Remnant

RWBY takes place in a magitech world. According to episode 1, darkness used to cover the land, with creatures known as Grimm. Mankind was born from Dust,

World Map
The world map of RWBY was created by Monty Oum in 2012. It was based off of ketchup smears made on a napkin he was using while at IHOP.

Monty revealed his design in Rooster Teeth's 191st podcast on November 14th, 2012. He reveals and explains his first drafts of the map starting at about 9:00 in the video. His creation of the map started with him going to IHOP and squirting ketchup on a napkin then randomizing the blots to form the continents, which he then scanned and edited via Photoshop as a base for the world map.

Known Locations

 * Snowy Forest
 * Red Forest
 * Beacon Cliffs
 * Beacon Academy
 * Signal Academy
 * The Club
 * Vale

Known Landmarks

 * Cliffside Altar
 * White Castle
 * Railway line (Red Forest)

Trivia

 * Monty stated that he textured the World Map by taking different pictures of food. The different foods he used included mashed potatoes, steaks, ice cream, bread, corn, cereal, ramen, shrimp, tacos, pizza, lettuce, and possibly bacon.
 * An interesting note, two of the landmasses in the final version of the map closely resemble dragons, having serpentine-like bodies with what resembles wings, horns and jaws.
 * RWBY may have a long, rich history that has been lost to the current inhabitants, hinted at by the quote, "Legends. Stories scattered through time. Mankind has grown fond of recounting the exploits of heroes and villains, forgetting so easily that we are remnants, byproducts, of a forgotten past".