Hi. Come on in. Mind the boxes, I’m still unpacking.
If we’ve met before, it was probably somewhere in a virtual world: on a dance floor in 2005, in the middle of a Roman roleplay scene, in one of my stores, or at a Sunday meeting on Kitely. If we haven’t, hello. I’m Filipa, though most people call me Pip.
I’ve been wanting a place like this for a long time. Somewhere to put down all the things I think about, build, wonder about and get excited about in virtual worlds, without squeezing them into a group notice or a 280-character post. So here it is: my little corner of the grid, with the porch light on.
Twenty years, a lot of names
Over the years I’ve collected a lot of hats. Clubber. Roleplayer. Sim owner. Builder. Magazine editor. Roleplay teacher. And with every hat came a new name: Gods of Valor, Club Depot, Roleplay Guide Magazine, a clothing line, a blog here, a forum there.
I kept them separate on purpose. Shoppers looking for a Roman bath house didn’t need to wade through nightclub furniture, and roleplayers looking for scene tips didn’t need my store announcements. That made sense for a long time.
But here’s what I finally figured out: the brands are what I make. I’m the one making them. The same person who wandered onto a dance floor in 2005 is the one designing a ludus today, asking the same question every time: what do the people in this space need?
So I’m bringing it all home, under my own name. Gods of Valor and Club Depot are still here, and they’re still how you’ll find my builds in the stores. But this is where all of it comes together.
Why now
Honestly? Because virtual worlds feel like a frontier again, and I haven’t felt that in a long time.
For years it seemed like the excitement had settled into routine. Same grids, same faces, same worries. Then this fall, a lot happened at once. OSgrid, the oldest OpenSim grid, announced it’s going dark at the end of the year, and thousands of people are suddenly looking for a new home. Kitely, where I’ve had a store for years, started shipping upgrade after upgrade and talking openly about where it’s headed. Creators I know are asking questions they haven’t asked in a decade: where should I build, who can I trust, what’s next?
When the ground shifts like that, people need somewhere to talk it through, and someone who’s been around long enough to remember the last few times. I’ve been here since 2005. I’ve seen grids rise and fall, communities form and scatter, and great builders walk away and come back. I have opinions. A few of them are even useful.
So this felt like the moment to stop just thinking out loud in IMs and start writing it down.
What you’ll find here
A bit of everything I love, in no particular order:
- Builds. New releases, old favorites, and the stories behind them. How a villa fits on a homestead, and why my ludus has a kitchen and ticket sales.
- Roleplay. Tips, classes, scene ideas, and the occasional fond look back at Casilinum. I’ve been teaching roleplay for years, and I’m not about to stop.
- Virtual worlds. What’s happening in Second Life, Kitely, and across the hypergrid, from someone who lives there rather than someone reporting from the outside.
- Creator corner. Building, selling, protecting your work, and growing a brand, for anyone who makes things for virtual worlds.
- Musings. Everything else in my head. Some of it will be thoughtful. Some of it will be me waving my arms about something I just discovered. You’ve been warned.
A few things already on the way: a guide for OSgrid folks looking for a new home, a love letter to everyone who left Second Life years ago and misses the good old days, and a post on the five mistakes that kill a roleplay scene.
Pull up a chair
This isn’t meant to be a lecture hall. It’s more like the back porch of a sim at 2am, when the scene’s wound down and everyone’s just talking. So talk back. Leave a comment, send me an IM, tell me I’m wrong about something. Tell me what you want me to write about next.
You can find me as Filipa Thespian in Second Life and on Kitely, on Facebook, Flickr, X and Instagram, and as iampip on Discord.
Thanks for stopping by. Stay a while.
See you on the porch,
Filipa