Essieth and Ulfianth's Clutch, January 2005

Member's Only Egg

Devious markings delineate a seeming doorway in the shell of lurid dread-gray stone and watermarked metal, vending a slim outline of light that entices only the deliberate witness to peek around to the far side of the large, slim egg. Here, the indistinct colors brighten to explicit flashes of color, detailing a hidden society of hues: sensational red flashes in a suggestive pattern off a moody aquamarine, and specks of gaudy silver and gold serve to accentuate its richness with a definite bling. The salacious throng of color, reminiscent of revelry at the height of its debauchery, is only accessible to the most tenacious of investigators.

Inspiration: The underground club scene is something that has a very bipolar audience; you either are a part, or you aren't. Hence the 'Members Only' name, the Inspiration for this egg is the often shabbily-fronted hideaway that secrets a world of outrageous and no-holds-barred partying and fun.

Delaney of Ista Weyr

Incomparable Coal Egg

The tireless glory of the effulgent sun, held captive for millions of turns in such a brittle prison that once was the finest gloss of green. That such an ancient treasure of noble forest trees could drink the light, could hold the sun and save the fight of flames until some distant soul could free the spark, is quite a feat and it's all reflected here in the shell of this dragon-laid egg. The egg itself is hued as just matte black dust, such incomparable power and in so humble a looking configuration. Just fragile rock. Just coal.

Inspiration: Coal, such a simple looking substance, and yet it took so long to form and is actually quite amazing.

M'rek of High Reaches Weyr

Unearthed Gemstone Egg

The egg that rests upon the sands appears to be dull and dark on first glance: a mottled black, perhaps a dark brown coloured egg. As light from any source hits it, however, it shows the colours of what appear to be gemstones still hidden in the earth's embrace. Torches cause a cascade of oranges and red to sparkle, pinpricks of warm colour contrasting the brown, and if the sun shines from the cavern's opening, silver and white, are the colours that are seen. In the brighter light, the hints are of diamond instead of rubies sparkling from the dark mass of the egg's shell.

Inspiration: This egg is inspired by pictures I have seen of gemstones and precious metals being mined. The dark bits are the earth itself, the darkness of the mine and the material the gems are in. At first glance you can't see much, but as various coloured light plays over the earth, the sparkles of one colour or another become apparent.

Moyra of Ista Weyr

Aquifer Egg

This egg appears stuffed with moist, black soil- rich, fertile, and perfect for farming. A cotholder could only dream of growing crops in such fine earth. But the darkness is not pristine. A glistening warm pool of clear water sits at the rounded end of the egg, and it is clearly the source of the moisture which permeates the soil. A thick line of blue runs up from this pool, up and up toward the top, thinning as it goes. A flash of sky can be seen at the pointed end, and the water emerges aboveground into what seems to be a well, although it cannot be clearly made out.

Inspiration: This egg is based on water sources that come from underground.

Pearl of Ista Weyr

Hope Springs Eternal Egg

Chalky ochre clogs the pocked and scored surface of this egg with a rust-red dusting, fine layers of coloring giving a brick-like and arid appearance to this stout, round ovoid. Here and there, sparse clusters of drab sage dot the facade in dismally small bits of encouragement for those searching for color. Near the round, squat base, a wellspring of baltic blue splashes in refreshing vividness and life. An oasis of color bubbles up in lifesaving hope from a hidden watershed of blues. Encircling the irregularly shaped splatter are tendrils of leafy greens, fingers of mossy color that breathe lush life into the baked brick shell.

Inspiration: Hidden water tables, wellsprings, and pockets of water buried beneath the surface were the hope that kept many a settler alive and hopeful. Today, subterranean water tables are the source for many of the southwestern cities water supplies, and many arid-dwelling civilizations world-wide. Delaney of Ista Weyr

Left Too Long Egg

Browns, greens and blacks battle in their most horrid hues of putrescence, looking damp and dirty all at once, while invoking memories of rotten food. The egg, being egg shaped, escapes the anvil of obvious comparison to a tuber, though the colors seem to be a perfect match to one of the rooty vegetables, left underground for far too long. Flakes of grey and black look like they're ready to fall off and infect the sands. Swaths of brown desperately try and overtake the decomposition, but the only answer is that the egg is dark and black within.

Inspiration: Rotton tubers Shimshon of the BeastCraft

Birthed From Fire egg

Violent splashes of scarlet and orange burn their way across this blindingly bright egg, and wend a fiery trail through blackened rocklike patches. Towards the base of the egg the colours tend toward the pale of yellows, adding to the illusion of heat as it swallows up the shell. The tip is duller, crusted in brown and cracked by the same fierce heat that sears the base of the shell, but under control for the time being.

Inspiration: If you dig long enough, you would likely find lava somewhere underneath you. Not a nice thing to find, but a very pretty thing to watch when it's not being too destructive. Lilias of Ista Weyr

Rainbow Cavern Egg

A light shining from within, or perhaps simply reflecting off the glows in the cavern, gives this egg a prisim-esque luminescence. Light, light, light, that's the catchword, as the dull browns and pale ambers that make up the primary color of the egg seem to capture and intensify the feeling of awe. Every color of dragon is reflected in the shell, nothing hugely overt, but subtle highlights, racing with the spires and pillars of brown that shoot back and forth across the egg's body. Ripped from the bowels of the planet, this egg is a beauty seen by miners and few else.

Inspiration: Carlsbad Caverns

Shimshon of the BeastCraft

Guilty Burial Egg

Beige dominates the whole of this egg, faint tones of brown marbling the surface. Throughout the ovoid, khaki runs rampant - sandy tan mottling the sides, deepening near the bottom to earthier shades, and ecru giving way to shadows. It is amidst these darker colors that an odd shape reigns triumphant, a sienna form skewed to the right and seeming quite like a shoe. Black speckles the figure, and threads of obsidian stretch out from the heel, lending it the air of a boot well-chewed and destroyed.

Inspiration: Puppies, as most people likely know from experience, have a tendency to gnaw on anything they can wrap their mouths around. Then, if they have the resources for it, they'll drag it off and bury it - to hide the evidence, as it were.

Jasia of Ista Weyr

Masked Purity Egg

Crystal in its most flawless form has been melted to liquid, fluid shades of subtle blue and green bathing the surface of this egg in seafoam and aqua. Transitions are effortless, blurred and at times undetectable, allowing ocean blue to merge peacefully into brine and brine into sea glass and tropical teal. Unidentifiable traces of lacey white and abstract figures outlined in dull silver pepper the otherwise tranquil shell, water-dwelling creatures keeping silent council amid the shadowed depths.

Inspiration: This egg is based off my idea of what an underground spring must look like, complete with a scattering of finned life.

Lorany of Ista Weyr

Dance Your Cares Away Egg

A crystalline armature of spires and bridges wraps around the base of this egg like an otherworldly stage. Rising from this filament landscape are five great swathes of color, reaching towards the apex in a joyous dance. There is a tall orange one with two bursts of red like fireworks and a small yellow one that seems to shiver in anxious excitement. The largest one undulates in stripes of red and orange, topped with crown of purple while a moss green patch seems to spin, a sweeping scarf of tan twirling behind it. The last splash of color is also the palest; pinks and blues are draped together in a graceful ballet. The five hues look as though they were caught in a moment of music, mid-step in their dancing.

Inspiration: With the Doozer's weird edible buildings as the stage, Red, Wembley, Gobo, Boober and Mokey dance to the Fraggle Rock theme song.

Griere of Ista Weyr

Coal Seam Egg

This egg is black as the Istan sand that warms it, almost as if its occupant wishes nothing more than to hide away unnoticed until Hatching day. If one should look more closely, though, the ebon shell shows a subtle riot of rainbow hues slicked across its surface like oil on water, a faint faceting of purples and reds and golds that seem to play just beyond the edge of vision, gemstone glimmers that hint at the diamond that might wait within.

Inspiration: The theme was "things you find underground", and the first thing that came to mind was, well, _rocks_. I remembered a particularly interesting piece of coal I noticed at my brother's place, and how subtly beautiful it was when I turned it in the light. Eureka! Perfect for the black sands of Ista!

Lirit of Ista Weyr

Cavernous Sanctuary Egg

Looming presences surround, dark earth bordered by the equal darkness of roughly-broken granite, the passage of time and the erosion of weather coloring this egg in ominous shades of twilight brown. Palest at its apex, water-soaked soil peppered with sand gives way to smoky cliffs that shadow the shell's sides, faint tracings of fluorescent lichen green illuminating webwork pathways concluding at the ovoid's wide base, ground away by the sand-blasted hues of rasped fallen rock.

Inspiration: This egg's basis is the image of an underground cavern chamber, most likely one unexplored by man. This egg stems from my childhood fear of being trapped in a cave, probably due to one too many times reading Tom Sawyer.

Lorany of Ista Weyr

Sleek Six-Fingered Sadist Egg

This egg is unsettling, though it's hard to say just why. Its overall color is a dark butter amber, with a dull sheen resembling velvet and a streak of glossy brown capping its apex. However, thin scratches of ink-black and spills of ominous, rusty red mar what might otherwise be handsome. On one side, visible only when Essieth has turned the egg just so, is a dark mark rather like the print of a most unusual hand... a hand that possesses six fingers.

Inspiration: Count Rugen, the six-fingered man in The Princess Bride. Along with killing Inigo Montoya's father, he also tortured Wesley in the underground Pit of Despair.

Kassima of Telgar Weyr

Jump Magic Jump Egg

Broad horizontal stripes of crimson and ivory alternate, and coalesce into a chubby, soft shape at the center of this egg. A swath of darkness looms around the bright cheerful center, threatening to swallow it whole and turn it, too, to shadow. The apex of the egg falls into pallor, streaks of silvery platinum sprouting almost like spikes of hair, and just beneath that is a froth of dingy lace. The remainder of the egg is nearly black, but the night is not absolute as shimmers here and there strike the surface like the glint of light off leather.

Inspiration: When Sarah wished her brother to disappear, the Goblin King was happy to oblige. Tall and frightening, with platinum hair and an outfit of leather and lace, King Jareth swiped Toby who was clad in a onesie of red and white stripes. Though the whole move isn't set underground, the Goblin King's lair is, and when he sings his triumph a line in the song is "Jump, Magic, Jump".

Kylia of Ista Weyr

Oil Slick Egg

When viewed from the Galleries, the surface of this small egg is rather difficult to look at. It is a deep, gauzy black color that shimmers in the haze that rises from the hot Istan sand; as such, it is nearly imperceptible. Only by noticing liquid splotches of green and deep gold that seem to dance along the surface of the shell can a person notice the hump of the half-buried egg poking forth from its nest in the ebony sand, and where patches of shell meet grains of black the egg seems almost to seep quietly into the earth. Light captured from above reflects off the egg in hues of muted silver twilight.

Inspiration: An Oil Slick

S'dar of Ista Weyr