Chapter Text
Hello, I want you to consider this first chapter one big author's note, and thus can be skipped. That said, I do feel like this story will make a lot more sense if you do read this chapter.
First thing of note. If you read the title but not the description, you may have the assumption that this is a Zombie Apocalypse RWBY AU, and while that idea certifiably kicks ass, it does not describe this fic accurately. This is a Canon compliant-ish fic that follows a team of huntsman years before the Events of RWBY. Few characters show up here that show up in the actual cannon.
Second thing of note. I have only ever watched the Show and The World of Remnant. I have not watched all of RWBY fairy tales, nor have I read all of the books. If this story contradicts the canon established in those… well, that’s what the ‘ish’ is doing next to ‘canon compliant’ in the last paragraph.
Third thing of note. this is a novelization of a TTRPG I ran three years ago. This RPG was using a system I made (not the official RWBY RPG system) and was played via text on Discord. We played every day for around four or five months. The four main characters are RWBY OCs created by my friends. I do not claim to own these characters, though pretty much every other character is of my own design, aside from the ones who show up in the show. At the time of playing this, the timeline was ambiguous, though it has gotten more solid as we continued to play. It is for this reason that I will be changing some events to make them more canon compliant. This note, of course, only really matters if you are one of the four players. As I assume that’s most of who will be reading this, though, it’s important to get it out of the way.
The fourth thing worth noting is an extension of the third thing, in a way. See, as the DM for this RPG, I have had to come up with a lot of names for this game. Not all of them follow the Color naming rule, at least not in the original game. In this novelization, I am going to try and correct that where applicable, but I may not be able to always do that. If that is a deal breaker for you, then I am sorry. I hope you find another fic to read that fits your standards, I truly do.