Slash Trails: Sword Swing Trails & Weapon Effects

Make every swing feel like it hit something.

• A trail for every weapon: a glowing crescent follows every swing. Swords slash under your crosshair, axes chop from above, maces slam, tridents and spears lunge with a ring at the tip.
• It follows your weapon: wood, stone, copper, iron, gold, diamond and netherite each leave their own colour. Enchantments show too: Fire Aspect leaves embers, Smite shines gold, Channeling crackles, Bane of Arthropods glows green, Looting sparkles emerald, Sharpness cuts white.
• 13 themes: Classic, Neon, Rainbow, Toxic Smoke, Frost (snowflakes), Hologram, Cosmic (stars twinkling inside the ribbon), Arcade, Spooky (bats), Horror, Antique Ink, Ashfall (embers) and Storm (a lightning bolt along the arc). Pick one for everything, or a different one per weapon type (neon swords, frost tridents...).
• Special hits look special: a critical hit crosses with a second slash, a sword sweep widens the crescent, a falling mace smash sends a shockwave across the ground, and every hit bursts with rays in the theme's colour.
• Everyone swings: other players get trails too. Mobs holding weapons can get them as well (off by default).

Adjust everything in game

Mods > Slash Trails > Config (on Fabric with Mod Menu): theme, colour source (theme, material, enchantment or your own hex colour), intensity, width, length, opacity, glow, particles, impact sparks, on/off and theme per weapon type, who gets trails, and a limit on trails at once.

Built for modpacks

Modded swords, katanas, rapiers, halberds, glaives, warhammers and more are recognised by their tags and names; anything else can be set by hand in the item list ("Add item in hand"). If Better Combat or Epic Fight is installed (they draw their own trails), Slash Trails stays off by default so effects never double up. One click turns it back on.

Nothing else changes

It only adds the trail. The game's own swing, sweep particles and sounds are untouched (an option can hide the grey vanilla sweep if you prefer, off by default), and your own trail never covers the crosshair. Light on performance: a fixed number of trails, no extra cost when you are not fighting.

Client-side

Nothing to install on the server. Works on any server, in single player and on Realms.

Versions

• Minecraft 1.20.1: Forge
• Minecraft 1.21.1 and 26.2: NeoForge
• Minecraft 26.3 and 26.2: Fabric (needs Fabric API; Mod Menu optional)

Made by an indie dev with help from AI tools; every version is tested in game.

Like the mod? You can support future updates and new mods on Ko-fi. Totally optional, everything stays free.