diff --git a/packages/api-observable/src/Base.ts b/packages/api-observable/src/Base.ts
index fcb87225b3..70b0ca7972 100644
--- a/packages/api-observable/src/Base.ts
+++ b/packages/api-observable/src/Base.ts
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ import { Vector } from '@polkadot/types/codec';
 import { Hash, Method } from '@polkadot/types/index';
 import Event from '@polkadot/types/Event';
 import { StorageFunction } from '@polkadot/types/StorageKey';
-import { assert, isUndefined } from '@polkadot/util';
+import { assert, isUndefined, isU8a } from '@polkadot/util';
 
 type MapFn<R, T> = (combined: R) => T;
 
@@ -104,9 +104,13 @@ export default class ApiBase {
   }
 
   // FIXME Remove when extending from api-rx
-  rawStorage = <T> (key: StorageFunction, ...params: Array<any>): Observable<T | undefined> => {
+  rawStorage = <T> (key: Uint8Array | StorageFunction, ...params: Array<any>): Observable<T | undefined> => {
     return this
-      .rawStorageMulti([key, ...params] as [StorageFunction, any])
+      .rawStorageMulti(
+        isU8a(key)
+          ? key
+          : [key, ...params] as [StorageFunction, any]
+      )
       .pipe(
         map((result: Array<T>): T | undefined =>
           result
@@ -117,7 +121,7 @@ export default class ApiBase {
   }
 
   // FIXME Remove when extending from api-rx
-  rawStorageMulti = <T extends []> (...keys: Array<[StorageFunction] | [StorageFunction, any]>): Observable<T> => {
+  rawStorageMulti = <T extends []> (...keys: Array<Uint8Array | [StorageFunction] | [StorageFunction, any]>): Observable<T> => {
     let observable;
 
     try {
diff --git a/packages/rpc-core/src/index.ts b/packages/rpc-core/src/index.ts
index 68766c4d6f..9c1ed456ac 100644
--- a/packages/rpc-core/src/index.ts
+++ b/packages/rpc-core/src/index.ts
@@ -179,12 +179,10 @@ export default class Rpc implements RpcInterface {
 
     if (method.type === 'StorageData') {
       // single return value (via state.getStorage), decode the value based on the
-      // outputType that we have specified
-      const type = (params[0] as StorageKey).outputType;
+      // outputType that we have specified. Fallback to Data on nothing
+      const type = (params[0] as StorageKey).outputType || 'Data';
 
-      if (type) {
-        return createType(type, base.raw);
-      }
+      return createType(type, base.raw);
     } else if (method.type === 'StorageChangeSet') {
       // multiple return values (via state.storage subscription), decode the values
       // one at a time, all based on the query types. Three values can be returned -
@@ -192,11 +190,8 @@ export default class Rpc implements RpcInterface {
       //   - null - The storage key is empty (but in the resultset)
       //   - undefined - The storage value is not in the resultset
       return (params[0] as Vector<StorageKey>).reduce((result, _key: StorageKey) => {
-        const type = _key.outputType;
-
-        if (!type) {
-          throw new Error('Cannot format StorageChangeSet, output type missing for key');
-        }
+        // Fallback to Data (i.e. just the encoding) if we don't have a specific type
+        const type = _key.outputType || 'Data';
 
         // see if we have a result value for this specific key
         const key = _key.toHex();
diff --git a/packages/types/src/StorageKey.ts b/packages/types/src/StorageKey.ts
index 1515d66898..f53ce1fd74 100644
--- a/packages/types/src/StorageKey.ts
+++ b/packages/types/src/StorageKey.ts
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ export default class StorageKey extends Bytes {
         return fn(arg);
       }
     }
+
     return value as Uint8Array;
   }