🔪 The Butcher's Block: hands-on butchery in Second Life, now with 72 fish

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The Butcher's Block: an end-grain butcher's block on iron-strapped oak trestles, a cleaver, boning knife, steel and bone saw hanging from its rail, a whole salmon, salmon steaks and two beef steaks on the block, in a lantern-lit stone hall
The Butcher's Block: an end-grain butcher's block on iron-strapped oak trestles, a cleaver, boning knife, steel and bone saw hanging from its rail, a whole salmon, salmon steaks and two beef steaks on the block, in a lantern-lit stone hall1600Ă—900 335 KB

Own a Butcher Table? The old tables retire on launch day. Hand yours in at the retire counter and our courier sends you the new one.

The SL Colonies Roleplay Butcher Table has a brand-new heart. Sit down with your knife and it opens the Butcher’s Block, a hands-on app where you lay a real carcass on the block and cut it yourself, a stroke at a time: hands-on butchery in Second Life. Beef, pork, lamb, venison, chicken, and for the first time, fish.

Lay a carcass on the block

Your carcasses come from the farms and the hunt. Lay one on the block and the whole animal is there in 3D, every part labelled: the rib, the short loin, the brisket, the shins, the offal in its dish. Tap a part to see the ways to cut it, what each way makes, and the level it needs.

A whole Choice cow carcass on the block in the Butcher's Block app, its parts labelled
A whole Choice cow carcass on the block in the Butcher's Block app, its parts labelled1024Ă—1024 170 KB

  • It’s yours, at any Butcher Table. The carcass belongs to you, not the table, so you can stand up and carry on at another table tomorrow.
  • It never spoils. Cut two steaks today and the rest waits for you: “Cow carcass, 8 of 10 parts left”.
  • One at a time. The block holds the carcass you’re working on. An uncut carcass can go back to your pack; once you’ve cut it, it stays until you finish it.

A gesture for every cut

:kitchen_knife: Slice steaks down the guide, one stroke a piece. :axe: Cleave between the bones for porterhouse, rib steaks and chops. :thread: Tie a roast, a loop of string at a time. :raised_hand: Dress the offal by hand and set it out on the block. Trim what you don’t want as a cut, a strip at a time.

Every stroke snaps into place when you’re close. Nothing to fail, just the rhythm of the work.

Slicing rump steaks down the guide, five of eight cut
Slicing rump steaks down the guide, five of eight cut1024Ă—1024 156 KB

The cleaver falling between the bones of the short loin
The cleaver falling between the bones of the short loin1024Ă—1024 165 KB

More cuts than ever, and nothing wasted

Almost every part of an animal is now a cut of its own, 29 new cuts for the cooks: brisket, oxtail, short ribs, topside and silverside, beef tongue, chicken thighs and marylands, lamb neck, pork fatback, and the hearts, livers and kidneys.

  • Finish the carcass when you’re done, and every part still on it becomes trim, plus its bones for the carpenters and herbalists. Dress the offal first: what’s left in the dish at the finish is lost.
  • The Grinder: turn the crank and trim becomes mince.
  • Divide: a loin into chops, a rack into cutlets, a spare rib into ribs.
  • Holding old portions? The Portions tab still turns them into cuts at the old counts, for as long as you have them.

The tray after the Divide: a pork loin made 12 pork chops
The tray after the Divide: a pork loin made 12 pork chops1024Ă—1024 42.6 KB

Fish come to the block

Every fish over five kilograms, 72 species, is drawn as itself. Salmon and tuna, sharks and turbot, a king crab, and the legends: the great white, the giant oarfish, the white sturgeon. Fillet them, cut them into steaks, take the head, the cheeks and the roe, crack a crab’s legs, keep a shark’s fins for soup.

  • The bigger the fish, the more it gives: up to eight times the steaks and trim of a small one.
  • Fishermen, your catch has somewhere to go. A whole cod in your pack becomes fillets, cheeks, trim and bones.

A whole lake sturgeon on the block, its head, fillets, frame and roe labelled
A whole lake sturgeon on the block, its head, fillets, frame and roe labelled1024Ă—1024 140 KB

Grade counts, all the way to the plate

A Fine catch gives a quarter more meat, and a Choice one half as much again: more steaks, more fillets, more trim. And every cut carries its grade into the kitchen, so a Choice fillet cooks into a better dish. Fish carry their catch’s grade today; graded carcasses from the farms follow as their breeding brings them, and the block is ready for them.

Cooks, one change to know: the recipes that asked for a whole cod, snapper, salmon or bass now ask for its fillet, and tuna and swordfish recipes for a steak, one for one.

Watch it happen in-world

While you work, the table shows your carcass on its block, and each part disappears as you cut it, so everyone nearby can see what you’re working on. You chop and slice along with every stroke.

The Butcher Master, the orc of the Butchers' Yard, beside a Butcher Table with a beef carcass on its board: the in-world models, rendered for the video
The Butcher Master, the orc of the Butchers' Yard, beside a Butcher Table with a beef carcass on its board: the in-world models, rendered for the video1600Ă—900 260 KB

Made to be yours

  • Owners: long-click the table for its menu: name, hover text, and security (Public, Colony or Owner), as on every SL Colonies station.
  • The cleaver, knife, steel, bone saw, bucket and cloths are separate pieces. Move them, or unlink the bench and build your own butcher’s shop around the block.
  • The scripts that lay out the carcass are full permission, so you can change how the block looks or put the carcass on a board of your own.

How to start

  1. Become a Butcher. The block is a Butcher’s work: placing, trimming, finishing and mincing are level 0, the cuts level 1, the divide level 2.
  2. Get a butcher knife from a Smith. Each cut uses one use of it, and 5 energy.
  3. Bring a carcass: cow, pig, lamb, deer or chicken from the farms and the hunt, or a fish over 5 kg.
  4. Sit at a Butcher Table, choose App in HUD or Web, and start cutting.

Butchers earn 1 CXP for every 24 seconds of work, the same pace as fishing.

Links

Sharpen your knife, and let’s see what you cut. :kitchen_knife:

Questions? Ask here, on Discord, or send Samuel an IM. The mentors are always happy to help.