H.P. Lovecraft Festival

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2015 LoveFest is Here — August 15th to 23rd 2015

Yes, we’re back, for the 4th Annual HP Lovecraft Festival of SecondLife… LOVEFEST 2015,
scheduled for August 15-23, 2015!

Featuring:
– HP Lovecraft’s 125th Birthday
– “The Worlds of Lovecraft”
– “The Heart of LLhao”, a Lovecraft-inspired, multi-sim Adventure [Please note: Join the story-quest group from the packet offered at the landing spot of the event. Details of starting time and how to proceed will be given when the Story Quest begins]
– AUTCOM (The National Autism Committee), our long-term adopted charity returns.

The Lovefest SIM theme is based on the “Worlds of Lovecraft” so expect to see bits of the re-created real life and fantasy worlds of the great storyteller, H.P. Lovecraft. From the insane asylum representing where both of HP Lovecraft’s parents died, to scenes from his famous tales (i.e., “The Lurking Fear, and “The Festival), you will be amazed, delighted and frightened by the sometimes mundane and other times fantastic sights. The “Cabaret” facade will take you to the entertainment venue. Look for the listing of all events on the side of the main-TP dome or visit this link.

Bloggers who are covering us!
Ciaran Laval: HP Lovecraft Festival 2015 Is Open | Still Time to Visit [more photos]
Living SL: Lovefest 2015
Runa, the wild elf: A day at the Lovefest
SL Goth: The 2015 H.P. Lovecraft Festival is now open.
Inara Pey: Cthulhu says, Join the LoveFest in Second Life
HuntingSL: Announcing 2015 Lovefest
HuntSL: The Heart of Llhao Story Quest

PHOTOS/SCREENSHOTS:
motley (delwyn.druth): Flickr — Heart of Llao Story Quest
motley (delwyn.druth): Flickr – Lovecraft Festival Screenshots (2015)
Flicker: HP Lovecraft in Second Life

See the great video of the event made by Geo Meek.

OUR CHARITY FOCUS – AUTCOM:
Since 2013, Lovecraft Festival has been pleased to raise support for AutCom – the Autism National Committee. To date, all of the festival’s vendor fees, as well on-site donations at the festival, have gone straight to AutCom’s coffers in order to help this agency’s mission of increasing awareness and education concerning Autism Spectrum conditions. In fact, one of AutCom’s board members is an active member of the Lovecraft Festival staff.

THE EVENT AND VENDOR FAIRE:
The festival involves a faire of events, activities and vendors with each festival having a different overall theme or concept. Musical events stage shows, parties, carnival rides and all the fun that comes with a classic faire/festival are a regular part of Lovecraft Festival, along with splendid full-scale stores that vendors secure and decorate to their individual needs and wants.

2015 STORY QUEST- The Heart of Llhao:
This year’s Festival will be taking on a new task – coordinating an exciting multi-sim “story quest.” This will be a sort of mystery hunt with a distinct Lovecraft-themed bent and guaranteed “Big Finale” sure to thrill all!

Each “chapter” in the story will be at a different “host sim” or parcel, and the story followers will be challenged with following clues and collecting evidence and items to track an ancient artifact stolen from the Miskatonic University. The Festival’s “story staff” is working with sims and sites interested in hosting a “chapter” in the story, which will provide the links in the path the questers must follow to reach the story’s inevitable end.

Posted by Arik Metzger | August 15, 2015 | Categories: 2015 Lovecraft Festival | Leave a comment

The 2015 Love Fest Is Coming . . .

Celebrating the 125th birthday of H.P. Lovecraft
The 2015 Love Fest
Second Lifes Ultimate Adventure
August 15th through the 23rd
Featuring the Dark Carnival
with Music, Rides, Events
and the Lovecraft Vendor Faire

Posted by Arik Metzger | May 14, 2015 | Categories: 2015 Lovecraft Festival | Leave a comment

Image

Crouching Shoggoth, Hidden Penguin

Oh Penguin, wherefore art thou, O’ Penguin?

Squish.

My boots started to sink into the soft ground. I stopped suddenly, hoping nothing was close enough to hear. Squish squish. I moved further down into the cavern just barely visible ahead. A white shape loomed up all of a sudden. Heart pounding, I stepped back, lantern swinging. Flapping wings. Another screeching penguin flaps by in the darkness. A polished stone wall rears up just ahead, disappearing into the heights of the cavern. Another step forward, and I’m in a sort of arch, a tunnel of sorts between two buildings. Older than old, more ancient than ancient, yet nearly untouched by time. Towers, spires, pyramids glimpsed, vanishing in the distance.

This time, my only warning was a soft rustle, a scraping of skin and scales on stony ground. My mind slowed. A feeling of dread, of evil turned my legs into jelly. I slowly turned my head, knowing I did not want to see, but not being able to help it. Twice again the height of a man, and many times his width, the terror oozing its way towards me was beyond description. Fear turned my body into stone, and in moments this huge bulbous mass of teeth and eyes had me. I opened my mouth to scream.

Scary monster

* * *

“Amusement park?” I repeated. “Fair. Festival. Rides, carnival, merry-go-round.” He was gesturing animatedly, a cigar clutched in his left hand. “And this arctic-mountain ride?” Arik takes a deep puff from his cigar. “An ancient city, hundreds of millions of years old, buried under the ice in Antarctica. You’re an explorer, the ship runs aground, you explore a bit and you discover this relic of the past.” Arik Metzger is the cheerfully energetic founder of the Lovecraft Festival Group, (HPL-RPG) an organization that pays homage to horror author HP Lovecraft, with annual events themed from his writings. It’s a sunny afternoon, and we are sitting in an outdoor café near the seaport. He introduces me to his partner, Jimmy Branagh, the chief architect of this Antarctic ride, and longtime resident of New Babbage. The Lovecraft Festival Park is on Valetova Island, and has just opened (August 19th-25th) for a weeklong glory homage to HP Lovecraft. With a mischievous smile, Jimmy describes his pièce de résistance, the tour through the subterranean, subfreezing city of the Elder Things: a page taken right out of Lovecrafts At the Mountains of Madness. The courageous explorer is armed with nothing but a kerosene lantern to keep the darkness at bay, searching for lost comrades while avoiding feral penguins and shoggoths. “What exactly is this…shoggoth?” I ask. Jimmy grins wickedly. “Hell Incarnate.”

* * *

Three months later, on August 19th, The Lovecraft Faire readies for opening. It starts simply enough, although the main fairgrounds may strike you as a bit atypical. Charred and disfigured bodies in the street outside the decrepit insane asylum are the least noteworthy here.

Arkham Asylum

The shops are selling strange artifacts – carnivorous plants proliferate, and enough cemeteries, tombstones and crypts to make a zombie blush. There’s a ferris wheel, a bigtop and other festival staples – all with Lovecrafts macabre twist.

Caution: Man-eating plants.

Eventually, I find myself hunting through Jimmy’s wonder world. Within moments of being set upon by the terrifying shoggoths, the beasts disappear, allowing me to slowly catch my breath and marvel at the haunting beauty of this very alien city. I wander past shimmering portals and bizarre contraptions, and more penguins than I can count. Twice more I am attacked by the shoggoths, each time more terrifying than the last. Finally, I make my way back to the ladder, back to base camp and out of this freezing hellhole. Shivering with far more than cold, I am accosted by a grinning urchin waiting by the plane to take us back to the main fairgrounds.