A great deal of care was taken to create a model that both honored the original design, while still being a realistic and practical sword. Unfortunately, due to limitations of the sprite art the original Baldur's Gate didn't offer much in the way of details about the sword's appearance, so some liberties have been taken.
I chose to model the sword on the Type XVIIIb longsword under the classification system of Ewart Oakeshott. The type is distinguished by its long, slender blade with a hollow-ground cross section and prominent midrib. The pommel is of "fishtail" type, (type V under Oakeshott) with the guard being a slight variation on Oakeshott's style 8. This best fits the design in the original artwork, which was modified with four additional spiked projections from the guard. I retained the two above the cross, but eliminated the two below because such projections so close to the hand would make handling the sword incredibly uncomfortable and dangerous to its wielder.
The sword's original icon indicates a gold-colored hilt with a prominent red stone or gem the the center of the guard, and a black grip. This coloration has been retained. The icon shows some sort of gold design on the lower portion of the blade, which is also present in the inventory art. Unfortunately, the latter is impossible to make out clearly. My first thought was to use a Sharran symbol, but had little luck finding anything that properly fit the space, so instead I went for a simple tribal design. After some further thought, I struck on another idea: In some of the art released during Early Access, Shadowheart had tattoos on her left arm that I realized could be an interesting basis for the design. As she's a Cleric of Shar, and the lore of the sword connects her to the Sharran clergy, this seemed like a perfect match.
The tattoo comes in two parts: One on the wrist, and another on the upper bicep and shoulder. The band around the wrist seemed perfect for the base of the blade. I didn't want to leave out the rest, though, so I took the upper arm tattoo and worked it into the sword's grip as an embossed and painted design on the leather.
The last noteworthy feature of Varscona is she has a much darker blade than other swords in the original game. So rather than a bright, shiny steel, I went with a dark but still well-polished finish.
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