Board Thread:Speculation House/@comment-85.130.101.225-20130816112245/@comment-24260323-20140417004737

Darkcloud1111 wrote: Not to mention it is a sword and a shield, those aren't exactly weapons with a bunch of things to hide. I mean Jaune seems to have his weapons with him a lot (as shown by Cardin's bullying), so he has probably at least examined his weapons. Unless it has some kind of ridiculously complex activation sequence to give it additional abilities or it relies on something like Dust, Aura, or maybe even a Semblance his great-grandfather had for support, I'm sure Jaune or at least Pyrrha would have noticed something. Now that you mention Semblances, what if it really has a hidden function that is activated by semblance, but ONLY the original wielder's semblance.

It makes sense that War-era weapons are passed down due to the fact they are so basic that anyone can use them granted they are trained. Modern RWBYverse weapons are tailored to each individual user to compliment their aura, abilities, and semblances to the point that nobody, but the original user can use it.