Weapon Name: Ebony Snowfall (sometimes known as the Zeroth Blade)
Description: Ebony Swordfall is a silvery katana, constantly coated in a reflective, obsidian shell. The blade itself is a standard katana blade, with the durability of tungsten and the sharpness of obsidian. The tsuba of the Ebony Snowfall is a dark gray rectangle, locked onto the rest of the katana in a manner to facilitate the drawing of the blade. The handle itself is a white painted wood handle, best shaped for use in one hand, with black leather strips wrapped around the grip to ensure the blade can be held firmly.
Weapon Special Abilities: The Ebony Snowfall's blade is made of tungsten, a dense and heavy metal known to be one of the toughest metals on the planet. It is an extremely durable blade, nearly impossible to break, let alone cause nicks in the blade. On the other hand, the obsidian coat is rather fragile. The obsidian on the blade is prone to breaking on anything like a sword, stone, or bone. This will normally result in the obsidian coating exploding off the blade in a shower of razor sharp glass pieces.
Obsidian Devil Fruit: The source of the Ebony Snowfall's obsidian coat is its
Obsidian Devil Fruit which continuously coats the blade of the Ebony Snowfall with a layer of obsidian. This layer is replenished very quickly after being shattered, keeping the blade of the Ebony Snowfall continuously at its sharpest. Furthermore, the blade can also discharge shards of obsidian in the direction it is swung, but such techniques are best reserved for long-range attacks.
History: The Ebony Snowfall, occasionally referred to as the Zeroth Blade, possesses a quality outside that of the normal grading system for blades, primarily due to the materials from which it is made. The tungsten and obsidian makeup of the Zeroth Blade make it unable to be beholden to the normal standards of the average graded sword, which make its placement in the ranks of 'prime grade swords' rather muddied and uncertain. However, the Zeroth Blade was, in fact, made in a manner to be one of the most high quality blades in existence. However, many underestimate the quality of the Zeroth Blade due to its lack of placement in the sword hierarchy, only to be taken off guard by the incredible quality of the blade.
The Zeroth Blade was forged on the volcanic and snowy island of Aulion, where a number of smiths gathered to share trade secrets. Among those who worked on the island was a master smith who had grown tired of using normal steel and iron to create his weaponry, and so he retreated into the mountains to find other materials with which he might form weaponry. While in the mountains, the smith found the uncommon element tungsten and the volcanic glass obsidian, and saw potential in those materials for incredible weaponry. He spent the next several years hoarding whatever tungsten he could find, and practicing in the craft of manipulating the obsidian he had found.
His experimentation lead to many failures, but even those had their positive results. He used shards from his failed projects to create arrows with incredible piercing capabilities, and the larger shards were repurposed into knives capable of slicing through hides as if they were butter. He later managed to make a number of obsidian blades, which he called the Oneth series of blades. He later sold all but one of the blades to wealthy collectors, in order to continue his smithing projects. As he continued his work, moving onto obsidian spheres and incredible obsidian arrows, he amassed a store of tungsten sufficient enough to begin work on his magnum opus, the Zeroth Blade.
Working near the heat of the lava of one of the volcanoes within the mountains, the master smith worked the tungsten into a heavy, yet maneuverable weapon of war. By the end of his work, the Zeroth Blade was heavy enough to cleave through shoddy iron bars with nearly no effort. It was then that the master smith realized the incredible destructive power of the Zeroth blade, and, indeed, the deadly nature of tungsten's weight. He fled his mountain workshop, taking his works of obsidian with him, and leaving the Zeroth Blade behind, inside an ornate obsidian sheath.
The Zeroth Blade was discovered years later by a wanderer, who took possession of it, aware that the master smith had died merely a year before. The wanderer took it to marketplace on another island, where it was purchased by a wealthy Government official. The official, not skilled at all in the ways of swordsmanship, merely purchased the oddity, and hung it above his mantle on his estate. His estate was later sacked by a skilled pirate crew, and the Zeroth blade was taken by one of the crewmembers. That crewmember infused the blade with a Devil Fruit at the height of his crew's piracy. He later retired with his sword, passing the blade down through the family, newly christened as the Ebony Snowfall.
The sword was later passed on to Sven Wiegaard, its current master, and perhaps the best wielder of the master smith's magnum opus.
Sat Feb 04, 2012 1:45 am
