Spell Blade

A type of Status Buff spell seen in some RPGs that temporarily imbues the user's weapon with magic, letting them deal out elemental damage or cause Status Effects with their attacks. Among other uses, this is one method to create a Flaming Sword. Usually a preferred tactic of the Magic Knight.

See also Item Crafting, which lets you permanently add effects like these to a weapon. Not to be confused with Elemental Crafting, Elemental Weapons, or Socketed Equipment. Compare and contrast Item Amplifier, Poisoned Weapons, The Magic Touch and Elemental Punch.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• During the battle in the city from Berserk, Schierke uses her magic to turn Guts' Dragonslayer into a giant Flaming Sword.
• Yami Sukehiro in Black Clover is the leader of the group of Magic Knights known as the Black Bulls. His magically affinity is Dark Magic, a form of magic notoriously slow to cast. To compensate for this, he mainly relies on his sword, using his magic as a means of reinforcing his strikes and shielding himself by absorbing the brunt of magical attacks (which fortunately in this world is almost all attacks).
• Code:Breaker, Rei imbues a katana with his flames in the finale of the anime, as it allowed the blade to resist the electric attacks of the Big Bad.
• Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai: Among their abilities the Dragon Knight is capable of channelling offensive spells into a weapon, greatly enhancing its attack power while also allowing it to bypass both Anti-Magic and anti-physical defences. This is most famously used in conjunction with the ultimate lightning spell Gigadein (Kazapple) to create the Finishing Moves "Giga Break" and "Giga Strash"... which would prove popular enough to be adapted back into the Dragon Quest games as "Giga Slash", the Hero class's ultimate attack.
• In Fairy Tail, all the magic in Edolas comes in this form, however Edolas magic/weapons are of significantly lower quality than Earthland magic (The flame staff can only do one strong attack before expiring)
• The Greatest Magicmaster's Retirement Plan: AWR (Assist Weapon Recovery) are weapons made to channel mana. These weapons also have formulas engraved on them to facilitate spell usage. The main character, Alus, takes advantage of the formula writing portion by using a dagger with a long chain, and then engraving formulas on every link in the chain.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood: Jonathan Joestar imbues his sword Luck & Pluck with Ripple energy in battle against Dio, which is able to harm the vampire.
• The chakra-flow technique in Naruto is used by many characters to enhance bladed weapons with Elemental Powers.
• One Piece
  • Whitebeard can channel his Gura Gura no Mi powers into the blade of his bisento allowing him to launch massive shockwaves from it or hit with literal explosive force.
  • Haki users can channel their Busoshoku Haki into their weapons, i.e. swords, arrows, etc., allowing them to hit harder or harm Devil Fruit users.
  • Members of the Mink race have demonstrated the ability to channel their Electro powers into their weapons as well.
  • After the timeskip, Brook can imbue his sword, "Soul Solid", with his soul's energy and freeze people with the cold of the underworld.
• Suzuka from Outlaw Star has a wooden katana that acts as a conduit for her Ki Manipulation.
• Samurai Deeper Kyo: the titular samurai can use techniques to imbue his sword with various elements or effects.
• Slayers:
  • One of the Sword of Light's capabilities is that it can absorb spells cast at or blocked by it, and be used to deliver them point blank for massive damage. In the hands of a spellcaster these properties can also be used to stabilise hard-to-cast spells, which Lina has taken advantage of when casting Giga Slave.
  • The Astral Vine spell temporarily charges an object with magical energy so that it can hurt mazoku — it's frequently used by Zelgadis to enhance his sword. Amelia invented a similar spell, Visfarank, which affects the caster's hands and feet.

Comic Books

• In Immortal Iron Fist, turns out that past Iron Fists have had the ability to channel the chi of Shou-Lao the Undying into their weapons, be they a bow and arrow or a pair of pistols. Honestly, the standard use of the Iron Fist may count, only in that case the "weapon" is the user's own fist.

Fanfiction

• Child of the Storm: Harry's sabre in the sequel is capable of channelling his magical abilities, at the very least making it a flaming sword.
• The Night Unfurls: The Holy Moonlight Sword that Kyril wields, just like in Bloodborne, can channel arcane energy to enhance its slashing and thrusting power. Said energy can also be released in the form of waves or explosions, which makes this BFS the most potent weapon amongst Kyril's arsenal of trick weaponry.

Film — Animation

• Sleeping Beauty: How the fairies give Prince Phillip a Sword of Truth and a Shield of Virtue to fight Maleficent. They even add an extra incantation before the final blow.

Literature

• Demon hunters in Dance of the Butterfly use magically-imbued bladed weapons. Their special nature is shown with a colored aura that shines at certain times.
• In Eragon, the titular character sets his sword on fire before using it to stab the shade Durza in the heart. Later he gets an actual Flaming Sword named Brisingr which stands for "Fire". It lights up whenever he says the word, ever since he named it that in the Ancient Language.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The arcane spell "Magic Weapon" and "Greater Magic Weapon" which enchant a weapon with a +x to attack/damage. A druid can do the same thing to natural weapons (claws, etc.) with the "Magic Fang" line of spells. Other spells exist to bless a weapon (for fighting evil creatures), turn it into a specific metal (such as silver to fight lycanthropes), or even turn it into Pure Energy that passes through non-living material like armor. Psionics gets in on the action with "Metaphysical Weapon/Claw" and "Weapon/Claws of Energy".
  • Also the "Mighty Wallop" line of spells, which make bludgeoning weapons hit as if they're x times bigger than the actually are.
  • The artificer's "Weapon Augmentation" infusion does this, allowing him to temporarily imbue a weapon with the abilities of any magical weapon.
  • The paladin spell "Holy Sword" and the Eberron cleric spell "Heroes' Blade" turn a sword into a holy blade for a ton of bonuses and awesomeness.
  • The duskblade takes a different approach, with the ability to cast spells on enemies as they strike them with their weapons. The arcane archer and enlightened fist Prestige Classes get more limited versions based on arrows and fists respectively.
  • Many of the spells cast by 4e's Swordmage are at least flavored this way.
  • Fifth Edition retains the Magic Weapon spell and also adds Elemental Weapon (a slightly higher level version of Magic Weapon that adds elemental damage of the caster's choice to successful hits), the various Smite spells that inflict different types of damage on a hit and also add a status effect, the Paladin's Divine Smite ability that lets them burn a spell slot in order to add significant Radiant damage to a successful hit, and the Divine Strike ability of some Clerics that lets them add a damage type based on their cleric domain to melee attacks.
• Fabula Ultima:
  • The Elementalist, Entropist, and Spiritist classes each have an "[X] Weapon" spell which imbues a weapon with magical energy, making it inflict damage of a specific elemental type for the duration.
  • The Elementalist's Spellblade skill lets them channel a single-target offensive spell through one of their equipped weapons, letting them use the weapon's Accuracy Check formula instead of the spell's normal Magic Check formula.
  • The Dancer class has many dances which can change the damage inflicted by their attacks and spells to a specific element until their next turn. The Phoenix Dance can make them inflict fire damage, for instance, while the Yeti Dance can make them inflict ice damage.
  • The Flame Dragon has a unique power, Gift of Flame, which enchants another creature's weapon to make it deal fire damage. Since the dragon is immune to fire, it mainly uses this power to gimp its enemies by making their weapons useless against it.
• Games Workshop games:
  • Warhammer:
    • Spellcasters who use Aqshy, the Lore of Fire, can cast the Flaming Sword of Rhuin spell, which turns any weapon into a Flaming Sword.
    • The spell Enchanted Blades of Aiban from Chamon, the Lore of Metal, is able to turn any weapon into an Absurdly Sharp Blade.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Astartes Librarians use force weapons for melee combat. The Librarian is able to imbue these weapons with Warp energy to destroy the very soul of their enemy.
    • The 'Blades of Putrefaction' Psychic Power, from the Contagion Discipline used by Sorcerers of the Death Guard, enhances the melee weapons of the caster's allies with putrid blessing of Nurgle. In game terms, the 8th Edition rules represent this with a bonus to their to wound rolls and a chance of causing mortal wounds.
    • In some editions of the game, the Blood Angels Chief Librarian Mephiston had a unique psychic power, the 'Sanguine Sword' that allowed him to wreath his force sword in crimson flame, greatly increasing its strength^note In 8th Edition this became the name and ability of the blade itself.
• The Legend System not only has the basic Flame Blade spell, but the tactician class also has one that lets their allies' weapons cut away magical buffs.
  • Also, this is pretty much the entire point of the Just Blade track.
• Pathfinder, being based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, shares most of its examples. The magus class combines duskblade-style spell channeling with the ability to grant temporary enchantments to its weapon. Paladins and warpriests can also give their own weapons temporary enhancements, as can bards with the Arcane Duelist archetype and inquisitors with the Living Grimoire archetype. The Spell Warrior archetype for the skald class can grant temporary enchantments to the weapons of several allies by song, as can high-level Arcane Duelist bards.

Video Games

• Dual techs between Crono & Marle or Lucca in Chrono Trigger produced this effect. Note that the image is a case of Covers Always Lie, in the actual game Lucca is the one with fire powers, while Marle instead has ice powers.
• In Demon's Souls and the Dark Souls sequels, weapons can be enchanted with fire, magic, and lightning (as well as poison and bleed damage) by spells and consumable items. Item upgrades can also bestow these effects semi-permanently, but lower the weapon's scaling and physical damage. In II, using an enchantment on a weapon that already does that type of damage will add the normal effect but also increase the existing damage by a fixed percentage.
• In Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance, the Magic Knights gain these alongside the regular Sword-skills from Weapon Mastery, and are counted separately. (Example — learning Blade Rush gives access to a Flaming Slash variant). Although they had skills named after this trope in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, they really were more of a regular attack, followed up by a casting of that elemental spell (which is more of an on-command version of their random class action from the first game.)
• Several mage abilities in Dragon Age: Origins add elemental damage/effects to your entire party's weapons. Dragon Age II lumps them all together into a single spell that alters the rest of the party's weapons to match the element of the caster's Magic Staff.
• The Dragon Quest series has the Armamentalist class, who specializes in this. depending on the game, some get Elemental Punch attacks, others give an ally that type of elemental damage. In the ninth game, the ultimate item for the class gives the buff to the whole party.
• In Dungeons of Dredmor, damage buffs are standard weapon enchantments from the Anvil of Krong, and commonly applied by various potions, mushrooms, and passive buff skills.
• In Eternal Darkness, the characters can enchant any weapon from various periods of history. This ends up with the situation where you can have an enchanted assault rifle with attached grenade launcher, and blow up someplace with enchanted explosives.

• Fable brings us augments, some of which can upgrade their weapons with elemental power like fire and electricity.
• In Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark, the Duelist class can inflict elemental damage and debuffs with several of its Flourish skills. The Warmage class also has the “Infused Edge” skill, which is a melee attack followed by a single-target version of any spell they can cast.
• Final Fantasy V: The Spell Blade ability used by Mystic Knights is the Trope Namer. It's considered to be something of a Game-Breaker, since swords imbued with Status Effects will cause that effect 100% of the time as long as the attack itself hits and the target isn't immune, making Break sword an easy way to dispatch of many enemies. On top of that, weapons imbued with Holy or third tier elemental spells will deal instant death to enemies weak to their element, and Flare will simply make you deal huge amounts of damage with every attack.
  • The same ability returns in Bravely Default as Sword Magic, the Spell Fencer's specialty (though despite the name, it can be applied not only to swords but to any weapon, even bare hands).
  • The Nintendo DS remake of Final Fantasy IV gives Cid the "Upgrade" ability, which lets him use certain items to add an element to his hammer's attacks.
  • In Final Fantasy IV: The After Years this trope occurs with several of the band attacks.
  • The Bangaa-exclusive Gladiator class in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance can imbue their swords with fire, ice, or lightning for a single attack.
  • In addition to the returning Gladiator class, the Viera-exclusive Spellblade class in Final Fantasy Tactics A2 attacks with a sword imbued with one of various Status Effects. Finally, the Hume-exclusive Parivir class combines this trope with Iaijutsu Practitioner, inflicting both massive elemental damage and status effects for some of the most brutal single-target offense in the game at the cost of being restricted to bladed weapons.
  • Final Fantasy VII has the Elemental and Added Effect materia, allowing you to add these to your basic attack.
  • Final Fantasy VIII allows the player to use the Junction system to imbue any characters' attack with both elemental damage and Status Effects.
  • In Final Fantasy IX Vivi could do this for Steiner when they were in the same party.
  • In Final Fantasy X Wakka can inflict Status Effects on enemies through these abilities as well as his Element Reels Overdrive. The crafting system allows you to make custom weapons with these effects as well that trigger on normal attacks.
  • In Final Fantasy X-2 Characters in the Warrior dressphere could deal out attacks like this, the skills themselves where named after recurring elemental swords like Flametongue and Excalibur.
  • In Final Fantasy XI Red Mages can use the En- line of spells described below, which allows them to solo bosses that usually take 20+ people to kill! This is because said bosses nullify direct damage attacks, but the En-spells don't count as that — they're technically additional damage tacked onto physical attacks, which means the fight is an incredibly slow one.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII (and XIII-2), the uncommonly used En-(element) skills grant this as a buff while well as the Ravager's Strike line of attacks do this in place of standard attacks.
  • Paladins and Dark Knights in Final Fantasy XIV have holy and dark element Spell Blade attacks, respectively. Meanwhile, Red Mages use mana accumulated by casting white and black magic spells to boost their sword strikes.
  • In Dissidia Final Fantasy the Trope Namer is the EX Burst for Idiot Hero Bartz Klauser while other characters get similar variations such as Jecht Blade which wreathe's said character's weapon in fire as well as Cecil's Soul Eater, Shadow Bringer and Saint's Fall do the same with dark and holy magic respectively.
• In Grim Dawn, nearly every class can enchant their weapons with a specific damage type, although a character might use a gun just as easily as they do a sword. Shamans get lightning, Demolitionists and Oathkeepers get fire (and Oathkeepers can swap the fire for acid if they take a certain offshoot skill), Occultists get Chaos and Vitality, Soldiers get Elemental (a sort of All Your Powers Combined between Fire, Ice, Lightning), Nightblades get Ice, and Inquisitors get a randomly-selected magicked bullet.
• In the Kingdom Hearts series there are the single attack versions such as Roxas and Xion's Event Horizon, Sora's Ars Arcanum, Riku's Darkstrom and the recurring Fire, Ice, Lightning Edge commands. There is also the temporary buff version in Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep with the Command Styles Firestorm, Thunderbolt and Diamond Dust.
• Kirby:
  • In Kirby: Squeak Squad, Kirby can mix the Sword ability with either Spark, Fire, or Ice to make the Elemental Sword abilities, done so by either mixing the Copy Ability Bubbles in Kirby's stomach or inhaling both enemies that give those Copy abilities. However, this is an unlockable ability that Kirby gets from collecting the Sword Ability Scroll from a treasure chest. Bomb can do the same, but only with Spark and Ice, since the normal version already counts as Fire for environmental effects.
  • In Kirby Star Allies, Kirby and his recruited allies can infuse weapon-type Copy abilities (like Sword and Ninja) with the elemental-type Copy abilities, creating the Sizzle, Splash, Zap, Bluster, and Blizzard weapons, enhancing the damage the weapons can do and allowing them to perform special interactions with certain obstacles and enemies.
• In Last Scenario, Gust Strike and Rocksmash, Gust Strike being the first spell you ever get.
• In League of Legends there are several items that qualify for this, including items labelled "spell blade" which after you use an ability makes your next attack deal bonus damage based on either your base attack damage or your ability power. Others simply add bonus magic damage to your attacks. A number of champions also deal magic damage on their attacks without items as a result of their abilities. For example, Orianna deals bonus damage increased by her ability power, which deals more damage when she hits the same target multiple times in a row.
• In the fifth and final Legacy of Kain game Defiance, Raziel gains multiple elemental upgrades for his Wraith Blade to eventually meet his destiny.
• Magicka: One of the options you have in spellcasting is to channel your spell through your melee weapon.
• In the MARDEK series, while it isn't an actual buff or effect, Mardek's Magic Sword abilities such as Flame Slash and Earth Slash are explained as being sword attacks enchanted by Rohoph's power.
• In the second and third games of Mass Effect, three of the six character classes (Soldier, Infiltrator, Vanguard) have 2 or more ammo powers, all in the Fire, Ice, and Lightning category (called Incendiary, Cryo, and Disruptor respectively). Infiltrators have Disruptor and Cryo, Vanguards have Incendiary and Cryo, and Soldiers get all three. While they aren't spells, and weapons in the game are guns and not blades, the same concept applies.
  • Although, class-dependent heavy melee in the third game (Infiltrator and Engineer) possibly have elemental effects added to the omni-blade, so in those instances it's played straight.
• In Master of Magic, units built in a city with an alchemist's guild built will have magic weapons that have an attack bonus and can hit noncorporeal things. There's also the spell "Eldritch Weapon" which gives a unit magic weapons. Cities with access to mithril or adamantium and an alchemist's guild built produce units with mithril or adamantium weapons, which work similarly but have a higher bonus. The spell "Flame Blade" makes a unit's weapons deal more damage.
• Octopath Traveler has Runelord job, that has this trope as its core concept. Runelord can imbue their weapon with one of game's six elements, and can apply this buff to whole party with another skill. Said skill also makes Tressa with this job hilariously broken, since now she can apply her Sidestep skill to whole party, letting them dodge up to six physical attacks per use.
• Palworld: Most of the player's attacks are normally Neutral-elemental, but there are Pals whose Partner Skills will change their element when they're the active Pal or when mounted, while often boosting their damage too. For example, Anubis will change the player's attacks to Ground and boost their damage by a small amount if he's the active Pal, while Ragnahawk will change the player's attacks to Fire and boost their damage by a huge amount if it's mounted.
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous borrows several examples from the base Pathfinder game, but it also adds a shaman archetype that can do this as well as an Angel mythic path ability that blesses their weapon (and potentially their allies' weapons if the right upgrades are chosen).
• In Phantasy Star Online 2, the Bouncer's Jet Boots Gear skill causes their Jet Boots' attacks to take on the element of the last technique they cast. This synergizes well with their skills that grant bonuses for targeting enemies' elemental weaknesses.
• Prayer of the Faithless: The Solar Blade and Lunar Crasher have the "[X] Fang" Drives which give the weapon an elemental quality for one attack. The relationships being: "Pyre" = Fire, "Gaia" = Earth, "Frost" = Ice and "Thunder" = Wind.
• Johnny Garland, the main character of Shadow Hearts: From The New World has this as a special ability. He can channel raw Malice through his knives, transforming them into a Laser Blade. Although the previous game has shown Malice to be poisonous, it's not an ability Johnny can do. It's a side effect of resurrection. His Awaker form can even channel two blades.
• All playable characters in Skies of Arcadia can channel the power of the six moons through their weapons via moonstones, allowing them to empower their attacks with that moon's element (fire for the Red Moon, ice for the Purple Moon, etc.)
• Fayt from Star Ocean: Till the End of Time can impart his sword with basic elemental powers, and in late-game, with Holy magic.
• This is one of the Sith Assassin's primary abilities in Star Wars: The Old Republic: charging his lightsaber with Force lightning, then hitting an enemy with it. His other abilities are generally some variation of "hitting enemies with lightsaber" or "hit enemies with Force lightning".
• Starkiller can infuse his lightsaber with Force Lightning in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
• Can be invoked in Summon Night: Swordcraft Story with your summon beast's magic as well as embedding a sword with mystic ore.
• In Tales of Symphonia, Sheena learns spells like this every time she forms a pact with a summon spirit (Tethe Seal or Sylva Seal, depending on which world the Spirit resides in). The spells would temporarily give one person's weapon the elemental properties of the spirit in question. There are also items called "Quartz" that have the same effect when used in battle.
  • Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Xillia has lesser version in form of Fancy Elements/Elemental Impulse arte. It imbues party member's weapon with random element. In Xillia's case, the selected element is always one that the target's target is weak to if applicable.
• Warcraft III:
  • As of the expansion, every faction can purchase an orb that gives an elemental effect to the hero's weapon, along with an anti-air attack (fire for the Alliance, lightning for the Horde, and poison for the Night Elves, while the Undead have one that reduces armor). The more powerful ones (that slow down the target or create skeletons with every kill) can be found as Randomly Drops.
  • Alliance Priests have the "Inner Fire" ability, which increases the target's armor and damage, though it doesn't seem to involve actual fire, more along the lines of Fighting Spirit.
  • The Priestess of the Moon uses magic to set her Arrows on Fire.
• In Warframe, Saryn's Toxic Lash imbues her weapons with Toxin damage, while all shots fired through Volt's Electric Shield gain extra Electricity damage. Furthermore, a number of Warframes have Augments to imbue their allies' weapons with their signature element: Ember's Fireball Frenzy and Flash Accelerant give Heat damage, Frost's Freeze Force gives Cold, Oberon's Smite Infusion gives Radiation, Saryn's Venom Dose gives Corrosive, and Volt's Shock Trooper gives Electricity.
• Warhammer Online: Based on the tabletop version above, Empire Bright Wizards can cast Flaming Sword of Rhuin to set the edges of his party's weapons on fire. Dark Elf Sorcerers can give their party's weapons ice upgrades.
• World of Mana:
  • Secret of Mana has various "Saber" spells used by Primm, which can be used not only on her, but her allies as well. There is one Saber spell for 6 out of the 8 elemental spirits, excluding Shade (whose magic Primm can't use) and Dryad (who gets the plot-important Mana Magic instead). In addition to letting the affected character's physical attacks do elemental damage, the Saber spells often have a secondary effect, like freezing (Ice Saber), igniting (Flame Saber), or petrifying enemies (Stone Saber), increasing critical hit chance (Lightning Saber), or absorbing the enemy's HP (Moon Saber). Some bosses will even deliberately cast a saber on you of an element that they resist or absorb.
  • Trials of Mana inherits the Saber spells from Secret, and completes the set by adding Dark Saber to Shade's magic and replacing Mana Magic with Leaf Saber, which drains MP to complement Moon Saber's HP drain. Duran and Charlotte can learn most of these spells, and Kevin can learn either Moon or Leaf Saber as well depending on what class you make him. There are also items that can replicate the effects of these spells in case no one in your party can cast it themselves.
• This ability is a trademark of Shamans in World of Warcraft, used to improve a weapon's melee speed, spellcasting power, or healing power.
  • Expanded upon in Cataclysm, where Shamans gained the Unleash Weapon (which can now also be extended to Unleash Fury at level 90) spell, which activated certain effects depending on the currently active weapon enchants.

Webcomics

• In El Goonish Shive, Susan can summon a sword that has an aura around it that is more effective against Aberrations than her normal summoned weapons.
• In Splitting Image, the Legendary Hero Elise has various symbols and runes engraved in her sword, allowing her to cast a spell at the same time she attacks with the blade.

Western Animation

• The Owl House: Luz's glyphs can be used to grant elemental properties to weapons, as shown when she uses an ice glyph on a flail during her fight against Grom. They also work just as well on magical constructs like Amity's abominations, allowing for some truly devastating Combination Attacks.

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