Our Visit to Ravandal

Ravandal

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Stats:

Traffic: 6330

Sims on Land at time of visit:6

Sim owned by a Free Man

Place Description: 

The Rock in the Stormy Seas, 1st stop just North of the Torvaldsmark.

BTB Torvaldsland

Detailed Para-RP welcome, create your own story!

BTB, Torvie, Torvaldsland, Viking, Gorean, Freeman, Marauder, Bondmaid, BTB Gor, BTB Gorean

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The Ravandal sim is owned by a Free Man. It seems to be a predominantly roleplay-based sim, although we've been visiting several times thus far and have not had the fortune of taking part in much roleplay. Everyone seems to be too engaged to approach these newcomers in the village. From the short bit of roleplay we did get with the First Axe of the village, we spent a pleasant bit of time doing paragraph roleplay.

In terms of looking at how appropriately the roles are defined and represented in Ravandal, due to a lack of roleplay opportunities, we cannot give this a full score. We've had the opportunity to roleplay with a single individual, a Free Man of the village. He did represent the sim well, playing his role properly. However, the roleplay ended when he came into our IMs, telling us that if we wanted a place to stay for the visit, we'd need to talk with his slave, who handles all of the housing concerns. Based on what we have seen, we're giving Ravandal a 4 out of 10 for this.

The sim is decorated beautifully for a northern Torvaldsland sim and we give the sim a 7 out of 10 for their interpretation of a Gorean environment. They lost a point or two for shiny blue mushrooms scattered about that reminded us more of Avatar the movie than Gor. They also have ziplines running throughout the area, which detracts from the overall feel of a Gorean environment.

For the avatar dress on sim, we have to give Ravandal a 4 out of 10 for this. The reason being is that the fellow we roleplayed with had a quite nice avatar, though the shirtless look in Torvaldsland means quite perky nipples. And we did take the liberty of camming about, looking at the avatars also on the sim, though hidden away in their homes. And stopped when we found the bond-maid. One look at her had us sadly having to drop our rating as we examined the lovely knife she wore on her belt. The pierced nipples also had us tilting our head a bit. We'd have loved to see the dress worn by Free Women on the sim, except there never seemed to be one on sim. Perhaps if we revisit, we'll see a bit more...or less, depending on your viewpoint.

In character, the same fellow who owns the sim also seems to be the Jarl of the village. In an ironic twist, his in-character is Loki. Yep, the Viking God of Mischief. And he seems to be in charge, both ICly and OOCly. While this tends to lead to issues on most sims, we'll settle back and see what happens.

We cannot give an accurate assessment of the overall arcing storyline, as we were never able to get into roleplay on the sim long enough to see any sort of theme flow. Again, perhaps a revisit of another week later on will show us something different.

Another area of assessment we cannot truly judge is the level of godmodding on the sim as we've not had the pleasure of finding ourselves in the role play. However, on one hand, you can say it's an A plus, because we've not seen any godmodding. Or you can say....we haven't seen anything at all, so jury's out to lunch right now.

For thought emoting on sim, see the above paragraph.

Now the appropriateness of how well avatars on sim hold to Gorean customs/traditions, and etiquette is something that we can talk about because we had quite the interesting experience when we landed. We asked for lodging for the week and we were met with the offer of an alcove in the longhall, knowing that we are Free Companions. The offer of an alcove would not fly for us as we did not want a free woman staying there. The First Axe, who was giving us a look around, resorted to IM'ing the couple, breaking the roleplay, and telling us that we shouldn't really complain ICly because Loki, the Jarl of the Village, keeps his own mother in an alcove. We were less than impressed. After we tried to push again for a house or some sort of other lodging, he told us to talk to his slave, who handles all of the housing needs on the sim. We lost interest in any sort of housing and made the roleplay reflect our decision to make the serpent our lodging for the duration of our visit. We also still have to consider the pierced nipples and dagger-wielding slave :) So all in all, we're rating this one a 5 out of 10.

Our overall impression of Ravandal was of a very silent village, quiet and peaceful. While they do have a higher traffic, and we must assume there are avatars that come out of their houses and meet once in awhile, we were not able to see that. We did spend a week on the sim, several hours at a time on multiple occasions, and were left very much to our own devices. Even on a night where multiple men of the village entered the sim, we recieved no visit or interaction by them, which we view as strange considering it's a roleplay village and as far as they are aware, we are outsiders. Out of 10, we are giving Ravandal a 5. It's a lovely place to visit if you want a very peaceful, quiet existence. We really can't say whether we'd recommend people visit, nor can we really say stay away, so at this point, it's a flat neutral. Perhaps in the future, we'll return and see how things turn out to be.