While we wait for the Cavern to be reopened, a group of us have settled on the north-west of Aurora Island in There. It is a mountainous region quite close to the shore: challenging but satisfying terrain in which to create a home from home we have chosen to call Eder Devokan.

The hood recently won the WOW award, a scheme run by a player group in There to honour community development. The award will be presented to the hood on 16th September 2008 at around 7 pm Pacific time. We're planning a hood party on Sunday 28th September, starting at 8 pm UK time; we'll be joined by friends from The Meeting Place hood, and treated to an air show by Nema and her team of Hairier planes from about 9 pm UK time. If you have access to There, you would be very welcome to join us.

Leonardo has put together two splendid slide shows of his explorations of Eder Devokan.

If you like to make discoveries yourself, look at the short version to get a quick idea of the hood without being spoilt.

If you are unable to get into There, the long slide show will give you more details of what Nynaveve, Dot, Paislee, sengel, Ilford, Ivanova, JimQ, mateus and Lareh have been doing over the last few months.

Here's the link to the slide shows:
http://magisterleo.spaces.live.com/photos/

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Resources for open-source Uru: OpenUru; rel.to
Cross-world story and project planning: Devokan forums

This is beautiful. No wonder these guys won an award!

The place is very large and very artfully designed. It's obvious that a lot of work went into it.

Congratulations to all the artists who made Eder Devokan. It's stunning. Nice visual look and loads of wonderful homages to the Myst series. Feels like it belongs in the pantheon of "pretty Myst garden ages" along with all the ones we know and love.

I have to say, I found it funny that you included a bathroom there, as Myst fans (like Trekkies) have always wondered why there are no bathrooms anywhere in their series even in places where you'd think there ought to be one.

Actually, come to think of it, I remember there being a shower in one episode of Enterprise.

But anyway -

I still remember doing a world called Sehv T'devokan. I have to say, my visual work was nowhere near as effective as this is here in There. The Eder Devokan creators are doing a lot with a little, polygon-wise, and getting a beautiful look with simple modelling. It has a lot to do with the layout, textures, good aesthetic sense and use of colors.

I really hope some of them will do something like this for MO:RE when the Plasma tools are released.

Something that's as appealing as this is, but with higher modelling detail.

Anyway, great work, guys!

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Matthew L. Hornbostel, creator of Panoramic Worlds,
a Myst fansite , and
various other stuff.

Thank you, Matthew, for your encouraging review.

Building in There is very much a collaborative effort. Some of the designers/modellers whose work we use in Eder Devokan are Uru exiles from the first diaspora: Taelos and Majandi coming particularly to mind. Others mention the Myst series as being an inspiration for their work: Greenie, for example, who makes those marvellous waterfalls. Yet others show the same passion for quality within the constraints of the interface: 1Book (rocks), Meret (fountains, trees), XD (trees), Alisha (flowers, shrubs), sojka (space technology), ... And so the list goes on.

Among the hood members, Nynaveve designs clothes -- her 'Make it count!' range with a spiral logo reminiscent of the Delin and Tsoghal doors is proving very popular. sengel has started creating models: the meditation walk shown in the slide shows is one of hers, as are the stained glass items in the book room.

Funny you should mention showers... sengel is currently building one for the Guild of Maintainers Complex in space. And perhaps that's the real function of the swimming pool in Andy Legate's Camp Bravo in Uru:CC/ULM.

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Resources for open-source Uru: OpenUru; rel.to
Cross-world story and project planning: Devokan forums