My main question about weapon tech has already been answered - I was actually almost looking forward to figuring out a more primitive but interesting combination weapon.  Good to know there is more flexibility there, though.

We can play Faunus characters, then, as long as we take into account that the prejudice against them will likely be very strong depending on the area they are going through - as children of those who lived through the Great War, they will probably have lots of memories of prejudice.

This brings up the matter of character age: The Academies start training at age 17 and go for four years, so none of our characters would theoretically be older than 21, right?

So, what about names?  The Great War was fought over the right to self-expression, but if the characters are children of the rising generation, they would have already had their names given to them prior to the color naming convention that pervaded the world.  I'm fine either way, I think the color naming convention is one of the distinctive setting points of RWBY - just curious how we should approach that for this, given the approximate timing.

One idea I've had already has been some type of bard or musician type of character who uses a "lute-saber."  I'm not entirely sure how serious I am about this idea, just kind of tossing it out there to see what people think.