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Team RWBY finds themselves in a strange, new world where Grimm are nonexistent and magic is commonplace. They journey to find a way home, but along the way are caught up in several ancient prophecies and must save this world they find themselves in. As time goes on, they adapt to the dangerous land of Skyrim and fight against its foes be they small, large, or godly.

"Of Elder Scrolls and Huntsmen: Dragon Rose" is a RWBY / The Elder Scrolls crossover story by Jesse K, with help from xTRESTWHOx and Naan Contributor. The story stands out for its extreme devotion to the lore of both series, especially on the Elder Scrolls side of the cross, the inclusion of lore-friendly mods, and the division of the various questlines between the four members of Team RWBY.

This story can be read in SpaceBattles, Archive of Our Own note , and FanFiction.net.


This work contains examples of:

  • Action Girl: All of Team RWBY, of course. As well as pretty much any woman fighter they come across including Lydia, Zora, M'rissi, etc.
  • Actually, That's My Assistant: Esbern mistakes Lydia for the Dragonborn when meeting up for the first time, to Lydia's annoyance and his embarrassment.
  • Adaptational Badass: Dragons, in general, are significantly more dangerous than in the game mostly due to them knowing more than just the Fire/Frost breath shouts. Mirmulnir, for example, knows the slow-time shout. Nahkrensos Fus Ro Da's a group of guards so hard that their organs rupture.
  • Adaptation Expansion: Much of the game limitations of the source material is thrown away in exchange for a much more expansive, realistic world that fits within the lore of The Elder Scrolls.
    • The different forms of the Khajiit are represented, for one.
    • Lydia actually has a backstory, as do several other characters who generally only had cookie-cutter dialogue in the game.
    • Many factions such as the Forsworn, Silver-Hand, Vampires, are expanded and fleshed out to not make the story Black and White.
    • Each dragon has its own name and unique personality. For example, Vulgahrotru means "Dark - Steal - Run," which reflects his occupation as a highway-dragon. Although in that case, it's an act, one he enjoys playing, as Vulgahrotru is a pseudonym.
    • Additionally the writers have invented new shouts for the dragons, such as a clairvoyance shout or a sunlight laser shout, and the dragons actually know more than just the Fire and Ice shouts.
    • One omake elaborates that the dragons had a hierarchy, albeit mostly so for their mortal servants, as they didn't really care about it much otherwise.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: After a hard day of finding dead bodies, fighting evil demi-humans and their giant insect pets, getting yelled at by a god after finding her dodecahedron, and then brought to the realm of another god, Ruby has to lie down and take it all in with a good cry. Lydia pats her head to help her along.
  • The Alcoholic: Yang briefly falls into this after she kills a bandit chief by uppercutting his head off. Coupled with the stress of being in an entirely new world and having no obvious way to get home, she falls into a depressive state not too dissimilar to her Uncle Qrow. She turns to alcohol in an attempt to cope, but after she, Weiss, and Blake get separated from Ruby following a drinking contest with Sanguine, she finally breaks down and swears herself to moderation.
  • All There in the Manual: Along with the story chapters, all three writers make in-universe entries from the point-of-view of scribes and researchers in the Elder Scrolls universe that explain different aspects of the world in more detail, such as the races, different kind of lycanthropes and vampire strains, wildlife, and societal things in general.
  • Alternate Universe: By the time RWBY arrives in Skyrim, the world slightly different than canon:
    • The author uses a number of characters and events from various Game Mods, such as M'rissi.
    • Several races that were only wild enemies in previous games are now fully integrated members of the Empire. In particular, Minotaurs, Goblins, Centaurs, and Harpies have become full citizens, with communications established with Giants and Lamias. Pigmole University was specifically established to continue this integration.
    • Both the Empire and the Stormcloaks incorporate non-Nords into their armies, with some even achieving leadership positions, moreso in the Imperial Army.
    • There were five Heroes during the Oblivion Crisis. See Hero of Another Story for details.
  • Anti-Magic: Brelyna's Semblance allows them to disrupt magic and even disenchant objects without damaging them.
  • Artifact of Doom: The Ebony Blade is a literal extension of the Daedric Prince Mephala, the Anthropomorphic Personification of deceit, lies, sex, murder, and plots. Those who wield the Ebony Blade are thus subjected to her will as she tries to break them down. Blake takes it upon herself to hold onto it for safekeeping, lest it fall into the wrong (or easier to influence) hands.
  • Alien Sky: The night sky of Nirn, and its two moons, is what tells RWBY that they are on another world.
  • Armor Is Useless: Subverted. Prior to the discovery of the Soul Trap weakness, none of RWBY wore armor as it merely slowed them down. The discovery of an enchantment that completely bypasses the protection Aura normally grants them prompts RWBY to begin wearing armor in order to compensate.
  • Badass Cape: Ruby's cloak, as always.
  • Beam-O-War: Aakdremsot and Biidurvul do this on two occasions, the first being when their Unrelenting Forces collide and change the terrain, killing some people in the process. The second is far more literal, with Aakdremsot using a Burning light as Biidurvul uses Crushing Dark Light, the beam struggle ending with Ruby distracting Biidurvul and causing him to lose part of his face to Aakdremsot's beam.
  • The Berserker: Nahkrensos goes after Winterhold and the College with seemingly reckless abandon. Even after being magically thrown out of the air and bombarded with spells from most of the College's faculty and staff to the point he cannot fly and is half-blinded, he attempts to climb up a sheer cliff, promising their destruction while doing so.
  • Black-Tie Infiltration: Ruby goes to the party at the Thalmor Embassy, using her position as a Thane of Solitude to help in reinforcing her cover. While she does so, Blake, who is pretending to be one of her servants, sneaks into the back to find the information they believe the Thalmor may have.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: As explained by Joselyn Fair-Child -the shy, witchy sister of Zora- the Daedra do not view things through the same moral lens as the mortals of Nirn (and by extension, Remnant). Rather, they judge the 'good' and 'bad' of things by whether or not it positively or negatively affects their spheres. She even references it almost by name:
    Joselyn: To…Sanguine, for example, sobriety and chastity are ‘evil’ to him. The same goes…for Meridia. Life and light are ‘good’ to her. Darkness and undeath are ‘bad.’
    Ruby: That's really weird.
  • Can't Catch Up: Lydia, the Badass Normal of the group, feels this way towards the rest of RWBY, especially towards Ruby herself, whom she is supposed to be protecting. She begins asking them to unlock her own Aura. Despite it initially seeming to fail, she later manages to unlock her Aura and Semblance.
  • Cat Girl: Blake, who is a cat Faunus, is mistaken for a type of Khajiit. Every female Khajiit technically counts. Special mention goes to M'rissi, who was formerly a Suthay Khajiit, but was fooled and then magically altered by Isael as a part of the madwoman's schemes and ends up fitting the trope almost to a T
  • Charm Person: Mercer's Semblance, Shadows Lure You, allows him to influence people into believing what he says and doing what he wants. He even uses it on Blake to get her to rob Volgahrotru.
  • Child of Two Worlds: When Ruby and Blake get a chance to sit down and talk to Capric Thorn, he reveals that while his mother is/was a Bosmer, his father was a deer Faunus. His mother somehow ended up on Remnant, and he similarly found himself in Valenwood.
  • The Chosen One: Ruby Rose herself, who is discovered to be the Last Dragonborn after killing the dragon Mirmulnir.
    • In Kodlak's journal, he wrote of a dream where he saw Yang fighting by his side against the beast that had taken his recent Harbinger predecessors to the Hunting Grounds, foreseeing part of her destiny.
    • Weiss reads the Book of Fate and sees that, among other things, she is destined to fight alongside Ruby (no matter who Ruby becomes) and that she will one day confront a being that she later finds out is Molag Bal.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Yang declares Ruby to have such after she, Blake, and Weiss arrive back in Whiterun after their first encounter with a Hagraven, stating that should Ruby learn exactly what Hagravens do, she won't stop until all of them were dead.
    • Team RWBY as a whole can't help but involve themselves in any quest they come across, especially if it involves a person needing help.
  • Continuity Nod: Blake's past with the White Fang is brought up a handful of times, but so is her parents' identities, the revelation of which startles Weiss.
    • Blake earning a scar on her abdomen thanks to a mad Thalmor mage.
  • The Corruption: Holding onto the Ebony Blade has not done Blake any favors, though she’s gotten a lot better about keeping it under control. Weiss' time as a vampire has caused her to gain certain unwanted desires.
  • Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
    • M'rissi is generally childish and immature, justified in that she's a near-total amnesiac who couldn't even remember her name at first. However, as she has displayed on numerous occasions, she is more than capable of holding her own in a fight. When first introduced, Blake came across where she had killed two (out of four) mercenaries and a dog, and it's suggested she did it with her bare claws.
    • Inigo is similar, usually being a lovable goofball, but being deadly serious when it comes to combat.
  • Cuteness Proximity: While high on moon sugar, Weiss spends a few minutes gushing about how cute and kittenish the baby Khajiit she just saw are. She's just as enthusiastic about them while she's sober too.
  • Daywalking Vampire: What a sufficiently-fed vampire of the Sanguinare Vampiris strain can do, albeit not without discomfort. When blood-starved, this discomfort increases dramatically.
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • The Prisoner of Helgen, who is the game's Last Dragonborn, dies at Helgen, with Ruby taking his role.
    • In the game, Cicero is marked as essential and cannot be killed (outside of a certain quest). In the story, Blake kills him when he reveals that he is a member of the Dark Brotherhood and would have killed Loreius even if he helped him.
    • Kodlak dies before he can be cured thanks to an attack by the Silver Hands.
  • Decomposite Character: Being four people, each member of Team RWBY can take on multiple paths and storylines more realistically than a single person.
    • Ruby is the Last Dragonborn, wielding Dawnbreaker in addition to Crescent Rose.
    • Weiss becomes a Vampire, attends the College of Winterhold, and ends up joining Volkihar (as a spy...ish).
    • Blake joins the Thieves' Guild and destroys the Dark Brotherhood.
    • Yang joins the Companions, becomes a werewolf, and joins the Dawnguard.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Team RWBY, on their first day in Nirn, arrives in Solitude and are appalled to witness Roggvir's public execution, a type of punishment utterly barbaric by Remnant's standards.
    • While they make there way through Helgen's fort, the team's appalled when they discover a torture chamber, which is not an uncommon feature of Tamriel's justice systems and intelligence operations.
    • The idea of capturing souls disturbs the girls initially, while on Nirn it’s fairly common to capture animal souls for enchanting.
  • Determinator: All of the main characters, really, but special note goes to Blake Belladonna, who's so far managed to not fall to the Ebony Blade's temptations.
    • Weiss has also talks about her own temptations that come with being a vampire and how they have affected her perception of love and affection, especially after taking on the Volkihar bloodline.
  • Defector from Decadence: Serana Volkihar and Gillidie Vassonia, a young vampire Weiss saved from a lynching, join Weiss in defecting from Harkon after the truth of his plans come to light.
  • Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: When Clavicus Vile is communicating to Ruby through his statue in the vampire cave, her Aura causes everyone present to hear his words, not just her, and he accidentally lets slip that he can't cure their vampirism like they'd hoped, at least not on his own, since vampirism is Molag Bal's domain and he doesn't want to get on his bad side.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: When Molag Bal, God of Domination (and other unsavory things) tries to lure Yang into his service, her reaction includes telling him off, freeing his prisoner, smashing his altar with his own mace, melting the broken shrine, and then finally collapsing the cave in which the shrine was. She was going to stop earlier, but his mention of Weiss pissed her off.
  • Disney Owns This Trope: The vampires at Haemar's Shame all have names and/or quirks resembling characters belonging to a certain massive media company.
    • It was done on purpose - Jesse K
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: While fighting Alduin in Helgen, Yang makes the injudicious choice of taunting Alduin after his Fire Breath shout has no effect on her. Alduin promptly hits her with a Frost Breath shout, which she is not immune to.
  • Domesticated Dinosaurs: The Giants (aka Jo'Tunn) herd mammoths primarily for their cheese.
    • In a more exact example, it is mentioned that some Bosmer used creatures know as "toothed birds," which are therapod dinosaurs in all but name. Gunnar has a frightening war flashback concerning their usage in the Great War when Ruby mentions them to Yang in earshot.
    • M'rissi has adopted a melanistic sabrecat after they killed its mother. To be fair, the mother and her pack were killing innocent civilians after being cursed.
  • Dramatic Irony: Blake assumes that the names given for the Heroes of the Oblivion Crisis were just made up by later authors to make it easier to write dialogue in stories using them. Four of the five heroes are actually the members of JNPR and the names in the records are actually combinations or misspellings of their real names. Weiss immediately deduces the heroes' identities upon reading about them, and is incredulous Blake missed it.
  • Dreaming of Times Gone By: After completing the quest for Azura's Star, the Daedric Prince of Dusk and Dawn starts giving Weiss dreams based on the experiences of someone from the past, in order to 'prepare her'. Weiss later determines that these dreams are from the point-of-view of the Nerevarine, whom she also believes to be another transplanted person from Remnant.
  • Elite Mook: Yang nonchalantly strides up to the final draugr in Bleak Falls Barrow, expecting it to be as easy to defeat as the ones prior to it. It then blasts the team with the Unrelenting Force shout and pulls out a frost sword, proceeding to put up a far tougher fight than the draugr before it.
    • During the siege at Fort Dawnguard Yang faces off against a trio of vampire giants, the last of which catches her in its grip and nearly crushes and freezes her to death.
  • Enemy Mine: Team RWBY cajole Ralof and Hadvar into this when they interrupt the two's fight beneath Helgen Keep and point out that the middle of a dragon attack is not the time to prosecute the Imperial-Stormcloak conflict. They get them to agree to a truce in order to escape to Riverwood.
  • Exact Words: The Caboose expy, Kobulz, (see below) does this by accident. He doesn't speak "giant" but he does speak Jo'Tunn, the language of the Giants.
    • One Forsworn tribe, the Stonesingers, views raiding Dwemer ruins as this. Forsworn culture disdains mining and being in "unnatural" underground structures, but since the Dwemer have been gone for so long, and their creations are active enough, even being capable of repairing damaged units and constructing new ones, that they could be considered Mechanical Lifeforms, and thus metal from them is fair game, with the ruins basically being unique ecosystems.
  • Expospeak Gag: Common with Weiss.
    • Yang pulls it off on her once and surprises the girl.
  • Expy: There is an entire set of expies for the Reds and Blues involved in the civil war. Ironically the Red expies are Stormcloaks (who wear blue), and the Blues are Imperial Legionnaires (with red uniforms).
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Even Elenwen thinks Isael is repulsive and has tried on multiple occasions to get rid of her. It's suggested that any investigation into Isael's assassination will be a formality at best.
    • Many Reachmen clans are against human sacrifices and will banish those who are found guilty of that. One of them are actually horrified when they learn of what happened at Orphan Rock.
  • Evil Sorceror: A dime a dozen, usually, but there are some notable ones that cause much bigger problems, like Ancano and Isael.
  • Fantastic Racism: Many Nords that RWBY come across express suspicion or even outright hatred of elves and beast-races.
    • Not limited to the bad guys. Jordis the Sword-Maiden, one of Ruby's housecarls, expresses distrust of Wood Elves/Bosmer. This stems from her family losing her older brother in the Great War, only to find out years later that he and his entire company had been eaten by Bosmeri forces of the Aldmeri Dominion after the family kept asking for his body to be returned and the officials couldn’t stall any longer.
    • The Thalmor themselves are quite guilty of this, even to other Mer races as Blake overhears from a few justiciars at the Embassy complaining on why they are following the orders of a high ranking Bosmer agent.
  • Fantasy Metals: Tamriel and Nirn are filled with them. Two that stand out are Dwemer metal, which is an alloy of undetermined origin that can manipulate reality around it, and Ebony, which is the crystallized blood of a god.
  • Fastball Special: One of Team RWBY's is to have Yang throw Ruby at the enemy. It's even called the "fastball".
  • Fur Against Fang: Though there's no official "war" between werewolves and vampires, Yang has fought more than a few in her werewolf form, often using it as a power equalizer against those with Vampire Lord forms. Harkon has expressed a dislike for werewolves, but then, he's Harkon, and Harkon dislikes almost everything.
  • Friendly Neighborhood Vampire: The vampires of the Duskfall Haven, who have dedicated themselves to finding a cure for their affliction and preventing themselves from feasting on the innocent.
    • Rather than attack unprovoked, the vampire group at Haemar's Shame let Ruby through once she explains she's just there to bring in Barbas to see Clavicus Vile. Vile actually complains that everything went so smoothly.
  • Had to Be Sharp: Team RWBY is shocked that people on Nirn not only don't have their Aura unlocked but aren't even aware of its existence. Thinking it over, Yang and Blake theorize that the people of Nirn never learned about Aura because, unlike Remnant, their world isn't one that's under constant existential threat. (As the story goes to show, and as people familiar with the games know, while The Elder Scrolls has plenty of apocalyptic threats of severity equal to or even greater than Remnant's, the difference is the games' threats happen relatively infrequently.) Furthermore, magic, which is more potent, more accessible, and has more scope than Semblances, gives the people of Nirn an edge the people of Remnant don't have. As such, the people of Nirn never needed to learn about Aura. It doesn't help that unlocking Aura is significantly more difficult for Nirnians than Remnantians for some reason.
  • Hope Spot: Yang learns from Isran that Falion knows how to cure vampirism of any strain, to which she immediately relays to Weiss. An ecstatic Weiss then visits Falion where she finds out to her horror and disappointment that the price of curing vampirism involves the use of a filled Black Soul Gem, which also condemns whoever soul was trapped to the clutches of Molag Bal if used, a fate which Weiss doesn't even wish to the most awful of criminals.
  • Genre Savvy: While she doesn't get all the details correct, Weiss is the first to recognize that the Dragonstone the team recovers in Bleak Falls Barrow is tied to something big.
  • Giving Radio to the Romans:
    • Ruby teaches some Giants how to forge iron, along with telling them more about how money works.
    • Weiss is basically working on a magical form of telecommunications technology.
  • Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: As explained by Weiss (and an Apocrypha entry), septims are simply the "base" coin of Tamriel's monetary system, with copper cents and iron diems below them, then moonstone malks, silver and gold denars, and ebony ebons. Each coin type with the exception of ebons are worth ten times more than the last one. Examples, a cent is 1/100 septim, a denar is 100 septims, and an ebon is 500 septims.
  • Hero of Another Story: The Five Heroes of the Oblivion Crisis, which occurred two centuries before RWBY arrived. Tales of their adventures managed to partially survive the post-invasion chaos, and several books were written about them. Blake reads Journey of the Heroes throughout much of the first act. They eventually find out that four of the titular heroes were actually Team JNPR, who somehow managed to not only find their way to Tamriel but also arrive two centuries before RWBY did. The Nerevarine is strongly hinted to be similar.
    • In the Elder Scrolls Lore community, there is a common understanding that each Hero of a game is "The Prisoner," a metaphysical role that allows them to escape destiny and become the Hero of their respective game. It appears that the Prisoners, despite no longer filling the role of the Heroes, still exist in the world. Specifically, the Prisoner of Helgen, whom was replaced by Ruby as the Last Dragonborn, was a kind if naive Nord man with black hair and amber eyes, not unlike Blake. He traveled with Inigo before the story began, planning to assassinate a lord's brothers who had been painted as evil in order to manipulate the Prisoner. Inigo shot him in the back to get his half of their reward. He survived, only to be captured by the Imperial Legion along with Ulfric Stormcloak, where he dies in Alduin's attack and passes a note of forgiveness to Ralof for him to deliver to Inigo, which is how the readers learn of his fate. The Prisoner of the Imperial City, replaced by Jaune as the Hero of Kvatch, actually joined Team JNPR in the course of their adventures as the mysterious Fifth Hero, and is the one to end up mantling Sheogorath. The problem was exacerbated by the Forgetting, which magically stripped everyone of the knowledge of the Five Heroes' names. Even in the reconstructed records, which managed to get Team JNPR's names almost correct, Sheogorath's former mortal self is only referred to as Unknown. As of now, the status of the Prisoner of Morrowind, replaced by an unknown Remnant character as the Nerevarine, is also unknown.
  • Heroic BSoD: There are a few over the course of the story.
    • Blake, Weiss, and Yang are deeply disturbed when they see Masser and Secunda and realize they're on an entirely different planet, with Weiss in particular being the most shaken.
    • Yang has one when she clears out the bandits from Embershard Mine and, not realizing that the people of Tamriel don't have their Aura unlocked (or are even aware of its existence), punches the bandit leader's head clean off and notices that the two bandits she shot earlier are lying in pools of their blood.
    • Weiss starts screaming, thrashing, and yelling at her friends to stay away from her after after she's overcome by her thirst and comes to to find herself covered in blood with a fresh yet withered bandit corpse at her feet.
  • Hidden Depths: The dragon "Tooths" realized this was true of himself and as a result changed his name.
  • Improbable Age: A lot of people tend to point out how young Ruby is/appears to be, as she is fifteen years old at the beginning of their journey.
  • The Infiltration: In order to find out what the Volkihar Clan's plans are Weiss pretends to offer her loyalty to Harkon, going as far as putting on a show of rejecting Yang in order to do so.
  • Insistent Terminology: Blake is pretty emphatic that Khajiit and Argonians are not Faunus.
  • Intoxication Ensues: In an attempt to treat her still-to-be-diagnosed vampirism, Weiss takes some medicine prepared by a Khajiit healer. The medicine has a little too much moon sugar and ends up getting Weiss high.
  • Interspecies Romance: Weiss hooks up with J'zargo while at the college. Unfortunately, her issues with her vampire instincts cause Weiss to end it.
  • I Know Your True Name: According to Volgahrotru, Alduin's control over other dragons relies on this; Volgahrotru gave Alduin a pseudonym and thus is not bound to him, unlike most dragons. Another dragon, "Tooths," changes his name and is not under Alduin's control for the same reason, though this is apparently only possible through major Character Development.
    • He also says that it can be resisted if it is known, but that it takes "great willpower."
  • Just Following Orders: Capric and his associate's answer as to why they destroyed Pigmole University, an institute that stands for equality and the uplifting of sapient races. Despite respecting Pigmole, when their superior officers ordered them to destroy the place during the Great War, they did so.
  • Kryptonite Factor: Soul Trap, a spell/enchantment that affects an individual's soul, can completely bypass the protection Aura grants. More specifically; when an attack targets your soul, the last thing you want to try to block it with is a part of said soul.
    • Conversely, Farengar's studying showed that while the Soul Trap enchantment lets weapons through, the Aura keeps the spell itself from taking effect, meaning that no one with Aura active can have their soul taken if it's still up upon death.
    • Yang's lycantropy makes her vulnerable to silver, though her Aura allows her to better resist it compared to a normal werewolf. This becomes a huge problem when she gets hauled into Cidhna Mine which is a silver mine. After being busted out, she becomes bed-ridden for many days because of all the silver that she inhaled from the air inside the mine.
  • Lampshade Hanging: When Yang starts waxing lyrical about what Patch has to offer, Jaune asks if she grew up on an island or a fairy tale.
    • While scrounging a few coins from Bleak Falls Barrow, Ruby and Weiss muse how weird it is that, with exception of sporting different monarchs on their faces, Tamriel's civilizations "haven't changed the currency in what must be at least a thousand years."
  • Legend Fades to Myth: Much about the Five Heroes of the Oblivion Crisis has been lost, and most people think the names some authors use for them are simply made up. Four of the five heroes are the members of JNPR, and the names are misspellings and combinations of their actual names, like Nora becoming Denor or Lie Ren becoming Lerian.
  • Light Is Not Good: Meridia, Daedric Prince of Light and Life, severely burns Weiss' hands when she picks up the Beacon (to be fair, she is a vampire), almost making Ruby decide to not bring it to her temple. This is notably a very restrained reaction by Meridia's standards.
  • Like Brother and Sister: Ruby and Lydia's relationship is shaping up to be this.
  • Little "No": Weiss utters three of these when she discovers she's a vampire.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Lydia primarily utilizes a sword and shield in close combat. Yang and Ruby even give her a shield with a deployable dagger to turn it into a weapon. And as it turns out, Lydia's Semblance is a shield.
  • Magitek: Dwemer ruins are filled with them, specifically steam-powered machinery fueled by soul gems and made up of reality-bending metal.
    • Later on, Weiss begins manufacturing what are essentially magic phone booths and cell phones.
  • Meaningful Name: Every single dragon's name, translated from Dovahzul, describes the dragon's fundamental nature. Two notable cases are Volgahrotru, who uses a pseudonym but acts the part, and "Tooths," who upon self-reflection changes his name and refuses to give anyone his new name.
  • Mistaken Identity: Cicero mistakes Blake for a fellow member of the Dark Brotherhood, due to her having stolen a set of their armor after wiping them out. This leads to him revealing he is a member, and Blake killing him.
  • Motor Mouth: Weiss briefly becomes one after taking some medicine that has moon sugar as an ingredient.
  • Mundane Utility: Volgahrotru uses his immense power as a dragon to... set up an unofficial (and later official) toll road. His reasoning behind this is that he is seeking the power and dominance he craves through wealth because he believes seeking it through violence will inevitably backfire.
  • Mistaken for Racist: When Blake notices bystanders' hostility towards a pair of Thalmor in Solitude, she wonders if bigotry is behind the animosity. Then she notices an Altmer woman, someone of the same race as the Thalmor, look at them with as much hatred as the non-elves, and even contemplates throwing something at them.
  • Narnia Time: Thanks to the revelation given by Daedric Prince Azura, RWBY determined that time between the two worlds is non-linear. This is further confirmed when they find out about Team JNPR somehow ending up on Nirn 200 years earlier despite having "exited" Remnant later than Team RWBY, and then run into a half-Bosmer half-Faunus who left Remnant 20 years ago but arrived on Tamriel 100 years ago.
  • Not in Kansas Anymore: Upon seeing two undamaged moons in the night sky, Ruby states, "Guys, I don't think we're in Remnant anymore."
  • Nearly Normal Animal: The great boar Toggle who becomes Weiss' mount after being given to the team is fairly intelligent while still being an animal. Smart enough to know that people like shiny things (like coins and metal ore), but animalistic enough to think of frostbite spiders as food. He also expresses annoyance at being left out of fights and enjoys combat (likely from how he was raised as an Orc chief's mount).
  • No-Sell: Alduin attempts to incinerate Yang with a Fire Breath shout, but her immunity, or at least resistance, to heat and fire keeps her from harm.
    • After spending a substantial amount of time with Mephala whispering in her ear, trying to manipulate her, Blake finds Vaermina's attempt at manipulating her hilarious and taunts her while she's at it, much to Mephala's amusement.
    • Ruby does something similar when Clavicus Vile asks her to kill Barbas, calling him a "mean jerkface" to said face.
    • Yang also tells of Molag Bal, but when he retorts, she goes ham.
    • When looking for a Skyshard in a Falmer ruin Ruby and company are attacked by Snow Elf ghosts who are immune to the normal ghostly weaknesses. Not even Dawnbreaker, a sword enchanted by the Daedric Prince Meridia against undead, does anything, much to Meridia’s own surprise, and even if something they do affects them at all, it doesn't seem to hurt them at all. It takes the Dark Archon hijacking Ruby’s Silver-Eyed Warrior powers to stop them.
  • "Not So Different" Remark:
    • Ralof's certainty in the righteousness of the Stormcloak cause, and that the Stormcloacks will prevail over the Empire and the Aldmeri Dominion because of this righteousness, reminds Blake of her own mindset while in the White Fang.
    • When talking about the Forsworn, Ruby keeps finding similarities between the Forsworn-Nord conflict and the Stormcloak-Imperial conflict. Weiss can tell that Lydia wants to refute it, but can’t.
  • Off with His Head!:
    • Yang discovers that Aura doesn't exist on Nirn when she punches the head of a bandit leader clean off.
    • It happens again when fighting Faolon for control of the Reachmen. He actually survives for a while due to his Briarheart, and assures Yang that he bears her no ill will.
  • Oh, Crap!: When they see Masser and Secunda in the night sky, revealing they're on an entirely different planet rather than in a strange undiscovered land on Remnant, the girls have the not unreasonable reactions of shock and fear. Weiss in particular nearly becomes hysterical.
    • They have this reaction again when they rush in to respond to an emergency in Helgen and run into Alduin.
    • This is Blake's reaction when she finally identifies just which "disease" Weiss actually has.
  • Our Werebeasts Are Different: Yang gets infected during a fight with a werelion. To help make the transformation more controllable, the Companions induct her into their inner circle. This results in her becoming a golden blonde werewolf that Aela notes is not the usual blonde wolves are. Yang was also previously attacked by a werebear and although no infection took hold it still seems to have resulted in Yang having larger claws than normal for a werewolf.
  • Passed in Their Sleep: On the third night of Weiss Sanguinare Vampiris infection, Ruby, Blake, and Yang witness what they think is her having a seizure or even a heart attack in her sleep. In fact, she was dying, and when the three girls awaken Weiss, she's already undead.
  • Post-Modern Magik: Yang and Ruby discover that she can learn shouts from pictures of Word Walls taken with their Scrolls, meaning that they don't have to revisit any Word Walls they discovered without Ruby.
  • Rat Stomp: Team RWBY's first job is to recover an amulet from a cave infested with frostbite spiders, the type of low-level enemies typical to beginning adventurers' first fights. It's then viciously subverted when the team runs into a vampire in the same cave, which proceeds to infect Weiss.
  • Removing the Head or Destroying the Brain: This proves to be the most effective way to kill a draugr, though actually landing the blow can be quite difficult depending the individual ability of the draugr in question.
  • Riches to Rags: Weiss Schnee, the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, learns that all of her Lien is absolutely worthless in Skyrim. As a result, she begins acting... well, more like a typical Skyrim player, to tell the truth. She doesn't go around stealing from people's homes, but she does ensure that whatever tombs and bandit camps they go through are thoroughly looted. She actually cries Tears of Joy upon becoming rich again.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Ruby develops a tendency for this when sufficiently angered thanks to the influence of the dragon souls in her.
    • Blake literally roars when she goes to kill the Dark Brotherhood, all in order to protect her friends
    • Blake does it again when taking down a cannibalism cult, as the leader had tried to recruit her to their cause by giving her Fake Memories of having been in a No Party Like a Donner Party situation where she ate human meat without realizing what it was until later.
  • Rodent of Unusual Size: Skeevers can get fairly big, and Etienne uses them in the Ratway to help get past the first wave of Thalmor to Esbern's hiding place, as well as to get his revenge on Gissur.
    • The first time they see a skeever is the first hint RWBY have that they aren't in Remnant anymore.
  • Running Gag: People being surprised by how scary Ruby can be happens frequently.
    • Ruby mispronouncing a Nord word or name and instantly being corrected by someone nearby. The title of Jarl is the one she seems to have the most trouble with.
    • People not noticing Lydia at first, and to a lesser extent people mistaking her for Ruby.
    • Weiss's Kleptomaniac Hero tendencies after realizing that her Lien is worthless.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: How the highway-dragon Volgahrotru reacts when Ruby, Yang, and Lydia lure him to them with a bunch of gold.
  • Serious Business: Whenever she plays kids' games, Ruby tends to leave behind piles of exhausted children in her wake. In her own words: "I play for keeps." An omake recounting a round of hide-and-seek she played in Solitude reads more like a slasher movie.
  • Shark Man: Ish, one of the two sailors transporting Team RWBY to Patch at the beginning of the story, is a shark Faunus that sports fins on his arms.
  • She Is the King: The ruler of the Reach tribes is known as "King" regardless of gender, as is the case with Yang.
  • Shoo the Dog: While going down into the catacombs to stop Potema from reviving herself, Lydia nearly gets injured by the evergrowing horde of undead and Ruby commands her to go back up and wait for her to finish the job alone. This breaks Lydia's heart and hurts her pride when she realizes she's not sufficient enough to protect the one she's sworn to defend.
  • Shout-Out: Loads and loads of it from a variety of sources, including Rooster Teeth, Bethesda, and more.
    • The other planets in Remnant's solar system are Ramsey, Hullum, and Sorola, named after three of Rooster Teeth's founders, Geoff Ramsey, Matt Hullum, and Gus Sorola.
    • Yang throws Ruby at a draugr in a move dubbed the "fastball".
    • The Courier's Guild is specifically noted to be a highly respected guild that operates throughout Tamriel, with its members being highly respected and also slightly feared. Lydia talks of a tale of a courier from Hammerfell being betrayed by a criminal client and left for dead, only for that client and his entire criminal empire to fall by the hands of the alive and furious courier, which is exactly what happened with Benny and the Courier in Fallout: New Vegas.
    • Red vs. Blue character expies serving in the Stormcloak and Imperial armies. Ironically, the Reds serve the blue-clad Stormcloaks and the Blues serve the red-clad Imperials.
    • The aforementioned cave of Disney Princess-Expy vampires.
    • Numerous references to real-life movies, musicians, and franchises with their names replaced with synonyms to make a Remnant version of it.
    • How to Train Your Dragon gets a shout-out in the form of a village and expies of several main characters, including Toothless, who is given the nickname "Tooths" because he lost his teeth in a fight and won't tell anyone his name.
    • Ish and Mail, a married sailor couple who sail the boat the girls were on. Their names (as well as their son's) are references to Moby-Dick characters. One of them is also a cetacean Faunus.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: The Breton mage that the canonical Last Dragonborn finds in Helgen Keep during their escape is already dead in the torture chamber. Team RWBY on the other hand, discovers said mage barely but still alive and heal him with a potion. The mage, given the name Cynrrbert Veldrine, accompanies them in their flight from Helgen and provides, providing them with a neutral viewpoint on the Skyrim Civil War and teaching Weiss more about magic on the way.
    • Savos Aren survives the College questline, although paralyzed from waist-down when a super-powered Ancano unleashes a magical blast.
    • Mirabelle also survives thanks to Lydia saving her off-screen, but loses an arm.
    • Eltrys doesn't get murdered by guardsmen under the payroll of the Silver-Bloods during the Forsworn Conspiracy at Markarth thanks to Blake's intervention.
  • Spiders Are Scary: Despite the frostbite spiders being rather easy foes to dispatch of, Team RWBY react with a terror towards them entirely absent during their fight with the troll.
  • Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Rather than rely on lore and dogma, the scholars of the Empire and the College of Winterhold have conducted extensive research on a wide array of subjects, including vampires, birthsigns, and many more.
  • Superpower Lottery: RWBY as a whole, when compared to the rest of their friends and companions on account of their Aura and Semblances, but special note goes to Ruby herself. Thanks to her being Dragonborn, her shouts enable her to, among others, turn intangible, calm animals, move extremely fast, breathe fire or ice, and of course push things extremely hard.
  • Super Prototype: Lampshaded by Capric before Yang fights Red Eagle, noting how being the first of something, unlike the Flawed Prototype that would usually result on Remnant, gives it extreme significance, granting it power.
  • Square-Cube Law: Touched upon briefly. Their first quest pits Team RWBY against frostbite spiders, and Weiss and Blake are confused as how the giant arthropods could breathe without their size suffocating them.
  • Squishy Wizard: Discussed. It's one of the reasons why Weiss continues to practice her swordplay despite diving into the magical arts, much to her classmates at the College of Winterhold's confusion. She also learns to summon Bound Armor, taking her further from the trope.
  • Take That!: Weiss and Blake expressing their disdain on a few books chronicling the adventures of the Five Heroes of Oblivion and on how their authors embellish certain aspects of them such as making Johannes (Jaune) OP.
  • Theory of Narrative Causality: Lampshaded by Capric about how this is the case on Nirn in contrast with Remnant when Yang is going to fight Red Eagle, noting that his Super Prototype nature and tales about him makes him an extremely dangerous foe.
  • These Hands Have Killed: A natural consequence of going from Remnant to Nirn. On Remnant, Yang uppercutting a dude (provided he had Aura) would result in the man flying up into the air, bouncing off the ceiling and walls, and he'd be perfectly fine. On Nirn, it results in a man getting decapitated. This sends her into a deep, remorseful depression that lasts for several chapters. The same also applies to Ruby after she shoots a bandit archer in the chest, causing the woman to bleed to death before her eyes. Ruby became sullen and quiet, and it took a pep talk from Yang to snap her out of it.
  • Third-Option Adaptation: In the game, the escaping Prisoner of Helgen must choose between fleeing with the Stormcloak rebel Ralof or the Imperial legionnaire Hadvar. Team RWBY comes upon the two fighting in the cave beneath Helgen Keep and convince them to put aside their feud for the time being and accompany both of them to Riverwood. This gives Yang the opportunity to get the Imperial perspective on the Skyrim Civil War and Blake the Stormcloak perspective, which they later share and compare.
    • One of the minor side quests in Riverwood involves a Love Triangle between the Imperial pawnbroker Camilla Valerius, the Bosmer hunter Faendal, and the Nord bard/lumberjack Sven. Depending on whom the player approaches first, Faendal or Sven, they be asked to deliver a fake letter "from" Faendal/Sven's love rival that will sabotage said rival's budding relationship with Camilla. The player then has a choice: bring the letter straight to Camilla or inform the rival of this scheme, which will prompt him to give the player his own fake letter. When the player provides Camilla with a fake letter, they have the option to reveal the truth behind the letter's origin. If given the letter without the truth being revealed, Camilla breaks off things with the alleged author; if she is informed of the ruse, she breaks things off with the actual author. Blake, having received fake letters from both Faendal and Sven, elects to out both of them, which lands the two in hot water with Camilla.
  • Trapped in Another World: RWBY, while on a boat ride to Patch, somehow wind up in the Sea of Ghosts and land in Solitude, the capital of Skyrim. Them trying to find a way back home is what started them on their journey. Later on, they find out that Team JNPR were similarly trapped, though 200 years ago during the Oblivion Crisis. They also meet with Capric, a half-Faunus from Remnant, and Weiss believes that the Nerevarine may have also been from their world.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: Eorlund Gray-Mane, as in canon, but Ruby and Yang are quickly increasing their skills. Notably, Ruby has specialized in weapon-smithing, while Yang went into armor.
  • Uncertain Doom: The fates of Ish and Mail are as yet unknown; their ship arrived in Nirn with the girls on it, but not them. As Faunus with the traits of marine animals, they could survive being in the middle of the ocean, as long as Grimm don't get them.
  • Undying Loyalty: Krosis is loyal enough to the dragons to be willing to sacrifice himself while restraining Ruby to give his master an opening to kill them both. He does not succeed thanks to Lydia.
  • Warrior Poet: To some extent, everyone with an unlocked aura is this. In the background of this story, the unlocking of one's aura requires, among other things, the sort of introspective pursuits associated with this trope. With Ruby (and, given canon, presumably Weiss), that was music; with Yang, dance. When Lydia initially underwent the ritual, it didn't seem to take until later, after she had taken up sketch artistry.
    Lydia: What sort of... training was it?
    Ruby: ...sort of a cross between exercise, art, and meditation.
  • We Used to Be Friends: When Team RWBY enters Riverwood with Cynrrbert, Hadvar, and Ralof, the latter two go off to visit their families. The team is sobered by how the two really grew up together and now are enemies, hammering home the gravity of the civil war to the girls.
  • Weird Moon: Compared to Remnant's single, shattered moon, the notably intact Masser and Secunda of Nirn is what tells RWBY they are on another world. That isn't even getting into the fact that the moons are actually the decaying body of a god.
  • Wham Episode: There are several, including a number very early on.
    • In Chapter 2, Weiss is bitten by a vampire and contracts the disease that, if left untreated, leads to vampirism. She and the rest of the team are unaware of the significance of her illness and as a result she herself becomes a vampire in Chapter 3.
    • In Chapter 7, Ruby draws near to the Word Wall in Bleak Falls Barrow and absorbs magic from it, speaking in a strange language while doing so...
  • Wham Line: In Chapter 48, during the Thalmor Embassy infiltration, the Bosmeri Thalmor agent assisting Blake drops this bombshell.
    Thorn: Gods, it’s been a really long time since I saw another Faunus.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Weiss develops a mild fear of fire after contracting vampirism. Justified in that, as a vampire, Burn the Undead is in full effect, and she is weak to it.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Perks: All of Team RWBY try to learn a little magic in order to help fill the void their dwindling Dust supply has left, but have found that magic has some simpler uses in life, like starting campfires almost instantly.
  • Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Not exactly workplace, but each girl on Team RWBY have skills unique to their upbringing that come in handy on Tamriel:
    • Yang and Ruby, being raised on an island, have a basic understanding of nautical piloting, which allows them to successfully bring Ish and Mail's ship into Solitude's harbor. Since said island is also predominantly rural, they also have a grasp on the fundamentals of hunting.
    • Weiss' being the perfect student has given her skills and drive to acquire and comprehend volumes of information, which means she's often the first one to learn and understand the various aspects of Tamrielic society and explain it to the others. The business and legal skills she acquired as the heiress to Remnant's most wealthy and powerful MegaCorp also makes her an excellent negotiator and the ideal person to make an ironclad contract with a Daedric Prince. And since said MegaCorp is a mining corporation, she's the one who knows what to do during a cave-in.
    • Blake's past as a freedom fighter/terrorist enabled her to develop less-than-legal talents, namely lockpicking.
    • That fact that Ruby designed and made Crescent Rose, a High-Caliber Sniper-Scythe, means she's an excellent weaponsmith not just with firearms but with blades and thus knows her way around a forge. Her blacksmithing skills outstrip even those of seasoned smiths like Alvor of Riverwood.
  • The World Is Always Doomed: Lampshades by the characters. Every other major event seems to be one of world-ending proportions. Ancano using the Eye of Magnus. Imaalsi planning to end the world. Harkon planning to blot the sun. Alduin who's destined to eat everything.
  • Worthless Yellow Rocks: Being in a different world means that all of Team RWBY's money is just a stack of useless plastic cards.
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: It takes a little bit for the girls to clue in to the fact that they're in a world of High Fantasy. They think they're in an isolated backwards Kingdom on Remnant until they see the two moons Masser and Secunda, and even then they assume that the magic used by the people of Tamriel is Dust and/or Semblances until it becomes clear that it's not.
  • Vampire Hunter: There's a group of vampire hunters calling themselves the Dawnguard, led by a former Vigilant of Stendarr named Isran.
    • A particularly dedicated and highly skilled monk of Arkay specifically hunts down Weiss after she stops a vampire lynching, taking advantage of her vampiric weaknesses to try and put her down.
  • Vegetarian Vampire: Weiss, after succumbing to vampirism, feeds herself off of easily supplied animal blood. It's noted to not be as filling or satisfying as people's blood. Occasionally she gets a willing donor.
  • Your Soul Is Mine!:
    • As the Last Dragonborn, when Ruby kills a dragon she absorbs its soul like when a dragon kills another one (even using the phrase at one point), which also grants her Aura levels a boost.
    • Soul Trap exists, as in canon, and weapons enchanted with it can penetrate Aura, though having Aura up on death prevents the spell from actually stealing the soul.
    • A few nightmares have cropped up, interrupting Weisss' dream visions from Azura to remind her that her soul is still in Molag Bal's grasp
  • Zerg Rush: A force of thousands of Bloodfiend vampires pour into Dayspring Canyon to overrun Fort Dawnguard, using sheer numbers and their fearlessness to overwhelm the defenses. To make matters worse, many of the dead ones are revived as zombies by a Giant vampire when he arrives.

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