets. The app and the experience of using it has come on leaps and bounds since public release, but there’s a way to go yet,  if they want the experience to resemble the online video marketing.

For me personally it’s nearly there; hovertext and dialog box support have been added,  we just need HUD support and rezzing from inventory and I’ll be able to play Herb & Fable on my phone!

A final note on my Mobile experience I’d like to give a shout out to Prima Linden for being so welcoming when I first logge