Nichirin of the Frost Pillar

The Nichirin of the Frost Pillar is the katana of Hiro Aganeya, Pillar of Frost Breathing. A blade of pure white, the white of absolute zero, laced with ice-blue frost. You don't brandish it: it rides sheathed at your left hip, and it is your attack that draws it — the draw is already the first cut. Strikes chain together and leave a frost trail and hanging crystals in the air, every hit freezes the target, and five seconds without striking are enough for it to return to its scabbard on its own.

Stats

It handles like a sword (sweeping included). For comparison: a Netherite sword deals 8 damage at 1.6 (12.8 per second); the Nichirin deals 10 damage at 1.8 (18 per second), and 15 when the draw lands.

• Unbreakable: it never wears out.
• Fire resistant, lava included, like Netherite.
• Doesn't stack (one per slot).
• Its tooltip names its wielder, "Hiro Aganeya, Frost Pillar", and its motto: "Frost does not strike. It settles."

How to get it

The Nichirin has no recipe and isn't found in any chest for now. It sits in the Combat creative tab, or use a command:

/give @s astrostuff:frost_nichirin

Sheathed, at the hip

As soon as a Nichirin is in your hotbar, the katana is tucked into your belt at your left hip: edge up, hilt forward, point toward the back, lying almost flat like a real katana worn in the obi. It stays there even while you hold something else — a Pillar never leaves his blade — and every player who can see you sees it too. It disappears while you are invisible or in spectator mode.

When you select the Nichirin, your right hand stays empty: the blade is still in its scabbard. Your character takes the waiting stance, left hand on the scabbard's mouth, thumb against the tsuba.

Drawing: the iaijutsu cut

Attack (left-click), whether you're aiming at someone or at thin air: the thumb pushes the tsuba, the blade slides out a few centimetres, then the right hand tears it from the scabbard and cuts in the same motion. This is strike 0 of the chain, and it is special:

• ×1.5 damage if it lands (15 instead of 10).
• Double frost and stronger Slowness (see below).
• The longest frost trail: one horizontal line from the left hip to the right, and 26 crystals instead of 16.

As long as the blade is in its scabbard or on its way back in, your next attack is a draw.

The chain

Once drawn, each attack plays the next strike, with its own motion and its own trail:

After strike 4, it starts again at strike 1.

• Pause of more than 1.5 s between two strikes: the chain restarts at strike 1 (the blade stays drawn).
• Two attacks less than 0.2 s apart count as one (a double click doesn't skip a strike).
• Swings at thin air count too: they advance the chain and push back the sheathing.

Sheathing

Five seconds after your last strike (hit or miss), Hiro puts his blade away on his own:

1. Chiburi: a sharp flick of the wrist that shakes off the blood (0.15 s).
2. The hand brings the blade back to the scabbard's mouth; the point enters at 0.45 s.
3. The blade slides into the scabbard, following its curve.
4. The tsuba meets the mouth: the "chin" at 1.05 s. The hand comes down; the whole motion lasts 1.5 s.

Attacking during the sheathing draws again: it is a new iaijutsu cut, with its bonus.

Switching items also sheathes the blade, silently and without any motion: when you pick the Nichirin back up, it will be in its scabbard. There is no key to sheathe by hand.

Frost on hit

Every strike that hits a creature drives the cold into the wound: the target frosts over (the game's freeze gauge, the one from powder snow) and grows heavy (Slowness). A sound of freezing flesh comes from the target.

Frost builds up to 3 seconds past the full-freeze threshold. Once the gauge is full, the target shakes and takes the game's freezing damage, exactly as if caught in powder snow — the same rules apply, including for creatures immune to cold. Out of the snow, the gauge drains on its own: you have to keep striking to keep it full.

Only melee strikes with the Nichirin in your main hand freeze.

Frost in the air

Every cut leaves a mark, like a scar left in the atmosphere:

• a frost trail that follows the exact arc of the blade, holds for a moment, then shatters (a little under 2 s in all);
• ice crystals — needles, plates and stars — born as the point passes, slowly turning while barely sinking, then melting (2 to 4 s).

Everything stays where the blade passed: you are the one who moves away from it. Every nearby player sees these effects, drawn by the mod itself (no vanilla particles). The blade itself glows in the dark: its frost pattern, its temper line and its edge light up at full brightness.

Sounds

Hiro's blade makes almost no sound as it moves: the only two frankly metallic moments are the draw and the "chin" of the sheathing. Everything else is air freezing, crystals forming.

Three more sounds are already in the mod for the future Frost Breathing: see Frost Breathing.

Appearance

• The blade: pure white, laced with a fine network of frost ferns and six-pointed ice-blue stars, like frost caught in the middle of forming. The temper line (hamon) is an ice-blue border of frost spikes. Near the guard are engraved 悪鬼滅殺 ("destroy the demons"), as on the Pillars' blades, and 霜柱 ("frost pillar") on the other side.
• The mounting: a collar (habaki) of striated white silver, underlined by a red thread — the red of Hiro's obi and eyes, the only warm touch on the weapon; a white tsuba shaped as an openwork hexagonal snowflake; an hourglass hilt braided in ice blue and white, adorned with snowflakes.
• The scabbard: deep black lacquer with a pale blue frost crackle, mouth and end caps of white horn edged in ice blue, a knotted white cord (sageo), two braided sections matching the hilt.
• Dimensions: 72.4 cm of blade along the curve, 98.9 cm overall, 2.2 cm of curvature.

With Epic Fight

Epic Fight (21.0 or later) is optional. When installed, it takes over the Nichirin's combat, and the Nichirin becomes an Epic Fight uchigatana:

• Its uchigatana already draws on attack and sheathes after five seconds, with its own animations. AstroStuff's motions, stance and hip scabbard are then switched off; Epic Fight draws the scabbard itself.
• Epic Fight settings: impact 0.8, armor negation 10, up to 2 targets per strike, a pale ice-blue swing trail, and the Nichirin's own swing and impact sounds.
• Frost on hit still applies (ordinary-strike values). The ×1.5 draw bonus and AstroStuff's frost trails and crystals do not.

The scabbard also exists as an item (astrostuff:frost_nichirin_saya, Nichirin Scabbard), only so that Epic Fight can draw it. It is in no creative tab and has no use.

Tips

• Open with a draw: the first cut deals 15 damage and freezes twice as hard. Close in with the blade sheathed.
• Getting the draw back: wait 5 s without striking, or attack during the sheathing. Switching items and coming back also returns the blade to its scabbard, but the game resets your attack cooldown when you switch items.
• Keep the rhythm: the frost drops as soon as you stop; a few strikes chained without pause keep the target frozen and slowed.
• Keep it in your hotbar even when fighting some other way: it stays at your hip.

See also

• Hiro Aganeya — the Frost Pillar
• Frost Breathing — the breathing style that will go with this blade
• Controls & settings — keys and compatibility