So... Rooster Teeth's kinda gone off the rails in their writing since volume 6, right? Including in the field of lore, which is why the Great War, from what I've observed, doesn't make much sense and seemed like filler. I thought I'd try rewriting it into something that I personally think is cooler. Please note that I shall be changing the lore of the Maidens a bit as well. The point of this fic isn't to fit in canon, it's just supposed to be more interesting.

I'm pretty sure for copyright reasons I'm also supposed to point out that RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth, not me.

So without further ado, please enjoy!


The world of Remnant, as you and I know it today is divided into four kingdoms living in peace and harmony, but once upon a time, that was not always the case.

Throughout the history of Remnant, many empires, kingdoms, and tribes darted throughout the continents. But four powerful nations rose above the rest.

In the northeast of Sanus stood Vale, ruled by a king with his knights and nobles.

In the far east of Anima laid Mistral, a series of warlords sworn under one emperor.

In the frigid tundra of Solitas was Mantle, a small but persistent kingdom ruled by a high king and his jarls.

And in the far west of Sanus was Vacuo, a collection of wandering desert sheiks with one ruling over all as amir.

But over a century ago, in the northwest continent of Crucible stood a kingdom sharing its name. It was ruled by a woman who wielded incredible powers with which she used to transform its once barren wastelands into fertile soil for a colony of athropodal faunus seeking new land to settle. In exchange, they worshipped her as their queen, and for her more zealous citizens, their goddess.

At first, Crucible was extremely reserved. The Queen made little to no contact with the other kingdoms for decades until one day, she reached out to Mantle during a time of struggle against the frozen climate and incessant Grimm attacks. Her followers told Mantle if they swore allegiance to her, she would ward off the Grimm as well as gift them with warm climates. The High king of Mantle accepted, and Crucible's queen personally came and somehow controlled the Grimm to do her bidding. Out of sheer confusion and terror, Mantle's king swore fealty to her, and thus Mantle became a vassal state to the Kingdom of Crucible.

After years of seclusion, Crucible was spreading their queen's influence throughout Remnant, trying to bring indigenous tribes and minor lords of the other kingdoms to follow her. They claimed her to be an immortal being, master over the Grimm and the elements. Under her rule, they were safe, provided for, or so she advertised.

While the Queen did keep outside threats like the Grimm at bay, she wanted people to surrender their culture, their liberties, even their identities. The Cruciblian doctrine was that humanity was inferior to the Queen, and that she and others with magic like hers should be exalted and praised for their elevated status. If anyone tried to speak out against this dogma in Crucible or Mantle, they were fed to the Grimm as punishment. She claimed to be a goddess, but she was merely a witch, and a vile one at that.

But as the years went by, she did not go unchallenged.

As Crucible tried to sway territories in the other kingdoms to join them by force, the legendary Silver Eyed warriors, the bane of Grimm, returned to the world after decades of hiding and showed the rest of Remnant that Crucible's queen wasn't the only one who wielded magic, nor the most favorable ruler. With their help, an alliance between the last free lands in Remnant was formed.

The Emperor of Mistral assembled his remaining warlords, the free sheiks of Vacuo united under the Amir, and tribes of both human and faunus in between the kingdoms joined the fight for various purposes. Together, they were known as the Spectrum.

But the Queen of Crucible had been prepared for this. Deep underground, she secretly bred and warped hordes of Grimm into a nightmarish force of destruction. With the combined strength of her monsters, Crucible's ruthless zealots, the advanced weaponry of Mantle, and the aid of her vassals, the Queen formed a Coalition bent on destroying the Spectrum.

So began the great war.

In spite of the combined forces of the Spectrum, the fighting seemed futile. The Grimm attacked unpredictably from anywhere in the world, spreading Spectrum forces thin. Trusted friends and allies betrayed and sabotaged them, and the Queen had gained new apprentices, the Summer and Fall Maidens, who's powers over nature were beyond that of any semblance.

The darkest day of the war came when the Coalition struck Vytal, island sanctuary of the Silver Eyes. After refusing to appeal to the Queen's offer to join her as rulers over humanity, she sent her Maiden apprentices to lead the attack. The rest of the Spectrum tried to send support, but they could not breach through Mantle's blockade over the island. Leaving the Silver Eyes to their fate.

They fought to the bitter end, but none survived. the Summer Maiden, the elder sister, harnessed her powers of water and fire with horrid bloodlust and spearheaded the slaughtering of the Silver Eyed Warriors. Until the end of the war, any remaining Silver Eyes in Remnant were hunted down by the Coalition. Leaving them virtually extinct.

Without their founders, the ones who brought them hope, all seemed lost for the Spectrum. The last Kingdom of Remnant, however, was not going to stand idly by any longer.

Before the war, the Kingdom of Vale had lost their king without any heirs, leaving it leaderless and divided. Due to this political unrest, the noble houses of Vale had stayed out of the war for the first five years, until one man, Ozthur of Patch, a young and spirited warrior, was revealed to be the long lost heir to the throne.

With the Spring and Winter Maidens by his side, wishing to use their powers to spread peace and happiness to the world unlike their fallen sisters, Ozthur ascended to kingship and having seen the horrors the Queen of Crucible brought to Remnant, rallied his armies to the Spectrum's aid.

Five more years of bloodshed passed, but even with Vale and the other two Maidens, even with Mantle falling and Crucible left on its own, it seemed no closer to ending as the creatures of Grimm still attacked on multiple fronts at the behest of the Queen. This all changed when the Fall Maiden, realizing that being gifted did not make her superior to others, defected from Crucible and joined her sister Maidens, revealing to the Spectrum the secret to the Queen's control over the Grimm.

Long before she even founded Crucible, the Queen had forged an enchanted necklace that gave her dominion over the Grimm. She used the necklace to orchestrate shows of power to bring more lands under her control. If the necklace were to be destroyed, she'd lose her dominion. Knowing what must be done to end the war, King Ozthur and the other leaders of the Spectrum prepared for a full-scale invasion on Crucible.

Crucible discovered the Spectrum's plans, however, and sent the Summer Maiden to intercept them with an Armada behind her and aquatic Grimm harassing the enemy fleet from all sides. The only thing that stood between her and the Spectrum's defeat was her sister Maidens and King Ozthur. With their combined efforts, they managed to overcome Summer and her forces. The Maidens tried to show their sister reason in that they were no better than the rest of humanity, but to no avail, and they were forced to bring her down one last time.

Though the campaign into Crucible was long and arduous, the combined forces of Vale, Mistral, and Vacuo were too much for it to hold out against, even with the Grimm sewing discord in the invasion. The Queen's reign was reaching its end.

In the last siege on Crucible's capital, King Ozthur revealed that he too bore powers over the elements, equal to that of the Queen. It had been his mission to protect Remnant from her and her dark machinations. In past lives, he had failed to prevent her rise to power on his own, but with the Maidens and All of Remnant beside him, there was nothing the Queen could do now.

Ozthur and the Maidens entered the palace to confront the Queen, unleashing pure destruction in a final clash to determine the fate of all Remnant. After a long series of flames, floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes erupted from inside the palace, destroying it and everything nearby, King Ozthur emerged from the ruins of the battlefield beaten, bruised, and alone, but victorious as the Grimm fled from the positive emotions of hope and joy eminating from the armies of the Spectrum. He and the Maidens had completed their mission with the Queen defeated and the necklace destroyed, but at no small cost.

After ten long years, the Great War was over. The Kingdom of Crucible was no more, and the continent was deserted, now a cursed land filled with untamed Grimm. Mantle was reestablished as the Kingdom of Atlas, and it, along with the major powers of the Spectrum absorbed the majority of the smaller territories from before the war and reigned as the Four Kingdoms of Remnant, ushering in an era of lasting peace.

Though the struggle, turmoil, and sacrifice of the war have been immortalized in modern Remnant, the events between the Silver Eyed Warriors, Ozthur, the Four Maidens, and the Queen of Crucible have been interpreted as hyperbolic. This was not the only sort of conflict between these powerful beings in Remnant's history, however, and will most likely not be the last.


"For everything there is a reason, and a time for every matter under heaven:" (ECCLESIASTES 3:1).

"A time to love, and a time to hate, a time for war, and a time for peace." (ECCLESIASTES 3:8).

Just to make sure everything is made clear, Ozthur was obviously my version of the King of Vale who I believe was officially Ozpin's past life in World of Remnant miniseries, and the Queen of Crucible was Salem, and I got the necklace thing from the RWBY Wiki. I believe it was from that RWBY-themed D&D series Rooster Teeth did a while back. I also reinterpreted the Four Maidens as Ozma and Salem's daughters from volume 6 with their parent's immortality inherited along with their magic, just because I think that could be an interesting dynamic between Oz, Salem, and the Maidens.

I wish I had it in me to write this as a fully fleshed out story and not a summarization, but maybe I could leave that to you, my dear reader. If you want to, feel free to make your own detailed version of this giant wall of fanlore I have made. I only ask you to mention where you got the idea from, no links or any of that jazz.

I really hope you had fun reading this. God bless you and goodbye!