All Dust in RWBY Volumes 1-7 Explained

Dust is a major part of RWBY with most technology in Remnant relying on it to function. With a dozen different types of dust known in RWBY thus far there are many different ways that it can be used, whether for combat or otherwise so here is a look into all the known types of Dust in RWBY!
Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Twitter: / phoenixnight7
Discord: / discord

[@Stark-Raving]

Bumblebee RAN off of combustion dust. RIP Bumblebee 2013-2019, you Were a good bike

[@the_harvest_lord931]

Honestly thought you meant the ship Bumblebee at first

[@Stark-Raving]

@@the_harvest_lord931 It is a bit confusing, yes.

[@baconboi4482]

Insert Name yang drove it into Adam in his final fight and the bike went flying off the cliff

[@MIR_ilmenite]

@@the_harvest_lord931 I wish that was the case

[@petezthegangsta4750]

@@MIR_ilmenite what’s wrong with Bumblebee?

[@happyllama4255]

Phoenix: and the gods dusted them. Me: *bites my tongue * Also me (less than a minute later): *DUN, DUN, DUN, ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST*

[@ineedeldenring6807]

killer queen baikane bacuda bites the dust

[@boltindie9011]

Beacon Academy should just hire you because you're basically making learning about Remnant a lot of fun and interesting!

[@entropy04]

We do not speak of Beacon

[@boltindie9011]

R.I.P Beacon Academy ????-2016

[@stanbts6037]

Beacon you shall be missed 😭😭😭😭😭

[@jonathonsirlord8251]

Beacon Will return in Future volumes

[@joaquinguillen8838]

I'd prefer him over Port, he's so much fun. Also RIP Beacon 2012-2016

[@Salemwaaa]

“Man born from dust shall return to dust”

[@alexhuynh1066]

You are made from dust and dust you shall return, amen

[@phantomblade7954]

from dust you are born, from dust you shall live, and from dust shall you return.

[@dragonraiderknight4625]

I wouldn’t mind learning more about plant and water dust, how one could manipulate it. Turquo harp uses water, plant, steam, wind and gravity dust.

[@annabarnes5221]

I'd love to see Yang activate her semblance with different dust types

[@chrissycurtis4152]

Oooh this would be so good to see! Imagine her hair glowing blue when she uses ice dust 😍

[@fire-breathingturtledragon4513]

If plant dust is cannon, we may see a Jack and the Beanstalk based character at some point in the series.

[@PhoenixNight]

I hadn't thought of that, it's a really good connection to draw from Plant dust!

[@TsulaAngenati2292]

It would be cool if they could use dust to speed up the process of growing plants, they’d use plants to create massive vines to either climb up on or entangle large Grimm

[@jonathonsirlord8251]

Just before you know it Rwby Arrowfell came out introducing team BRIR with the I in the team Ivy having a Vine like Whip and used her Semblance to create a portal which she sends the tip of her weapon through then 2 more Portals open revealing the Vine's tip coming out of the 2 via portals at once/same time so maybe the use of Said plant dust

[@lexthemystic3541]

As for Gravity Dust, in the RWBY RPG that I’m developing I’m explaining it as Earth and Wind Hybrid. It’s very simplistic, but oddly straightforward.

[@goronslime1469]

Is it official

[@mikemills7246]

@@goronslime1469 Yes Maria used it as the Grim Reaper with her scythes

[@goronslime1469]

Magic Man no the game

[@alexjacobs6713]

Prolly not

[@lexthemystic3541]

Ciarán Purcell It’s not official. It’s my game, and I don’t work for RT.

[@SoulOfWynter]

Timestamps for each Dust Type: Fire/Burn: 3:06 Flame (Bright Orange): 4:59 Combustion: 5:46 Rock/Earth: 6:19 Water: 7:19 Air/Wind: 8:01 Plant: 10:28 Ice: 11:05 Steam: 11:52 Electric/Lightning: 12:25 Gravity: 13:35 Hardlight: 15:55 (Theoretical Dust) Shadow/Hard-dark: 20:49 Earth + Fire Combination: 21:36 Earth + Wind Combination (Very minor mention before topic change): 22:08

[@SoulOfWynter]

Huh, I did not expect that.

[@lexthemystic3541]

Oh, yes! Dust and Aura are my favorite things in RWBY, and I’m so glad that you have gotten around to covering this.

[@ThatBlueWanderer]

I would think gravity would be more of a wind and earth combo just thematically speaking

[@shelbybayer200]

Looking back I'd call The Orange dust as Burst Dust An explosive varient of Burn Dust

[@remingtonwright6796]

"Crystals. Burn. Uncut."

[@Alice_Haukea]

The problem with "dust" is that there will always be more questions than answers. Especially, and primarily when fan characters are in question. Its difficult to determine the extent in which each dust type can function until its shown or stated officially. The number one question I have is; "How much use can you get from a single dust crystal?" And "How much use can regular power dust get you?" What is the exchange rate between dust and "power"? My Kitsune- I mean, fox faunus OC is all about fire manipulation with her semblance and stuff. Similar to Cinder, she has fire dust on her at all times. What is the extent to which she can do stuff with that dust before it runs out/ is all used up??? Its just like the Fast and the Furious movies and how you never see them go the gas station. Same thing here, you never see any interactions where someone is all like; "Crap, i'm out of dust!". Additionally, there are no clear answers on how MUCH dust is needed for certain tasks. The amount of Gravity Dust to lift a person is going to be less than what is needed to lift a house. But how much does either take? I'm struggling hard on being creative with my team because the finer limitations of dust is hard to measure. One of my team members uses a large warhammer with dust in it. Was originally thinking earth dust as she is a nature geek, but if plant dust is a thing.... then perhaps that. The other option I was thinking was gravity dust. She hits you with the hammer, and instantly upon impact, the hammer discharges a burst of gravity dust essentially quadrupling the impact force of her attack. I dunno for sure yet now.

[@rickyneovhal2181]

Cool character design.

[@justaweebwithsubjectivetas9019]

Is there a fanfic staring your oc’s or is there any fanart

[@Alice_Haukea]

@@justaweebwithsubjectivetas9019 I have my full team fully illustrated via commission. With any luck, Phoenix Night will like them enough to include when he does his next fan character content stuff. As for a fan fiction, no not yet. I did an overly long backstory for them. A lot to cover as my team members are all 31 years old. Maybe at some point I'll consider a fanfic filling in between past and present...

[@justaweebwithsubjectivetas9019]

@@Alice_Haukea okay thanks but what fan character content?

[@Alice_Haukea]

@@justaweebwithsubjectivetas9019 I could be mistaken, but I seem to recall him saying in one of his videos that he planned on making more videos later on that would include fan made characters. You know, exploring the fandom side of the RWBY universe.

[@christiancervantes4264]

When can we see All Auras and Semblances Volume 1-8 Explained for updates video?

[@MiseryRG]

So wait, Dust are the ashes of deceased humans who once wielded magic? That is so Grimm...

[@eriklagergren7124]

If you combine wind, fire and earth dust, that makes a really good band

[@johnkrappweis7367]

I think gravity dust is a combination of earth and air. Essentially, it falls up into the sky.

[@BloodShot-mq1st]

I love the though of Dust in RWBY. As you mentioned Shadow or Dark dust, I've been wondering if that could be the dust in the Dark Island, where the Grimm come from. I've noticed that there are dark purple/black crystals around the Grimm pools, however they do not act like gravity dust. As they are not floating, or upside down on islands. They seem to grow straight out of the ground, perhaps a hardened form of the Grimm pools themselves? It would make sense to try and have a Dark dust, as in the depictions of magic from the first generation of humans, you see Red (Fire), Yellow(Lightning), Green(Wind probably because it's lighter), Purple(Gravity), Blue(Water), and then a Cyan/Light blue(Ice or hard light), with orbs of white(A more likely magic form for hard light), black(Potentially dark), green(Plant as it's darker in color), and a gold/orange color(Most likely earth). Every kind of dust is accounted for (That we have seen thus far) yet we have an extra piece of magic. I'm so excited to see what Volume 8 will bring us, and I am glad I found you and all of your theories, and reviews! They are truly entertaining to watch, and I find myself looking and thinking about RWBY in different lights, and a bit deeper.

[@seabass5892]

In d&d 5e, there are elemental creatures known as Mephits. They are described as "imp-like", native to the four elemental planes, and made out of two seperate elements. They even have their own personalities and quirks: Dust - earth + air; "drawn to catacombs and find death morbidly fascinating" Ice - air + water; "aloof and cold, surpassing all other Mephits in pitiless cruelty" Magma - earth + fire; "slow to comprehend the meaning of others' words and actions" Mud - earth + water; "drone their complaints to all who will listen, and beg incessantly for attention and treasure" Smoke - air + fire; "rarely speak the trush and love to mock and mislead other creatures" Steam - fire + water; "bossy and hypersensitive, they are the self-appointed overlord of all Mephits"

[@HexanTronic]

One type of Dust that I have thought up, but am unsure how to go about making, is Aura Dust. The basic use is that, should someone low on aura push their aura into it, then crush it, it replenishes some of their aura. Not sure how realistic it can be, but you did mention both Dust and Aura, which is used for semblances, came from the same place, most likely. So it is possible that you can use one to replenish the other, somehow.

[@elysainempire4628]

I love to do a vid on the diffrences on sembalnces, dust, and magic.

[@shifttheforsaken1132]

It is always useful to have more information about Dust and theories about it

[@samanthaseabolt1375]

This is really helpful for my OC’s semblance! There’s some major limits to her semblance, which is the ability to absorb dust energy and utilize her body as dust or using it as a temporary armor, through only absorbing one type at any one time through touch and it having a shelf time.

[@kawaiicamybee]

This is great! Especially with Dust still being a bit of a shaky concept so far❤️ also hi everyone!🥰😃

[@rugerrainsberger4471]

Hi

[@kawaiicamybee]

Becca Jae great hope u are too!😄

[@lilw6813]

Oh so dust is basically like fossil fuels but instead of dead animals and plants, it's dead people. If dust is from dead people, Weiss needs to chill with violating corpses XD Edit: Dust comes from the leftover magic from corpses. My mistake. However what I said kinda still stands but just in a bit more abstract sense

[@embellem9245]

No, you're right. The dust of the dusted people seeped into the ground and over time crystalized into Dust. Dust is the remains of people. That seems the most obvious process.

[@Alonkis251]

@@embellem9245 This confirm or theory?

[@embellem9245]

@@Alonkis251 It's the theory that makes the most sense and considering Dust is outright named "Dust" and the original people were turned into dust it seems outright confirmed to me.

[@Alonkis251]

@@embellem9245 Cool

[@Pyrodxd]

Yes king periodt ive been waiting for this vid and i cant wait for your oc weapon vid

[@cliftonwong8600]

I do wanna say something about plant dust, i think we did see it be utilized in the white trailer. When Weiss jumped and landed on the Armas Gigas’s sword her rapier had like a greenish glow and had pink petals too it. It might be plant dust, so uh yeah i just wanted to say that. Ps: i lysm Phoenix i really hope u get more recognized :D

[@embellem9245]

Maybe. But honestly the White Trailer was made before Monty had a clear grasp on how Dust was going to work. Some of her spells don't work from what we know of Dust or her Semblance.

[@cliftonwong8600]

EmBELLEm true true but still in the white trailer we see ice, fire, gravity and i think idk hard light, when she did the final blow but that also could’ve been wind but yeah i cant argue with your argument, then again it could have been plant but we will see hopefully in the near future.

[@STE6677]

I would say Gravity dust is more likely to be a version of air dust, as from a scientific perspective it's really, anti-gravity dust

[@nicholasgarza5592]

This may be considered broken but on my OC team(Team SHDW) one of my characters(W) weapons is dust infused clothes(mainly leggings and gloves that reach up to her biceps). But she also has gauntlets and greaves that have every type of dust in them(except hard light). But since gauntlets and greaves are her weapon type, she can create combination dust weapons and wield one element weapon in one hand as another in the other. She’s from Atlas so you could understand why she has so much dust at her disposal but it’s also mainly because of her semblance: Dust Glyphs. This semblance basically let’s her control the elemental aspects of each dust so long as it’s near her. The weakness this semblance has is she basically needs dust in order for it to work.

[@nein9420]

I wanna see what happens when Hazel injects gravity dust

[@jamieoeyes8568]

Probably give him the Ability to fly and give his punch's an extra oomph just like Headmaster Theodore's weapon in the RWBY Before the Dawn book

[@embellem9245]

Floats up and can't get down. My final answer.

[@gravityrushfan299]

That's why Colleen Clinkenbeard was in rwby because of dust and the connection between jinns and vampires.

[@justsomeguyanimations]

For everyone excited about shadow dust, please don't get ur hopes up. Hard light exists theoretically and we've known about similar effect light can have for years. Shadow and darkness are just the absence of light. It's intangible because it doesn't exist.

[@keelan270]

Just some Guy without a decent Mustache if you wanted to get sciencey-technical about it, would you say that the opposite of light isn’t darkness but matter? Since the E = MC^2 equation seems to describe light (or rather energy) as matter sped up to the speed of light. Probably not a RWBY thing but in a story I’m writing with somewhat opposite elemental powers Dark represents matter manipulation (telekinesis)

[@odam_maloof]

Only 4 minutes ago, love being there for the release of another great video

[@weirdvideos6758]

Thanks for the video 👍

[@andrewharris1344]

I know I’m late but I think a poison or toxic dust could be cool with the ability to make toxic smoke or cause effects like dizziness or hallucinations. It would essentially be used as like a drug where it’s man made but can be used for medication. I think the dust color would be pink to make it more unnatural.

[@nestorgamer9746]

last time I was so soon Nora had a ribbon on her back

[@Pyrodxd]

Last time I was this early jnpr wasn’t jnr

[@dustinelias7840]

I think the orange dust u mentioned at 5:01 was the rock fire combo u mentioned at 21:36

[@Indigo_Polarity]

This may have been commented already, but since hard light dust exists, I can imagine a form of Sound Dust existing. I can imagine it being a highly concentrated form of wind dust, probably synthesised in Atlas, designed to naturally generate intense bursts of sound. If it exists already, perhaps that could be what power's Flynt Coal's weapon. As for colour, a shade of green would make sense considering the wind dust origin, but I also think a shade of pink would be a nice choice for it too, since that is the only colour we don't seem to have a dust variant for yet if I'm not mistaken.

[@usmansubhani7482]

I’m not sure why Hard-Light Dust isn’t combined with Wind Dust. Maybe it’d limit the ability of the wind, but that would have its own benefits.

[@rajaytaylor4558]

Also darkness can be used to create darkness tendrills and allowing people to walk in and travel through the shadows

[@fadillangston9797]

20:56 Because "darkness" isn't an actual active element of nature, it is the ABSENCE of light, energy, and life. That's like asking why there's a "death" dust.

[@usmansubhani7482]

I like this version of Dust more than it being found as Explosive and Flame dust in different places. Dust Refinement sounds so interesting.

[@eternalvirtues6229]

Great topic as always hope you are doing okay during this virus

[@uncommonsense4920]

Also hard light dust is in the scrolls as it is said in before the dawn

[@NilCaelum]

Technically isn’t the first time we see gravity dust in the red trailer?

[@Nolifecoffeeaddict]

I was going to say the same thing and I do think that it was gravity dust the rwby used in Cresent Rose

[@NilCaelum]

Conner Sinclair yeah when she changed ammo the new cartridge had a symbol on it and she charged it with aura which caused it to float. After she reloaded with it all of her shots behaved differently

[@embellem9245]

Yup.

[@theBSDude44]

If people want to see, the magazine label is clearly visible at 2:43 kzbin.info/www/bejne/poq6Y3qjfadortU

[@tripedal2063]

I hate how plant dust is literally controlling a life-form, maybe it makes it grow faster but just creating life is freaking op

[@boltindie9011]

I don't know if this could be possible for an AU idea or maybe something in the RWBY series, but could Gravity dust be used in such a way as to manipulate both space and time? speaking of time and manipulation you forgot to mention how Weiss' semblance of glyphs can be affected by using dust such as when she uses gravity she can send objects forward or pull them back and when she used lightning dust combined with glyphs against Banesaw and the Paladin she was able to use the time dialation ability.

[@becca2710]

He does mention it toward the end

[@ChristopherCapersJones]

This is very interesting. Hopefully this doesn't get retconned.

[@randypelow455]

I looked at the scene where Salam is using her magic and I noticed that she had 10 different colors of magic in use. How ever it seems like while she is very powerful it is possible that she did learn how to use most if not all types of magic when locked away in the tower. Witch even closer show the connection between dust and raw magic. Also food for thought Jaune's semblance and that of Gillian Asturias are the leftover traces of the Gods magic when they left Remnant as their final acts where to remove most magic like Gillian and imbuing someone else with magic/life again-Jaune.

[@marquisstaelus5268]

On the topic of hard shadow dust you talked about. I'd rather think of if shadow dust was made I'd think it would be more like liquid shadows, similar to the goop the Grimm emerge from. Salem's castle and surrounding does feature these dark purple crystals you mentioned, so I would assume it would be that.

[@thefoxmaster753]

the first time gravity dust was used was in the rwby red trailer. the thugs in episode 1 have dust infused swords

[@noblegas8485]

Theory Cinder's orange dust is a combination of rock and fire dusts. It's bright orange like rock dust is dark orange, and it doesn't produce flames but rather chunks of molten earth - lava - that then quickly cool down into obsidian or glass. I propose the name "volcanic" or "lava" dust.

[@davidbasa9985]

The first time we see gravity dust is in the red trailer around 2:45 when she goes INSANE on the Beowulfs

[@jonathonsirlord8251]

4:58 People called the Orange Dust Lava or Incendiary Dust🌋🌋🌋

[@alexandreolle2340]

Dust in RWBY has always reminded me A LOT about the Bionicles series (which I highly recommend !) and their six basic natural elements: Fire, Ice, Water, Wind, Rock, Earth. So in the Bionicles, Ice and Rock were considered as basic elements whereas it is not in RWBY. But at some point, a seventh element was added in the Bionicles world: Light ! So if I were to make a wish for a new form of Dust in RWBY, that would be Light. Not Hard Light which already exists and seems too "material" but simply Light as we first think of it (photons).

[@melvindekkers6105]

I could be wrong 4:33, but I think it also depends on the user as Adam has the semblance of Moonslice, making Adam able to store the power of impacts (that would normaly break swords) untill he's ready to send it back.

[@innerdesign1830]

for the air/wind dust. the light green is the natural form of crystal. the white is when it is refined into the dust powder. particles so small of light green it just appears white. the full gems are gust light green.

[@Hamzakhan-dt3gv]

Nice video

[@mccoachrailwayproductions8958]

We did see steam engines before though. When Oscar bought the ticket to Mistral, the train seen on the platform was coupled to a steam locomotive. So, yeah, probably a local thing though. Seeing how, in Vale, most trains are probably powered by combustion or electric dust.

[@michaelmurray8134]

I was thinking along the lines that gravity dust was Earth and wind dust but it being a combination of all four makes since too. As for hard light dust I would think it's a manual creation of experimenting with Lightning Dust considering it's used more for powering stuff. Also there are probably even more experiments they could do with dust such as them possibly making acid dust from experimenting with water dust.

[@alexanderpapakostas7931]

I don't know if there's a combination of lightning and and earth, i would love to see a glass dust!!!

[@foxboss1925]

Fire/Burn 3:02 Rock/Earth 6:17 Water 7:19 Wind 7:57 Plant 10:25 Ice 11:05 Steam 11:48 Electricity 12:24 Gravity 13:28 Hard-Light 15:50

[@garrettlaturski6703]

Don't know if anyone said this, but the first time we say gravity dust was on the red trailer, it's how Ruby gets thrown around by Crescent rose's recoil

[@beanother1an690]

Fun fact: a Dust has less muzzle velocity than a standard gunpowder-based round, which is why Dust rounds seem so weak (and why Yang didn't blow Mercury's leg off in Volume 3.) So if they had gunpowder bullets and didn't use Dust for absolutely EVERYTHING, then there'd be many more firearm casualties in RWBY.

[@Amakasu-Hisone]

Thank you

[@ohmichael1348]

i hope there will be a light dust. color is pale white, that can shoot laser beams or summon a plasma ray that can be used as a lightsaber blade.

[@andresfelipealvear7383]

Given that hard light dust can mimic other dust i think it could bethe combination of all 4 basic dust, and gravity could be what you said and be earth dust compressed or earth and air dust

[@sharyusu618]

dust v magic v semblance. yes

[@CABRALFAN27]

Dust has been a relatively consistent, if not as well-defined as it could be, concept since at least Volume 4 (And only that late because of the last minute shift to Maidens over Dust Mages), and it always baffles me when people complain that it's not. Doubly so when those same people then claim that the first three Volumes did it right. Like, did we watch the same show? I love the early Volumes as much as the next guy, but there were so many more inconsistencies and overall janky concepts in them than there ever would be in modern RWBY.

[@TsulaAngenati2292]

It’d be cool if water dust had a splash damage effect, pun intended, in which of someone used it as ammo and it hit a target, it would spread outwards as it burst

[@rajaytaylor4989]

you forgot to add pink dust which is mostly explosive dust which is found in magnhild grenades

[@TheDarkliesra222]

I can see white dust just being a refinement technique.

[@kingraplhmativo5178]

I think Neo using Hard light dust fuse with her semblance to make it more durable.

[@sebastiansedgman8908]

Gravity dust could potentially be used to create black holes which is kind of like darkness.

[@kelistigerz9898]

I'd love to hear an explanation on pink dust. It's in nora's grenade launcher. Maybe an explosion type dust that's a combination of fire and earth or fire and wind. Anyone got more ideas?

[@bane_0f_heroesx226]

17:25 has waluigi running from a t-posing Ironwood

[@contentlobby3824]

I think the orange dust is something like Lava: explosive, (obsidian) glass, and the small shard bit.

[@chaoticblackstallion7309]

I would say wind and Earth since their opposites And the only other thing I can think of when you combine them is Just "Dust"

[@shelbybayer200]

Looking back at this video. I've been inspired to have a Shadow Dust in my fan project story, my thought on it is it would have a Stealth effect and would be used in things like Stealth suits and Atlasian stealth robots {Note: I'm of course writing my story in a different timeline from the Canon show but still have Canon events play out just some of the circumstances of how and why they happen are Tweaked a little to not be completely the same as Canon} I've even reworked my OCs Semblance a bit. His newer Semblance is Vectors or Aura Vectors With this Semblance he has the ability to control Kinetic force and redirect it It works on the laws of Physics, with Magnitude and Direction. Powerful but pretty draining in the way of Aura

[@wombataldebaran9686]

I think the hardlight dust platforms in the Watts/Ironwood fight were results of Watts hacking Amity Arena. Since Amity has different types of dust it runs on.

[@joshuaware818]

Such a Fan of pheonix and , This makes sense .

[@artistanthony1007]

I want Dust to make a comeback and be expanded more, I had this concept when I was text roleplaying back in 2016 where Time Dust can be used to reverse injuries, it was myself and this Yang rper where the Arm grows but I took inspiration from that item in GOW Ascension that decays and does the thing in the other direction.

[@eurogryphon]

Does Amity Arena use hard light to protect the students during the Vytal Festival Tournament? When Coco let bullets fly in her fight with Emerald and Mercury stray rounds can be seen bouncing off an invisible shield which protected the viewers in the stands. Oh, and Jaune's upgraded shield (Volume 7) uses hard light dust.

[@eslamvszombies1713]

My OC weapon use the same types of dust in his sword, plus he had new types that i created, i will talk about it later because it's too long and i wrote on Fanfiction as The Dust Decoded using 15 dust, 7 we know and 8 are new types that i invented

[@masterfernando7518]

You should make a video about Rwby the grimm campaign

[@juanalonso1600]

Yeah I would like to see that

[@maximilliansummers3725]

Combustion Dust could easily be the Fire and Air combo, and the Bright Orange Dust Cinder used (with the splattering effect) could be the Magma Dust (Fire and Earth).

[@novaenforcer1563]

i thought that fire effect for adam was just the color of the effect slashes like blakes purple slash effects

[@dogsareawesome6663]

I would say that the bright orange dust (not earth) would be made of a combination of fire and earth dust to make magma dust.

[@ShawnRavenfire]

I would guess that the writers originally planned for the color of the dust crystals to reflect the way they're combined, such as a purple crystal is made from mixing red and blue crystals. The trouble is, that it wouldn't make sense for fire and water to make gravity. So they probably just assigned colors based on what would look good for the animation. Also, primary colors are typically in threes, which wouldn't really work for combining four basic types of dust. I'd say that they're probably leaving the dust types open-ended, at least within the official canon of the show, to avoid writing themselves into a corner.

[@Pantalaimon91]

I think Velvet's Anesidora probably contains small amounts of all types of dust to mimic whatever she needs to. I agree that hard light is definitely the strongest type of dust we've seen so far in the series but I don't think it can mimic other dust types' uses.

[@uncleyoda1834]

I wonder what the engines look like in cars. Since they are using a dust, I would assume that they have a different way to introduce the fuel into the engine. Do they use engines with the v8, v6, i6, I4 or boxer design? and I wonder if they use carburetors or EFI (electronic fuel injection).

[@embellem9245]

Funny story, one of the concept artists designed a fully functioning Dust engine, but they didn't really have anywhere to put it.

[@dartakori2927]

Doesn't hard light dust also make the screens for scrolls?

[@flingza1798]

When you really think about it, Adam's weapon is just Jetstream Sam's muramasa from metal gear rising revengeance

[@shaddowofthelost1750]

The first time gravity dust was used in combat in the series is when Weiss launched ruby at the giant nevermore.

[@rajaytaylor4558]

Plant dust is used in the Grimm campaign

[@Monochrome_11]

I really should look into the Grimm campaign a tabletop RWBY RPG dose sounds cool

[@malochroma6793]

I don't know if anyone's mentioned it, but in a lot of East Asian works (notably in several Final Fantasy games, and Monty almost certainly drew a lot of inspiration from those), it's not uncommon for the wind or air element to be associated with green. Part of this is because the other colors associated with elemental air (white and yellow) are frequently taken by healing/holy magic and lightning magic respectively, if those are separated from air, and part of it is because in Hinduism, the heart chakra is associated with both the color green and the element of air, so it makes sense that that association bled over into other Asian cultures and faiths. So that's probably why Wind Dust is light green, and at least why I always personally preferred the green version to the white version.

[@Aetheriiel]

Okay time for me to ramble about things that don't matter: I see what you're thinking of with Gravity dust, but my thought was originally a combination of earth and wind. Now I know the color doesn't quite make sense, but my thought was mostly the "shockwave" effect that travels through the air. Also the combination of opposing elements could prove to have interesting consequences. Even if it's like... 2/3 earth and 1/3 wind, I just think the combination makes sense. As for rock and fire, honestly that secondary fire dust makes sense as almost a.. magma/lava dust. Esp bc Earth is a brown/yellow, red and yellow make orange, for one. Secondly, it forming these pools of magma/lava that explode later is an interesting concept, especially seeing as what happens if you superheat rocks and metal? It melts. I can see a metal dust, but metal dust could always be just a more refined earth dust. As well as it summoning metal out of the aether is a bit... weird as a concept? I think? However it summoning MOLTEN metal makes a bit more sense. Anyway here take my garbage theories.

[@loganking873]

Shrink/grow dust (3 gravity 1 hard light) Blast dust (2 fire 2 gravity) Void dust (1 hard light 1 blast 2 gravity) Time dust (1 lightning 1 hard light 2 gravity) Life dust (1 plant 1 hard light 1 time 1 earth) Etc etc etc