The crystal longsword is the standard bladed armament of the Solanari Dominion's War Princes. Each is forged from the fangs or claws of a crystal dragon, giving the weapons a translucent, faceted edge that is both a mark of rank and a serviceable instrument of war.
Blades of this class are carried by the Dominion’s highest fleet commanders, though they do not always remain in Dominion hands. Some bearers can dismiss the blade and recall it to hand at will, a faculty that belongs to the bearer rather than to the sword.
The association with rank is a matter of custom rather than of issue. Crystal longswords are not manufactured in batches and are not distributed by any Dominion quartermaster: a blade is won from a crystal dragon, which Astral Elves undertake in groups and at real cost, and it belongs afterward to whoever took it. War Princes carry them because the sort of elf who reaches that rank is the sort who has been on such a hunt, not because the rank confers the sword. An elf holding no commission may therefore carry one legitimately. It is an unusual sight rather than an impossible one, and says more about how the bearer spent a season of their life than about where they stand in the Dominion’s order.
The crystal longsword is not carried by Astral Elves alone. Blades of the same class also appear among the Bionoids, not universally, but often enough to be counted among that people’s weapons. Since the Bionoids were themselves an Astral Elf creation, the shared blade is one of the few plain cultural threads still tying the two peoples together across their long estrangement, and to those who notice it the sword reads as a clue to how far back that connection runs. What the pairing finally means about Bionoid origins is not recorded.
Blades of this class have also been reforged outside the Dominion entirely, from salvaged Solanari crystal recovered by those the Dominion’s expansion displaced. Such a weapon is materially identical to an issued blade and carries none of its allegiance.