Humanity has long been enthralled by Dust, even before they had the barest inkling of what it was that they had plucked from the earth. Deceptively beautiful and unspeakably powerful, Dust has inspired people for countless millennia. Its utility as a technological resource, and a potent weapon against the Grimm, has firmly cemented its place within society—such that everyday life would be unrecognizable without it. Yet that has done little to combat humanity’s ignorance of what it is, exactly, that they’ve harnessed. In spite of generations of research, questions about the origins of Dust, and what it’s made of, continue to elude people.
Progress has continued, regardless of those setbacks. The individuals mentioned here have spearheaded that progress, and given rise to the breakthroughs that continue to drive humanity forward. Listed below are their names, along with their contributions.
Dossiers
Jordan of Anima — The founder of rhizology, who hailed from the ancient city of Chamenos, Remnant’s largest psychometric imprint. A separate post exploring the details of their life will be released on a later date.
Nicholas Schnee — A divisive figure who garnered his share of supporters and detractors, particularly within Atlas. Unlike the other members of the kingdom’s ruling elite, Nicholas was born to the working middle class of the undercity, Mantle. He hailed from a long line of blacksmiths and metallurgists, but unlike his predecessors, his fascination was with Dust, not ore. He spent much of his free time in his workshop, trying to find a method to make Dust usage more efficient and accessible. After much trial and error, his tinkering led to the modern process for flash-freezing Dust in its elemental-release state. The invention of the Dust cartridge (or battery) was the beginning of the SDC, which quickly expanded its operations to include both Dust extraction and factory refinement. Nicholas personally oversaw his mines in Solitas and earned a reputation as a formidable combatant, protecting his employees from Grimm (including a centuries-old Hartless). The success of his business was what enabled him to enter the ranks of Atlas’ old families, through his arranged marriage to Thyra Royce. In keeping with the social customs, Nicholas arranged his daughter’s marriage as well. Unfortunately, long-term exposure through Dust mining led to the eventual acquisition of toxorhizosis, which soon hospitalized him (and killed him not long after). Prior to his death, he named his son-in-law—Jacques Gelé—as his successor.
Djura Gannet — In the aftermath of the Great War, international travel became attainable as the world opened its borders. Gannet, a retired warrior from Vacuo’s coasts, wanted to experience the newfound peace he had bled for, and decided to visit the other kingdoms. As he explored Eastern Sanus (and later, Anima), he became particularly interested in Dust vortices. Their existence mystified him. As Gannet had personally observed in combat, Dust required the presence of Aura in order to have its elemental effects triggered. How could a vortex possibly be sustained if there wasn’t enough ambient Aura to keep them above a certain energetic threshold? On a scale of entire ecosystems, no less. While he wasn’t the first to ponder this conundrum, Gannet was the first to electronically map several vortices, and measure pneumatophysical activity across the area. His tentative conclusion was that the ambient Aura was disproportionate to the presence of wildlife needed to sustain that sort of passive output. This anomaly, named Gannet’s paradox, was used to classify Dust as either technically inert or functionally inert. The latter state, as noted by rhizologists, is only observed when Dust leaves Remnant’s atmosphere, suggesting that the planet itself holds some quality that explains the paradox.
Rednine — It’s an established fact that a Dust vortex can influence the evolution of endemic species. The gliding agamid lizards of Lake Matsu’s floating islands are testament of that. What was less known were the biochemical effects that vortices had on organisms, and the pharmaceutical value they held. The Siroccan who made that discovery took the name Rednine, after the eponymous plant native to Tsahïk Forest—a small, bright-red flower with nine petals. The roots, stems, leaves, and fruit of the plant are highly toxic, which might explain why no one realized the corolla was medicinal. In fact, when Rednine first ate one of the petals, it was an accident. They mistook it for a similar-looking plant. Once the initial panic—and relief—wore off, Rednine decided to harvest more of the plant and see if it had any culinary applications. While it wasn’t all that useful in a salad, Rednine was intrigued by the fact that it seemed to temporarily disable their Aura. Later research revealed the existence of unique rhizo-organic compounds which have an inhibitory effect. Today, the rednine flower is the source of a class of drugs known as Aura suppressants. It’s thought that other Dust vortices might yield similar pharmaceutical plants, but to date, only one has been discovered.
Tiago Torgal — Dying early in life is a recurring theme among rhizologists, though it could be argued that Torgal’s was his own doing. Unlike Rednine, who focused on the long-term evolutionary impacts of Dust, Torgal’s work concerned the immediate, short-term effects on biological systems. His interest wasn’t in its key characteristics—like luminance, color, and passive behavior—which were already well-documented; it was in the interactive, synergistic phenomena, which were harder to observe. Torgal extensively stress-tested Dust types by using himself as a research subject, going so far as inhaling it in a powdered form and ingesting small crystals. When asked why he didn’t just use animals, he scoffed, and muttered something about “objectivity” under his breath. While unconventional, his studies revolutionized healthcare by creating a thorough list of type-specific diagnostic criteria, and the dosage at which effects in the body occur. Years of subjecting himself to his own experiments eventually led to his death, and helped solidify toxorhizosis as a valid medical condition.
Kyrii Piers — A doctor from Menagerie who specialized in treating Dust-related complications, and the discoverer of epalem. One day early on in her career, she received a number of patients from the recently-opened Teoriaþ Mine, under the ownership of the SDC. Nearly every collier she treated had acute symptoms of Dust poisoning and silicosis, along with other injuries, such as abrasions and burns. Some occupational hazards were to be expected—Dust mining was, and continues to be, one of Remnant’s most dangerous careers—but not to this extent. When Piers attempted to speak with the insurance company and the Teoriaþ manager, their answers were evasive, inconsistent, and vague. Suspicious, Piers traveled to southern Mistral, and with the help of a colleague, managed to get hired by the mine under a pseudonym. While employed for the SDC, she witnessed and documented multiple workers’ rights violations, including the provision of faulty equipment. Once she compiled enough evidence, Piers terminated her contract and brought her findings to the public. The media coverage resulted in litigation and several fines that the SDC had to pay, although the mine was allowed to remain open, as the CEO claimed ignorance and blamed the damages on the manager. A few months after the investigation concluded, Piers was found dead in her apartment. Local law enforcement ruled it a homicide, and while never outright implicated, it’s suspected that the SDC had a hand in it.
Aura has been a notoriously difficult subject to study, compounded by two independent factors. The first is its semi-immaterial nature, and the second is the cultural sensibilities of people. As such, most major breakthroughs pertaining to Aura have only occurred within the last two-and-a-half centuries, in tandem with the invention of new technology. In the case of the latter, global paradigm shifts have worked to destigmatize the former, making scientific undertakings less publicly contentious.
The events that brought humanity to its current understanding of Aura—and the people responsible for that momentum—have been recorded for posterity. Listed below are their names, along with their contributions.
Dossiers
Cinchona Rigel — The founder of pneumatophysics. A separate post exploring the details of his life will be released on a later date.
Cerise Maida — The Kingdom of Atlas is famous for producing some of the world’s leaders in pneumatophysics, and Maida was no exception. Curiously, though, her work with Aura began not in a laboratory, but on a military base. As the archivist stationed at Fort Nubuck, Maida had access to numerous military records—including those dating back to the Great War. Despite the Old Mantic government’s conservative stance on Aura, she was surprised by the existence of an exhaustive catalog of Semblances, recorded from then-enlisted soldiers. Apothymetic data collation of that size was unheard of, given the public’s general lack of forthcomingness toward Semblance studies. Seized by the opportunity, Maida began to arduously sort them into categories, using the wide variety at her disposal to define them by unified criteria. Due to a provision in international law, military records from the Great War were considered public access, and thus exempt from nondisclosure statutes. The publication of her work overhauled the Semblance classification system into the fourteen categories used in the modern day. It’s a generally accepted fact that Maida’s successive work became the foundation of the Atlesian military’s Aura Research Division.
Purrow Gathao — Before she began her career in pneumatophysics, Gathao was apprenticed to an engineer in Coquina. In the fifteen years since the Great War ended, her workshop became a common stopover for Huntsmen seeking repairs on their armor and weapons. Gathao grew accustomed to idle chitchat as she hammered out dents and whetted blades. A recurring topic among her clients, she noticed, was the issue of Aura depletion. Huntsmen contending with Vacuo’s arid climate frequently had to expend their Aura on shielding, Semblance-usage, and thermoregulation. Without a way to monitor the rate at which it was consumed, many would find themselves stranded in the middle of the desert, with their Aura suddenly and abruptly depleted. The creation of the portable Aura-measuring device—the pulse—was Gathao’s solution. Over the years she refined the pulse, from simply measuring a person’s total Aura depletion rate, to determining what percentage of Aura usage was being alloted to each function. The original design (in the form of a wristband) remains the industry’s default model, although newer versions have been manufactured, such as scroll apps and collars/anklets for familiars.
Ilere Koya-Hark — Determining the factors for Semblance discovery was no small undertaking, especially when one considered the many competing theories that existed. Depending on who you asked, the answer varied, with some claiming that your Semblance could be determined by factors like your gender, or your name. Such was Hark’s experience when attempting to identify the underlying mechanisms. Over the course of two decades, they traveled across Anima, interviewing people who had unlocked their Semblance, and trying to identify common triggers. Hark saw the diversity of Semblances—and the scenarios in which they manifested—as evidence of an adaptive, multivariate phenomenon. They likened such a latent variable to cellular pluripotency, but without more concrete data, their observations were dismissed as anecdotes. That all changed when Hark demonstrated Auratic plasticity by venturing out into a thunderstorm, and walking away with an electrokinetic Semblance. Their unconventional experiment, while it laid the groundwork for hierarchical prioritization, set an unforeseen precedent. In the Mistrali language, the word koya has taken on a secondary meaning—to unlock a specific Semblance by subjecting oneself to danger. Healthcare professionals and academy professors alike are quick to condemn the practice of “baiting one’s Aura”; conversely, those in the field of dilonometry laud Hark’s experiment as the gateway to so-called designer Semblances.
Siþleon — Few individuals are as polarizing as Siþleon, the Matsu god-caller who, ironically, was responsible for colonizing Remnant’s pole. Not long after the first wave of immigrants arrived on Solitas’ shores, Siþleon claimed to have received a vision of a paradise at world’s end. If they followed the auroras inland, they would reach the place “where the lights touched the earth.” The residents of the recently-founded Evadne were skeptical—after all, vast expanses of inhospitable tundra, populated by Grimm, lay between them and their destination. In the end, Siþleon managed to convince a handful of followers to accompany him on his expedition north, where after several weeks of exhaustion, hunger, and predation, they found a Dust vortex. The City of Old Mantle was quickly established at the heart of the Auroral Plains. Unlike the other figures on this list, Siþleon’s contributions to Aura have less to do with pneumatophysics, and more to do with cultural and social norms. Siþleon wasn’t blind to his followers’ reverence, and he wasted no time in monopolizing it. Much of Atlas’ conservative ideology was set by him. The taboo of sharing what your Semblance is with another person is perhaps his most widespread legacy. The cultural backlash against Aura research of any kind can similarly trace its roots to Siþleon’s teachings, which held that Aura was holy, and to tamper with it in any way was blasphemous.
Arthur Watts — A distinguished polymath and the pride of Atlas, prior to his death. He was the kingdom’s foremost expert on Aura regenerative therapy, and a consultant for the SDC. His academic publications and achievements spanned a wide array of fields—archotherology, prostheses and orthotics, mechanical engineering, cybersecurity, and chemical engineering, just to name a few. By the time Watts entered his thirties, he had already made a name for himself in both his home country and abroad. With the eyes of the world upon him, perhaps it wasn’t all that surprising how quickly news spread when he was stripped of his medical license. The full extent of what happened isn’t known to the public (the Atlesian council made sure of that), but if rumors are to be believed, he appropriated government research and used it to perform an illegal surgery that resulted in someone’s death. However, before the council could conclude their investigation and formally level charges, Watts committed suicide. The controversy, public backlash, and nature of his death continue to be a source of gossip, even two decades later.
In a world where cities can be wiped off the map in a single night, history is vital to the continued survival of people. Especially where that history concerns their ancient nemesis. Success, failure; victories, mistakes—all events related to the Grimm (for better or worse) are worthy of recording, so that future generations might learn from them.
The individuals mentioned here have, in one way or another, been massively influential in Remnant’s scientific, cultural, and political landscapes, due to their work with the Grimm. Listed below are their names, along with their contributions.
Dossiers
Yuan Socotra — The founder of archotherology and author of The Archotheria, an encyclopedic book that details all manner of information concerning the Grimm. More information can be found on her here.
Naomi Dantalion — During the height of the Mistrali Empire (ca. 210 AB), the city of Rabenda was plagued by a string of high-profile disappearances and killings. Deaths of such nature weren’t uncommon; after all, Anima was the de facto heart of organized crime on Remnant, which included a thriving network of assassins, hitmen, and cutthroats. What made them noteworthy was the manner in which they’d been killed: clothes stripped from the victims, red eyes painted across their bare skin, and bodies found mangled just outside the city. All evidence pointed toward archotherolatrists (Grimm-worshippers), and judging by the mounting number of deaths, a cult. After weeks spent chasing dead ends, a city guard named Dantalion finally discovered their whereabouts. She successfully infiltrated their ranks by posing as an initiate, and gained their trust through attending underground sermons and paeans. Eventually, she was invited to participate in a ritual. Thanks to Dantalion’s intel, her fellow guards were able to apprehend members of the cult before the sacrifice could be completed. Although Dantalion was lauded for the risks she’d taken to save lives, she’s remembered for something far more interesting. In the weeks she spent impersonating a cultist, Dantalion often found herself in the company of not only people, but the Grimm that they deified. To her shock, the Grimm appeared to be acclimated to the members of the cult, and refrained from attacking them in favor of the victims that were offered up instead. Her tentative conclusion was that these particular Grimm were habituated to people, and under the right circumstances, were less dangerous. These observations laid the groundwork for what would one day become the habituation tactic—a technique used by some Huntsmen to decrease local Grimm aggression.
Evan S. Bantien — Bantien’s story was unremarkable for his time. A soldier who served in the King’s Army during the Great War, and like many of his comrades, discovered his Semblance as a result. In the aftermath of the war, Bantien found himself a despondent and broken man, unable to unsee the horrors nor return to his former life. He loathed the thought of inflicting his presence on people, and instead chose to seek out solace in the company of other killers—the Grimm. His Semblance granted him the power to cloak his Aura, allowing him to walk amongst them undetected. For a time, Bantien contented himself with wallowing in his grief, watching the Grimm as they went about their day. It didn’t take long for Bantien to start paying attention to their behavior. After three weeks, his interest in their comings and goings distracted him from his trauma. He would sit and watch the Grimm for hours at a time, jotting down their behavior in a tiny notebook. What started out as a coping mechanism soon became a hobby, and before long he was writing about his thoughts online. Eventually, his writing attracted the attention of a researcher by the name of Ezio Perez. He contacted Bantien, and the two quickly established a friendly rapport that evolved into a work partnership. Their mutual enthusiasm over the Grimm (aided by Bantien’s Semblance, and fueled by his desire to prevent future bloodshed) gave rise to the category system, which is today used for classifying Grimm species based on their threat level. Bantien’s original notes were later published in a book titled Amongst the Grimm. To the relief of those who knew him, Bantien was eventually encouraged by Perez to get therapy. It came as a surprise to no one when a year later Bantien proposed (and Perez said yes).
Isolda Bifrons — Bifrons was a Vacuose frontiersman, who made a living scavenging ruins for anything of value. A competent warrior, she spent months at a time scouting the wilds in search of abandoned towns, derelict shrines, old battlefields, and other vestiges of human occupancy. Life as a salvager was often lonely and dangerous, but highly lucrative. Bifrons made a decent living selling her finds to all manner of folks—private collectors, museums, scrapyards, and trading outposts, depending on what she managed to haul back. She made a name for herself as one of the few people bold enough to scour ruins with high Grimm densities. And (much to the unending gratitude of scientists) Bifrons also kept meticulous personal records on all of the places she visited, what items she found there, and how many Grimm frequented those areas. Years later, anthropologists and archotherologists would cross-reference her inventory data and ledgers with historical records. In doing so, they discovered a pattern between Grimm population dynamics and frequented areas where mass tragedies had occurred. A follow-up visit to these sites verified the existence of many previously-undiscovered psychometric imprints.
D. Merlot — Twenty-five years ago, Merlot was a household name in Vale. An eccentric pioneer whose company spearheaded numerous advances in security, especially where it concerned specimen acquisition, transport, and enclosure. His unorthodox methods allowed him to tailor safety measures to each species of Grimm, effectively standardizing industry practices and regulations, and dramatically reducing the number of containment breaches. In time, Merlot had an epiphany: it didn’t matter how efficiently he housed the Grimm as long as they continued to perish in their cages. If he wanted to increase the duration of their captivity, he would need to figure out how to prolong their lives—a challenge no scientist had yet to surmount. Merlot was undeterred. Like many archotherologists, he suspected that Grimm subsisted on either the Aura of their victims, or the very act of killing. To test this theory, Merlot asked Vale’s council to relinquish convicted prisoners to him as test subjects. When the council vehemently refused, he resorted to kidnapping people in secret. An estimated sixty victims were abducted and sacrificed in Grimm-related experiments. Knowledge of these kidnappings only became public when one of the Grimm managed to escape and destroy the facility, killing the victims and employees in the process (Merlot included). To this day, the identity and whereabouts of the renegade Grimm—better known as Merlot’s Beast—remain unknown.
Derecho — Derecho belongs to the aspects, the so-called Huntsman saints revered by many across Remnant. Although certain details of their life have been lost to time, Derecho is accredited with the idea of training animals to contend with Grimm. They hailed from Eastern Sanus’ northwestern coast, in the region that would come to be known as Forever Fall. According to one legend, Derecho was hunting when they crept upon a glade filled with deer. The herd itself wasn’t what intrigued them—after all, deer were a common sight amidst the red foliage. Rather, it was the Ursai that prowled among them while they grazed, entirely indifferent to each other, that gave Derecho pause. On a hunch, they snapped a twig, and immediately the deer fled while the Ursai attacked. Derecho pondered on that encounter later that day, while nursing a small wound. It wasn’t just the Grimm’s initial lack of hostility they found intriguing—it was their apathy toward anything other than people. Derecho wondered if that trait couldn’t be exploited. From here accounts differ, but it’s widely agreed that they began to use animals to assist in certain tasks—teaching dogs to attack while the Grimm were distracted by people, training hawks to deliver messages between villages and cities, and so on. Derecho even initiated the breeding program that led to the domestication of the rapier wasp as a perimeter guard, generations later. Modern Huntsmen still use dogs as fighting companions, and many birds are outfitted with cameras that can send real-time footage of Grimm to a Huntsman’s scroll. Animals’ indispensable presence in the field has made Derecho a venerable (if not apotheosized) figure, thanks to their life’s work. Amusingly, “Derecho” has become a popular name for pets.
