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Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Volume 8 are unmarked.

Creatures of Grimm

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grimm_28.png

Enigmatic beasts that have antagonized humanity since their inception. With the power of Dust, humanity was able to fight back and contain the Grimm. Four Kingdoms now flourish, acting as a safety net for humanity. The Grimm continue to exist on the outskirts of the Kingdoms and thrive in the wilderness, a constant reminder that to travel outside the Kingdoms means risking life and limb.

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In General

Voiced By: William Orendorff

Associated Tropes:

Animalistic Abomination: The Grimm are born from inky pools, creatures of darkness that take the form of real and mythological creatures. They are not alive, evaporate whenever they're killed and are inexplicably attracted to negative emotions.
Dark Is Evil: The Grimm are predominantly black creatures and are manifestations of animosity.
Elite Mook: Grimm that live long enough become noticeably different to the normal versions of their kind and are often given different names by Huntsmen to identify their status as elite versions of their kind. Examples include Alpha Beowolves and Ursai Major. Elite Grimm are stronger and tougher than the normal versions. They also exhibit greater intelligence and often have a slightly different physical appearance, such as more or less bone armour than standard for their type.
Extra Eyes: Many Grimm have multiple sets of eyes, even when they're based on animals. Boarbatusks, Nevermores, Megaliath, the Wyvern, and so on, can look dangerous enough with their huge forms, natural weapons and murderous intentions, but multiple flaming eyes that move in sync with each other when tracking human movements add to creepiness and horror of these monsters.
Fangs Are Evil: Many types of Grimm will have sharp, powerful elongated fangs, especially if they're based on animals that naturally have fangs, such as the King Taijitu (a snake Grimm). The Grimm hunt humans and Faunus, and fangs tend to emphasise how dangerous and predatory the Grimm are designed to be.
Friendly Fire: Usually averted, as when left alone the Grimm are docile to each other, and even when whipped into a killing frenzy primarily focus on the humans. However, there are occasions where the smarter or more powerful Grimm will be willing to tear through their comrades to get a target, or even willing to use their fellows as Improvised Weapons to go for a kill regardless of whether it kills said Grimm as well.
Glowing Eyes of Doom: When a Grimm is about to attack or becomes aggressive, it's common for their eyes to begin glowing.
Improvised Weapon: Some Grimm don't have to rely on just their natural abilities. They can use the environment around them to enhance their threat level and fight tactically. In the Volume 4 short, Ruby faces Beowolves that fight by hurling rocks at her and a Beringel that fights by hurling nearby Beowolves at her.
It Can Think: While smaller, younger Grimm are simple-minded, impulsive and reckless, the older and larger a Grimm becomes, the more it thinks about its behaviour. It learns from experience and becomes wise to the behaviour and tactics of humans. Older Grimm are therefore much more dangerous, patient and tactical opponents for Huntsmen to fight. Some Grimm can command lesser Grimm, creating large, co-ordinated packs, such as Manticores being led by a Sphinx. Other Grimm learn how to use the environment around them as weapons: Beringel can use rubble or even other Grimm as projectiles to toss towards their enemies; Geist can possess rocks, trees, or even volatile Dust to make themselves harder to harm or destroy, and tactically retreat if their main body is destroyed. However, this is usually downplayed as they're not that smart and need Salem's direction to truly pose a threat during the Battle of Atlas.
Kraken and Leviathan: The Grimm can grow truly enormous with time and age. However, there are some extraordinary Grimm of unparalleled size that dwarf even the largest versions of the more common Grimm. The deep oceans of Remnant house such monsters that are rarely seen unless there is enough emotional negativity to bring them to the surface to attack humans. After the fall of Beacon, there is enough global negativity to start bringing these monsters to surface. In Volume 4, a serpentine Sea Feilong appears to fight the ship Blake and Sun are travelling on; even though the ship is a massive passenger liner, the Sea Feilong's much larger size stuns the ship's crew. However, Volume 6 sees a Leviathan being attracted to the city of Argus during a battle; the creature is so extremely large that it dwarfs everything else.
Kill All Humans: Their primary motivation. They don't even seem interested in animals outside of territorial disputes. They also don't need to eat them for sustenance, they attack humans because they want to. On the other hand, as long as humans aren't around, or they're hidden and not filled with negative emotions, Grimm generally just wander in docile packs. It's only when they catch sight or scent of a human or pick up strong negative emotions that they become aggressive and attack population centers.
Leitmotif:
- Fast paced drums and even faster low brass notes, best heard in the end credits of "Search and Destroy" and "Forever Fall, pt. 2".
- In Volume 4, scenes focusing on the Grimm are often accompanied by a lone string cover of the beginning of "Lusus Naturae".
Made of Bologna: When Grimm are sliced open, their insides are shown to be a glowing, solid red mass before they begin to dissipate into black smoke or ash. This becomes downplayed in the later Volumes, with Grimm that are sliced open just disintegrating instantly.
Magical Eye Streamers: The glowing red eyes of the Grimm manifest glowing red streamers of power that stretch out from their eyes. It can be visible when they're stationary but is most clearly seen when they're in motion. It reflects the strange origin of the creatures and the divine origins of the unnatural way in which they're spawned into existence.
Monster of the Week: Many of the Grimm fought by the heroes are usually the primary threat in episodes where there isn't a human antagonist and the heroes end up fighting different variations of Grimm each time.
Mook: A young, common Grimm doesn't stand much of a chance against even student huntsmen and huntresses. Regular soldiers are easily able to down individual young Grimm. The danger, of course, comes from all the Grimm behind that one...
No Body Left Behind: They evaporate a short while after death, making it harder to learn more about them. Trophies are simple recreations.
Nothing Is Scarier: For quite awhile, very little was known about the Grimm, and in-universe humanity still knows very little about them; their origin, lack of Aura and how they exist were a mystery, among other things. Turns out, they are the God of Destruction's creation, spawned from the pools of black ooze within his domain - where Salem resides, who is also infused with said black ooze - with their entire purpose being to destroy all things of creation.
Prehistoric Animal Analogue: Solitas is a frozen polar wasteland that is difficult for both humans and Grimm to survive in. Most of the Grimm that do exist there have designs based on prehistoric creatures. For example, Sabyrs are based on sabre-tooth cats, Megoliaths are based on Woolly Mammoths, Centinels are giant centipedes based loosely on the extinct millipede genus Arthropleura, and the Teryx is a dromaeosaurid with pterosaur wings instead of feathers.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Grimm typically have red eyes, to go along with their shadowy, oversized appearances and evil nature. They also have pinkish red markings to go along with those glowing eyes.
Roar Before Beating: The Grimm near-universally let out some kind of growl, roar, or shriek before attacking. Most Grimm are relatively young and act more on instinct than intelligence. More ancient Grimm are intelligent and patient and, when they fight, rarely let out the roar prior to attacking.
Scars Are Forever: They can survive quite a bit of punishment, but their lack of an aura means that when they do they come away with some nasty scars.
The Soulless: All living things possess a soul: plants, animals, and of course, the denizens of the world of Remnant. However, the monsters of Grimm lack a soul and an Aura, since they're incarnations of darkness. This extends even to Grimm that are bonded to humans, like Cinder's left arm, which is not shielded by her Aura.
Spikes of Villainy: Several variants have large, bone-like spines protruding from their bodies.
Stronger with Age: Grimm bulk up the longer they live, and their faculties become more refined. As they get older, they become stronger, smarter, more calculating and much more patient.
Superpowered Mooks: Some Grimm display abilities that make them far more dangerous than they would otherwise be.
Throat Light: When Grimm open their mouths or jaws, the insides of their mouths glow red, a light that comes from deep within their throat, and which glows the same way as their eyes do.
The Usual Adversaries: The Grimm are everywhere, serving as an omnipresent threat no matter where one goes.
Zerg Rush: The general strategy of the Grimm. While even novice huntsmen can cleave through packs of younger Grimm with ease, the sheer number of Grimm means that they will eventually overwhelm a defender if they prolong the assault. They launch continuous, relentless attacks, with each subsequent attack being worse and worse as the negative emotions caused by the previous attacks attract more Grimm to the area.

Unusual Grimm

There are unique Grimm that look nothing like the more common Grimm that are normally encountered. Such unusual Grimm have their own quirks and abilities that make fighting them a different kind of experience.

Cephalopod Grimm

Debut: RWBY (2015), Chapter 10 ^*

A Grimm that looks like a giant skull with multiple tentacles sprouting from it. In RWBY (2015), it initially appears when Roman is investigating Mountain Glenn.

Attack Its Weak Point: Much like the Geist's mask, its body is the weak point of the gestalt Grimm it creates. Attacking the 'core' at the center of the merged Taijitus is how teams RWBY and JNPR manage to weaken and defeat the monster.
Combat Tentacles: Its main form of attack is to use its myriad of tentacles.
Dem Bones: Its main body looks like a giant horned skull.
Demonic Possession: According to Weiss, it's a possession-type Grimm similar to the one possessing the Knight's armor in the White Trailer (later revealed by in the show's Volume 4 DVD commentary to be a Geist variant), in which case it does this to other Grimm as opposed to inanimate objects.
Fusion Dance: It is capable of forcing itself and four King Taijitu to combine into one giant hydra-like Grimm.

The Monstra

Debut: The Enemy of Trust^*Volume 7 Episode 13

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/v7_13_00210_2.png

A titanic flying whale serving as the "flagship" of Salem's forces during her assault on Atlas.

Giant Flyer: This Grimm is a flying whale that is used as a vessel for Salem and her forces. It is so enormous that it dwarfs most other Grimm around it, even Grimm that are considered huge in their own right. The only thing that makes it look small is Atlas itself, which it's roughly 1/20th the size of.
Gravity Master: The Monstra is able to fly because its body is embedded with giant gravity dust crystals.
Kraken and Leviathan: The Monstra is a whale Grimm of such enormous size that it dwarfs everything around it. It even competes with entire city of Atlas for size. A single Manta-class airship is barely the same size as one of its teeth, and it contains sections of its body that act as landing platforms for airships, each one individually larger than the airship that lands there. It floats through the sky as easily as a natural whale swims through the sea but functions as Salem's flagship for her Grimm army.
Living Ship: The Monstra is a living Grimm, but also serves as the flagship of Salem's monstrous fleet. It uses organic features to replicate technological and architectural functions, allowing Salem to use it for numerous purposes. The key to her control appears to be a throne in which sits, functioning as a command chair that relies on her connection with Grimm rather than technology to control what she needs the whale to do. With a touch and some concentration, she can send a pulse through the throne and whale to produce a viewing screen of the outside world in the whale's otherwise impenetrable body, which allows her to observe the city of Atlas. She can even summon new Grimm from membranes inside it.
Mix-and-Match Critters: The creature is predominantly a sperm whale in appearance, but includes elements based on the baluga whale. Its multiple flippers, however, are based on lionfish fins instead of whale flippers, making it look like it has ribbon streamers along the side of its body and giving its tail a very elaborate, fish-like appearance.
Monster Whale: This creature is a Grimm whale of gigantic proportions, shaped like a sperm whale with beluga whale elements. It has huge teeth, gouges in the side of its body that act as landing platforms for airships, and enormous, multiple flippers that extend from its body like the fins of a lionfish. Its upper and lower body are covered in Gravity Dust.
Sky Whale: It is a huge, city-size cetacean monster that flies through the sky like lesser whales swim through the seas, allowing Salem and her forces to use it as a flying mothership of sorts.

The Nuckelavee

Debut: Kuroyuri^*Volume 4 Episode 10

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nuckelavee.png

A Grimm that combines elements of both human and equine creatures. It destroyed the village of Kuroyuri during Ren's childhood, and still roams the wilds around the town's remains. Based off the demon of the same name in Orcadian mythology.

Annoying Arrows: Li Ren fired three arrows at it at short range, but the creature doesn't even slow down its advance.
Arc Villain: The Nuckelavee is the main antagonist of the RNJR part of Volume 4, with its presence foreshadowed throughout the volume in destroyed villages across Anima, and its mere existence and memory of its attack deeply affecting Ren and Nora. The last quarter of the volume features the monster itself quite prominently, and it serves as the final antagonist in the last episode of the volume.
Battle Trophy: It collects weapons and banners from towns it's destroyed. Ren and Nora find a torn banner from Shion Village, as well as an arrow that looks like one of Li Ren's.
Creepily Long Arms: Despite its height, the arms of its humanoid torso are long enough to drag along the ground.
Creepy Long Fingers: There are two, extremely long and thin fingers on each hand, the length of which seem even longer than the length of the hooves.
Exorcist Head: An entire exorcist spine, its humanoid body can rotate completely around at any point in its spine.

Footprints of Muck: Its unique hoof prints, appear in the mud of every village it has destroyed. When Nora and Ren find its lair, they see another hoof print in in the stone floor, formed from a strange black ichor that is splattered across the walls and floor like blood. The creature itself does not appear until the last few episodes of Volume 4.
Gale-Force Sound: When it opens its mouth far enough to snap the webbing between its jaws its cries are loud enough to cause those nearby pain.
Hellish Horse: The creature looks in silhouette like a rider and a horse, but is a fusion of the two to create a single being. The creature has the typical color scheme of the Grimm: black hide, white hooves and glowing red eyes. The horse form only has two hind hooves. The front two legs end in something more foot-like. The creature is capable of letting rip a very loud, unnatural scream. Looking closely also reveals that it has no skin; the black covering is muscle.
Hell Is That Noise: Its roars are painful at close range and traumatizing to anyone who's encountered it before. More frightening: according to the DVD commentary, it's actually saying "die."
Horns of Villainy: The part of the creature that looks like a rider is skeletal and vaguely humanoid in appearance. However, out of its head rise two long, thin horns. The creature is associated with destruction, having been the cause of at least three villages being attacked.
Human Pincushion: The humanoid body has a number of weapons protruding from its back. Its lair is littered with various weapons it's pulled out of its hide as evident by the black "blood" splattering the walls.
It Can Think: Unlike other Grimm, the Nuckelavee collects trophies from places that it attacks, including weapons from enemies it's killed and banners from towns like Shion; it can also emit a scream that borders on speech, where it tries to mimic the word 'die'. When Team RNJR start applying tactics against it, it shows the ability to adapt to the tactics and counter them. When the team encircle it and keep moving around it, it begins to spin its body, causing its elongated arms to smack the team flying and end that strategy. It is also implied to be intelligent enough to choose its targets for reasons other than the Grimm attraction to negative emotions. Kuroyuri wasn't suffering when it attacked the village and when it encounters Team RNJR, its first target isn't the hyper-emotional teenagers, it's the barely-conscious, badly wounded Qrow.
Kinetic Clicking: Used for horror rather than action. The joints of its humanoid body, specifically the fingers and spine, all make unnerving cracking noises with every movement.
Limp and Livid: The humanoid torso almost never stays upright. When not fighting it'll often lay limp against the equine body. During combat, it often just hangs wherever the momentum of its arm attacks left it. Combined with its jittery movements, the upper half acts like a thing possessed.
Nightmare Face: Its upper face sports glowing eyes, a bone mask that looks almost mournful, and curving horns. Its lower face is pitch black, with a mouth that looks like the jaw formed without an opening and subsequently ripped one open in its semiliquid flesh.
Nuckelavee: Based on the myth, it's a humanoid torso fused to the middle of the back of a horse. It changes it up by having no particular association with decay or sickness, instead prefering a more direct approach to destruction.
Off with His Head!: Ren decapitates its humanoid body, ultimately killing it.
One-Man Army: This thing is responsible for singlehandedly destroying many villages across Anima, killed countless well-armed opponents (going by the remains of weapons left in its lair) and was dangerous enough that the Mistal patrols never got near its hunting range. In the end, it took an entire team of Huntsmen like RNJR working together to actually destroy the creature for good, and Ren and Nora were nearly killed during the fight.
Rubber Man: Its humanoid arms can stretch to strike targets seemingly out of range.
Signature Roar: Not even other Grimm have produced a scream quite like this high-pitched, double-toned shriek. It's so loud that it carries to the mountain cave where Ren and Nora are standing and the many miles to where Ruby and Jaune are staying in Kuroyuri.
Symbolic Mutilation: When Team RNJR defeat the Nuckelavee, Ren uses his father's knife to sever its limbs, one by one. For each cut, Ren states it's for someone: his father, his mother, every person the Nuckelavee has ever killed, and finally himself. This puts to bed Ren's revenge arc, as the Nuckelavee was the creature that destroyed his home and killed his parents when Ren was only a small child.
Two Beings, One Body: The Nuckelavee looks like a horse and rider, but is really a single body, with the humanoid portion rising out of the center of the back where a rider's saddle would lie. The creature is made up of two entities: the "Horse" and the "Imp". While both can be active at any time, one can become dormant and the other can become much stronger, so when the Horse part is moving around the Imp portion goes limp, and when the Horse slows or stops, the Imp can stretch its arms and strike much faster. As both minds share the same goal of destruction and slaughter, there's no conflict between them. However, both heads have to be destroyed to kill it as destroying the "Horse" only immobilizes the "Imp".

Parasitic Grimm

Debut: Beginning of the End^*Volume 3 Episode 7

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_inline_o0c3ssiats1qgkove_500.png

A miniature beetle-shaped being that bears the red eyes and black-and-white marks of the Monsters of Grimm. It appears to be summoned using a special glove, and Cinder uses it to steal Amber's powers, the parasite being responsible for the actual power transfer.

Four-Legged Insect: The parasite takes on the form of a beetle, including a white carapace that mimics the hardened wing-cases of real beetles. However, it only has four legs instead of six.
Mark of the Beast: When it powers up the person using it, it creates a black tattoo-like mark on the skin of the person it has empowered. Cinder has a tattoo on her back in the shape of two shoes that create the shape of a heart. That tattoo was created from nothing when the parasite merged with her body after stealing Amber's powers.
Power Parasite: The smallest Grimm-type creature so far seen, it is capable of spewing a black substance onto a person and using that to drain the victim's powers. Breaking the threads linking it to the victim stops the power transfer, but still left the victim comatose in the only case seen. It does not retain the transferred power for itself, but transfers the power to the person wearing the glove it appears to partially manifest out from.

The Wyvern

Debut: Battle of Beacon^*Volume 3 Episode 10

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dragon_grimm.png

A massive draconic Grimm living in the peak of a mountain outside of Vale. When the Grimm invade Vale in Volume Three, the chaos and negative emotion awakens it, and it breaks free to attack the Kingdom.

Dragons Are Demonic: The wyvern variant of the Grimm. Its mere arrival is enough to worry an experienced and powerful huntress like Glynda, and it is capable of summoning other kinds of Grimm.
Enemy Summoner: The wyvern drops black ooze all over the ground from which multiple new Grimm appear. The sketch notes during the end credits reveal that the Dragon is using a form of "Grimm Summoning"; it calls Grimm rather than making them.
Giant Flyer: The clock tower of Beacon Academy dominates the Kingdom of Vale's skyline. However, the Dragon is so large that, when perched on the side of the tower, it becomes the single dominating figure of the skyline. When its wings are stretched out in full flight, it can drop black ooze across large areas of the city to bring forth an army of smaller Grimm.
More Teeth than the Osmond Family: It's loaded with teeth in a mouth that extends down its neck.
Our Wyverns Are Different: It's a huge, wyvern-shaped dragon, with the black body, white mask and red eyes of all Grimm. However, it sheds and breathes black ooze that summons multiple Grimm wherever the ooze lands.
Sealed Evil in a Can: It was sleeping inside a mountain until an excessive quantity of negative emotion from the local human population awakened it. When Ruby's latent powers awaken, she accidentally leaves it frozen to Beacon Tower, but it still continues to summon new Grimm to Beacon.
Taken for Granite: When Ruby unleashes her Silver Eyes for the first time as a result of Traumatic Superpower Awakening, a flash of light engulfs the entire scene, with the Wyvern and Cinder being firsthand witnesses to the Silver Eyes. In the aftermath of the Battle of Beacon, the Wyvern can be seen from a distance, still perched atop the relay tower and attracting new Grimm despite being frozen in place. Subsequent volumes unravel the truth behind the myth of the Silver Eyes, showing that larger Grimm can get encased in stone but not completely petrified depending on the user's proficiency with the eyes' power.

Unnatural Grimm

Some Grimm are not created naturally, as much as the word can apply to creatures like them, but created through the meddling of mankind.

Due to those unnatural origins, these folders can contain large, unmarked spoilers.

Arma Gigas

Debut: White Trailer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/250px-GiantArmor_7684.png

During the White Trailer, Weiss fights a giant, heavily-armoured mediaeval knight. The fight is the origin of the scar she carries over her left eye and also the White Knight that she can summon with her Semblance to protect her.

The first manga, RWBY (2015), reveals that this is in fact a special kind of Grimm that was created specifically for the purpose of testing Weiss's ability to prove to her father that she was capable of attending Beacon Academy. A number of small of Grimm were fused together that were capable of possessing inanimate objects. It's the only known type of Grimm to be created by humans.

The Volume 4 director's commentary confirms that the Arma Gigas is canon, and that it is a Geist variant.

Animated Armor: RWBY (2015) reveals that a replica was made of a suit of armor from the Schnee Museum. It is three times stronger than the original and has nobody inside it. It is instead possessed by a group of small Grimm that are a variant of Geist known as Arma Gigas. The Arma Gigas animate the suit and create the threat that Weiss has to fight.
BFS: The Arma Gigas is many times the size of Weiss and its sword is proportional to its size. The weapon is so huge in comparison to Weiss that even the width of the blade is half her height. The handle alone is taller than she is.
Demonic Possession: Although the suit of armour was an effective opponent against Weiss, the Grimm possessing it only has one real power: the ability to possess inanimate objects.
Fusion Dance: The Arma Gigas was created by the Schnee Dust Company by forcibly combining multiple Grimm and then using it to animate the giant suit armour.
No Body Left Behind: When Grimm are destroyed, they dissolve into black smoke before disappearing. When Weiss destroys the Arma Gigas, it dissolves away into white snowflakes instead of black smoke.
No-Sell: Weiss is able to use her skill and Semblance to hit the Arma Gigas frequently, but nothing she does leaves any kind of mark on the creature. She has to use Dust to defeat it.

The Hound

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/download_12_835.jpeg

No.

Voiced By: Jason Liebrecht

Debut: Divide^*Volume 8 Episode 1

"Take the girl.''

A hound-like Grimm created by Salem as an experiment. She sends it after anyone she wants captured alive for interrogation.

And I Must Scream: The Hound's intelligence comes with some horrifying implications. The host is just barely alive, and falls into a Madness Mantra after being struck with Ruby's Silver Eyes. How much remained of the original man is unknown, but it's clear that he's suffered in ways that are difficult to comprehend and been reduced to a feral state.
Bioweapon Beast: The Hound is not a naturally-occurring Grimm or anything that has been seen before, with even Cinder confused about its existence. When she asks about it, Salem merely offers a vague explanation that it is an "experiment" that she is testing. The numerous unusual abilities the creature demonstrates are therefore the result of whatever experimentation Salem has carried out, tailor-making a Grimm that serves as her hunter, guard, and companion. Right before it is killed however, the heroes learn that The Hound was originally a Silver-Eyed Faunus and showing that Salem created it by experimenting with fusing a being with the powers of the God of Light and the Grimm essence from the God of Darkness.
Elite Mook: While The Hound is still a Creature of Grimm, it gives the heroes a harder time than any of the Grimm that they had faced up to that point in the beginning of Volume 8 due to it being much more intelligent than other Grimm and is only defeated over halfway through the volume. Right before it is killed however, the heroes learn that it's increased intelligence and ability to talk were because it had a Silver-Eyed Faunus as it's core.
Enemy Summoner: When pursued through the tundra, the Hound uses a powerful scream to summon other Grimm into the canyon to defend it. The various species of Grimm that respond demonstrate cooperation and unusual focus, operating like a pack as opposed to random individuals of different species that are in the same location.
Evil Sounds Deep: Jason Liebrecht provides a harsh and guttural voice to complement the Hound's rough, monstrous appearance.
Eyeless Face: It lacks the glowing red eyes of most Grimm, and seems to lack eyes altogether.
Facial Horror: What is hidden underneath its Grimm mask is even worse than the Grimm body itself. It conceals a Faunus man with the right half of his face mangled nearly beyond recognition, with heavy scarring and flesh that seems to have melted and stretched in several places. His one remaining eye and human ear are both leaking black fluids, there is exposed muscle and bone along his jaw, and there are tumors growing along his jawline.
Hellhound: It's a monstrous dog with the massive body shape of a dire wolf. It has a lumpy, unfinished, almost semi-solid finish to its appearance, which enables it to shapeshift, breaking its own body apart and reforming it as needed. Its mask is full and has no eye sockets, which does nothing to impede its abilites to hunt and fight. It has extraordinary levels of intelligence for a Grimm, as well as enough raw power to destroy an aura with a few seconds of attacks. It's a monster in the form of a dog, and far more dangerous.
Horrifying the Horror: Three Sabyrs are charging in to attack Yang's team when they skid to a stop. Upon hearing the Hound growl softly, they take one look at it, cringe and flee. The heroes are alarmed at the thought of something being capable of making Grimm turn tail and flee in fear.
It Can Think: While it's established that Grimm grow more intelligent as they get older, this has generally just meant that older Grimm have a better sense of self-preservation and know when to retreat. The Hound, however, displays disturbingly human-levels of intellect and tactical awareness when it begins using people as a Human Shield because it knows its attackers won't hurt one of their own. Although initially skeptical about its true intelligence, the heroes are left with no doubt when it reveals it fully understands what they're saying by verbally communicating with them.
Kinetic Clicking: Whenever the Hound shapeshifts it is accompanied by the sound of it cracking bones into place to do so.
More Teeth than the Osmond Family: In addition to its standard toothy maw, a lot of its Grimm bone armor looks uncomfortably like teeth as well, giving it the look of a Glasgow Grin and an additional mouth on the back of its neck.
No Body Left Behind: Averted. Unlike other Grimm, due to its unique physiology, the hound leaves behind remnants of itself instead of fully dissolving upon death. When the Hound is crushed to death under a giant suit of armor, its exposed arm hangs limply while the Grimm essence dissolves from it. What's left behind is the blackened skeleton of the Faunus that had been turned into the Hound.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: When it ambushes Yang's team, it immediately targets Oscar, brutally throwing him around and slamming its weight on him with such relentless force that everyone is too stunned to try and help him. Oscar himself has no defense and gets no opportunity to regroup and fight back. He's defeated in seconds, and the Hound immediately calms down as soon as Oscar falls unconscious and his Aura breaks. Thereafter, it handles Oscar gently, as its instructions are to bring Oscar back to Salem. It successfully repeats the tactic when it first encounters Ruby.
Outside-Context Problem: Every Grimm encountered so far has been relatively animalistic and of limited intelligence, with even the smartest ones only being intelligent enough to wait to attack a target. Salem considers it an experiment, but it defies the comprehension of everyone who is forced to deal with it. The Hound is intelligent enough to use a Human Shield, communicate by talking, and arrange for back-up when it needs help. When initially exposed to it, Yang's team is too stunned to fight back properly and even Cinder is left unsettled when she first encounters it. Ruby's team are left dumbfounded and disturbed when their encounter reveals the Hound's body conceals a Faunus man; the source of the Hound's intelligence and ability to talk, his body has been twisted, transformed and deformed.
Right-Hand Attack Dog: Unlike other Grimm, which obey Salem when ordered but otherwise act and rampage on their own initiative, the Hound directly and actively serves her. It hunts the quarry she wants brought to her, and it follows her around when she doesn't have a mission for it; it viciously rounds on those who disrespect her, and it leans into her affectionate pets. In short, it's the loyalty of a dog, the intelligence of a human, and the viciousness of a Grimm rolled up into a single package that serves Salem even more closely than her inner circle. Notably, when Salem makes her move on Atlas and all her minions (minus Watts and plus Mercury, Emerald, and Neo) are gathered with her, the Hound is the one sitting at her right hand while everyone else isn't even standing on the dais with her.
Transformation Horror: The Hound's shapeshifting abilities are shown in minute detail. Its body shapes, contorts, bulges and crunches, with accompanying noises, as it shifts; bones crack and realign under the skin, muscles bulge and twist into new shapes. While all this happens, it roars or snarls as if in agony.
Voluntary Shapeshifting: While tracking Oscar, it can sometimes be seen in a bipedal werewolf form and sometimes in the form of a giant dog. When it ambushes Oscar, it does so as a dog initially, but transforms into a bipedal werewolf form so that it can hold Oscar properly. When it departs, it transforms its shoulders so that wings sprout forth, allowing it to fly away. It even seems to do some non-visible shapeshifting just before it speaks, suggesting it's modifying its anatomy for that purpose.
Was Once a Man: The Hound's true nature is far more horrifying than a simple, intelligent Grimm. When injured by Ruby's silver eyes, its head splits open to reveal that there is a person inside; a Faunus with a single, surviving silver eye.

Mutated Grimm

A subset of Grimm featured in the video game RWBY: Grimm Eclipse. They are more powerful than the standard versions, but the mystery is where they're coming from and what's behind their existence.

Action Bomb: Mutated Creeps have the ability to explode violently to deal damage. They will also do it when killed.
Attack Its Weak Point: The Mutated Deathstalker is only vulnerable to Team RWBY's weapons on its stinger.
Elite Mooks: They are much more powerful than standard Grimm. A normal Mutated Beowolf is even stronger than an Alpha Beowolf.
Phlebotinum Muncher: They are attracted to a mysterious blue substance, which is also implied to be part of the serum that creates them.
Playing with Syringes: They were created by injecting Grimm with a serum.
Sickly Green Glow: The main difference between regular Grimm and them is the addition of glowing green spikes across their bodies.

Classes of Grimm

A wide variety of Grimm exist, but many of them can be grouped into classes that identify the appearance, behaviours and abilities of all Grimm that fall into that grouping.

Apathy

Debut: Alone in the Woods^*Volume 6 Episode 6

I'm tired...

"The Apathy. They're not strong or ferocious. They drain your will to go on."

Zombie-esque Grimm that infest the waterways beneath Brunswick Farms. Though slow and not very strong, they possess the unique ability to drain those around them of their will to live.

Creepily Long Arms: The Apathy Grimm are vaguely humanoid beings that are much taller than any adult human. Their arms are so long that they reach almost to the ground, making them at least as long as an adult human.
Emotion Eater: The Apathy drain people's will to go on, sapping away their emotions in the process. Proximity to the Apathy can calm people down by "taking the edge off" their emotions, and the number of Apathy increases the impact. With enough of them, they can cause entire settlements to stop living and die of starvation or dehydration. At closer range, the Apathy can also unleash a piercing scream that dramatically amplifies this effect, causing victims to collapse and lose all will to continue; they'll just lie down in front of the Apathy and wait to die.
The Horde: The Apathy living underneath the farm are described as a 'pack' but the size of the pack is impossible to determine. Everywhere Team RWBY runs in the tunnels, there are groups of Apathy to be found. Even when Ruby wipes out a basement full of them, still more pour into the room from the tunnels beyond. Weiss ends up setting the building on fire just to give them all a chance to escape the farm.
Humanoid Abomination: Most of the Grimm are based on real or mythic animals, but the Apathy are humanoid in shape, so thin and sinewy that they appear skeletal. Their white mask covers their face and looks like a human skull. Their bodies are capable of twisting in inhuman ways, and they twitch with bone-cricking tics when they straighten up, just like the Nuckelavee and the God of Darkness.
Immune to Bullets: When Ruby attempts to shoot the Apathy with her weapon's gun mode, she doesn't achieve anything. The Apathy don't fall, aren't destroyed, and keep moving forward as if Ruby did nothing at all. The team has no choice but to turn tail and run for their lives.
Implacable Man: Once the Apathy catch sight of Ruby they chase her and the rest of the team relentlessly. Neither shots from Crescent Rose nor being set on fire do much to slow them down. No matter what happens to them, they simply keep moving forward at a slow walk of unchanging speed. The only thing that defeats them is Ruby's silver eyes, and even then there are so many that she only kills a single room of them. The rest just keep attacking.
Invincible Boogeymen: The Apathy are lampshaded by Maria as appearing deceptively unthreatening while in reality being a horrifying foe. Gaunt, physically weak, slow-moving packs that behave like zombie hordes, Apathy are relentless in their pursuit of humans and their mere presence will kill entire settlements by draining away their will to live. When Team RWBY comes across an abandoned farm, they discover everyone just lay down and died in their beds from the pack that's living underground. Weapons are useless against the Apathy, and even setting fire to them doesn't stop their advance; the closer they get or the more they scream, the less able to move or even defend themselves the team becomes. Only the power of Ruby's Silver Eyes can harm the Apathy, and even then it can't stop them all; it only buys them just enough time to flee for their lives.
Lean and Mean: The Apathy are humanoid and taller than any human. However, they're so thin they're barely more than skeletal, and even that skeletal appearance results in limbs that look stretched impossibly thin. They are implacable in their hunting of humans. Weapons don't harm them, being set on fire doesn't slow them down, and their presence in the tunnels was enough to kill an entire community of farmers through apathy.
Meaningful Name: The Apathy aren't strong or fierce like other creatures of Grimm. They move slowly while moaning instead of the roars of other Grimm, making them appear apathetic in their hunt. They can also inflict apathy and lethargy on their victims, making them easy prey for the otherwise weak and slow creatures.
Nigh-Invulnerable: The Apathy Grimm are lean and sinewy, but they can take a lot of punishment. Bullets fired at them do nothing, and being lit on fire merely slows them down. The only thing that works on them is Ruby's Silver Eyes. Her first use merely stuns them. Her full use only takes out the Grimm that are in the same room as them. Even with the Silver Eyes, the group is forced to flee the farmstead from the sill-oncoming hordes of Apathy.
Ominous Walk: They never move any faster than a slow, lurching walk. Even though people can technically outrun them, the Apathy are everywhere in the tunnels. A single scream from the Apathy can stop people in their tracks and multiple screams can force people to collapse, their will to resist drained. As a result, the Apathy don't need to move swiftly. Their victims cannot outrun them for long.
Our Zombies Are Different: The Apathy Grimm are partially inspired by zombies. They move with a slow, lurching gait, and they have the appearance of an emaciated, skeletal humanoid. The white bones manifest like the skeletal frame of a humanoid, including ribs and skull. They also function as a group, moving together at a stead pace to overwhelm with numbers any living human they catch.
Phrase Catcher: Victims of the Apathy's power often remark on how "tired" they feel.
Run or Die: When Ruby tries to stand her ground and shoot the on-coming Apathy, they don't react to the bullets at all. They don't fall, they don't slow down, they just keep moving. After that, Team RWBY doesn't even try to fight them, they just flee. The mere presence of the Apathy in the tunnels is enough to drain the will to live out of the group, and hearing their screams causes people to collapse, unwilling to even move. When trapped in the wine cellar by them, their focus is on trying to blast through the locked doors and escape instead of fighting. When they finally get through the door, Weiss sets fire to the Apathy at the entrance of the wine cellar and the entire house, just to give them a chance to get out of the farm alive.
Stone Wall: The Apathy Grimm species is not particularly fast or strong, which is what made Bartleby think he could trap a pair of them underneath the farm to control the emotions of the farmers so as to prevent other Grimm species being attracted to negative emotions on the farmstead. However, they're so tough that they can shrug off Dust-powered bullets and keep moving even when set on fire. With their ability to drain the will to move or even live from people, they don't need speed or strength to overcome their victims.
Super-Scream: The Apathy use a piercing screaming attack that drains the will to fight or struggle from anyone who hears it. Those afflicted cannot even raise their weapons to resist, and repeated screams can reduce the victims to lying helplessly on the ground, unwilling to even move.

Beowolf

Debut: Red Trailer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grim_5758.png

Jet black werewolf-like Grimm. They fight Ruby in the Red trailer. In the Red Trailer, the Beowolves appeared as black wolf shadows with red teeth, because Monty was working on the trailer by himself. Patrick Rodriguez, one of the concept artists and character designers for the series, later redesigned the Beowolves (see the picture to the right) making them look more fitting for a creature of Grimm.

Art Evolution: Beowolves have been redesigned twice. They appear as black wolves with red eyes and teeth in the Red Trailer. In volumes 1-3 they are given spiky protrusions and a mask over their face. Volume 4 redesigned their heads to give them an even more intimidating appearance.
Composite Character: In the manga's full color page re-enacting the Red trailer, Beowolves are shown with their series proper design, but with blood red teeth like the trailer versions'.
Dark Is Evil: The Red Trailer is their first introduction and they're completely black with none of the white bone elements of the later Beowolves. They stalk Ruby through the trees until surrounding her in a huge pack with the intention of killing her.
Elite Mook: While most Beowolves are about six feet tall, there exist much bigger, stronger variants known as "Alphas", which take a fair bit more effort to bring down. General Ironwood takes one out during the Battle of Beacon, using his physical might to wrestle the creature into the perfect position to kill it with a single bullet; the battle is not designed to make the Alpha look easy to kill but to hint that the general's body has been cybernetically enhanced.
Gorn: Subverted, as when Ruby was goring them in the trailer, rose petals spurted out instead of blood.
Half the Man He Used to Be: Lots of them in the Red trailer, courtesy of Ruby and Crescent Rose.
Mooks: Despite their intimidating appearance, they're relatively weak and slow so even first-year combat students can take them out without too many problems. In episode 6, when Weiss forces them to retreat from a pack of Beowolves because of a fire, Ruby complains that dealing with them should have been easy.
Ruby: What was that!? That should've been easy!
Our Werewolves Are Different: They're wolf-like creatures with some bipedal characteristics. Their level of sapience depends on how old they are, as Grimm develop intelligence with age.
Savage Wolves: As Grimm appear to focus all their energy on attacking humanity, Beowolves are extremely aggressive and hostile whenever they're encountered.
Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The older and stronger Beowolves have more skeletal protrusions compared to their younger kin, including what look like exposed ribs.

Beringel

Debut: Volume 4 Character Short

A large gorilla-like Grimm first seen fighting Ruby in the Volume 4 Character Short. At the end of Volume 6, a group of new winged variants of Beringel were created by Salem to aid in her war against Ozpin.

Boom, Headshot!: After Ruby pins the Beringel to the ground with her scythe, she finishes it off with a single shot to its head.
Boss in Mook's Clothing: Proves to be a physical match for Ruby, taking her on one-on-one in a fight that lasts several minutes and forces her to improvise new tactics to win. For a Grimm—and a normal sized one at that—this is a very impressive performance.
Fastball Special: It throws Beowolves as projectiles, catching Ruby entirely by surprise in the process.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The first of Ruby's attacks to actually damage it was being impaled through the chest by Crescent Rose.
Killer Gorilla: It's a massive gorilla-like Grimm. It's stronger than the Grimm that appear in Volumes 1-3 and is noticably intelligent, using human-style tactics in its battle with Ruby, such as launching other Grimm at her that can attack her and act as a decoy for it to get closer.
Mix-and-Match Critters: At the end of Volume 6, Salem creates a new variant of Beringel by growing Nevermore-like wings on their backs, giving them the ability to fly.
No-Sell: Ruby's first strike doesn't even make it flinch. Neither do the rest for that matter.
Scars Are Forever: A large scar covers half of its face, a large chunk of its neck and shoulder, and one eye. This indicates it has survived some fights in the past, and may explain why it is so much more powerful than many of the other Grimm.

Blind Worm

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Blind Worms are one-eyed, segmented worms that live beneath the desert lands of western Sanus. Their enormous size, ability to generate dust storms with their movements and habit of attacking from underground make them the deadliest Grimm in Vacuo.

Bloody Murder: Although Grimm lack true blood, the Blind Worm's body is filled with a green substance that spurts out like blood when the creature is cut open. That substance is a corrosive acid that will burn its way through anything it comes into contact with. It can burn its way through clothing to blister and burn the skin underneath.
Healing Factor: Unlike the majority of real worm species, the Blind Worm can regenerate into two separate worms if it's cut in half.
Non-Indicative Name: Blind Worms have a single burning red eye in the center of their foreheads. While fighting one, Coco speculates over how it got its name, including the possibility that people don't see it coming when it attacks from beneath the sand. She's sitting inside the Blind Worm while speculating, having been swallowed whole; her other speculation is that perhaps it because of the darkness experienced by the people whom it swallows whole.
Sand Worm: The Blind Worm is an enormous creature, as wide as a Nevermore's full wingspan and as long as six Goliaths, and is a threat that comes from below the sand. When traveling towards its intended prey, its movements through the sand throw up dust like a sandstorm and it will leap through this dusty air and back into the sand like a dolphin cresting ocean waves. It then completes the attack approach from underneath the sand.
Swallowed Whole: The Blind Worm tends to deal with its victims by swallowing them whole. When Coco is swallowed, she survives mostly unharmed because Velvet cuts open the Grimm.
Wormsign: While it's burrowing, a Blind Worm stirs up the ground above it in a way that can be mistaken for a sandstorm. However, Vacuans can tell the difference between how a real sandstorm moves and how a dust cloud kicked up by a traveling Blind Worm moves. It gives them a little warning that an attack is coming, as a result.

Boarbatusk

Debut: The Badge and the Burden^*Volume 1 Episode 9

Wild boar-like Grimm. It made its action-packed debut in Episode 10.

Attack Its Weak Point: It has no armor on its belly.
Full-Boar Action: Wouldn't be quite as Grimm without the tusks.
Punny Name: The name comes from either Babirusa, a genus of swines known as "deer pigs", or "barbatus", Latin for 'bearded', but has been turned into a pun by adding the word "Boar" and tusk (its primary weapon).
Ramming Always Works: It's only real attack is to charge a target and try and gore them with its tusks, sometimes by rolling into a ball.
Rolling Attack: One of its techniques, and one is seen taking out a few SDC robot soldiers this way.

Cenitaur

Debut: Dark^*Volume 8 Episode 8

An evolved form that Centinels will enter if not killed quick enough. One attacks Ruby and Blake at the Schnee Manor.

Acid Attack: Its underbelly bears a bulging sack of acid that is piped into its throat; this allows it to spew acid as a weapon.
Blade Below the Shoulder: The Cenitaur has very humanoid shoulders and upper arms, but the lower part of the limbs end in long white blades. It holds and stabs the blades in a similar way to a preying mantis.
Body Horror: Its acid sack does not look natural, resembling some sort of tumorous mass topped with a distinctly external tangle of organs that connects to the underside of its throat.
Creepy Centipedes: Its basic form is that of an enormous centipede, with a segmented black body that is protected by bone dorsal plates and contains pairs of legs that end in bone talons. However, its head is more like a bestial skull than an arthropod and it contains humanoid shoulders and arms that end in blades. Its underside also contains a massive, bloated green sack that is connected to its throat.
Flunky Boss: Its arrival is preceded by several smaller Centinels that attack Blake.
Punny Name: The name is a play on the "centaur"; while the bottom half remains a centipede, the top half takes on some humanoid elements, such as having a pair of arms that end in spikes that match the centipede legs instead of human hands.
King Mook: Essentially a larger variant of the Centinels.
Super-Reflexes: Despite its huge size and bizarre bulk, the Cenitaur is capable of reacting extremely fast to everything Blake attempts. Even though she is a fast, mobile fighter, the Cenitaur constantly keeps her on the back foot with its speed, acid attacks and bladed arms.

Centinel

Debut: Ace Operatives^*Volume 7 Episode 3

Burrowing Grimm that resemble centipedes.

Creepy Centipedes: Centinels resemble massive centipedes; their bodies are long and segmented with a pair of white legs on each segment that look like bone talons. The head is a white mask with red designs but no visible eyes, and the body segments are protected dorsally by bone plates.
Mooks: By virtue of having a ranged attack and their ability to ambush through walls, they're slightly more threatening than Beowolves, but not by much.
One-Winged Angel: If allowed to survive for too long, they will evolve into a Cenitaur.
This Is a Drill: They can rotate the segments of their bodies, essentially becoming living drills to burrow through stone and soil.

Chill

Debut: Fairy Tales of Remnant: The Grimm Child

A Grimm that is only found in shadows and can possess its victims with just the slightest touch. Most people will never survive an encounter with these Grimm, and they are a favourite monster for Remnant's horror genre as a result.

Adaptational Badass: The most famous and notorious fairy tale on Remnant is a tale called "The Grimm Child", which features a Chill. In the tale, a single Chill goes unrecognised for what it is, hopping from human to human until it wipes out an entire town in a single night. However, Professor Ozpin warns that the real Chill is incapable of this feat. It cannot control its victims for more than a few minutes, and it is incapable of speech; the most a possessed human can do is repeat the last word they spoke before they died. Chills are also heavily reliant on people being hesitant to harm a loved one. As a result, real Chills are incapable of the feats the story claims.
Body Surf: Chills can possess a human with the slightest of touches, and it only needs these very slight touches to be able to move from one victim to another. There's very little most people can do to defend against these Grimm, but they're limited to shadows and can only control a possessed human for a few minutes at most.
Darkness Equals Death: In regions where Chills dwell, going near shadows can get humans killed. Chills live in the shadows and a human only has to barely contact one to be instantly possessed. The act of possessing a human kills them. Where Chills roam, darkness and shadow needs to be avoided.
Madness Mantra: A Chill-possessed human is incapable of normal speech. They either cannot speak at all or they can only say the very last word the human said at the moment of death. In these cases, the possessed human will repeat this word over and over and over again.
Staking the Loved One: Chills can only control a possessed human for a few minutes so they depend heavily on people's hesitation to harm loved ones. Even the slightest contact allows a Chill to move to a new person, usually almost always a loved one or close friend of the possessed.
Touch of Death: It requires only the slightest touch for a Chill to be able to move from a possessed human to a new one. The act of possession instantly kills the victim.

Creep

Debut: No Brakes^*Volume 2 Episode 11

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_1dinogrimm.png

A bestial Grimm with a very little neck and a stunted snout. It has two limbs that act as legs and end in large claws and also possesses a long tail. It has no direct animal counterpart.

Armless Biped: Subverted Trope. These creatures look like they run on two massive legs, upon which they run quite fast. They have a tail and appear to have no arms or wings. However, the 'legs' are actually their arms; it's therefore legs that they lack.
Faster Than They Look: They're bulky, two-legged creatures with large, heavy snouts. They don't look fast, but Velvet is caught off-guard by their speed when Team CFVY travel to Lower Cairn, and doesn't even have time to draw her weapon. Yatsuhashi has to intervene to save her.
Mook: During the brief Grimm invasion in Volume 2, Team RWBY have no problem dealing with Creeps, defeating them easily as they move on to more dangerous threats. In Grimm Eclipse, they're the weakest of all the Grimm enemies. Even their extra durable version are of minimal threat.
Natural Weapon: The Creep's legs end in claws that can be used for kicking and slashing.
Tail Slap: The Creeps are able to fight by swinging their tails to club their enemies.
Tunnel King: Creeps are shown in the video game Grimm Eclipse to quickly tunnel underground and pop up elsewhere.
Use Your Head: Their skulls are thick and armoured, allowing them to attack with their heads like battering rams.

Death Stalker

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 2^*Volume 1 Episode 7

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scorpion_8818.bmp

Giant scorpion Grimm. One first appears in Episode 7, fighting Team JNPR in Episode 8.

Beware My Stinger Tail: The Death Stalker is a giant scorpion, and its large, flexible tail carries a huge, bulbous stinger that can glow in the dark. Team JNPR's first fight with a Death Stalker initially goes very badly for them as they're barely able to damage it. When Ren manages to damage the stinger, however, the stinger turns out to be powerful enough to kill the Death Stalker with a single strike.
Big Creepy-Crawlies: The largest known scorpion species in real life can reach 23cm in length and 56g in weight. The Death Stalker is so large it dwarfs adult humans, covers the ground as fast as a running human, and requires team-work to defeat.
Can't You Read the Sign?: The cave where the Death Stalker emerges from has old cave paintings of people attacking the monster with sticks and spears. This could signify that the monster had been in the cave since the original war with the Grimm and warning people to stay away, especially since the original cave entrance was clearly blocked up by boulders to make it a much smaller, man-sized entrance.
Darkness Equals Death: When searching for Ozpin's relics, Jaune and Pyrrha find an interesting cave with ancient human art around the entrance. They enter in the hope of finding the relics inside, but discover it's so dark that even a makeshift torch barely lights the way. They stumble around until they encounter something glowing softly in the darkness. Thinking it's the relics, Jaune moves closer... only to discover it's the monstrously-sized stinger of a Death Stalker.
Go for the Eye: Team JNPR's first fight with a Death Stalker initially goes quite badly, with the armoured monster being able to ignore most of the damage the kids try to cause. As a result, Pyrrha throws her spear into the Death Stalker's eye. The spear sticks, but the Death Stalker barely slows down.
Immune to Bullets: Or at least extremely resistant to them. Sustained fire from Pyrrha's rifle and Ren's pistols don't manage to make it so much as flinch, though the team has more luck once they resort to physical blows.
Meaningful Name: It's a monstrously-sized, heavily armoured scorpion that can run as fast as an adult human and kill with a single strike of its stinger. Its name comes from the real-life scorpion species, Leiurus quinquestriatus, known in English as the "Deathstalker". With a powerful cocktail of multiple different types of toxin that are highly resistant to antivenom treatment, the deathstalker is the deadliest scorpion species known to man. The death staker the heroes face on their first day at school takes team-work to kill because it's so powerful.
Scary Scorpions: It's a monstrous scorpion the size of a small hill. It can run as fast as a human, and is very well-armoured. Its extremely lethal stinger alone is almost the same length as a grown man, and once it starts pursuing a human, it doesn't stop until it's caught its prey or died trying.
The Worf Effect: When Teams RWBY and JNPR are in their first day of their first year at Beacon, they find it extremely difficult to do any damage to the creature. Only Nora's grenades have any effect on it until Ren manages to damage its stinger and Team JNPR then use both teamwork and the stinger to defeat it. However, Team CFVY are older and more experienced students, who are in an higher year group. In the team's first on-screen fight, Coco single-handedly makes very short work of a Death Stalker just by firing her mini-gun at it.

Dromedon

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

A camel-like Grimm that is found in the deserts of Vacuo. It is first introduced in the canonical light novel, RWBY: After the Fall.

Defeat Equals Explosion: A Dromedon can be killed with a powerful strike to the hump. When Fox punches the hump of the Dromedon he's fighting, the hump swells up like a balloon before exploding.
Poison Is Evil: Like a normal camel, the Dromedon is capable of spitting at a target. However, in keeping with the evil, dangerous nature of the Grimm, the spit a Dromedon produces is poisonous and therefore highly dangerous.
Super Spit: Dromedon are camel-like creatures and their most dangerous weapon is the ability to spit a poisonous substance at distance.

Geist

Debut: The Next Step^*Volume 4 Episode 1

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/img_0250.PNG

^{Click here for its Petra Gigas form}

A frail, ghost-like Grimm with the ability to possess inanimate objects. They take on 'gigas' names that are based on what they possess. A Petra Gigas is a Geist that is possessing rock, including Dust. Older, smarter Geist will take over the regions they move into, becoming the local 'alpha'.

Assimilation Backfire: Subverted; when one replaces the rocks that composed its right arm with a tree, Ruby thinks she's found the key to defeating it and fires a shot that ignites the tree. All that achieves is to give the Geist a flaming arm attack.
Attack Its Weak Point: When possessing a Gigas form, the only vulnerable part of a Geist's body is its mask, which remains visible no matter what it possesses. The rest of its limbs are expendable and can easily be replaced in seconds with anything nearby.
Demonic Possession: Geists specialize in bonding their limbs to objects in their environment, including rocks and trees, and using them as weapons and body parts.
Made of Explodium: Invoked by the Elder Geist fought in the Dust mine. By forming its Gigas out of Dust-laden stone, it threatened to blow the whole mine sky-high if an attack hit the wrong part of its body, potentially starting a chain reaction with all the raw Dust in the mine.
Meaningful Name: The name refers to the spirit of a being, and this Grimm is a creature that inhabits something like a spirit taking possession of the object.
Monster Suit: A variant. The external appearance is actually the foe, but the true being is still much weaker and contained within.
No-Sell: In its Petra Gigas form, it's immune to cutting and shooting attacks. The only things that can hurt it are brute force strikes to dismantle its limbs or attacks to the face.
Shockwave Stomp: Does a punch-based version in its Petra Gigas form, sending the entirety of Team RNJR flying despite being a considerable distance away.
Tactical Withdrawal: While most Grimm keep attacking no matter what, the Geist retreats when the battle turns against it because its actual body is extremely vulnerable.
Wrestler in All of Us: When it chases Ruby over a cliff, the Petra Gigas tries to crush her on the way down with a flying elbow drop.

Goliath

Debut: Search and Destroy^*Volume 2 Episode 9

Huge elephant-like Grimm, first seen in Volume 2, Episode 9.

Cruel Elephant: They may less mindlessly aggressive than most Grimm, but that's because they're just smarter about it, and they just as dearly want to slaughter humans when given the opportunity.
Death Glare: Eerily, one of them noticed Ruby and Oobleck, stopped moving, and simply stared at them for an entire minute. It was not a pretty sight.
Dire Beast: They appear to be enormous elephants that dwarf everything around them. The trees they pass by don't even match their leg height, and the creators confirm that they are 200 feet tall. By comparison, the largest real life elephant ever recorded was only 13 feet tall; quite a size discrepancy with this behemoth of a Grimm.
Immune to Bullets: Oobleck states that Crescent Rose's bullets would only agitate them. In a flashback in After the Fall, even Coco's semblance-enhanced bullets don't even phase one.
Stronger with Age: Grimm grow stronger and more intelligent as they age, and while we've never seen a Goliath in a fight, even Oobleck (a veteran huntsman) thinks fighting them would be a bad idea, attesting to their power.

Griffon

Debut: Battle of Beacon^*Volume 3 Episode 10

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/griffin_grimm.jpg

Winged Grimm that first appear in Volume Three, attacking the Colosseum.

Mighty Roar: They signal their appearances with these. Unlike the Nevermores, which make loud, high screeching sounds, the Griffons' cries are deep, rasping roars.
Our Gryphons Are Different: They have all the characteristics of the classical griffin, starting with the body, back limbs and tail of a lion, and the front legs, beak and wings of a bird of prey. They appear to hunt in packs that are dangerous enough to make Oobleck and Port order the students to retreat while they take over the fight. The Griffons also display more size variability than other Grimm, ranging from ten to thirty feet within the span of two episodes.

Jackalope

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

A dangerous hybrid Grimm that is found in the deserts of Vacuo. It is first introduced in the light novel, RWBY: After the Fall.

Fearsome Critters of American Folklore: The Jackalope Grimm comes directly from the American folkloric creature of the same name.
Hair-Raising Hare: The Jackalope is a massive beast, larger than a human. However, its body shape is inspired by the hare, giving it powerful hindlimbs that allow it to leap great distances and run very fast.
Mix-and-Match Critters: This Grimm is a huge four-legged beast with branching antlers that extend from its bone mask. Its hindlegs have the powerful leaping ability of the jackrabbit and also enable it to run extremely fast.
Natural Weapon: The Jackalope attacks with its massive antlers, attempting to gore the humans it's trying to kill. It also has powerful teeth that it's capable of using for bite attacks.

King Taijitu

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 1^*Volume 1 Episode 6

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/basilisk1_9760.bmp

Giant snake Grimm premiering in Episode 6 in the Emerald Forest.

Dire Beast: This Grimm is 15x the size of the largest known snake (anacondas are rumored to be able to reach up to thirty feet in length but are narrow in width and unable to "stand up").
Fake Ultimate Mook: The King Taijitu leading the Grimm horde seen in episodes 11 and 12 of Volume 2 is the single biggest specimen the teams have fought, surpassing even the Nevermores in sheer size. Keep in mind, this was one of the Mountain Glenn Grimm, and its larger size indicates longer life and greater intelligence. Nora hits it on the head once, it collapses, and no more is said about it. Even the first one was defeated by Ren alone compared to the Death Stalker and Nevermore, which required teamwork to take down.
Go for the Eye: In the Emerald Forest, Ren managed to pluck the fangs off the black head and stab one through its eye.
A Head at Each End: A King Taijitu is a single large snake with two heads, one white and one black. Qrow even uses this as a metaphor when Ruby and Yang point out that it was thanks to them that Torchwick was caught: he says that they've cut off the head of a King Taijitu, but that the other head is still operating from the shadows.
Meaningful Name: A Taijitu is the proper word for the Yin-Yang symbol, which in modern times is usually black and white. This creature is a snake with two heads at either end, instead of a head and tail. One head black and the other head is white. At the centre of the creature, the colours merge and pass each other in a diamond pattern.
Reptiles Are Abhorrent: They combine a serpentine appearance with the homicidal nature of Grimm.
Volumetric Mouth: Justified. They're snakes.
Your Head Asplode: In Ren's battle with the Taijitu, he completely destroys the black head by delivering an aura amplified strike to its wounded eye.

Lancers

Lancer

Debut: Dread in the Air^*Volume 5 Episode 2

Lancer

Queen Lancer

These insectoid Grimm resemble large hornets and nest on the floating islands of Lake Matsu, preying on any flying vessels that pass by.

Flechette Storm: The Queen Lancer can fire multiple stingers from the sides of her body as well as from her head simultaneously. They hit their target like machine gun rounds.
Giant Flyer: Lancers are giant hornet-like Grimm, approximately the size of a person. They have a predominantly black body, with white plating on the head and dorsally and the legs carry white spurs. Red markings adorn the face, the eyes are red and the two pairs of wings are red, transparent and black-veined. They can use their stingers like grappling guns. The Queen Lancer dwarfs the swarm, being the size of a cargo ship.
Grappling-Hook Pistol: The Lancers' stingers are connected to their bodies with long natural cables. They can fire their stingers at a target and hook onto them. The force of the strike is powerful enough to allow the stingers to pierce airship hulls, giving them a good grip from which to catch and tear part the vessel with their mandibles.
King Mook: The Queen Lancer dwarfs ordinary Lancers in size and is far faster, stronger and tougher. The Lancers can be defeated through a combination of very risky flying and multiple Dust attacks from Weiss's rapier countering their sheer numbers and multiple attack angles. However, when Weiss throws several large crates of Dust at a Queen Lancer, every single one of them strikes and simultaneously combusts in a massive explosion. It doesn't even scratch the Queen, and barely slows her down. It takes multiple strikes from Weiss's Knight to finally finish it off.
Scary Stinging Swarm: When airships pass through the floating islands of Lake Matsu, they run the risk of being spotted by Lancers. When Lancers target a ship, they group together into a swarm and chase the ship through the air until they get close enough to use their stingers as grappling guns to hook onto, and reel in, the ship they're targeting. Once latched onto the hull, their mandibles can cut through metal with ease. Their swarm attacks are so effective that even airships that have an Huntsman on board aren't guaranteed to survive.
Wicked Wasps: Lancers are huge hornet Grimm that are the size of a small cargo ship. They live among the floating islands of Lake Matsu in Anima and attack any air ships that attempt to travel through their airspace. They have the ability to use their stingers like grappling guns, hooking onto ships and reeling them in where they use their powerful mandibles to chew their way through the ship's hull. A small swarm of Lancers can be enough to overwhelm even airships that have Huntsmen on board. Queen Lancers, however, act alone; they're mammoth creatures, easily dwarfing cargo ships and have the ability to fire darts that burst out of the each side of their bodies on top of being able to use their mandibles and tail stingers. A Queen Lancer is so tough she can easily survive being hit an explosion caused by multiple crates of Dust igniting at the same time.

Leviathan

Debut: Seeing Red^*Volume 6 Episode 12

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image_10_3.png

A massive sea-faring Grimm lurking off the coast of Argus. It emerges from the sea to assault the city while the heroes and Cordovin are busy fighting each other for an airship.

Breath Weapon: The Leviathan is able to release a stream of fire from its mouth. The sheer power of the attack enables it to make very short work of the military-grade shields that Atlas uses to protect the city of Argus from attack. When the power is in use, the fire coming from inside the beast can be seen through the gill slits in its neck.
Immune to Bullets: The Atlesian base scrambles all of its fighter planes to deal with the Grimm threat, but even when the planes score direct hits with their missiles, the explosions just bounce off the skin and bone mask, leaving the Leviathan entirely uninjured.
Kraken and Leviathan: The Leviathan draws its namesake and size from the biblical Leviathan, making it the largest species of Grimm encountered as of Volume 6. It possesses characteristics found in amphibian and aquatic creatures such as two rows of gills, webbed hands and a dorsal fin, along with a fish-like tail and a cranial structure resembling a crocodile's. It also displays surprising mobility while swimming underwater, but for most of its appearance it slowly walks towards the city of Argus, shrugging off most of its defenses.
Mighty Glacier: Although it's implied that the Leviathan can move fast under the water, above the water is another matter. To fight the humans, it surfaces and walks on its hind-legs. Its movements are slow, steady and implacable. It gives no indication that it can move fast and, when the fighter planes circle its head firing missiles, it simply snaps its huge muzzle at them every so often. Although it shows no signs of being able to dodge anything, it doesn't need to: everything the military throws at it bounces off its hide and leaves it uninjured.
Taken for Granite: When the Atlesian military struggle to fight the Leviathan, the heroes struggle to come up with any plan other than sending Ruby out to try and petrify it with her silver eyes. Although she succeeds in petrifying it, it immediately starts to break free of the stone, revealing that it's only encased rather than having been fully transformed. Cordovin manages to finish off the Grimm before it can fully break free of the stone.

Manticore

Debut: Argus Limited^*Volume 6 Episode 1

Flying horned Grimm that share the features of lions and have scorpion tails. A pack led by a Sphinx attack the group on a train headed to Argus.

Airborne Mooks: During their attack on the train, they act as fodder for the much tougher Sphinx, falling quickly whenever even inexperienced Huntsmen manage to score a direct hit on them.
Beware My Stinger Tail: Their tails end in scorpion-like stingers which they can use to attack opponents with, just like a scorpion.
Breath Weapon: They can shoot fireballs from their mouths for long-ranged combat.
Giant Flyer: Although they are smaller than the Sphinx that leads them, they are still massive creatures that would easily outcompete an elephant in size. They dwarf the humans and Faunus that fight them. Despite their size, they are very good flyers; to avoid ranged attacks, they are able to manoeuvre easily and perform acrobatic feats in mid-flight such as body rolls without slowing down.
Our Manticores Are Spinier: The classic manticore had the face of a human, body of a lion and a venomous tail that was either barbed like a porcupine or ended in a stinger like a scorpion. While Manticore Grimm do have a scorpion tail and a mammalian body with four taloned paws, they also possess feathered wings. Their heads are bestial, almost dog-like, with large horns curving out of the foreheads like cattle. Instead of a mane, they posses a ruff of bone spikes that frame their heads similar to a triceratops.

Megoliath

Debut: As Above, So Below^*Volume 7, Episode 9

Huge elephantine Grimm that are native to the ice and snow of Solitas. Their black bodies have a shaggy coat akin to a woolly mammoth.

Dire Beast: The advanced form of the Megoliath that is huge even by the standards of its kind. It has extra armour on its body, including its legs. It's so durable that it can withstand, and even push back against, the full force of Penny's energy blast, which can shred entire airships. It takes a group of Huntresses working together to kill it with its own tusk.
Early-Bird Cameo: When the heroes are shown a real Huntsman mission board, Ruby excitedly points to one mission and asks if she can ride a Megoliath before swiftly moving on to other subjects. This is the first mention of the existence of these Grimm, five episodes before they make their first on-screen appearance.
Friendly Fire: One of them casually crushes an Ursa Major under its foot, seemingly not noticing or not really caring that a fellow Grimm was in the way.
Mammoths Mean Ice Age: As Solitas is the Grim Up North, it's fitting that one of the most dangerous Grimm native to the continent would represent one of the most well-known beasts of the Ice Age. They seem to be the Solitas equivalent of the Goliath judging by their similar appearances and names.
Spikes of Villainy: This Grimm has noticeably bone spikes jutting out of its body as well as sharp tusks. The advanced form has even bigger and sharper spikes.
Stronger with Age: The advanced form of the Megoliath is not only bigger than its kin, its also tougher. It is not only able to tank a head-on blast of energy by Penny (which is powerful enough to shred airships), but it can even push back against that blast, forcing Penny to struggle to hold her ground. It's also smarter than other Megoliaths; when Penny tries to control it through the wires attached to her swords, the Megoliath takes one look at her, then tosses the swords, deliberately using the wires against Penny to send her flying over the neaby buildings to land in a completely different street.

Nevermore

Debut: Players and Pieces^*Volume 1 Episode 8

Avian Grimm. Debuted in Episode 8, when Team RWBY fight a giant version of it.

Circling Vultures: They circle towns under attack, though they're fully capable of flying down and joining the slaughter themselves.
Feather Flechettes: It fires its (huge) feathers for an attack, at one point pinning Ruby's cape to the ground.
Feed It a Bomb: Yang inflicts this on the Nevermore, with blasts of her gauntlet. All it does is cause it to crash into the cliff and get back up soon after. It's actually All According to Plan, as Weiss gets an opportunity to freeze its tail and pin it to the cliff.
Giant Flyer: The older Grimm get, the larger they become. The Giant Nevermore is so huge in size, one flight feather alone is longer than a tree and the size of its beak alone dwarfs a grown human. It continues to fly like a normal raven, but is so tough that it can swallow bullets shot at point-blank range without injury.
Kidnapping Bird of Prey: One of them is seen carrying off Roy of Team BRNZ during "Battle of Beacon".
Off with His Head!: Two of these suffer a decapitation on-screen.
- The first giant Nevermore seen in "Players and Pieces" gets pinned down by Team RWBY's combined effort, before getting dragged up the cliff by the neck courtesy of Ruby's scythe. It then loses its head as soon as Ruby reaches the summit.
- The giant Nevermore attacking the stadium in "Battle for Beacon" is repeatedly pummeled by the concerted efforts of teams JNPR, ABRN, FNKI, SSSN and CFVY; its head is severed by a combination of Yatsuhashi and Sage's cleavers.

Owl Grimm

Debut: RWBY Fairy Tales of Remnant: The Warrior in the Woods

Huge black owl-like Grimm that are first introduced in the canonical RWBY: Fairy Tales of Remnant.

Airborne Mooks: The protagonist of the fairy tale "The Warrior in the Woods" has figured out how to fight by the time he encounters these Grimm, but he's still clumsy and not very good. He still manages to kill two of the Grimm. The third is destroyed by a mysterious white light he doesn't understand.
Dire Beast: These Grimm are described as being owl-like, but they're far too big to be natural.
Make Some Noise: Implied. The protagonist notices that when the Owl-Grimm take to the air, their beating wings begin to sound like thunder.
Natural Weapon: The Owl-Grimm dive bomb the protagonist from the air, trying to strike him with their razor-sharp talons.
No Name Given: Although these Grimm are introduced, described and fought within the fairy tale, their name is never mentioned. This is because the protagonist grew up in a village that had been so protected from the Grimm, no-one had ever encountered them until he started exploring the forest. He therefore has to start learning about them on the fly.
Razor Wings: The Owl-Grimm have wings with feathers that are razor sharp.

Ravager

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Ravagers are huge flying bat-like Grimm that are first introduced in the canonical light novel, RWBY: After the Fall. They replace Nevermores in the deserts of Vacuo.

Bat Out of Hell: They are huge, evil and highly dangerous bat Grimm with large, leathery bat-like wings and four huge fangs that are described as being 'wicked sharp'.
Giant Flyer: These creatures are enormous Grimm that are both uglier and meaner than Nevermores. They have bat-like wings and four sharp teeth, each as long as a man's forearm.
Kidnapping Bird of Prey: When the Atlesian refugees arrive in Vacuo, the Ravagers fly out of a sandstorm to attack. Several swoop down from above to grab people in the claws of their hindlimbs before flying off with them.
Super-Scream: They are capable of producing an ear-piercing shriek. Painful in its own right, the shriek also produces a sonic wave that it uses to blast its opponents.

Sabyr

Debut: The Greatest Kingdom^*Volume 7 Episode 1

A type of Grimm found on Solitas that looks like sabre-tooth cat.

Mooks: They seem to take this role in place of Beowolves in Solitas.
Fragile Speedster: It never takes more than one hit from the heroes to take them down, with the only thing they shake off being a punch from Qrow. That said, they're quite fast on their feet and can easily close the distance with a target to shred them with their claws and teeth. The fact that they're able to break into Mantle and overwhelm the robots there is an indicator of the city's security being incredibly poor compared to the more affluent parts of Atlas.
Panthera Awesome: It visually resembles a demonic sabre-tooth cat, and despite technically being a Mook it's still dangerous enough to destroy an Atlesian Knight.
Snowy Sabertooths: They look like sabertoothed tigers and are native to the icy region of Solitas.
Zerg Rush: Since they're very easy to kill, they tend to attack in numbers to compensate for it.

Sea Feilong

Debut: Of Runaways and Stowaways^*Volume 4 Episode 3

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/grimm_sea_dragon_1.png

A sea-dragon Grimm that prowls the waters of Remnant. Blake and Sun encounter it on a boat to Blake's home on Menagerie.

Attack Its Weakpoint: Its wings are the only part that are vulnerable to human-sized weapons. The rest of it shrugs off any attack that isn't coming directly from the ship itself.
Breath Weapon: It is capable of shooting a yellow beam from its mouth, seemingly made of electricity.
Dragons Are Demonic: It's one of the largest and most dangerous Grimm seen on the show. Unusually for this trope, its serpentine design draws more inspiration from an Eastern dragon than a Western one.
Flight: The sea dragon initially crests the waves as a serpentine creature with a dorsal fin. However, the fin parts to allow bat-style wings to unfurl from inside its back giving it strong, swift flight.
Half the Man He Used to Be: When it's finally pinned between the ship and some rocks, the gun's main cannon is able to blast the top half of the dragon's body clean off the rest of it with a point-blank shot.
Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The ship captain has Blake and Sun lure it so he can ram the bow of the ship into its body. While that doesn't kill it, it does leave it pinned and unable to dodge the point-blank cannon shot that does so.
Lightning Bruiser: Don't let its size and initial slowness fool you. This thing is so horrifyingly fast it can dodge an entire ship length of guns without getting scratched. It's also so tough, it can withstand the cannon fire from an armed ship and tear through solid stone while flying at full speed.
Our Dragons Are Different: In contrast to the Wyvern, this one has an appearance based off Eastern dragons, notably featuring a long serpentine body and whiskers commonly associated with such dragons.
Sea Monster: It's a giant sea serpent that lives below the waves (or occasionally flies above them). The ferry captain notes that such a massive Grimm has never been sighted before.
Shock and Awe: It creates a yellow blast of crackling energy in its mouth which it uses as a blast attack.

Seer

Debut: Of Runaways and Stowaways^*Volume 4 Episode 3

A jellyfish-like Grimm that Salem seems to use to communicate with other Grimm forces, such as the ones occupying Beacon.

Combat Tentacles: The Seer's tentacles are tipped with sharp spear-like blades and it can use them to grapple and hold or lift people. If Salem is communicating with a person who displeases her, she can instruct the Seer at the other end to lasso them with its flail-like tentacles. A Seer can strangle a person if they wrap a tentacle around a person's neck.
Crystal Ball: Salem can communicate with her subordinates over vast distances by using Seers as crystal balls. The spherical head of the Seer clears like a parting mist to allow Salem and her subordinate to see each other as well as talk. Watts is fascinated by the creatures and, when taps the head of one, the chinking noise makes it sound like he's tapping glass.
Mission Control: Salem orders one to strengthen the Grimm presence at Beacon, and it leaves the room to carry out that order. She also has Seers strategically placed to allow her agents in the field the ability to communicate with her across vast distances. It means Salem's forces don't need to rely on the broken CCT for cross-continental communication the way everyone else does.
Power Floats: Seers exist in a floating state, levitating gently through the air as they move. When they come to rest, they remain hovering in the air, tentacles rippling slightly, just like a jellyfish floating in an ocean current. They can rest on solid surfaces as necessary; when Salem communicates with Watts and her Haven informant, her Seer rests on the table in front of her.
Power Glows: A red pulsating light dimly glows at the core of its spherical head. When two Seers are used for long-range communication, the light swirls like a mist and swelling apart to reveal the faces and locations of the people at either end.
Villain Override: While they can function on their own, Salem is able to directly take control of a Seer, allowing her to manipulate its tentacles to threaten or attack others remotely.

Sphinx

Debut: Argus Limited^*Volume 6 Episode 1

A large, winged Grimm that travels with a pack of Manticores and appears to command them when attacking a train traveling to Argus. It can produce fireballs from the mouth and possesses a second head on its tail.

Breath Weapon: They can spit fireballs from their main head.
Flunky Boss: The one that attacks the train that is travelling to Argus brings along a number of Manticores that it directs in combat. The Manticores are dispatched long before the Sphinx is, and the Sphinx requires team-work involving five huntsmen to take down.
Giant Flyer: The Sphinx is so large that the (relatively) tiny snake head at the tip of its tail is still almost as long as an adult man is tall. It towers over any humans standing next to them, and the wing span dwarfs the length of the train carriage it lands on.
A Head at Each End: The Sphinx's tail ends in a serpentine head and the Sphinx itself can clearly be seen to react to threats noticed by the tail. When the body is injured, both heads react with pain.
Mix-and-Match Critters: The Sphinx is a creature that has multiple recognisable animal parts. It has the body of a lion, Nevermore wings, and the tail of a snake.
Our Sphinxes Are Different: The Sphinx has a leonine body and feathered wings, can breathe fire, and has a snake for a tail. It also leads a pack of Manticores that it directs in combat ahead of itself.

Tempest

Debut: Divide ^*Volume 8 Episode 1

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/download_11_156.jpeg

Enormous, jellyfish-like Grimm that produce the unnatural storm which surrounds Salem's airborne Grimm fleet.

Combat Tentacles: A single Tempest can wrap its tentacles around an entire Atlesian warship and tear it in half.
Electric Jellyfish: The Tempest resembles a giant jellyfish, with white bone talons extending from from the base of a bell-shaped black body. Long red tentacles trail from the body. It can produce red electricity from the top of its body and down the length of its tentacles.
Giant Flyer: Each Tempest is enormous, dwarfing smaller airships and easily able to wrap the length of their tentacles around warships. They float through the air in a way reminiscent of jellyfish floating through water.
Shock and Awe: They have the ability to create lightning, which they use to attack Atlesian ships and prevent them from approaching Salem's position.
Weather Manipulation: They create a massive thunderstorm consisting of red-tinged black clouds and red lightning that constantly streaks across the sky.

Teryx

Debut: As Above, So Below^*Volume 7 Episode 9

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/download_10_082.jpeg

A large dragon-like creature native to Solitas; it has the body of a bipedial dinosaur, with forelimbs that are slightly smaller, but still useful. It has large, membranous wings and spils on both the nape of its neck and at the end of its tail. It attacks mainly with its teeth and claws.

Absurdly Sharp Claws: The Teryx that lands on the heroes' airship clings on by digging in with huge claws that break right through hull of the airship and almost impale a shocked Blake and Yang who are sitting inside the ship against that part of the hull.
Dragons Are Demonic: The Teryx takes the form of a winged dinosaur. With a jaw full of teeth, large claws on four limbs, a spiked tail and translucent membranous wings, it's a prehistoric creature that is designed to mimic a dangerous, dragon-like creature.
Giant Flyer: The smallest Teryx is about half the size of a Manta-class airship; its claws are about the length of a person's upper arm and its jaw length is about half the length of a grown man. As one of the smaller winged Grimm, it still completely dwarfs the Huntsmen who fight it. Many Teryx are far larger than this.
Spikes of Villainy: The Teryx has long, slim spiles all over the nape of its neck, and a collection of similar spiles towards the end of its tail.
Tainted Veins: The Teryx has wings and a dew flap that is made from a reddish, slightly translucent membrane. The membranes are covered in bright red veins that glow the same way Grimm eyes do.

Ursa

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 1^*Volume 1 Episode 6

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/beobear1_1296.bmp

Bear-like Grimm first appearing in the Emerald Forest in Episode 6. It is later revealed that there are larger Ursai in the world, and a large one, the Ursa Major, was seen living in the Forever Fall forest.

Art Evolution: Like the Beowolves, the Ursai heads were redesigned in Volume 5 to appear more intimidating.
Bears Are Bad News: Very big, very burly, and very mean.
Dire Beast: Ursa Major, the bigger kind of Ursa.
Elite Mooks: The Ursa Major is much larger and stronger than normal Ursai and are covered in much more bone armour. They are much harder to kill than normal.
Off with His Head!: Jaune managed to lop the head off one in Forever Fall.
Spikes of Villainy: The Ursa Major in Forever Fall has large spikes protruding from its back, implying they grow them as they get bigger. It also has many bony plates on its back and limbs.
Sweet Tooth: That big Ursa certainly seemed to have been attracted to Cardin after he'd been pasted with sweet sauce.

Ziraphe

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Huge, three-headed, giraffe-like Grimm that are first introduced in the canonical light novel, RWBY: After the Fall.

Horn Attack: Each head of the Ziraph contains short white horns that can be used to gore targets.
Mix-and-Match Critter: The Ziraph has a giraffe-like appearance. However, it possesses three heads and necks; its black body is covered in glowing red spots that are leopard-like instead of giraffe-like; and, unlike a giraffe, each head possesses horns that are capable of piercing and goring their targets.
Natural Weapon: The Ziraph has a lot of body parts that can function as weapons. All three heads can bite and gore with their teeth and horns; the legs deliver powerful kicks; the body is covered in bony plates that are razor sharp; and it even possesses an extremely long prehensile tongue that can be used to snare targets and pull them in for the kill.
Overly-Long Tongue: Like real giraffes, they have long, prehensile tongues. Unlike real giraffes, they can use them to grab and lift entire people.

Characters / RWBY: Grimm Bestiary

Edit Locked

Spoilers for all works set prior to the end of Volume 8 are unmarked.

Creatures of Grimm

Voiced By: William Orendorff

Associated Tropes:

Unusual Grimm

Cephalopod Grimm

Debut: RWBY (2015), Chapter 10 * The very first manga series produced for RWBY, also titled RWBY, was described by the show's creators as "canon until it's not", with certain events being further confirmed during interviews or DVD commentary.

The Monstra

Debut: The Enemy of Trust* Volume 7 Episode 13

The Nuckelavee

Debut: Kuroyuri* Volume 4 Episode 10

Parasitic Grimm

Debut: Beginning of the End* Volume 3 Episode 7

The Wyvern

Debut: Battle of Beacon* Volume 3 Episode 10

Unnatural Grimm

Arma Gigas

Debut: White Trailer

The Hound

Voiced By: Jason Liebrecht

Debut: Divide* Volume 8 Episode 1

Mutated Grimm

Classes of Grimm

Apathy

Debut: Alone in the Woods* Volume 6 Episode 6

Beowolf

Debut: Red Trailer

Beringel

Debut: Volume 4 Character Short

Blind Worm

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall * A spin-off light novel that is considered canon

Boarbatusk

Debut: The Badge and the Burden* Volume 1 Episode 9

Cenitaur

Debut: Dark* Volume 8 Episode 8

Centinel

Debut: Ace Operatives* Volume 7 Episode 3

Chill

Debut: Fairy Tales of Remnant: The Grimm Child

Creep

Debut: No Brakes* Volume 2 Episode 11

Death Stalker

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 2* Volume 1 Episode 7

Dromedon

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall * A spin-off light novel that is considered canon

Geist

Debut: The Next Step* Volume 4 Episode 1

Click here for its Petra Gigas form

Goliath

Debut: Search and Destroy* Volume 2 Episode 9

Griffon

Debut: Battle of Beacon* Volume 3 Episode 10

Jackalope

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall * A spin-off light novel that is considered canon

King Taijitu

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 1* Volume 1 Episode 6

Lancer

Debut: Dread in the Air* Volume 5 Episode 2

Leviathan

Debut: Seeing Red* Volume 6 Episode 12

Manticore

Debut: Argus Limited* Volume 6 Episode 1

Megoliath

Debut: As Above, So Below* Volume 7, Episode 9

Nevermore

Debut: Players and Pieces* Volume 1 Episode 8

Owl Grimm

Debut: RWBY Fairy Tales of Remnant: The Warrior in the Woods

Ravager

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall * A spin-off light novel that is considered canon

Sabyr

Debut: The Greatest Kingdom* Volume 7 Episode 1

Sea Feilong

Debut: Of Runaways and Stowaways* Volume 4 Episode 3

Seer

Debut: Of Runaways and Stowaways* Volume 4 Episode 3

Sphinx

Debut: Argus Limited* Volume 6 Episode 1

Debut: RWBY (2015), Chapter 10 ^*

Debut: The Enemy of Trust^*Volume 7 Episode 13

Debut: Kuroyuri^*Volume 4 Episode 10

Debut: Beginning of the End^*Volume 3 Episode 7

Debut: Battle of Beacon^*Volume 3 Episode 10

Debut: Divide^*Volume 8 Episode 1

Debut: Alone in the Woods^*Volume 6 Episode 6

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Debut: The Badge and the Burden^*Volume 1 Episode 9

Debut: Dark^*Volume 8 Episode 8

Debut: Ace Operatives^*Volume 7 Episode 3

Debut: No Brakes^*Volume 2 Episode 11

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 2^*Volume 1 Episode 7

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Debut: The Next Step^*Volume 4 Episode 1

^{Click here for its Petra Gigas form}

Debut: Search and Destroy^*Volume 2 Episode 9

Debut: Battle of Beacon^*Volume 3 Episode 10

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 1^*Volume 1 Episode 6

Debut: Dread in the Air^*Volume 5 Episode 2

Debut: Seeing Red^*Volume 6 Episode 12

Debut: Argus Limited^*Volume 6 Episode 1

Debut: As Above, So Below^*Volume 7, Episode 9

Debut: Players and Pieces^*Volume 1 Episode 8

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*

Debut: The Greatest Kingdom^*Volume 7 Episode 1

Debut: Of Runaways and Stowaways^*Volume 4 Episode 3

Debut: Of Runaways and Stowaways^*Volume 4 Episode 3

Debut: Argus Limited^*Volume 6 Episode 1

Debut: Divide ^*Volume 8 Episode 1

Debut: As Above, So Below^*Volume 7 Episode 9

Debut: The Emerald Forest Pt. 1^*Volume 1 Episode 6

Debut: RWBY: After the Fall ^*