Visual Novel / Summer Rose Court

Summer Rose Court is a fan-made visual novel based off of the web series RWBY.

Ruby Rose is the lost princess and heir apparent of the Kingdom of Vale. After a devastating attack that cost her parents their lives, she was hidden in the desert with the Xiao Long tribe. Now, seven years later, she has been rediscovered, and is needed more than ever to retake her throne and fight back the creatures of Grimm.

The full game was released on August 6th, 2018, and can be downloaded here.

Spoilers for RWBY will be UNMARKED.

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Summer Rose Court contains examples of:

• 24-Hour Armor: Many of the characters are shown wearing full armour most (if not all) of the time.
• Aborted Declaration of Love: If Ruby dances with Jaune but doesn't indicate romantic interest in him, he'll confess to thinking of her as more than a friend... a best friend!
• Action Girl: A given, considering the source material. Almost every major female character is a combatant.
• Adapted Out: It be easier to list what wasn't, but a far as the bigger elements go...
  • Salem is gone as is Ozpin's entire backstory and everything when with it (i.e. the gods of light and darkness, the relics, the maidens, the huntsmen academies, and Ozpin's ability to reincarnate). Instead, the evil spirit Luna Fracta is the one controlling the Grimm, Beacon is the name of the kingdom Ruby is the queen of, Ozpin is a lord and an adviser to the queen, and the closest equivalent to the maiden powers are the spirits of the plains which bond to host and give them powers.
  • Menagerie is gone, with the name used for the slums inside the kingdom where the Faunus live. The White Fang is gone entirely, as is Weiss's initial Fantastic Racism, and Adam (who is a much kinder person than in canon) and Blake have a Like Brother and Sister relationship instead of being exes. Finally, Ghira and Kali Belladonna are gone, instead Blake was raised with Adam and Velvet by a Faunus woman named Fang.
  • Along with the huntsmen academies, the job of huntsmen and the huntsmen teams are gone, and by extension technically there is no team RWBY or team JNPR in the official sense.
• Alliterative Name: Ruby Rose, Glynda Goodwitch, Blake Belladonna, Lie Lin, Penny Polendina.
• Almost Kiss: During Blake's Loyalty Mission, if the romance option is taken, Blake will almost kiss Ruby before they're interrupted by the fire.
• Altar Diplomacy: When Ruby suggests that she and Blake get married, Blake initially assumes that her intention is for it to be a show of solidarity with the faunus, though it's a miscommunication that is quickly rectified.
• Alternate Universe Fic: The game is one of RWBY.
• Always Chaotic Evil: The Grimm.
• Ancestral Weapon: Jaune's Loyalty Mission revolves around retrieving Prydwyn, the Arc family shield.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • Nora and Ren fight in Act III because Nora is worried that Ren's plan to remove the fragment of Magnhild from himself will cause his death.
  • On multiple occasions, Glynda tries to mask her worry for Ozpin with abrasiveness.
    Glynda: I won't mourn you if you manage to pass away through sheer stupidity.
    Ozpin: Hearing your gentle voice whisper such words of encouragement gives me strength to face the day, my Lady.
• Animal Eyes: Blake has cat eyes, as a cat faunus, and Ren's mother Lin has snake eyes.
• Animated Armor: The Knight that Weiss faces in her recruitment mission.
• Animesque: Like RWBY, the character design resembles anime to an extent, though it's much less pronounced.
• Anywhere but Their Lips: After Penny's Love Confession, Ruby invokes this by playing deliberately obtuse when Penny asks to kiss her, kissing both of Penny's cheeks and then her forehead, much to Penny's increasing distress, before finally kissing her properly.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: Grimm hides are too tough for normal, unenchanted weapons to penetrate. Magical attacks, however, are extremely effective.
• Babies Ever After: Several epilogues indicate that Ruby and her love interest — and/or the Pair the Spares of the remaining team RWBY members — have one or more children.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Ruby and Blake fight back-to-back when dealing with the chimera in Spiritus Bellatorum.
• Badass Teacher: Both Glynda and Ozpin are powerful fighters in their own right in addition to teaching Ruby.
• Bait-and-Switch: Just before the heroes leave to close Luna Fracta's portal in Act IV, Jaune seems like he's about to propose to Weiss, even getting down on one knee... but he actually just wants her to knight him.
• Barrier Maiden: Inverted; Q'row is the anchor allowing Luna Fracta to make portals for the Grimm to use.
• Battle Aura: Humans and Faunus can create an aura, manifesting it either as a semblance or as magic in the case of Glynda.
• Battle Couple: Ruby with all of her potential love interests.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Penny is very protective of Ruby because she freed her from her imprisonment below the castle. The epilogue indicates that this extended past Ruby's own death:
  Even after Ruby's passing, [Penny] continued to watch over her successors, to protect the memory of the girl who saved her from the dark.
• Beneath the Earth: The survivors in Spiritus Bellatorum are forced to live in an underground tunnel network to stay safe from the chimera.
• Beta Couple: Anyone Ruby isn't actively pursuing a romance with will form relationships of their own.
• Big Bad: Luna Fracta.
• Big Fancy Castle: The Rose castle.
• Big Good: While not all of her actions are exactly "good," Crescent Rose fills this role as the closest heroic counterpart to Luna Fracta.
• Big Damn Heroes: Glynda appears to enjoy this, arriving during the siege of Beacon during the prologue and arriving out of the blue to save Ruby and Yang in Act One.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: Yang, Jaune, and Ozpin all have notably thick eyebrows.
• The Blacksmith: The blacksmith who repairs Ruby's glaive in Act I.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The spirits that are bound to the portals.
  Lin: They aren't held to the same notions of morality that you or I subscribe to.
• Bookcase Passage: Crescent Rose finds one in the library while inhabiting Penny's body during Penny's Loyalty Mission.
• Breast Plate: Completely averted by all of the armor worn by women in the game.
• Bridal Carry: Pyrrha carries Ruby out of Spiritus Bellatorum this way.
• Brutal Honesty: The people of Michglas prefer brutal honesty.
• The Call Knows Where You Live: Ruby is initially unwilling to leave the Xiao Long tribe and return to Beacon to become queen, but she changes her mind after Grimm attack the Xiao Long village.
• Canon Foreigner: Various NPCs.
• Cape Snag: If Ruby gives Pyrrha Little Thorn to fight with against the Alpha Grimm in Spiritus Bellatorum, the Alpha Grimm will pull this on Ruby.
• Chekhov's Gift: The Xiao Long charm that Ruby receives right before leaving the desert ends up being vital to her escape from Luna Fracta's plane.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Ruby's romance with Yang is this, since they grew up together starting when Ruby was around ten, although the Not Blood Siblings part makes it slightly more complicated.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: A variation: if Yang's romance is not disabled, she will admit to Ruby that when they were kids she thought they were supposed to get married one day because of the implications of how her dragons acted toward Ruby. Ruby can say that she thought that too.
• Civil War: Spiritus Bellatorum was in the midst of one when the portals closed.
• Classy Cane: Ozpin and Torchwick both have them, though Ozpin's is also a Sword Cane.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Being based off RWBY, this was a given, with the four title characters all associated with a different color.
• Commonality Connection: When Ruby meets Nora and Ren, she immediately feels like she knows them, and like they belong together in one way or another, which turns out to be because all three of them are bound to spirits.
• Companion Cube: Ruby is very attached to Little Thorn. She sometimes talks to it, and even refers to it as her child on occasion.
  Ruby: Little Thorn is a beauty and a treasure! Don't you dare talk about my child that way!
• Concealing Canvas: The entrance to the Secret Underground Passage leading to Ediubeág's uncle's workshop is hidden behind a painting.
• Cool Gate: The portals.
• Dances and Balls: A ball is held in Act IV for the Kata faunus, for which Ruby must choose a dance partner.
• Dancing Is Serious Business: The Kata faunus consider dancing to be a very important part of their culture, involving displays of aura, and intended to reveal the dancers' souls to those watching. Because of this, one of their conditions for a potential alliance with the Summer Rose Court is that a ball be held, and specifically that Ruby herself perform a dance with someone.
• The Darkness Gazes Back: When Ruby is trapped in the void of Luna Fracta's plane, she is at one point surrounded by Grimm which she can only see by their glowing red eyes.
• Deadpan Snarker: Blake is the most frequent example, but others do this too.
• Death by Origin Story: Ruby's parents, the former rulers of Vale.
• Death Seeker: It's implied that this may have been true of Ediubeág, since it's discovered that she could have severed her aura's connection with Penny long before she eventually died from it.
• Dedication: The game is dedicated to Monty Oum, the creator of RWBY, who died after the second season of the show.
• Deep Sleep: The spirits who made the portals between worlds. To Akouein in particular is noted to have only ever woken once.
• Dehumanization: The faunus suffer from this.
• Demonic Possession: Crescent Rose takes control of Ruby's body during the climax of Act II.
• Depending on the Artist: Because a number of different artists contributed to the game, there is some variation in the exact appearance of the characters in different images.
• Desecrating the Dead: Grimm have moved into Jaune's family's ancestral tomb when he returns there during his Loyalty Mission, and have made their nests out of his ancestors' bones.
• Doomed Hometown: Ruby has two, technically, though neither are destroyed completely; Beacon is attacked by Grimm in the prologue, but Q'row managed to get Ruby out in time, and the Xiao Long camp is attacked by Grimm in Act I, causing Ruby to agree to return to Beacon and retake her rightful throne.
• Dream Walker: During the dance in Act IV, an Alpha Grimm traps everyone there in their own bad memories. Once Crescent Rose shakes Ruby out of it, she then has to enter the dreams of her love interest and Glynda to shake them out of it in turn.
• Dug Too Deep: How the Alpha Grimm whose blood was used to corrupt the chimeras was found.
  The miners dug and dug and dug too deep, and what they found was beyond our wildest nightmares.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Ruby and her Court go through a lot of hardship, but ultimately it's possible to get a happy ending. The degree of happiness varies depending on who and how many of the characters ultimately stay with the Court, however.
• Easter Egg: It's possible to dance with Glynda in Act IV, though it doesn't end in romance.
• Elemental Powers: Yang's semblance involves blasts of fire, Ruby's semblance is controlling wind, Nora can control lightning, and other elemental spells and semblances exist within the world.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The Grimm have the potential to wipe out all life if not stopped.
• Everyone Is a Super: Everyone, both human and faunus, has a semblance, which manifest as seemingly magical powers.
• Family Eye Resemblance: If Blake is romanced, the epilogue states that she and Ruby have a son with one eye silver and one eye gold.
• Fantastic Ghetto: The Menagerie.
• Fantastic Racism: There is much of this against the faunus, like in the original show.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The cultures and aesthetics of the different planes are heavily influenced by real-world historical cultures.
• Flashback Nightmare: Everyone at the ball in Act IV is forced into these by the Alpha Grimm.
• Flower Motifs: Roses, especially red ones, are a very prevalent motif:
  • The ruling family in vale has the name 'Rose,' and features roses in their heraldry.
  • The Arc family is allowed to feature a rose in their heraldry because of their traditional alliance with the Rose family.
  • Ruby's semblance, while primarily controlling wind, involves rose petals as a side affect, which she can later use as offensive weapons.
  • Crescent Rose, the power tied to the Rose bloodline, can control steel and stone rose vines created from the castle itself.
  • Penny, who was built to be a Puppet Queen and therefore has an artificial connection to Crescent Rose, has rose vine patterns on her body. If Ruby dances with her in Act IV, she grows roses from her body during the dance.
  • Adam has roses on his bracers, which according to Word of God may be because he is actually related to the Rose family.
  • Crescent Rose calls Ruby 'little rose' and Penny 'primrose.'
• Flowers of Romance: If Ruby asks Pyrrha to dance with her in Act IV, she will show up at Ruby's door with flowers to indicate her acceptance.
• Gay Option: Inverted; Ruby has six female and only two male love interests.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: Ozpin and Glynda's respective teaching styles.
• Ghost Town: Jaune's hometown is nothing but ruins with a few scattered Grimm when he and the others go there during his Loyalty Mission.
• Given Name Reveal: Ruby's full first name — Rubilacxe — is revealed when she is trapped in her own bad memories in Act IV.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: The Grimm have them.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: Jaune's Semblance is healing, and he seems to be the most prone to receiving serious injury, including suffering what would be a mortal wound on anyone else during his Loyalty Mission.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • You are unlikely to get the good ending on your first playthrough (if at all) without a guide. To receive it, you are required to keep at least Weiss, Blake, Pyrrha, and Penny with you, and it is very easy to screw yourself out of at least one. Blake and Penny are easy keep. With Blake, you just side with her over Torchwick (which considering that it's Torchwick, you'd probably do anyway). With Penny, it is as simple as releasing her from the palace catacombs. With Pyrrha however, the game attempts to trick you. You have to tell her to to remain with the court when she asks your opinion on weather to become a priestess again. If you say she should or let her choose, you'll be locked out of the good ending. Then there is Weiss.....
  • The difficulty of getting Weiss to stay is by far the most infamous aspect of this game. Rather than a single specific choice, Weiss will only stay with you if you get enough like points with her, given from picking correct dialogue options. However, the game does nothing to tell you this and it doesn't tell you which give you the points. Making it even worse is that this process starts before you even meet Weiss. It is also not helped by the fact that one of the best dialogue options for getting the points is a flirting option, which the player is unlikely to pick if they were not planning on romancing Weiss. It was so difficult to keep Weiss from leaving that even several of the developers had trouble getting her to stay and one of them eventually posted a guide on how to keep her in the comments of the download site. And as a reminder, you need Weiss for the good ending.
• Healing Hands: Glynda's magic and Jaune's semblance allow them to heal others.
• Heroes Love Dogs: Ruby is given a pet dog named Zwei, who she and the other main characters (except Blake) adore.
• Heroic Sacrifice: During the climax of Act IV, Crescent Rose will allow herself to be shattered in order for Ruby to escape Luna Fracta's plane, and then will return to the portals as pure energy, unless Ruby stops her and binds Crescent Rose directly to herself.
• Hive Queen: The Alpha Grimm in Spiritus Bellatorum functions as this, controlling the chimeras.
• Homosexual Reproduction: If Blake is romanced, the epilogue mentions she and Ruby have a baby boy together. It also mentions the boy has one silver eye and one yellow eye, so the boy must be biological related to both of them. It isn't explained how this is possible.
  • Ruby ends up with Jaune, Pyrrha, Penny, or Ren and Nora. Weiss, Blake and Yang will be in a relationship with each other and Blake will have a biological daughter with Yang. This might mean that Blake can reprodue homosexually due to being a Faunus, but the game never confirms this.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Ser Schnee's knights were all reasonably sure that she would not win against the Knight.
• The Horde: The Grimm, which hunt in packs.
• Horse of a Different Color: The Xiao Longs use horse-sized dragons for mounts.
• How Dare You Die on Me!: During Jaune's Loyalty Mission, he gets riddled with poisoned quills from a Grimm because he couldn't raise his shield in time, and one of Ruby's dialogue choices is "Don't you dare die." He does survive, however, because of his healing semblance unlocking.
• I Kiss Your Hand: Weiss does this to Ruby on a number of occasions during her romance, which is appropriate given her role as a Knight in Shining Armor.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Whether Ruby romances Blake or not, Adam and Velvet make this very clear to her at the dance in Act IV.
• Insult of Endearment: Weiss calls Yang 'sand gnat,' with gradually increasing fondness.
• Interspecies Romance: Ruby's romances with Blake or Ren.
• Lady and Knight: Ruby has this dynamic with Weiss and Jaune, though it's somewhat downplayed due to her own combat abilities.
• Last-Name Basis: Glynda almost always calls Ruby by her last name.
• Leitmotif: Many of the main characters have musical themes associated with them.
  • Ruby's theme, which doubles as the main theme.
  • Crescent Rose has a theme that is a discordant reprise of Ruby's theme.
  • Yang's theme.
  • Blake's theme.
  • Weiss' theme.
  • Pyrrha's theme.
  • Ren and Nora's theme.
• Ley Line: The ley lines extending throughout Vale allow the Rose monarch to use Crescent Rose's power throughout the realm.
• Literally Falling in Love: If Blake is chosen as Ruby's dance partner, Ruby misjudges the force of her semblance while practicing, and knocks Blake over onto her bed.
• Little Bit Beastly: Faunus, like in the original show, look near-human but with some animal characteristics.
• Love at First Sight: If Blake is romanced, Ruby will admit that she'd loved her since she met her. Blake will also accidentally let slip that all she could think about when they met was how cute Ruby was, and how much she wanted to kiss her.
• Love Before First Sight: Magnhild told Nora that she would someday meet the wielder of Crescent Rose, who would be a Red Queen, and that Nora would, without fail, kneel before her, and she would shatter everything Nora knew. Nora and Ren initially interpreted this negatively, but Nora realizes when she actually meets Ruby that it will be more of a willful shattering.
• Love Confession: Ruby and whoever she's romancing will confess their love after the dance in Act IV.
• Magic Knight: The knights of Michglas in general, and Weiss in particular.
• Magic Music: Magic in Michglas is controlled by singing.
• Magitek: Michglas specializes in this, but most of the planes have it to varying extents.
• Marry for Love: When Winter suggested that Weiss marry Ruby to bring her into the family so that they could talk about Myrtenaster, Weiss was initially outraged because she only wanted to marry for love. When Winter then commented that in that case Weiss must not love Ruby, Weiss nearly threw her drink in her face, making her realize that she did actually love Ruby.
• Mating Dance: If they get together, Weiss and Yang's dance at the ball is quite provocative.
• Mayfly–December Friendship: As a robot, Penny has an indefinite lifespan, and will outlive all of her friends among the main characters.
• Mayfly–December Romance: Penny's romances with Ruby or Ren and Nora are this, since Penny is a functionally immortal robot.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Long is a Chinese word for dragon. The Xiao Long tribe raises... you guessed it, dragons.
  • Ruby's full name is Rubilacxe, which is Excalibur spelled backwards. Most of the Rose monarchs, past and present, were named after famous and powerful swords.
  • Pyrrha's last name, Nikos, is actually a title that means something similar to "knight."
• Medium Awareness: The final test to access the chamber Ren's mother is in requires the player to not interact with the game for a period of time. Nora's instructions if you keep clicking on dialogue options involves this trope:
  Nora: So just don't do ANYTHING. Okay, Ruby? Just wait! Don't click on a choice!
  Ruby: Wait, what was that last one??
  Nora: I said don't speak!
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The chimera in Spiritus Bellatorum.
• Modular Epilogue: The epilogue takes the form of multiple pages for the different characters with text that gives an idea of how they ended up after the end.
• My Own Private "I Do": If Yang is romanced, the epilogue states that she and Ruby had two wedding ceremonies: one official royal wedding, and one in the desert overseen by Taiyang.
• Mystical Plague: In Act III, there is an illness spreading among the people of Vale after the Grimm attack at the end of Act II, which turns out to be the result of a very powerful Grimm blighting the crops.
• Mythology Gag: There are a lot of references to the universe of the original show.
  • Yang's dragons are named Ember and Celica after the gauntlet weapons used by her show incarnation.
  • While Ruby uses a glaive called Little Thorn instead of her original scythe, Crescent Rose does make an appearance as the power held within the Rose throne. During the climaxes of Acts II and IV, Crescent Rose uses her power to temporarily transform Little Thorn into a scythe.
  • The portals Myrtenaster, Magnhild, and Crescent Rose are named after the weapons used respectively by Weiss, Nora, and Ruby in the show, and are also the portals that go to those characters' home planes.
  • Shortly before being recruited for the Court, Weiss has a trial by combat against a giant, enchanted suit of armour, which is very similar to the events of her trailer for the original show.
  • Pyrrha says "Hello again!" on a couple of occasions, which was a small Running Gag in the show.
  • During Jaune's Loyalty Mission, he is injured by a Grimm because he was unable to lift his shield in time due to its weight. In the show, a similar situation occurred, except in that case Pyrrha was able to use her semblance to lift it for him.
  • When Pyrrha's semblance awakens, Weiss notes that she now has control over polarity, and Ruby is confused because Pyrrha wasn't only able to affect the polearms. In the original show, when Pyrrha tells Ruby about her semblance, Ruby makes a similar confused comment about her being able to control poles.
  • During Yang's romance, she at one point says "Well. That was a thing." which is something she said in the original show after the defeat of the nevermore in the forest.
  • While Penny is out of commission, Nora at one point pokes her nose and says "Boop!" which was a small Running Gag in the show.
  • Nora's Dynamic Entry involves her riding on the back of an Ursa and electrocuting it with her semblance, which is how she arrived to the forest temple in the original show.
• Named Weapons:
  • Ruby's glaive is named Little Thorn.
  • Blake has two swords named Gambol and Shroud.
  • Jaune's ancestral family shield is named Prydwyn.
• Noble Fugitive: Jonathan Rosewood fled Vale after Ediubeág's death, changed his name to James Ironwood, and settled down in Michglas, where he became one of the most influential names in Dust engineering.
• Noodle Incident: After having recruited both Weiss and Blake, Ruby decides to call them both to the throne room to explain Crescent Rose to them. If Yang doesn't arrive first, she will arrive with whoever else wasn't chosen telling them a story about why Ruby isn't allowed near prickly pear cacti anymore. No details are given, but Ruby can only scream in horror at the story being known.
• Not Blood Siblings: Yang is one of the potential love interests for Ruby. Unlike in the source material, though, they aren't blood related at all. Players can subvert what usually comes from this trope, however, by having Ruby say that she's always thought of Yang as her sister, blood relative or not. If so, Yang's romance path becomes wholly platonic, and their scenes together are modified to cut out flirty subtext.
• One Head Taller: Ruby with either Pyrrha, Jaune, or Ren, if she romances them.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Xiao Longs ride wingless dragons in the same way you would ride a horse... or a chocobo.
• Pair the Spares: At the ball for the Kata delegation, the characters Ruby doesn't romance pair up amongst themselves.
• Parental Substitute: Fang was this for the kids in the menagerie.
• Permanently Missable Content: If Ruby doesn't go to Yang after napping in her room during Act II, Jaune will die and be unable to be recruited.
• Personality Powers:
  • Yang is Hot-Blooded and her semblance lets her control fire.
  • Blake is quiet and has a hard time opening up to people, and her semblance lets her disappear into shadow.
  • Nora is excitable and energetic and her semblance allows her to control lightning.
• Petal Power: Like in the original show, rose petals frequently accompany Ruby's semblance, which she is able to use as offensive weapons later on. Ren can also use flower petals offensively.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Torchwick, who did his best to influence the humans in Beacon into Fantastic Racism against the faunus, and even tried to burn down a faunus school during Blake's Loyalty Mission.
• Polyamory: Nora and Ren serve as a joint love interest for Ruby. If they aren't romanced, they can get together with Penny. It's also possible for Yang, Blake, and Weiss to all end up together.
• Portal Crossroad World: Vale has portals leading to all of the other planes, but people from those planes must first travel through Vale to get to any of the other planes.
• Posthumous Character: Ediubeág and Jonathan Rosewood/James Ironwood are both very important in at least Penny's story, but both are long dead.
• The Power of Blood: Only someone with Rose blood can safely use the power of Crescent Rose, and that blood is also used to open and close portals.
  Ruby: Why does everything involve my blood???
• Power Nullifier: Magic doesn't work in Spiritus Bellatorum. Even in other planes, just being around someone who's from there makes it weaker.
• Precious Puppy: Zwei.
• Psychic Link: Ruby and Crescent Rose have one, which Penny can also tap into due to her connection to Crescent Rose.
• Puppet King: Averted for Ruby, though Blake initially assumes she is this. This was also the ultimate intention Penny's father had for her.
• Purple Is Powerful: Glynda's magic is purple, and she wears a purple-lined cape. She's also a very powerful magic user. Yang's eyes are purple, and she's also a very dangerous combatant.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Inverted with Ruby, but played straight with the Grimm.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning:
  • The Grimm have glowing red eyes, and are the primary threat throughout the game.
  • When Yang gets fired up, her eyes turn red.
  • Ozpin's eyes turn red when he uses the power of Crescent Rose.
  • Q'row has red eyes while being used as an in-between for Luna Fracta.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Nora and Ren.
• Reforged Blade: The first thing Ruby does after her glaive, Little Thorn, breaks in the prologue is have it reforged by the local blacksmith.
• Refusal of the Call:
  • Ruby initially refuses to come to Beacon with Glynda. After the Grimm attack, the player has the opportunity to do so again, if they wish. This results in a bad end, though.
  • Blake was supposed to become Fang's successor, but instead she ran away.
• Rightful King Returns: Ruby returns to Beacon at the beginning of Act II and is crowned queen. Unlike the typical example of this trope, however, Ozpin is only too happy to step aside for her, since he hadn't wanted that position to begin with, and using Crescent Rose without having Rose blood was actively harmful to him.
• Rip Van Winkle: When Crescent Rose awakens, she discovers a vastly different Vale, with Ruby as the only remaining Rose she can connect to. The other spirits may have had a similar experience.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Ruby deliberately invokes this as the Queen, not wanting to just be a figurehead. Her parents, the former rulers, are said to have been this as well.
  Ruby: I'm not going to be the kind of leader who sits back and lets everyone else put themselves in danger.
• Royalty Super Power: The Rose family have been ruling Vale for a very long time because their connection with Crescent Rose means that only someone with Rose blood can safely sit on the throne.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Nora and Ren.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Both Yang and Ozpin wear scarves, and both are deadly in a fight.
• Schmuck Bait: At one point you given the option to side with Torchwick over Blake. Given that all the characters talk about when he shows up is that he makes their skin crawl, that all his guards are racist and incompetent, and that he is trying to blackmail you into releasing someone suspected of trying burn down a school full of children, it is safe to say that the game is screaming at you that this is a very bad idea. If you side with him anyway, Blake will leave the court forever, locking you out of the good ending. This very slightly downplayed, as Torchwick's blackmail is him threating to leave with all his men which is half the city gaurd. However, as mentioned, Torchwick's men are all bad at their jobs and he very obviously a bad person, plus siding with him loses you the suppot of the Faunus. Basically, you'd only side with Torchwick if you are over thinking the scenario.
• Sealed Cast in a Multipack: The spirits who created the portals between worlds are all initially asleep, and have been for so long that they've been forgotten. Most of them awaken over the course of the game.
• Secret Stab Wound: When Weiss is poisoned by the Grimm causing the sickness, she initially pretends she's fine.
• Secret Underground Passage: Ruby finds one hidden behind a painting of the first Rose monarch, which leads to a laboratory, and eventually to Ediubeág's tomb, and Penny.
• Sex Dressed: Most of the time, couples are shown sharing a dance at the ball for the Kata faunus. If Yang and Pyrrha get together, however, Ruby spots them sneaking back into the room from a balcony, one of them dressed slightly differently than before.
• Shout-Out Theme Naming: Ser Schnee's knights are named after the Knights of the Round.
• Shrine to the Fallen: Ediubeág's uncle created a crude facsimile of the Summer Rose Court out of various metal objects and furniture from his lab, and set them up in exaggerated poses of grief around Ediubeág's body, which was preserved in a glass coffin.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Downplayed, especially if Ruby consistently shows that she is trying to fix things for the faunus, but Velvet and Adam definitely hold her responsible for what her family has done in the past, and make sure she knows that they're watching her going forward.
  Ruby: I didn't do anything. Well, I mean, I didn't, but my family did. So in a way, maybe that means I did it. Or I'm not doing enough to undo it.
• Sneaky Departure: If you refuse Jaune's mission to retrieve Prydwyn, he sneaks away from the castle to attempt it alone.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land: Ruby feels this way when returning to the Xiao Longs as Queen.
• Survival Mantra: "Keep moving forward" recurs as the only choice available to the player on a number of occasions, especially concentrated after Ruby is trapped in Luna Fracta's plane.
• Sword over Head: In the final confrontation with Luna Fracta, Ruby can choose to spare her after pinning her to the ground with her glaive. Alternatively, she can just kill her, averting this trope.
• Technicolor Eyes: Ruby's eyes are silver, Yang's and Archon Kreos' are purple, Blake's are gold, Ren's are pink, and Taiyang's are red.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Pyrrha stays behind in Spiritus Bellatorum to face the Alpha Grimm, and refuses aid in that mission initially, because she feels that it's her responsibility.
• Three-Point Landing: Yang performs one while fighting the chimera in Spiritus Bellatorum, complete with a Ground Punch and shockwave of fire.
• Tracking Spell: Ruby can tap into the ley lines that cross the plane to help her "feel" where people are.
• The Tragic Rose: Ruby's parents were murdered by Grimm, and she herself goes through her share of hardships. Another example is Ediubeág, who used her own aura to revive Penny, and slowly wasted away because she never severed the connection.
• Trapped in Another World: Nora and some others from Skuta Bresta somehow found themselves in Hépíng, and can't get back home because Magnhild is broken.
• Underestimating Badassery: Blake initially thinks that Ruby is little more than a puppet queen, a misconception that Ruby corrects quickly.
• Void Between the Worlds: Luna Fracta's plane is this, after a fashion.
• Waiting Puzzle: Progressing past the final barrier during Ren and Nora's recruitment mission requires not selecting a choice for about a minute.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Most of the main characters are characterized by their choice of weapons.
  • Ruby has her glaive, Little Thorn. When she is possessed by Crescent Rose during the climax of Act II, it is temporarily transformed into a scythe, and again during the climax of Act IV.
  • Yang uses her fists, enhanced with fire magic.
  • Blake has a chain scythe, as well as two swords named Gambol and Shroud, all made from the bones of Grimm.
  • Weiss uses a rapier.
  • Glynda uses a wand.
  • Ozpin has a sword hidden in his cane.
  • Pyrrha wields a spear and shield.
  • Jaune wields a sword and shield.
  • Nora uses a warhammer.
  • Ren has two swords.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: When Ruby escapes from the void, it turns out she was gone from Vale for three months, but for her it was a much shorter time.
• Year Inside, Hour Outside: Glynda travels through the portal to Hépíng a second after Ruby does, but arrives 15-30 minutes later. The two planes run on the same time; it's just that traveling between them gets "tricky".
• You Can't Go Home Again: Nora and the others from Skuta Bresta who somehow found their way to Hépíng. The portals were shut for seven years, and even once Ruby reopened them, Magnhild is still broken.
• You Lose at Zero Trust: Fail to recruit or keep sufficient members of the court, and it will collapse in on itself at the end of Act III, clearing the way for the Grimm to bring about a Class X-5 Apocalypse How.

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