Fallen Scythe — Folding Light-Rune Scythe for VRChat (Runelight No.2)

▶ VRChat avatar prop · PC only · needs Modular Avatar (free, from VCC) · drag-and-drop prefab
Not made for one avatar: Modular Avatar hooks it to your avatar's own hip, right hand and head bones at upload, so it works on humanoid avatars in general. Checked in Unity on the VRChat SDK sample avatar.

A scythe made of nothing but cracked light runes. It rests at your right hip as a folded column of glyphs. Grab it, throw it up over your head and it unfolds rune by rune into a crescent blade before it lands back in your hand. Strike the floor with its butt and it breaks into its next form.
No metal, no frame: every part is a glyph of light. Even while you stand still, the runes breathe, the halo turns (or, fallen, its broken pieces bob), the cracks flicker and dust drifts off the blade.

TWO THINGS YOU DO WITH YOUR HANDS
1. Throw it to open it. Make a fist on the column at your right hip and it comes to your hand (0.3 s). Raise your hand over your head and open it: the column flies up spinning, the shaft grows glyph by glyph, the blade fans open, and you catch it as it falls (1.3 s in all). Open your hand anywhere else and it flies back to your hip (0.35 s). With the scythe open, a fist on your hip for 0.4 s folds it away (0.7 s).
2. Bend the blade. Grab the tip of the blade with your other hand and bend it: over 18 degrees → Hook (the outer half of the blade folds down at the middle joint and clicks into place), over 43.2 degrees → Twin (a second blade flicks out on the other side like a switchblade). You see the shape while you hold it; let go and it keeps that shape (0.4 s). Let go without bending and it goes back to the Crescent. Every change snaps with a burst of light where the blade turns (Order: a star and a ring of runes flying out · Fallen: jagged spikes and falling embers · Void: a spiral sucked into a black hole), rune shards and the arc the tip swept (under 1 s; off with Effects).

ONE THING YOU DO WITH YOUR BODY
Strike the floor at your feet with the butt, fast (1 m/s or more; a slow touch does nothing): a ring of runes hits the floor, a crack of light climbs the shaft, and the blade breaks into runes that go once round the shaft and lock in as the next form (1.5 s). Order → Fallen → Void → Order. After a strike it rests for 1.6 s, so one hit is one change.

3 FORMS (each one a different shape, not only a colour)
• Order: an even crescent of gold rune cells, a four-point star at the joint, a whole halo above it; its floor ring runs out even
• Fallen: a drooping, ragged crimson hook with thorns, a burning eye at the joint, a halo broken into falling pieces, embers dripping down; its floor ring cracks open in pieces
• Void: three violet arms wind into a black hole at the joint, and the runes creep in toward it; its floor ring winds in to the butt
Every form takes all three blade shapes (Crescent / Hook / Twin): 9 looks in all.

THE SWING
A crescent of light follows the tip as you swing: a slow move leaves a short mark, a fast swing a long one.

MENU ("Rune Scythe")
• Unfold: open / fold the scythe without the gestures
• Form: Order / Fallen / Void (remembered)
• Blade: Crescent / Hook / Twin (remembered)
• Show: show / hide the whole scythe (on to start, remembered)
• Body gestures: the grab-and-throw, the hip fold, the blade bend and the floor strike on / off (on to start, remembered). Turn it off if you make a fist at your hip a lot.
• Effects: the swing trail, the drifting dust and the floor ring on / off (on to start, remembered). The scythe and the gestures keep working.

ONE PREFAB, GOOD RANK
VRChat PC performance rank of the scythe by itself (VRChat SDK check): Good. No particle systems: the dust, the ring and the cracks are drawn by the scythe's own shader.
In VRChat you see the rank of your avatar and the scythe together (on the SDK sample avatar, which is Medium by itself, it stays Medium).

EASY TO PUT ON
Drag one prefab onto your avatar and upload. Modular Avatar adds the "Rune Scythe" menu, the parameters and the animator layers for you, and keeps the scythe on your hip and right hand bones.

WHAT'S INCLUDED
• RS_1.0.0.unitypackage: 1 prefab, 2 shaders, 1 rune texture, 2 materials, menu and animator
Folders: Assets/Caligo/Runelight/No.2 Fallen Scythe/ (the scythe) and Assets/Caligo/Runelight/_Common/ (the rune texture shared by the Runelight series)
• README (English and Japanese)

SPECS
• Tris: 758
• Mesh renderers: 1 / Materials: 2 / Textures: 1 (512, BC7) / Lights: none / Particle systems: none
• Trail renderers: 1 / PhysBones: 1 (the blade tip, only you can grab it) / Contacts: 5 / Constraints: 1
• Synced parameters: 27 bits

REQUIREMENTS
• Modular Avatar (available through VCC)

TESTED WITH
Unity 2022.3.22f1 / VRChat SDK 3.10.5 / Modular Avatar 1.18.7. The parts, the parameters, the menu and the animator steps are checked in Unity. The prefab imports into a clean project with no problems, also together with Runelight No.1 Rune Bow in the same project.
PC only (custom shaders, no Quest version).

GOOD TO KNOW
• Right-handed: the scythe rests at your right hip and opens in your right hand; your other hand bends the blade.
• It never touches other players: no damage, no hit effects on people, and only you can bend the blade.
• The floor strike uses a contact at your avatar's feet, not the world's floor, so it works the same in any world.
• People who block custom shaders in their Safety settings won't see it.

SUPPORT
If the throw, the bend, the strike or anything else doesn't work as described in VRChat, message me on Jinxxy. I'll fix it and send you the update for free.
AI DISCLOSURE (AI-Assisted)
The shaders, the code that builds this scythe and the text on this page were written with help from an AI assistant. An AI image generator made rough concept sketches I looked at while designing (the shape follows one of them); nothing it made is in the files or in the preview images, which are rendered in Unity from the actual scythe.

RUNELIGHT SERIES
No.2 of five light-rune pieces made to go together.

TERMS
• OK to use on your avatar in VRChat and other platforms
• OK to stream, record, and post on social media
• Editing is fine
• Please don't redistribute or resell the files, edited or not

UPDATES
• v1.0.0 (2026-11-07): first release