The Charm of Draconia

 This, of course, is the season of getting stuff. But for those few who already have stuff and would like to get enchanted rather than stocked up, Opensim offers many opportunities in tune with the natural world. Generally nature with a Northern bias, since so many of us live up here, these months are the cold bit of the year.

Winter stirs all the fearful instincts innate in humans. It's the death of the year, of the productive cycle, and our ancestors were full of doubts. Will the sun return, will the food supply last, will the cold or sickness defeat the group; this is the stuff of legends. On the other hand, the changing landscape offers a paradox. In place of the dominant sun, other lights take over, and we see the world in a different way, or perhaps, we see another world that coexists with the bold daylight landscape, one that becomes visible only when the sun is in nadir. Then, we have time to reflect that there is more to this existence than meets the day-to-day eye.

Bink Draconia is one of the best artists working in Opensim and her regions on Pangea are beautiful, thoughtful, ingenious, and atmospheric to a point where you feel charmed when, in the shared environment (the mist is essential) you go for a wander...or do I mean wonder... around  Stella Polaris. 

The wedding zone, Stella Polaris

It's pure wonderland. In part it is a party destination, with a wedding area shown here, and a dance floor with a chessboard theme, and other tableaux gemming the woodland, under starlight. But that's only one aspect of it, the social side. 

Beyond that it's a wistful, misty forest where the ground sparkles with eerie lights in the air and water, and the meadowland is just a little underwater, enough to create that liminal sensation, between day and night, dry land and swamp, the spooky and the sweetly sentimental, with places for a romantic tete a tete or a solitary saunter.

The Advent Tree on Eternal Ice

Not that Bink doesn't have the season's accessories covered. Next door on Eternal Ice, you'll find an Advent Calendar of lovely free items available on sim Eternal Ice - just drop in daily to get them in a classic countdown to Christmas, 

The canal on Needful Things

...and then close by too there's Bink's iconic freebie region Needful Things with an overwhelming variety of supplies organized in boutiques that comprise a charming continental town center. And then of course, there's also Koburk, Black and White Castle, and The Good Place, each one eminently visitable. 

What charms the most about Stella Polaris is the delicate mood achieved with light and texture and a relatively few well placed assets. 

The senses all come alive, seeking meaning, or weaving your own story out of your own unique perception of what is here - haunting, charming, loving, chilling... it's a portal to your own wintertime imagination.

Look out for these geodes, colorful stone inside the ruined temple, and admire the reindeer left to wander free not trapped or harnessed. And certainly not wearing a funny red nose.

The dance floor with its checkerboard design, is particularly clever. It'll make you think about what chess is really about, and the interplay between dancing and playing and the eternal cycle of love and war, of sex and freedom... 

If you're a bit of an Opensim Oldbie, you may remember some of these regions from Kroatan, Bink's grid, no longer online. How wonderful then that she has found her home on Pangea, fast becoming Opensim's premier artists' colony. If you can make the time between your holiday preparations, put on a scarf, and visit Stella Polaris. It will charm your inner sparkle.

HG Addresses:

pangeagrid.de:8002:Stella Polaris

Freebies  pangeagrid.de:8002:Needful Things

Advent calendar gifts  pangeagrid.de:8002:Eternal Ice