Full-spectrum play-of-color blazing in soft bursts across a near-black opal body, reds and greens and blues firing off different patches as the die moves so no two faces read alike. The dark potch behind it keeps every flash bright instead of washing it out. The numerals are cut down into the faces and filled crisp white, real recessed geometry, the one steady thing on a surface that will not sit still. The full polyhedral set, plus a d2 and a d16, all carved to match.

Harlequin is the pattern every opal cutter hopes for and almost never gets: broad flashes of color sitting in distinct patches rather than a scatter of pinfire. Stones like it come out of dry country where water sat in the cracks long enough to leave silica behind, one thin layer at a time, for longer than anything with a name has been around. Held still it is nearly black. Rolled, it catches fire.

1 sets containing 9 dice