Ted and I had a conversation last month in WoW that has stuck with me. We are all familiar by now with the explosion of exchange in virtual worlds, whether of the moral (gifts, reciprocity) or market varieties. But what about inheritance? In these worlds, that appear able to persist beyond not only the duration of our interest in them but also, perhaps, our mortality, will there come a time when we want to find the right home for the valuable, but also particularly meaningful objects we have? But the possibilties don't stop there. Consider bequeathing an avatar...

Rather than the power-leveled, commodified items, characters, and currency for sale, let us consider for a moment what bequeathing an avatar might mean. We may find that to do so helps us think through some of the thorniest issues about both avatars and the nature of things of value in synthetic worlds.

The apparent nature of the avatar as both a representative, or even form, of the self, on one hand, and as a separable object, on the other, has provided a particularly intriguing duality for researchers. In Synthetic Worlds (2005, p. 110), for example, Ted considers the extent to which an avatar may not only represent a user in a world (to others and to the user herself), it can also come to bear a history, with specific experiences, objects, and credentials attached, irrevocably, to it. Thus, there are attributes which accumulate within the avatar itself, as an artifact, that cannot be transferred out of it.