Julala Fairelander, the creator and owner of Jinx, is also the sponsor and world builder of the Faireland of Ogham Grove. She talks about all the various Fairelands she’s built, the deeper personal meaning behind Ogham Grove, explains the region hunt and releases the jackalopes!
You have built several Fairelands by now, which ones? What makes you return and do it again and again? Is there anything tying them together or are they all completely separate concept and lore wise?
Last year (2023) Lil Cinnamon and myself built Glimmering Meadows and the year before that (2022) we built Necturn Moon together. This year Lil was called to RL at this time so I accepted the challenge to build alone and came up with Ogham Grove. The three regions aren’t really connected in Lore but people tell me they can “tell when it’s a region I’ve built” which is actually quite a compliment I think.
Glimmering Meadows and Necturn Moon were thought up by Lil and I by trawling fantasy pictures online and choosing a concept and then building upon it from there. Ogham Grove is different – it has much more meaning to me as I am studying Druidry in RL and the Ogham is very relevant to Druidry.
Do you have favorite themes in fantasy and/or world-building? Which themes do you create most? Was Ogham Grove a clear choice for this year, or did you have a long list of ideas that you selected from?
Ogham Grove was a very clear choice for me – building alone I knew it was going to take a lot of my time and energy and so I wanted it to feed into my own learning experience as well. It gave me as much as I gave to it.
In terms of themes, not really one that I can articulate but I think I definitely go for a softer, whimsical style, soft colours and always a connection to nature.
What are you bringing to the Faire this year?
One of the only down sides to being a world builder is that I don’t have as much time to create new products for release. As with many other world builders my product releases tend to drip feed through the faire once it has opened. Of course the priority products are the RFL products and this year I created some special edition racing snails (with beards!), which appear to have been exceedingly popular which is delightful!
Since the demise of gachas I’ve been creating Collectibles, which are limited edition and special edition collectibles that are often released to coincide with special events. This fantasy faire I’ve resurrected an old product of mine and given a new sprinkle of magic. I released a static group of Jackalopes back in 2017 and this year they’ve had a major overhaul to become some very magical animesh jackalopes special for fantasy faire 2024. Including animesh animated props for people’s land and companions to take on their journeys and quests!
Tell us of your Faireland. What sparked its birth, what is its inspiration? Does it have lore, secrets, stories? Tell us everything!
The Ogham Grove is a forest – it contains many of the trees from the Ogham and is designed to give a magical path through the forest, with nature and magic along the way. The roofs of the stores provide another layer of the region that contain many of the elements for the Ogham Grove Side Quest.
The Ogham Grove Side Quest is a gift to the Fairelanders and to myself – it not only reinforced my learning and understanding of the Ogham and it’s associated trees but allowed me to pass on some of that learning by designing the quest to educate others about the Ogham.
Ogham is an ancient alphabet that appeared in Ireland at least 1,600 years ago. It was used to inscribe Primitive Irish onto stone monuments, the oldest known form of the Gaelic languages.
The Ogham alphabet originally consisted of twenty distinct characters called feda “trees”, and arranged into four groups called aicme “families”. Ogham has a silent “G” and is pronounced “Oh-am”.
Around the region you’ll find 20 Ogham Stones with a single Ogham character on them. Touch the stone to learn the character (and some further information about the Ogham trees that correspond with the characters). Using what they learn from these, the Fairelanders will be able to translate a message on the Ogham Quest Stone that can be found in the caves on Ogham Grove. They will also be able to use their new-found learning in the hunt on Avalon created by Alia Baroque of Fallen Gods Inc.
Some very observant Fairelanders have noticed that next to each Ogham stone are the trees to which they are associated.
There is a playable piano on Ogham Grove which is dedicated to my best friend Alex, who died at this time last year during the Faire and who was a wonderful pianist.
Thank you, Julala, for taking the time to chat with us and sharing your stories. Thank you for bringing us this amazing Faireland!
Fantasy Faire 