HRWClutch:34/Eggs

HRW Clutch 34/Eggs

Gold Hraedhyth x Brown Szadath / Gold Iesaryth x Brown Arekoth
Clutching Date:	February 13, 2013
Clutch Count:	24 eggs
Theme:	'The real and imaginary periodic table'

Flashing Lights Egg

This large egg is actually difficult to look on, mostly due to the garish, over-bright squiggles and curves of colour that cover it. Hot pink, lurid green, cobalt blue and angry red are only a few of the aggressive shades that pulse over the shell top to bottom, demanding attention from all who see it. Viewing it too long might give one a heady, drunk feeling - and perhaps even the resulting headache after.

Inspiration: Neon. Particularly the neon lights of Las Vegas and Shinjuku, always insanely bright and just a little surreal.

Credit: Brieli

Kal-El's Heel Egg

Blindingly vibrant, light cascades over this toxic emerald egg, geometric striations giving the illusion of a faceted shell. The core is nearly white hot, sickly yellow-green pulsating outward in a smooth gradation towards a much richer hue. A serpentine brand scorches a noticeably smooth path over the ovoid, testing the limits of the diamond border which surround it.

Inspiration: Based off of kryptonite, one of Superman's more infamous (only?) weaknesses. I threw in his emblem just because it looked really cool in my head. Kryptonite is also a common synonym for Achilles's heel.

Credit: Azaylia

Bright Idea Egg

This bulbous egg seems almost fragile, so perfectly round at its frosted end that its shape could surely only be maintained either by the greatest of care, or the greatest of luck. At the egg's centre, a twisting spiral of the brightest white filaments burns white hot, its bright flare softening as it reaches around the edges of the shell. And it all comes to a stop - the glow, the roundness, the warmth - where a metallic grey surrounds the tapered end of that egg.

Inspiration: Tungsten! It revolutionised the incandescent bulb, but in the end, gave off more heat than light, and was replaced by something more energy efficient. However, its more immediate illumination at the flick of a switch, as compared to the CFL bulbs, still makes it the preferred method of signalling a cartoon character's epiphany.

Credit: H'kon

Untamed Egg

Large and round, this burly egg might be eye-catching enough by its dimensions alone, but the colors and patterns that wrap around its wide curves, bold and oversaturated, make it stand out all the more. Rich, lush greens fan across it in broad leaves and tropic blue oozes about its crown, brilliant against the feral stripes of yellow and purple prowl around the loamy shadows. It's all loud, too garish and bright, and the little feathery spots of white that dot the shell are far too delicate to attract much attention.

Inspiration: Avatar's 'unobtainium' inspired this Pandora-based egg. Someone had to do it.

Credit: Vienne

Molded Glass Egg

This egg looks like it was dipped in a ridged mold, but its surface is as smooth as any other eggs. The illusion of ridges start out close together at the base of the egg, where the color is a bright and fiery orange. Working itself up the eggs surface the ridges are spaced further apart and the color of the egg has gradually changed to the darker orange the color of carrots. At the top of the egg the 'ridges' have faded to a wavy pattern in the color, now a light coral.

Inspiration: Soda-Lime Glass is a common form of glass. In glass blowing, they sometimes put the glass in ridged molds to shape it. When glass is at its hottest it is a bright orange and as it cools it is a darker orange and eventually takes on the color of the glass being worked on.

Credit: Peregrine

What's the Matter Egg

Red. The entire shell of this unusually rotund egg is covered in it, the bright crimson of highly oxygenated blood spreading over the surface in a perfectly smooth, even coat. There's a funny sheen atop, giving the impression that this could, after all, just be a massive red stone that's been tumbled and re-tumbled until it produces a polished shine in the right lighting. An uneven blotch of blackness is the only spot that threatens to mar its ominous perfection, tendrils fading ever outward in an attempt to engulf everything. From a distance, it might seem that there's a blood-red eye sitting unblinkingly on the sands.

Inspiration: Red matter, a fictional substance first seen in J. J. Abrams's Star Trek (2009), creates a black hole when it comes into contact with nuclear matter. Don't inject this stuff into a planet's core. Seriously.

Credit: Kinory

Better Living Through Pharmacology Egg

Small and silvery white, this egg is not all that noticeable at first - but when one takes the time to look, there's a lovely smoky, airy quality to the colouring. The faint pattern that undulates over the shell's surface is awfully... relaxing to trace with eye or fingers, should anyone get the chance. Overall, there's an odd, dreamy quality to the shading that makes it seem as insubstantial as fog.

Inspiration: Lithium. Though it's used for a lot of things, one of the most common is for treatment of bipolar disorder... but as with most psych meds, I'm told it's a hell of a drug.

Credit: Brieli

Now You Don't Egg

A wave of heat lingers just long enough to catch one's eye, grainy shimmer blending in with the hot sands beneath it. What was that? Where? Oh. Too small to raise any young girl's hopes, this pale gold ovoid is a hard one to track, lost amongst far more vibrant neighbors. Smooth so as to seem polished and highly reflective, it's easily tainted by the hues which surround it: be it dam's hide or a future sibling's own vessel.

Inspiration: Based off of 'Stealth ore', which is a fictional metal that exists in the Artemis Fowl books. It's invisible to electrical equipment, and when the 'stealth' is turned off it's detectable for only a split second! Yeah, I don't know either. Nostalgia made me write it!

Credit: Azaylia

Love is Like Oxygen Egg

The background of this egg is a light steel blue, not quite evenly colored across the surface of the egg. Here and there the blue fades to almost white, reminiscent of indistinct clouds. In the foreground vague shapes in brown and black look like figures floating against the blue egg's surface. They float with random orientation - here one is parallel with the hot sands below the egg, here one figure is almost upright. There doesn't seem to be a firm surface for these small figures to gain purchase.

Inspiration: The song "Love is Like Oxygen" by Sweet. The line goes "Love is like Oxygen. You get too much you get too high, not enough and you're going to die."

Credit: Peregrine

You Might Vanish Away Egg

Deliriously dreamy, all pale blue-grey smoke, there's something ethereal and not-quite-there about this small egg. Silvery wisps dart towards the lower curve, twining together in a delicate pattern of braided tendrils, light-touched and perfect. Against the pale sands, it appears washed out, likely as not to vanish away entirely at a moment's notice; close-up, it is as intricate and solid as any of its siblings.

Inspiration: Snarks and Boojums are, in the novelisation of Star Trek II, the sub-elementary particles that quarks are made of. Both names come from Lewis Carroll's 'The Hunting of the Snark', and this egg was inspired in particular by the song 'Midnight Smoke' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJpB_stxS_E) from the musical inspired by that poem.

Credit: K'del

Fegg

Ironclad, its top is helmeted in reflective grey, a thicker, stronger part of the shell offering protection against any outside threat. Less rugged, the midsection is a more approachable amber, though it is marred with grooves and gouges of red. At its base, a jagged ridge of that same ferrous thickness suggests not defence, but aggression.

Inspiration: The Iron Age! A remarkable technological and political advancement, ironworking allowed some guys to make better armour and weapons than other guys, and to then take all their stuff. It also allowed Tony Stark to make a badass body suit that probably wasn't actually made out of iron at all, but still features in this desc, 'cause how could it not. (Also, Iron is 'Fe' on the periodic table.)

Credit: H'kon

Snikt Egg

Unmovable. Unbreakable. Shell a deep ebon, what colors that dare to mark the heavy darkness of this egg are all the more severe because of it. Hot yellow forms a sudden, rounded plain cut into by equally bright navy mask, no effort made to blend the two. A glaring white stare is echoed in sweeping blue points; nothing about this egg intended to be soft. The poorly coordinated hues are fragmented by wicked silver, crossed in silent threat: x marks the spot.

Inspiration: Adamantium, the stuff that makes up Wolverine's skeleton. More importantly, it's what makes his claws so indestructible. Watch it, Bub!

Credit: Azaylia

Moon's Reflection Egg

From most sides this egg looks like the depths of an abyss, covered in black as it is. But a surprise glow meets the eyes at just the right angle, when a white orb seems to glow off of the egg, all the more brightly due to the darkness of the rest of the egg. Below it in an almost perfect reflection is another orb, though this one seems to curve slightly as though it is being carried with the sea.

Inspiration: Selenium comes from the Greek word for Moon, Selene.

Credit: Peregrine

The Hotter it Gets Egg

Amidst the oppressive heat of the Sands, something about the patterning and hue of this egg gives the impression of icy cool, the impression becoming more and more pronounced as the delicate shell hardens. Steely blue, and dappled with cosmic, star-speckled darkness, it is of average size and shape - just another egg, despite that suggestion of metallic chill.

Inspiration: Photofine steel! From Wikipedia: Seen in the Doctor Who episode 'Planet of the Dead', photofine steel is a metal that gets colder the hotter the outside temperature is. It was seen on the Tritovore's space ship.

Credit: Nicky

Bonified To Be Humerus Egg

This is an egg that demands more than a mere glance, otherwise too easily mistaken for a far more grisly sight. Muddy sockets stare right back from a mottled shell that is stained an unsettling yellow, brown smudges and cracks traversing the bulbous surface. Lined up so prettily beneath jagged spade are off-white tombstones, a grin frozen in time and meant to last til the very end. Only its generous size might put the more gruesome imaginations to rest.

Inspiration: Calcium makes me think milk, which makes me think bones, which leads to... a skull. Are you really surprised? ;) And you know I had to make it punny!

Credit: Azaylia

The Void Looks Into You Egg

This egg is mid-sized, but there's nothing common about it - deep, dark and shiny, like the midnight sky; so black that it seems to draw in light and heat from everything around, even the sands below. The shell almost has no particular colour, but is simply the absence of colour or shade or pattern, as if the stars have fallen from the sky. Eerie and unsettling, it's a small void in the middle of the hatching cavern that no one seems inclined to consider for too long.

Inspiration: Starmetal. In the 'Exalted' tabletop setting, the rarest of the five magical materials, created by the remaining essence of fallen gods.

Credit: Brieli

Cheap Bauble Egg

There are those colors that aren't really colors at all but just ever-shifting plays of light. Such is the shell of one small, pale egg: not quite white, overlain with a silvery sheen that breaks into regular facets across its sides. From the base, a few yellowed fingers reach upward, crooked and uneven, as though to hold it in a shoddy pronged grasp.

Inspiration: Zirconium, which makes me think of cubic zirconia, costume jewelry and possibly old ladies.

Credit: Vienne

Imprisoned Souls Egg

An oppressive gray cloud covers the surface of this egg, dulling whatever shine there might be by colouring alone. Faint, spectral images seem to surface from the murky depths, disturbing in their form; shapes seem like faces in torment, wisps of hands reaching for salvation. No matter how many times one looks at those faces, they always seem different - and somehow, grow more horrifying as they seek to free themselves from the shell.

Inspiration: Soulsteel. The newest and the second strongest of the five magical materials in the 'Exalted' tabletop setting, formed by alloying human souls and ore dredged up from the nightmares of dead elder gods that teeter upon the edge of oblivion. (!!)

Credit: Brieli

Plumbing Puzzle Egg

At first glance, a dark grey egg isn't all that much to look at, but on closer inspection its mottled appearance hides a complex, woven pattern, as though a single bar of gray is wrapping back and forth around the shell, tucking under and over itself in endless twists and turns, awkward angles and straining junctions. It's hardly a solid gray, either, but rather marred by spots of rust and corrosion, highlighted with pale lime deposits and now and then a little glossy patch almost makes it look wet.

Inspiration: Lead, lead pipes.

Credit: Vienne

Dabo! Egg

There's something weighty about this mid-sized egg, notable more for hue than size: it gleams nearly gold, fool's gold, yellow-metallic glazing sweeping each rounded curve. Suspended within that brilliance is a hint of silver, somehow glistening liquidly, captured amidst those outer layers like a rare jewel - protected, by the egg's shell, as surely as the hatchling within is.

Inspiration: Latinum (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Latinum) is a rare silver-colored liquid used as currency within the Star Trek universe, usually suspended within gold to produce gold-pressed latinum. It comes in slips, strips, bars and bricks, and is often used for betting on dabo, a roulette-style game.

Credit: K'del

Demonic Stink Egg

Hemmed on top and bottom by inky blackness, the egg's equator glows in fetid yellow, a wavering band of color that turns sickly green in places and putrid orange in others. The shifting of hue creates a sense of undulation and the wisps of color that drift off toward the dark ends give the impression of smoldering heat and pungent vapor.

Inspiration: Sulfur, which is supposedly what demons smells like. And sulfur stinks.

Credit: Vienne

Remnants of a Wish Egg

Coal-dusted, this large egg might have been, were it not for the shimmer that hints at black diamonds against its milky-white shell. Perhaps it's that darkened silhouette that makes it seem so still and solid, like an artefact from a time long ago, though it is no stiller, and no more solid, than any of its siblings. A dark, dense streak runs through the dusting like some deeply sinister fissure, as though its first contact with the heated sands had been enough to crack the new-laid egg: dramatic enough to distract, perhaps, from the subtler shadings at the egg's apex, the warmer glitter of dark topaz intermixed with a single swirl of filigreed silver.

Inspiration: The remnants of the fallen star found in the book Stardust. Inspiration taken from when the main character brings a part of Yvaine beyond the wall, only to find his kerchief full of coal, dust-like debris. The name is given as it is the last remains of Tristan's wish for his first love's hand, realizing his own feelings for the "star" he'd been trying to drag home all this time.

Credit: Ceawlin

Huge Tracts Of Land Egg

Twin globes are squeezed together, leaving little room across the expanse of an unnaturally orange shell. It looks ready to burst, and yet oddly stiff as it hardens over time. The uncanny valley is a sudden, ruddy dip down the middle of its roundest parts, lost to obnoxiously pink borders that do their best to separate and support. Despite garish coloration, this egg is more likely to draw in male candidates... for whatever reason.

Inspiration: Silicone. It counts! Mwahaha. Big, fake, spray-tanned boobies! And a itty bitty pink bikini. Don't blame me, blame google image search.

Credit: Azaylia

Weirdly Wonderful Egg

Spectacular! Amazing! Wonderflonius? This bizarre egg holds an unusual kind of beauty that wouldn't appeal to all. Hap-hazard rings of cobalt and yellow-green splotch all across this egg, interlocking in oblong, awkward chains that seem tangled across the shell. The whole egg is glossy, but the gloss seems thicker in some places than others, giving the bright colors an oozy, gooey sort of look. This egg might look truly wonderful if it was ten times the size, but it's like someone dehydrated all the wonderfulness into this small package, leaving it ultra-concentrated. Those who see what it is might be appalled; those who imagine what it could be might find a special love of this odd-looking egg.

Inspiration Element: Wonderflonium from Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long Blog. It's never seen in the movie, so I made up what it looked like, keeping some of the properties it's professed to having (mixed with water, it makes the time freeze-ray work).

Credit: Wakizian

Honorable Mentions

There were so many spectacular descriptions submitted that the decisions on which were used or not were very difficult. We'd like to honor and thank everyone who submitted a description in our honorable mentions.

A Piece of Heaven Egg

Pewter pixie-dust showers the surface of this egg. The shimmering silver seems to morph and change in the light, absorbing the light into itself and reflecting it back even brighter. It seems to dull in direct sunlight, but the by the light of Timor or Belior, an enchanting glow seems to emanate - at least to the romantic's eye. Others, less creative, might simply see a boring speckled silver egg with no value. Upon closer inspection, the speckles can be identified as singular and unique, some ranging in colors away from silver to blue, red, white, tan, and gold, and in between the speckles is a void of blackness. Each of the speckles reflects its own unique hue, some speckles larger, and others smaller, as unique as each snowflake that falls.

Inspiration: Stardust from the movie and graphic novel Stardust.

Credit: Wakizian