Second Sanctuary

Back again, sorry about that... distracted. 
Opensim is so full of interesting grids and regions, it's impossible to know it all, and there are always people and places out there worth discovering, or rediscovering. It's a place of joy, adventure, wonder and friendship, with zero jetlag and very little drama unless you go looking for it.

The HG Safari tours return on 2 September for another ten weeks of variety, vistas and vibrant destinations. One neat place that the Safari will be visiting for the first time during this upcoming season is 2nd Sanctuary Grid. Here's the welcome region, with handy teleports to the main places of interest.

This grid is owned by Pete Taylor and Naomi Volturi. Now all you oldbies, don't be confused with the sadly long gone Sanctuary Grid by Shaun Emerald, famous among early HG explorers for Eld, the region of portals. 2nd Sanctuary isn't a new grid though, both the grid and its owners have been around for quite a while. Pete shared a few details about how he found Opensim.

Pete Taylor: I’ve been active in SL on and off since 2009. Then, in 2014, the idea of a ‘workshop’ came up. In SL, for example, you have to pay for every texture upload. If you’re only satisfied with the 10th version, it really starts to add up over time. We’d already heard of OpenSim, so back then we started playing around with an installation of version v0.7 on a Linux server in a rack in my basement at home.

The grid Pete had back then wasn't linked to the hypergrid, it was more of a workshop, a place where for doing all the trial and error stuff without paying those ten Lindens per upload, and of course it was a useful place to back up builds, which could be taken offline when interest in virtual building gave place to other activities. But then one day, things changed...

Pete and Naomi on the beach

Pete Taylor: In 2021, the most recent phase of my interest in virtual worlds began with a third avatar to mark a fresh start. Two years later, the “I” had become a “we”. My Naomi, with whom I am now together both online and in real life, had also drawn my attention back to OpenSim, and so I found myself on another grid for the first time, and also joined the Hypergrid. A feature that had been gathering dust in my basement for years and had never interested me. The technician in me became curious and began to experiment. Over the course of several months, the old backups were transformed into a fully updated server network comprising several machines and featuring a Hypergrid connection. And once again, it was a series of technical coincidences that led to this grid being made public and inhabited, rather than being consigned to the backup folder as a successfully completed experiment.

Two must-see sims on 2nd Sanctuary are Alfheim and Vanaheim, which takes its name from a place in Norse mythology, the home of the gods of nature, fertility, wisdom, and magic. What's not to like! There's a long trail through tropical foliage and across countless bridges linking the various promontories and islands. By the time it's completed it'll be 5 km of bridle and hiking through varied environments, across a bunch of contiguous sims. You can see some of the free housing to the upper right in this picture 

Pete Taylor: Vanaheim is a residential sim with 34 free residential islands, each measuring 4,096 square metres and comprising 1,000 prims, with plenty of space between them. Alfheim offers less living space but is designed more as a water sports facility. Once the scripts are ready, there will be a regatta course with automatic timekeeping. The marina is practically complete and offers free moorings. Construction work is currently still concentrated here. After that, work will begin on revamping the RP regions.

The many small residential islands of Vanaheim

You may have seen ads on Opensimworld for Vanaheim, offering free homes to opensim folk. It was a particularly nice thing to see offered in the months after OSGrid went offline, when so many people were wondering if their  virtual life would have to be put on hold. So what motivated Pete and Naomi to make this generous offer?

Pete Taylor:  The Second Sanctuary Grid first appeared on the Hypergrid with several servers, without users, and so these had plenty of spare resources to offer. It actually seemed only natural to make some of these available to the general public. For the new grid, this also provided opportunities to carry out tests under heavier load. Everything is now running smoothly, and we intend to continue this indefinitely. Regardless of this, we are of course also grateful to players who contribute financially and help bring the grid closer to breaking even. But that’s not all. Everyone is warmly invited to contribute their creativity, interests and skills.

Thirza Ember:  For anyone thinking of joining you, where in general terms would you place 2nd Sanctuary in the spectrum of languages and time zones?

Naomi Volturi: Well, if you classify the grid based on where the owner comes from, we’re definitely a German grid. That said, everyone’s welcome here as long as they behave themselves, no matter where they’re from. It does help to know some English, of course, and thank goodness there are translators for everything else.

Pete expresses it slightly differently

Pete Taylor: We are not a German grid, but we are at least bilingual. Texts are published in both German and English on the grid and on the Discord server, which forms the main hub of our organisation. The majority of our members tend to follow a European schedule. However, there are also Australians and Americans on the grid, for example. 

The underground club on ShadowSpirit

Among the residents on 2nd Sanctuary is Jasmine Blue, whose region ShadowSpirit is a masterpiece of tunnels, clubs, hiking opportunities and an imposing volcano. Bewitching and bewildering, Jasmine has packed so much into the region that there's no way to see it all in a single visit. 

Jasmine's volcano

Pete shared some recent statistics that show the grid is becoming something of a destination though he's quick to point out that regular music events still have to get off the ground. with just seven local residents, and a couple of dozen VAR regions the equivalent to about 175 regular sized sims, the grid has had well over a thousand visits from HG travelers.

Pete and Naomi on the beach

Pete and Naomi are a great team and they have big plans for the future of their grid.

Pete Taylor:  I work in IT, specialising in databases and high-availability systems. So system design, administration and maintenance are more of a formality for me. It has to be done, but it’s not what I’m really interested in here. What I love most is role-playing, when I have the time. But I also do scripting and texturing. Blender and GIMP are no strangers to me. Building landscapes is fun. And when it comes to nice decorations, that’s where I reach my limits. If it weren’t for Naomi, some of it would look like a male bachelor’s flat.

Majestic palms fringe the many beaches on this grid

Naomi Volturi: I think we complement each other very well in that respect. Pete is the one who lays the foundations, on which I can then give free rein to my creativity.

Pete Taylor: We’ve brought two regions from our past into the Grid. 'Shadow' and 'Requiem' are RP sims that are now set to be modernised. In the end, we’ll have a vast world for living, role-playing and all sorts of things – transport routes, landmarks, multiple climate zones, underwater, above water… Who knows what else is in store. There’s more creative chaos here than a pre planned way.

HG Address: 2nd-sanctuary.de:8002:Welcome