The Paleblood Hunt - A Bloodborne Analysis

The Paleblood
Hunt
A Bloodborne Analysis
by “Redgrave”

Dedicated to all those with a story to

tell
:
 I didn’t really like Dark Souls.
Objectively speaking, it’s a great game. The
gameplay is solid; the world is compelling; the
characters are interesting. Maybe it’s because,
Demon’s Souls fanatic that I was, I had hyped
the game up in my mind to such impossibly
high standards that there was no way it could
compete with my expectations. But I always
found that there was something missing in
Dark Souls: the unknown.
The story of Dark Souls is certainly
mysterious; the game avoided conventional
storytelling and instead gave the player the
burden of uncovering the truth on their own.
One could pull back the curtain of Anor Londo
and discover the machinations of Gwyndolin
and Frampt, or bring the Lordvessel to Kaathe
and learn of another layer to the story. Even
so, the story of Dark Souls was all too
grounded for me. It was the kind of story that
could be re-arranged and presented as fact,
with all of the mysteries solved like a novel
where, at the end of the book, the brilliant
detective goes over the evidence to the rest of
the characters and makes all the connections
for them.
Demon’s Souls had been different. In
Demon’s Souls, the answers hadn’t been there.
It’s no mystery that the concept of Souls
Lorehunting didn’t really exist with Demon’s
Souls other than a few notable exceptions like
GuardianOwl. The only real topic of debate
was whether or not the Old One was the God
of the Church. But there was no answer to
whether the Monumental was good or evil;
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 whether the Monumental was good or evil;
there was no explanation for how Biorr’s
armor could be found in Miralda’s well; the
mysteries behind Lord Rydell and the Old
Monk remained void of answers. They were
unknown.
Hidetaka Miyazaki, the genius behind the
Souls franchise, grew up in poverty in the city
of Shizuoka. Unable to afford any means of
entertaining himself, Miyazaki would spend
most of his childhood reading books found in
his local library. He was fascinated with
western tales of !ction, but his English was not
"uent enough to understand every single
word. Many times he would read a story and
!nd that he couldn’t understand half of it, and
so he would connect the words he could !nd
and !ll in the blanks, forming a story of his
own that used the pieces that had been laid
out before him.
I’ve read many criticisms of Bloodborne’s
story when compared with Dark Souls. Many
people !nd that the characters are empty, that
the story isn’t as entertaining, or that the plot
doesn’t seem to be as rich when compared to
the tale of Gwyn and the First Flame. And
they’re right. Bloodborne, like Demon’s Souls
before it, doesn’t have the answers to be solved
within the game itself. There’s no dialogue or
item description which can provide the player
with that crucial piece of information that
explains everything. There’s no brilliant
Paleblood Hunt-Finalized
detective who can explain it for someone in a
condensed manner. Bloodborne is a book
where half of the words can’t be understood,
and the reader must !ll in the blanks on their
own.
When I !rst wrote The Paleblood Hunt, I
wrote that there was a singular truth we could
discover. Seven months later, having read so
many different interpretations and discussion
on the game’s story, having discussed the plot
with so many different people, I can only now
see how absurd that the idea of a singular story
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 with so many different people, I can only now
see how absurd that the idea of a singular story
had been. There is no answer to Bloodborne’s
story. Bloodborne is a game that asks you
what YOU think. It asks you what YOUR story
is. What do YOU make of the unknown? This
is my story. This is my Eldritch Truth.

“The oldest and strongest emotion of

mankind is fear, and the oldest and
strongest kind of fear is fear of the
unknown.”
-Howard Phillips Lovecraft
Supernatural Horror in Literature, 1927

Chapter One: Byrgenwerth, Kos, and

The Vacuous Spider
“Byrgenwerth is an old place of learning. And
the tomb of the gods, carved out below
Yharnam, should be familiar to every hunter.
Well, once a group of young Byrgenwerth
scholars discovered a holy medium deep within
the tomb. This led to the founding of the
Healing Church, and the establishment of blood
healing. In this sense, everything sacred in
Yharnam can be traced back to Byrgenwerth.”
-Alfred, Vileblood Hunter

Everything begins at Byrgenwerth. An old

institution of learning, Byrgenwerth was built in
a peaceful, secluded area away from the
neighboring city and close to a great lake. It is
here that a group of individuals studied and
explored the depths of human knowledge.
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 For starters, I will use only information and
evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

There were many students at Byrgenwerth.

There were, however certain individuals of note
other than the students, !gures of importance
who formed the inner circle so to speak. While
not all of them were scholars, for the purpose of
this analysis I refer to this group of individuals
as The Byrgenwerth Scholars, or The Scholars
for short.

Those individuals who we can safely conclude

were members of The Scholars consisted of
Willem, Laurence, Micolash, and Carryl.

Master Willem was the head of the academy

and a highly respected !gure. All characters
who refer to Willem speci!cally refer
to Master Willem, indicating a deep respect for
the !gure even if they had differences in beliefs.
There is also a reference found on the Rune
Workshop Tool which refers to him
as Provost Willem. A Provost is an
administrator of an academic facility which
supports placing Willem as the head of the
academy and the leading !gure. Master
Willem's primary focus of study concerned the
limits of human intelligence.

Laurence is a much more enigmatic !gure,

especially for a character so important. From
the Beast skull in the Grand Cathedral, the PC
Hunter witnesses a memory of an encounter
between Laurence and Willem, in which
Willem accuses the younger Laurence of
betraying him. A note left on the Cathedral
staircase reads: ”Place your hand on the altar's
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 staircase reads: ”Place your hand on the altar's
sacred covering, and inscribe Master Laurence's
adage upon your "esh.” That Laurence would
be revered so highly infers that he must have
been a very signi!cant !gure in the Healing
Church. It is well documented that the Healing
Church has its roots in Byrgenwerth College.
The Byrgenwerth Student Uniform states:

The Healing Church has its roots in

Byrgenwerth, and naturally borrows heavily
from its uniform design. The focus not on
knowledge. or thought. but on pure pretension
would surely bring Master Willem to despair, if
only he knew."

Laurence’s title is that of the First Vicar, given to

him both by the Human Skull of the Nightmare
and in his boss !ght, con!rming this idea that
Laurence was in fact one of the Church's
founders, splitting from Byrgenwerth in an
event that I will later describe as The Schism.

Micolash, the boss encountered in the

Nightmare of Mensis, was another Scholar, as
evidenced by the tattered Byrgenwerth uniform
he wears during the PC Hunter's !ght against
him; Micolash also makes references to other
parts of Byrgenwerth, which I will discuss later.

Caryll was a genius runesmith who, through

unknown methods, could listen to the
scratchings and utterings of the Great Ones.
While she could not understand the inhuman
words they spoke, she managed to etch them
into visual symbols that could be identi!ed. The
Rune Workshop Tool describes Caryll
as: "Runesmith Caryll, student of Byrgenwerth,
transcribed the inhuman utterings of the Great
Ones into what are now called Caryll Runes."
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 There are also two individuals whom we
can believe to have been a member of The
Scholars: Gehrman and Maria.

Gehrman was most assuredly an acquaintance

of both Laurence and Willem. After the PC
Hunter defeats Rom, The Vacuous Spider, they
can !nd Gehrman whimpering in his sleep. "Oh,
Laurence... Master Willem... Somebody help
me…” Gehrman is also, as we know, the First
Hunter. He founded the Workshop, located in a
hidden section of the Upper Cathedral Ward,
and presumably worked with the Church in its
infancy. Judging from Gehrman’s combat
pro!ciency and master craftsmanship he may
have been a bodyguard for tomb excavations, a
groundskeeper, or a handyman for the college
at large.

Maria was Gehrmans’ greatest pupil, and

judging from the fact that she takes over the
Research Hall of the Healing Church it’s
possible that she was a student at the College
under Laurence. Regardless, her participation
in the events which would take place at the
Hamlet place her as a member of the
Byrgenwerth Scholars prior to its schism.

We can now look at The Scholars, having

explored each one individually, as a collective
unit. Willem, Laurence, Micolash, Gehrman,
Maria, and Carryl were individuals at the
Byrgenwerth College, an institution dedicated
to the furthering of knowledge and the
exploration of the massive Labyrinth built
underground. It was in this Labyrinth that the
scholars made the discovery that put every
event in Bloodborne into motion. Indeed, the
entire history of Bloodborne can be traced to a
single de!ning moment, in which The Scholars
discovered something deep inside the ancient
:
 single de!ning moment, in which The Scholars
discovered something deep inside the ancient
Pthumerian Crypts. The Executioner Alfred
muses that ”Once a group of young
Byrgenwerth scholars discovered a holy
medium deep within the tomb. This led to the
founding of the Healing Church, and the
establishment of blood healing.” Deep inside
the Labyrinth, the Scholars discovered the Old
Blood. It is unclear exactly what was found, but
in the upper level of the Byrgenwerth mansion
we can !nd the Empty Phantasm Shell."Empty
invertebrate shell that is said to be a familiar of
a Great One. The Healing Church has
discovered a great variety of invertebrates, or
phantasms, as they are called." Whatever was
found, it was proof of the existence of the Great
Ones. It's possible that The Scholars discovered
Ebrietas, the abandoned and left-behind Great
One who would later commune with the
Healing Church. They certainly discovered a
source of the Old Blood, the tainted Blood of the
Great Ones. Whether it was Ebrietas or
something else is unclear.

With the discovery of the Old Blood and of the

Great Ones, everything changed. Evolution
became the goal; push the limits of humanity
and become something greater. Ascend to the
level of the Great Ones, push humanity into its
next stage. A scribbled note found in the
Nightmare Lecture Hall reads: "Master Willem
was right. Evolution without courage will be the
ruin of our race." However it quickly became
apparent that some of The Scholars, and
Laurence in particular, differed in their belief on
how the evolution should be carried out.
Carryl's Eye Rune states:"Eyes symbolize the
truth Master Willem sought in his research.
Disillusioned by the limits of human intellect.
Master Willem looked to beings from higher
planes for guidance, and sought to line his brain
with eyes in order to elevate his
thoughts." However, Carryl's Metamorphosis
Runes state: "The discovery of blood made their
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 Runes state: "The discovery of blood made their
dream of evolution a reality. Metamorphosis,
and the excesses and deviation that followed,
was only the beginning."

There are two different resources that the

Player collects during their time in Bloodborne:
Blood Echoes, and Insight. The Echoes is the
method in which the PC Hunter gains power,
while Insight is the method in which the PC
Hunter gains knowledge. While some at
Byrgenwerth believed that knowledge and
understanding of the Great Ones and the higher
planes of existence would lead to humanity's
uplifting, others believed that it was through the
imbibing and fusing with the Old Blood that
would lead to humanity's ascension. This was a
concept anathema to everything Willem stood
for.

Fear the Old Blood

These two fundamentally opposed philosophies

would lead to The Byrgenwerth Schism. But
there’s another piece of the puzzle.

Upon entering the Fishing Hamlet in the

Hunter’s Nightmare, the PC Hunter is greeted by
a Fish Kin, muttering to himself. “Byrgenwerth…
Byrgenwerth… Blood-crazed murderers.
Blasphemous !ends.” If the player is wearing
the Milkweed Rune, the Kin will give them the
Accursed Brew, a skull which states: "Skull of a
local from the violated !shing village. The inside
of the skull was forcibly searched for eyes, as
evidenced by innumerable scratches and
indentations.” Whatever happened in the
Fishing Hamlet must have had to do with Kos,
the Great One found at the end of the area. Kos
is apparently dead, and while the Hunter battles
her Orphan, the Great One is long since past.
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 her Orphan, the Great One is long since past.
Other than the mutterings of the Fish Kin, there
is only one other reference to Kos, that of
Micolash in his commune with the cosmos.
"Ahh, Kos, or some say Kosm... Do you hear our
prayers? As you once did for the vacuous Rom,
grant us eyes, grant us eyes."

Rom, as the PC Encounters, is a large creature

who is found at the bottom of the Moonside
Lake of Byrgenwerth. Rom's title is that of the
Vacuous Spider, and is shown to be very
relatively weak. Rom's only real strength comes
from the Spider Kin she can spawn to defend
herself. Other than that she is barely capable of
defending herself either through carelessly
hurling shards of energy, or thrashing wildly at
her enemy.

When the player encounters Rom it is the

de!ning moment in which the story of
Bloodborne goes from a narrative of hunting
Beasts, to a sudden understanding that we, the
player, have barely even scratched the surface
of a much, much darker truth. But Rom is not a
fully developed Great One. Micolash, in his
communing with the cosmos, mutters: "As you
once did for the vacuous Rom, grant us eyes,
grant us eyes. Plant eyes on our brains, to
cleanse our beastly idiocy." Rom was not always
a Great One. Eyes planted on her brain to
cleanse her idiocy, Rom ascended
to become one.

Vacuous is de!ned in the Oxford English

Dictionary as: Having or showing a lack of
thought or intelligence; mindless. The word
comes from the Latin vacuus meaning empty,
along with the suf!x -ous, meaning by the
nature of.

Where does Rom come from? Who is she?

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 Where does Rom come from? Who is she?
What is her relation to the dead Great One,
Kos?

What follows is purely my own interpretation

and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.

In Byrgenwerth, Master Willem and his

students toiled away to excavate the
Pthumerian Labyrinth underground, studying
their Gods and exploring the depths of human
intellect. The Byrgenwerth Scholars made two
major breakthroughs in their study. Their !rst
major discovery was the Old Blood, speci!cally
the blood of a Great One. It’s possible that this
Great One was Ebrietas, as in the Byrgenwerth
Lecture Hall we can discover the Augur of
Ebrietas, and we also !nd an Empty Phantasm
Shell in the upper chamber of the Byrgenwerth
Mansion.

The second great discovery was Kos. When I

!rst played The Old Hunters DLC, my initial
impression had been that it was the
Byrgenwerth Scholars who had killed Kos.
When I shared this theory, many people
pointed to the description of the Kos Parasite,
which states: "When the carcass of Kos washed
up on the coast, its insides were teeming with
tiny parasites, unlike any found in humans.”
The argument was that this gave evidence to the
fact that Kos had actually been dead prior to the
encounter with Byrgenwerth, having washed up
on the coast of the Fishing Village. I was unsure
about my conclusion, and couldn’t decide
which theory was more accurate until I played
through the DLC a second time, and
encountered Maria. Her words, now that I had
seen the entire picture, made much more
:
 seen the entire picture, made much more
sense.

"A corpse... should be left well alone. Oh, I know

very well. How the secrets beckon so sweetly.”

When I !rst encountered Maria, I had naturally

assumed she was talking about her own corpse.
Now that I had seen what lay beyond her care,
everything fell into place. As I wandered
around the Fishing Hamlet, taking a look at its
design and features, I came to a new
conclusion. Look at how the Kin of the Hamlet
throw their harpoons; how the Giants wield
massive anchors; how the wrecks of mighty
vessels line the coast. This isn’t some quaint
!shing village, it’s a whaling town. Prior to the
release of the DLC, many players had noted the
strange masts sticking out of the water in the
Nightmare Frontier. We can now see the origin
of these vessels, the Hamlet. The villagers must
have sighted the Great One Kos in the sea one
day, rising up and taking arms to kill what they
must have perceived as a monster. They
hunted and killed her, losing many of their
whaling ships in the process but inevitably
returning home victorious, having sent the
creature back to the sea. But one day, the
corpse of the dead Great One washed ashore.
When the villagers investigated the corpse they
found it teeming with parasites, which soon
infected and took over the minds and bodies of
the villagers, transforming them into the Kin
that we encounter them as.

Inevitably, word reached Byrgenwerth of the

Dead God on the Hamlet. They sent two
individuals to investigate the Hamlet: Gehrman
and Maria. The announcement trailer featured
Gehrman with his scythe extended, walking
into the Hamlet, and we !nd Rakuyo, Maria’s
weapon, in the Hamlet well. Gehrman, the First
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 weapon, in the Hamlet well. Gehrman, the First
Hunter, traveled along with his greatest pupil
Maria to the Hamlet and butchered the Kin.
The skulls were split open in search of eyes,
and the First Hunters carved a path towards the
corpse of Kos. It is there that their greatest
blasphemy was committed. The elevator to the
Healing Church Research Hall depicts three
statues hovering over a child, examining it. The
central !gure is clearly a depiction of Master
Willem, featuring the same robes and hat as the
Provost’s.

Gehrman and Maria discovered that the dead

Kos had been pregnant, the unborn fetus still
intact. A very important rule of Bloodborne’s
world is that even if an individual dies in the
Waking World, their consciousness may still
remain in the Dreamlands. This is something
that will come up time and time again, and is
evidenced by the existence of Micolash’s corpse
in the Waking World. The unborn, murdered
Great One was brought back to the
Byrgenwerth college and dissected in the name
of science. What was retrieved was a Cord of
the Eye, the Orphan’s umbilical cord.

And it was then that Master Willem, the greatest

mind of Byrgenwerth, had an epiphany. Willem
is quoted in the description of the Great One's
Wisdom as having stated: "We are thinking on
the basest of planes. What we need, are more
eyes." The Eye is indeed the symbol
representing not just Insight in the Player's
HUD, but also the knowledge of the higher
planes of existence and of the Great Ones.

The discovery of the Great Ones and the Old

Blood split The Scholars into two opposing
factions. One I have dubbed the Loyalists, led by
Master Willem. The Loyalists believed in
evolution through Eyes, the accumulation of
insight that would let humanity ascend. This
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 insight that would let humanity ascend. This
faction consisted of Willem and his students.
The other faction, which I have dubbed the
Radicals, was led by Laurence. The Radicals
believed in evolution through Blood, the
accumulation of power that would let humanity
ascend. This faction consisted of Laurence,
Micolash, Gehrman, and Maria. While there was
never any violence between these two groups,
the fundamental difference in philosophy led to
them inevitably separating to go their own
paths. While the Loyalists remained at
Byrgenwerth, the Radicals founded the Healing
Church in the pursuit of further spreading their
knowledge of the Old Blood. This schism was
not also purely among The Scholars, but also
amongst the student populous, with many
leaving along with the Radicals.
With the Healing Church founding and
"ourishing, Willem and the remaining Loyalists
were no doubt concerned with the growing
power and the threat they posed. The Loyalists
were fully aware that the actions of the Healing
Church in their use of the Old Blood would lead
to the spread of the Scourge.

While the Healing Church spread throughout

Yharnam, Willem and the remaining Loyalists
got to work on their own research. This is
where things get fuzzy, as there is very little
information available on this crucial point in
time. What we can see however, are the results
of the Loyalists' research. If the PC Hunter
encounters Iosefka, or rather, the imposter
Iosefka, after the Blood Moon has risen, killing
her will make her drop a Cord of the Eye, which
states: Provost Willem sought the Cord in order
to elevate his being and thoughts to those of a
Great One, by lining his brain with eyes. The
only choice, he knew, if man were to ever
match Their greatness.

When the PC Hunter !rst enters the

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 When the PC Hunter !rst enters the
Byrgenwerth Mansion, they encounter on the
second "oor an NPC Hunter named Yurie who
appears to be a member of the Choir, the
highest-ranking members of the Healing
Church. Yurie wields A Call Beyond, the Choir's
ultimate weapon, and wears the Blindfold Cap
and the attire of a Choir member. This would
show that the Choir returned to the ruins of
Byrgenwerth from time to time in order to
gather old research notes or artifacts. That the
imposter Iosefka, who wields a weapon of the
Choir, an Augur of Ebrietas, would be in
possession of an artifact that once belonged to
Master Willem can be explained as such. The
Choir recovered this cord, the umbilical cord of
the Orphan of Kos. Willem had used the Cord
in order to further his research, delving deeper
and deeper into the depths of human
understanding. During this point in time, with
intense research into the Great Ones being
conducted at Byrgenwerth, the students were
twisted and transformed into Gardens of Eyes
for Willem’s research, bizarre Kin of the
Cosmos who would wander the grounds. Only
four individuals were left intact: Willem, Dores
the Graveguard, the unnamed Doorman who
would be entrusted with the password, and
Rom. Whatever happened to Caryll is unclear.
She may have left with Laurence. She may have
been transformed along with the student body,
or she may have left Byrgenwerth at an
unspeci!ed time to continue her research
separately. However, thanks to Caryll's
transcriptions of the inhuman uttering of the
Great Ones, the Loyalists learned of the
importance and the power held by great bodies
of water. If we take a look at any of the Lake or
Sea runes, we can !nd the description: "Great
volumes of water serve as a bulwark guarding
sleep, and an augur of the eldritch Truth.
Overcome this hindrance, and seek what is
yours." This even matches the game mechanics,
in which runes representing Water provide
defense and resistance.
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 defense and resistance.

"The grand lake of mud, hidden now, from

sight." - Micolash

Master Willem's last, great ritual ascended Rom

into that of a newly formed Great One. Placed at
the bottom of the Moonside Lake, Rom's empty
mind served as a shield for our physical plane,
protected by the great body of water. It
prevented the beckoning of the Moon Presence
by Laurence's Healing Church. With his
knowledge and understanding of the Great
Ones, Willem was able to use the Orphan’s
Cord to rebirth a new Great One and line her
brain with eyes, using her as a living bulwark to
seal away the Great Ones, the Nightmare, and
the Blood Moon. But where did she come
from?

We have already determined what the word

vacuous means: empty, mindless. This can very
easily be attributed to a simpleton, or to a
braindead being. Rom, however, certainly does
not seem to be braindead. While she is weak,
she most certainly attempts to defend herself in
the meager ways she has. In the interview with
Hidetaka Miyazaki found in the Of!cial Guide,
Mizayaki was asked what his favorite boss was.
His answer was Rom. But that in itself, while
interesting, was not very striking. However the
speci!cs of his response were… unexpected. “I
really like her. There are some oddly
cute aspects to her moves and modeling.” There
is another type being that is blank, empty. As
John Locke writes, human beings are born
Tabula Rasa, a blank slate, empty beings that are
given shape by our experiences. A being that
can be described as being cute, weak, helpless,
and empty of thoughts, lacking of experience:
an infant. From Miyazaki’s Interview:“In the
world of Bloodborne, babies that are treated as
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 world of Bloodborne, babies that are treated as
“special” in one way or the other are offered as
lures to the Great Ones. The Great Ones have
all lost their children because of their positions,
and as a result, they’re attracted to these
‘special’ babies. The babies are one way of
calling them.”

The Hunter can !nd a note in Yahar’gul left by a

dead Hunter, which reads: "Nightmarish rituals
crave a newborn. Find one, and silence its
harrowing cry." The !rst instinct of the player is
to associate this with the School of Mensis.
They must be using some child to perform a
ritual. But Micolash and his students are only
following in the footsteps of Master Willem,
trying to reproduce the success of the Loyalists
of Byrgenwerth.

“As you once did for the vacuous Rom, grant us

eyes, grant us eyes. Plant eyes on our brains, to
cleanse our beastly idiocy."

Rom is not a Great One, in fact Bloodborne

causes understandable confusion in that it
refers to many different species, factions, and
groups as belonging to the singular group The
Great Ones. But the Kin, ascended mortals who
bleed a clear Serum, are not fully "edged,
complete and whole Great Ones like the Moon
Presence, the Wet Nurse, or the Orphan. They
are merely Kin of the Cosmos. Killing Rom does
not drop a Great One Coldblood; killing Rom
drops a Kin Coldblood. Rom, daughter of
Willem, either literally or metaphorically, born
from the fruits of his research and used to
ascend. Look at the way she moves,
desperately backing away from the Hunter, she
seems almost infantile. Unlike the rest of the
Kin that are encountered, Rom has no natural
defense mechanisms other than her ability to
manipulate energy. If you ask me, she doesn’t
look like a spider at all… she looks like a
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 look like a spider at all… she looks like a
caterpillar. The infant form of a butter"y, one
that may have become beautiful.

Chapter Two: The Healing Church,

Lady Maria, Iosefka, and Ebrietas

"If it's blood you're interested in, you should try

the Healing Church. The church controls all
knowledge on blood ministration, and all
varieties of blood. Across the valley to the East
of Yharnam lies the town of the Healing Church,
known as the Cathedral Ward. And deep within
the Cathedral Ward is the old grand cathedral.
...the birthplace of the Healing Church's special
blood, or so they say. Yharnamites don't share
much with outsiders. Normally, they wouldn't
let you near this place, but... The hunt is on
tonight. This might be your chance..."
–Gilbert

It's the !rst concrete objective the PC Hunter

can make for themselves: Get to the Healing
Church and look for answers. The Healing
Church is the institution that, while it doesn't
technically rule over Yharnam, serves as the
City's anchor and structure. It is from the
Healing Church that the art of Blood
Ministration, the art that Yharnam would
become famous for, was !rst brought. With the
use of the Healing Church's special blood they
were able to cure any disease, forming a
religion devoted to the worship of Gods and
Blood. When tales of the curative properties of
Yharnam Blood spread, those suffering from
incurable diseases often traveled to Yharnam in
order to seek out their last chance at salvation.
The PC Hunter was one such individual,
according to promotional information leading
up to the release of Bloodborne. In search of
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 up to the release of Bloodborne. In search of
Blood that can cure any disease, the PC travels
to Yharnam. But what is the Healing Church?
Where does it come from? And, most
importantly, what is the secret behind
their special blood?

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

The !rst sane member of the Healing Church

the PC Hunter encounters is Alfred the
Executioner. From Alfred, the Hunter learns
more about the roots of the Healing
Church: ”The Healing Church is the foundation
of blood healing. Well, I'm a simple hunter,
quite unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the
institution. But I have heard that the holy
medium of blood healing is venerated in the
main cathedral. And that councillors of the old
church reside in the high stratum of the
Cathedral Ward. [. . .] The tomb of the gods,
carved out below Yharnam, should be familiar
to every hunter. Well, once a group of young
Byrgenwerth scholars discovered a holy
medium deep within the tomb. This led to the
founding of the Healing Church, and the
establishment of blood healing."

The short story is that a group of scholars in

Byrgenwerth discovered blood of incredible
power in the tombs underneath, speci!cally,
they discovered Old Blood. The Old Blood and
knowledge of the Great Ones that existed led to
a revolution in the college's theories and
experiments. But Master Willem, head of
Byrgenwerth College, disagreed with the idea of
using the Old Blood of the Great Ones to
advance humanity.
:
 advance humanity.

Fear the Old Blood - Master Willem, to

Laurence

This led to the Byrgenwerth Schism, in which a

group of scholars led by Laurence left
Byrgenwerth and founded the Healing Church.
There are four individuals whom we know were
founders of the Church, though there may very
well have been unnamed others: Laurence,
Gehrman, Micolash, and Maria. Laurence
became the First Vicar, founding a new religion
and promising a cure to any disease through the
use of his miraculous Blood Ministration. A note
found in the Grand Cathedral reads: "Heir to the
ritual of blood, purveyor of ministration. Place
your hand on the altar's sacred covering, and
inscribe Master Laurence's adage upon your
"esh." Laurence and his Blood Ministration
brought a new era into Yharnam, a culture of
Blood Worship spreading through the
population.

But with the tainted blood of the Great Ones

"owing through human veins, the Scourge of
the Beast came to Yharnam. Those who had
been ministered by the Old Blood were
susceptible to coming under the effects of the
Scourge. In response to this, Gehrman, one of
the men who had sided with Laurence in the
Byrgenwerth Schism, founded the Workshop.
Located in a hidden area of the Upper Cathedral
Ward, the Workshop was a place of training of
elite warriors, dispatched by the Church to hunt
the beasts and prevent panic from spreading
through the population. The Hunter Attire
reads: "One of the standard articles of hunter
attire fashioned at the workshop. A !ne piece of
hunter attire that provides stable defense to
anyone facing Yharnam's beastly threat. Allows
one to stalk beasts unannounced, by cover of
:
 one to stalk beasts unannounced, by cover of
night."

The last sentence is the most important: "Allows

one to stalk beasts unannounced, by cover of
night." Originally, the Workshop was likely a
secret institution. The Hunters wore no
symbols and had no uniform, save for the Saw
Hunter Badge which each kept in order to
identify one another:"Badge crafted long ago at
the Workshop. Attests to one's prowess as a
hunter of beasts. The Workshop is gone, and no
group recognizes this meaningless badge." They
operated in the cover of darkness, disposing of
Yharnamites who had succumbed to the
Scourge of the Beast, likely as more of a cover-
up than anything; anything to prevent the
public becoming aware that the blood they
were being administered was turning them into
monsters.

But what of Maria? According to Maria’s

Hunting Attire: "Among the !rst hunters, all
students of Gehrman, was the lady hunter
Maria. Maria is distantly related to the undead
queen, but had great admiration for Gehrman,
unaware of his curious mania." Born in
Cainhurst, Maria was a beautiful woman, no
doubt even by Cainhurst standards. While she
was a relative of the Queen, to the aristocratic
Nobles of Cainhurst this likely meant very little.
No doubt every Noble was dying to tell
everyone they knew about how they were
Annalise’s twelfth cousin seventh removed, and
so the relation probably didn’t mean much.
Unlike the rest of her people, however, Maria
disliked the use of blood-weaponry, as stated by
the Rakuyo: “This sword feeds not off blood, but
instead demands great dexterity. Lady Maria
was fond of this aspect of the Rakuyo, as she
frowned upon blood blades, despite being a
distant relative of the queen.” However after
the events that took place at the Fishing Hamlet,
Maria could no longer bare to wield a weapon.
:
 Maria could no longer bare to wield a weapon.
As she and Gehrman retrieved the Orphan for
Byrgenwerth, Maria threw Rakuyo into the
Hamlet’s well: “One day, she abandoned her
beloved Rakuyo, casting it into a dark well,
when she could stomach it no longer.”

We as players !rst hear of Lady Maria from the

patients in the Nightmare Research Hall. They
call out to her and speak of her with genuine
admiration and even love. They ask her to hold
their hand or to help them, to care for them.

"Key to the balcony on the !rst "oor of the

Research Hall. Lady Maria of the Astral
Clocktower gave this to the patient, Adeline.
Maria had hoped Adeline would !nd comfort in
the faint breeze that carried the scent of "owers
from the outside, but Adeline couldn't fathom
her intentions." -Balcony Key

It seems that Maria genuinely cared for the

patients of the Church’s experiments, as she
went out of her way to try and make Adeline
more comfortable in her suffering. While the
experiments themselves were gruesome,
there’s no evidence that there was any
malicious intent towards the patients
themselves. Though it might be their madness,
the patients all seem to be there willingly, even
apologizing for having been failures in the
experimentation.

But eventually, Maria died. Her passing marks

the end of an era, the beginning of the
transition from the old Church and the old
Hunters into the new ones, the ones that we
!nd ourselves engaging in the present. But how
did Maria die? When we meet her, she is
noticeably dead, at least as dead as a
consciousness can be. The evidence seems to
:
 consciousness can be. The evidence seems to
point towards a slit throat, as the blood on her
blouse has traveled down from her neck. In
addition, during her boss !ght she visibly stabs
herself in the throat in order to initiate the
second phase of the battle. This seems to point
towards Maria’s death as an act of suicide,
slitting her own throat.

But let us pause for a moment to remember the

individual other than Gehrman and Maria who
left with Laurence: Micolash. There is very little
information on Micolash and on the School of
Mensis, which was no doubt founded to
continue the work at Byrgenwerth. Micolash
founded his institution in a city hidden by the
Church, Yahar’gul. From here, Micolash could
research in secret while supposedly reporting
to Laurence. The Upper Cathedral Ward Key
states:"The upper echelons of the Healing
Church are formed by the School of Mensis,
based in the Unseen Village, and the Choir
occupying the Upper Cathedral Ward." The
School of Mensis was likely there !rst, as its
research more closely resembles Byrgenwerth,
and its practice of researching in secrecy
matches the Healing Church's early strategy of
working, for the most part, behind the scenes.

Everything changed with Old Yharnam. Ashen

Blood was a horrible epidemic that spread like
wild!re. Naturally, in order to cure the disease,
Blood Ministration was used in excess, on each
and every one of the victims. This would lead to
the Scourge, as referenced by the antidote
tablets: "Small medicinal tablets that counteract
poison. Used to treat ashen blood, the baf"ing
sickness that ravaged Old Yharnam long ago.
These tablets only provide short-term relief.
The ashen blood ailment eventually triggered
the spread of the beastly scourge."

After Old Yharnam, the Scourge could no

:
 After Old Yharnam, the Scourge could no
longer be kept a secret. The Workshop was
disbanded and replaced with a new group that
would become the Healing Church Hunters, led
by the Hunter Ludwig. The Workshop was no
longer necessary, and was sealed away. It is
likely at this time that the Healing Church took
more control over Yharnam, the Church
effectively acting as the governing body of the
City. With the Church !rmly seated in power as
the saviors who had brought Blood Ministration
to Yharnam, the Choir was formed in the upper
reaches of the city.

By now, the Healing Church was being run not

by Laurence and Gehrman, but by the
generation who came after them. The Choir
ruled over the Church while Ludwig's Hunters
formed the new ranks of Church's police force.
The School of Mensis remained, but likely grew
further and further apart from the Church over
time. Likely dissatis!ed with the progress of
research that had been made since the Church
split from Byrgenwerth, the Choir began to
research the blood of the Great Ones.

The Choir Garb states:"Members of the Choir

are both the highest-ranking clerics of the
Healing Church, and scholars who continue the
work that began at Byrgenwerth." It is uncertain
exactly how much of the Church's religion was
merely used as a !gurehead. It's not clear if the
Choir truly believed that the Great Ones were
Gods, or if they simply used that as a way to
legitimize their research. They certainly
acknowledged that the Great Ones, if not Gods,
were certainly God-like. The level of detail
devoted to the sacred symbols and carvings in
the Church can only display a veneration of the
Great Ones as superior beings, speci!cally the
Formless Great One, Oedon. To get a closer look
at the Choir's motivations and research, let's
take a moment to analyze Doctor Iosefka, a
:
 take a moment to analyze Doctor Iosefka, a
character whom the PC Hunter encounters very
early on in the story.

Bloodborne begins with the PC Hunter

awakening in the !rst "oor of Doctor Iosefka's
clinic after receiving their very !rst blood
ministration. Iosefka is the very !rst NPC that
the Hunter can encounter in Bloodborne; after
the Hunter dies to the Wolfbeast and is sent to
the Hunter's Dream, returning with weaponry
marking them a Hunter, if the Player travels
back up the stairs towards the clinic they will
encounter the door locked and barred. Through
a crack in the door we see a woman dressed in
white, with whom we can speak. "Are you... out
on the hunt? Then I'm very sorry, but... I cannot
open this door. I am Iosefka. The patients here
in my clinic must not be exposed to infection. I
know that you hunt for us, for our town, but I'm
sorry. Please. This is all that I can do." Iosefka
will assist the Hunter by providing them with
her specially concentrated Blood, capable of
fully healing the Hunter. "The product of a slow
and careful re!nement process, this rare blood
vial appears to be a clinic original." The Hunter
can return to Iosefka at any time to collect more
Blood, but can only carry a single vial at the
time. This changes, however, after the death
of Father Gascoigne.

This time, when the Hunter comes to Iosefka,

there will be no blood provided. Instead, the
Doctor will ask the Hunter to direct any
individuals they come across to her clinic, so
that they can be treated and cured. From this
point onwards, the Doctor speaks with a slightly
deeper tone of voice, and in fact is voiced
completely by a different person. While
Iosefka's voice actress is credited as being Jenny
Funnel, there is a second credit to an Imposter
Doctor, credited to an actress named Lucy
Briggs-Owen. From this point onwards, Iosefka
:
 Briggs-Owen. From this point onwards, Iosefka
will ask the Hunter to bring her more and more
people, assuring that they are being taken
proper care of. As a reward for the Hunter if the
Hunter begins to bring her people, she will
eventually start providing the player with Blue
Elixirs. Blue Elixir is described as a:"Dubious
liquid medicine used in strange experiments
conducted by high ministers of the Healing
Church." A rather chilling item indeed for a
common blood ministration doctor to be
carrying.

But it isn't unless the Hunter !nds the back

entrance to the Clinic, accessible by climbing
up an adjacent building connected to the
Forbidden Woods, that the truth of Iosefka's
research can be discovered. Here, the results of
the research is discovered. Any NPCs that the
Hunter sent in the past to Iosefka's clinic will be
found, transformed and twisted into Celestials,
blue-skinned Kin of the Cosmos. If the Hunter
sent nobody to the Clinic, they will only !nd a
single Celestial, located in the Sickroom. Upon
its death, it drops one of Iosefka's Blood Vials,
possibly one that was being saved for the
Hunter upon the player's return. These are
presumably the remains of the true Iosefka
whom the player meets at the beginning of the
game. As the Hunter travels upstairs towards
the top of the clinic, one of two events will take
place.

If the Hunter goes to the top of the the

clinic before the Blood Moon has risen, the
Imposter Iosefka will attack the Hunter. She
wields a Threaded Cane and a Repeating Pistol,
and if her health is low enough will even attack
the Hunter with A Call Beyond, the ultimate
weapon of the Healing Church: "One of the
secret rites of the Choir. Long ago, the Healing
Church used phantasms to reach a lofty plane
of darkness, but failed to make contact with the
outer reaches of the cosmos. The rite failed to
:
 outer reaches of the cosmos. The rite failed to
achieve its intended purpose, but instead
created a small exploding star, now a powerful
part of the Choir's arsenal. At times, failure is
the mother of invention." The False Iosefka is
one of four NPCs who wield A Call Beyond, the
other three being Micolash, the Forgotten
Madman, and Yurie, the Choir Member found in
the Byrgenwerth Mansion. We can infer from
this revelation that the False Iosefka is a
member of the Choir, relocating from the Upper
Cathedral Ward to Iosefka's Clinic in order to
continue her research, possibly because of the
fact that due to the spread of the Scourge of
Beasts the Cathedral Ward is no longer a safe
place to operate. Upon killing the False Iosefka,
she will drop a powerful Oedon Writhe rune.
Interestingly enough, the Hunter can locate a
weaker version of the Oedon Writhe rune by
killing Adella the Nun, or by looting it off of the
Celestial she becomes if the Hunter sent her to
Iosefka's Clinic. This connection only reinforces
the False Iosefka's af!liation with the Church,
and that she held a rank of higher importance
than a nun. But this is only one of two possible
events that can occur in Iosefka's clinic.

If the Hunter goes to the top of the

clinic after the Blood Moon has risen, they will
!nd her on all fours, perched on one of the
operating tables. ''God I'm nauseous... Have you
ever felt this? It's progressing. I can see things... I
knew it, I'm different. I'm no beast... I... Oh...
God, it feels awful... but, it proves that I'm
chosen. Don't you see? How they writhe, writhe
inside my head... It's... rather... rapturous...'' With
enough time to conclude her research, Iosefka
has begun her ascension. Killing her can drop
what I believe is the Orphan’s umbilical cord,
which was recovered by the Choir.

But what was this research? What did the Choir

do? How did they do it? This brings us the !nal
:
 do? How did they do it? This brings us the !nal
topic of our current analysis: Ebrietas, Daughter
of the Cosmos. Ebrietas is found in the depths
of the Orphanage, described as: "Key to the
Orphanage, birthplace of the Choir. The
Orphanage, shadowed by the Grand Cathedral,
was a place of scholarship and
experimentation, where young orphans
became potent unseen thinkers for the Healing
Church. The Choir, that would later split the
Healing Church, was a creation of the
Orphanage." We have established previously
that it was originally the School of Mensis which
performed research for the Church in the
secrecy of Yahar’gul, however with the growth
of the Church's power after the cleansing of Old
Yharnam there was no longer a need for
secrecy and a new effort was put forward into
spreading the Old Blood. It would be the Choir
who would ful!ll this need, with the Orphanage
as their laboratory.

Note that the Orphanage is located directly

behind the Grand Cathedral. We can recall
Gilbert mentioning that:"Deep within the
Cathedral Ward is the old grand cathedral. ...the
birthplace of the Healing Church's special
blood." But the Cathedral is not the source of the
blood. While it is provided to the
public from the Grand Cathedral, it actually
originates in the Orphanage. From Ebrietas, and
the Celestials. Ebrietas is the left-behind Great
One, whatever that means, and communed and
worked with the Healing Church in their
research. We !nd multiple references to this.

"One of the secret rites of the Choir, high-

ranking members of the Healing Church. Use
phantasms, the invertebrates known to be
augurs of the Great Ones, to partially summon
abandoned Ebrietas. One of the few rites that
allow one to directly utilize the power of the
Great Ones, and evidence that the Choir had
approached the eldritch Truth." - Augur of
:
 approached the eldritch Truth." - Augur of
Ebrietas

"Great chalices unlock deeper reaches of the

labyrinth. The Great Isz Chalice became the
cornerstone of the Choir, the elite delegation of
the Healing Church. It was also the !rst Great
Chalice brought back to the surface since the
time of Byrgenwerth, and allowed the Choir to
have audience with Ebrietas." - Great Isz Chalice

But who is Ebrietas, what is her purpose? What

research did she allow the Healing Church to
perform, and what relation does she have to the
Great Ones and the Old Blood?

What follows is purely my own interpretation

and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.

The Healing Church operated in secrecy in its

formative days. Micolash slowly continued his
own research into the Old Blood through
kidnappings and experimentation. Laurence
administered the Old Blood to the ill, and those
who succumbed to the Scourge of the Beast
were eliminated under cover of darkness by
Gehrman's Hunters. While this was going on,
the Church quietly continued their research
into the Great Ones, independent from
Byrgenwerth. Initially, the only Great One that
the Healing Church had identi!ed had been
Kos, the Great One from the depths of the
ocean. The Church’s experiments into the
Great Ones therefore revolved around water, as
described by the Brain Fluid: In the early days of
the Healing Church, the Great Ones were linked
to the ocean, and so the cerebral patients would
:
 to the ocean, and so the cerebral patients would
imbibe water, and listen for the howl of the sea.
Brain "uid writhed inside the head, the initial
makings of internal eyes. It was a fruitless
pursuit, however, for as far as we know the
Great Ones do not originate from the sea, but
from the Dreamlands and the Cosmos. As such,
the experiments were failures. Overseeing the
research from the Astral Clocktower was Lady
Maria.

After the Hamlet Massacre, Maria refused to

hunt again. Instead, she began to run research
towards the Great Ones for the budding Healing
Church. But her thoughts could never leave the
blasphemous nature of what she and Gehrman
had done at the Hamlet, how the Orphan had
been ripped from its mother’s womb. Nor
would she be allowed to forget.

“Atonement for the wretches… By the wrath of

Mother Kos.”

Not all of the Hamlet had been destroyed. The

parasites that inhabited their Mother Kos had
managed to infest the villagers, transforming
them into ascended Kin of the Cosmos.
Gehrman was the First Hunter, and Maria his
greatest pupil. In this sense, they can be seen as
the Father and Mother of all Hunters. Anyone
who calls themselves a Hunter, no matter what
organization they associate themselves with, is
a descendent in some way from Gehrman and
Maria, who murdered the Orphan of Kos.

“Curse the !ends, their children too, and their

children, forever true.”

Perhaps Maria was haunted by unending

nightmares of what she had done. Perhaps, in
:
 nightmares of what she had done. Perhaps, in
her frustration, she desperately continued her
experiments. Surely something had to come
out of the atrocities she had committed? But
each and every one of her experiments was
another failure, another dead end. The patients
began to notice her frustration with them,
sobbingly apologizing for their failures, begging
for her forgiveness. Maybe over time she
became less and less compassionate with the
patients, and more and more wracked with
guilt. On one hand, her desire to uncover the
truth behind Kos and the Great Ones could not
be stopped, but on the other hand she cared for
the patients of the Research Hall and did not
want to see them suffer. She could see only one
way out.

"Oh, I know very well. How the secrets beckon

so sweetly. Only a honest death will cure you
now. Liberate you, from your wild curiosity." -
Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower.

And so she ended her own life. Her death

marked the end of an era. By this point,
Micolash and the school of Mensis had already
begun to draw further and further away from
the rest of the Healing Church. With her death,
Gehrman spiraled into depression and the elite
Workshop was sealed away and abandoned.
The old, secretive, quiet Healing Church had
begun to die, and may have fallen apart
completely were it not for the events of Old
Yharnam. The Church had always relied on
gaining new followers through the use of their
miraculous disease-curing blood, and Old
Yharnam gave them the perfect opportunity to
display their religion to the masses. After Old
Yharnam's cleansing the Healing Church
exploded in power and fame. They could no
longer operate in secrecy, and needed a much
more signi!cant source of the Blood.
:
 "The Great Isz Chalice became the cornerstone
of the Choir, the elite delegation of the Healing
Church. It was also the !rst Great Chalice
brought back to the surface since the time of
Byrgenwerth, and allowed the Choir to have
audience with Ebrietas."

And so the Choir was born. An elite delegation

of old scholars and clerics, the Choir would
become the new ipso-facto leaders of the
Healing Church. The Choir plunged into the
tomb, deeper than anyone had gone since the
days of Byrgenwerth, looking for a greater
source of Blood and a way in which to bring
their research to the next level. They traveled to
the ruins of the Pthumerian City of Isz, which
had not been entered since the time of the
Byrgenwerth Scholars. They went to meet with
Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos.

The Great Isz Chalice was relocated to the

Orphanage located behind the Grand Cathedral
and would serve as the main laboratory for the
Choir. Interestingly, we see many, many
carriages throughout our time in Yharnam.
Many players will recall seeing or leaving notes
in front of them with charming or amusing
words such as despicable infant. But... where
are all the babies? We encounter no child-sized
cof!ns in the streets of Yharnam, but many,
many, many carriages. Where we do !nd child-
sized cof!ns is in the Upper Cathedral Ward.

In the Orphanage, the Choir communed with

Ebrietas and used their new knowledge to
experiment on the babies that were either
abandoned or sent to the Orphanage. It is even
possible that, after the widespread epidemic of
the Scourge, the Choir went through the public
and gathered all babies and children of
Yharnam under the pretense of protecting
:
 Yharnam under the pretense of protecting
them until the Hunt was over. Yharnamites
would have no reason not to trust the Church,
and were likely delighted that their governing
body had such a concern for the welfare of their
children.

In the Lumen"ower Gardens, we can see the

results of their experiments. Look at the way the
Celestials seems to grow from the ground. Even
the name garden seems to suggest an almost
sickening way in which the Celestials were
harvested from the ground like a crop. This was
the source of Yharnam's special blood. The
children who were elevated to becoming
Celestials were then harvested and used as
sources of Blood for the Church, a renewable
resource that would allow them to provide the
entire City with as much Blood as it needed.

The False Iosefka was one such researcher, who

"ed to the Clinic after the Upper Cathedral
Ward was lost to the Scourge. The presence of
Scourge Beasts in the Upper Cathedral Ward
only proves that the Scourge was too much for
even the Choir to handle, and that the
researchers likely "ed. One researcher "ed to
Byrgenwerth, the !rst member of the Choir that
the PC Hunter encounters. The Choir Member,
Yurie, is seen wandering the second "oor of
Byrgenwerth Mansion. She even wears a
Blindfold Cap, reminding us that: "Members of
the Choir are both the highest-ranking clerics of
the Healing Church, and scholars who continue
the work that began at Byrgenwerth. The eye
covering indicates their debt to the teachings of
Master Willem, even though their paths
diverged."

The Choir had an enormous respect for Master

Willem, even though they split away from him.
There was never any violence between the two
:
 There was never any violence between the two
factions in Byrgenwerth, only a difference in
philosophy that led to an inevitable separation.
It is no wonder that the Choir never disposed of
Master Willem, they truly saw him as a highly
respected !gure in their history. In fact, Master
Willem had achieved what the Choir so
desperately yearned for: He had ascended to
the level of the Gods.

In the beginning days of Bloodborne’s release,

all anyone could talk about in regards to Lore
was Iosefka. Who is she? Is she an imposter?
When do they switch? Which is the real one?
So much focus was placed on the False Iosefka
that the real one got swept away. People were
so engrossed with the revelation that Iosefka
was replaced with an imposter that they
stopped looking at the original. Who was
Iosefka? Like the imposter, she wears the White
Church Garb, which tells us: “These doctors are
superiors to the black preventative hunters, and
specialists in experimentally-backed blood
ministration and the scourge of the beast. They
believe that medicine is not a means of
treatment but rather a method for research. and
that some knowledge can only be obtained by
exposing oneself to sickness." This implies that
Iosefka was a high-ranking member of the
Church, and a specialist on experimental blood.
Now look at the back of Iosefka’s clinic. Bodies
have been dumped into pits, vials upon vials
upon vials of blood have been collected,
hundreds of research notes have been written.
There are also Celestials in the Forbidden
Woods, who appear to have wandered off from
the Clinic. How could this be the work of the
False Iosefka, when the original Iosefka doesn’t
get replaced until the death of Father
Gascoigne. Furthermore, how was she replaced
in the !rst place? There is absolutely no
evidence whatsoever that it is possible to copy
someone’s face. There’s only one type of
woman that has the same face as another: a
sister. In the back of Iosefka’s clinic we !nd a
:
 woman that has the same face as another: a
sister. In the back of Iosefka’s clinic we !nd a
half-transformed Celestial, dead on an
operating table. Iosefka isn’t some innocent
doctor, she’s the one who invented the process
in the !rst place. This explains why one of
Iosefka’s Blood Vials can be found in the
Nightmare of Mensis, as the School of Mensis
and the Choir shared their research. It’s
possible that Iosefka’s Blood Vial is, itself, the
key to the Celestial transformation; a clinic
original. Who knows what might have
happened had we consumed enough of it.

When the False Iosefka "ed to the Clinic, she

brought with her an artifact that the Choir had
previously recovered from Byrgenwerth, the
Orphan’s Cord of the Eye. The False Iosefka
sought to ascend just as Master Willem had, by
lining her brain with eyes in the manner he had
done so many years ago. "How they writhe,
writhe inside my head... It's... rather...
rapturous...'' She isn't pregnant at all, but instead
has run out of time to continue her
experimentation. In her last ditch effort, she
imbibes Willem's Cord. But it doesn't work, as
evidenced by the fact that she bleeds a dark red.

“Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt”. The !rst

note that the Player receives. Many, many
players have noticed that there are certain
enemies which bleed not red, but a clear and
almost pale colored blood. However, this is
not the speci!c Paleblood. If this indeed was
the blood of the Great Ones, there would be a
few !gures whom we would believe to bleed
pale, but in fact bleed a dark red themselves:
Amygdala, the Orphan, the Wet Nurse, and the
Moon Presence. There are however, certain
!gures which bleed what I call, Serum:
Celestials, Brainsuckers, Master Willem, Rom,
and Ebrietas. Rom, an ascended mortal, does
bleed red if the Hunter attacks her stomach, as
do her Spider Kin. But if the Hunter attacks the
:
 do her Spider Kin. But if the Hunter attacks the
eyes and heads of Rom or her progeny they
bleed the Serum of the Kin. Serum is not blood
of the Great Ones, but rather blood of the Kin of
the Cosmos, those who were once mortal but
ascended to becoming Kin of the Great Ones.
Notice how Ebrietas is mentioned as being
the Daughter of the Cosmos. But this doesn't
follow, as every Great One loses its child.
Instead, the Great Ones yearn for surrogates.

Ebrietas was possibly Pthumerian, as she is

found by the The Scholars in a Pthumerian city.
It is well documented that the Pthumerians’
research and experimentation with the Old
Blood led to their ascension as they neared the
Eldritch Truth, however they were struck down
before they could truly to ascend to being Great
Ones. The Scourge of Beasts spread throughout
the people, the Blood Moon rose. The Great
Ones descended, and a womb was left with
child. Yharnam's pregnancy with Mergo was a
failure and so in search of a surrogate, Ebrietas,
possibly a researcher of Pthumeru, ascended to
the level of the Great Ones. It is so very
interesting to me how Ebrietas is repeatedly
referred to as having been left behind. Ebrietas
is not a true Great One, instead she was
ascended to becoming Kin just as Willem did.
The Pthumerians are ancient, who knows how
long it took for her to develop into her current
form? Perhaps in a thousand years, Master
Willem will look much like her as well.

She was abandoned, as the Great Ones left after

the devastation of Pthumeru. And so she waited
in the Labyrinth, caring for the Phantasms, small
slug-like creatures which were named as being
familiars of the Great Ones. And when The
Scholars stumbled upon her in Isz, she would
!nally have an outlet with which to commune
with the outside world.
:
 Willem and The Scholars met with Ebrietas,
and through her they began their research of
the Old Blood, the tainted blood of Ebrietas,
surrogate child of the Cosmos. It was through
Ebrietas' tainted blood that the tragedy which
struck Pthumeru would be doomed to repeat
itself in the city of Yharnam.

Ebrietas seems to get her name from the

Ebrietas Butter"y, a species of butter"y found in
South America, which matches the, although
admittedly distorted form, of Ebrietas as having
an almost Butter"y-like appearance. When we
meet her, she is found in front of a corpse, a
corpse of a Vacuous Spider. Remember that
even though something may die in the Waking
World, its consciousness can continue to
survive in the Dreamlands. Ebrietas had lost
her daughter, Rom. It's a tragedy really: Every
Great One loses its child.

But there were many surrogates to be found in

the baby carriages of Yharnam.

Chapter Three: Djura, The Powder

Kegs,
Ashen Blood, and Old Yharnam

“Old Yharnam, burned and abandoned by men,

is now home only to beasts. They are of no
harm to those above. Turn back...or the hunter
will face the hunt."
-Djura, Retired Hunter

The PC Hunter encounters Djura for the !rst

:
 The PC Hunter encounters Djura for the !rst
time upon entering Old Yharnam, in which
Djura warns the hunter to leave. When the PC
Hunter fails to comply, he is none too pleased
and becomes aggressive in his defense of Old
Yharnam. But to really discover who Djura is,
let's !rst take a look at the history of the heretics
of the workshop, the Powder Kegs.

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

The Powder Kegs were, and I use the

term were intentionally, a group of hunters
with a "air for the dramatic and a love of
complexity, intricacy, and explosiveness in their
designs. They deviated from the Hunting style
of simplicity in design developed by Gehrman
the First Hunter, and preferred ambitious (or
excessive depending on your point of view)
weapon design.
In"uenced by a love of "ame and a desire to
crush and burn, they developed their main
weapon of choice, the Boom Hammer, which is
described as:
"A trick weapon used by the old hunters, and
crafted by the workshop heretics, the Powder
Kegs. A giant hammer equipped with a
miniature furnace. When ignited and !red, it
emits a volley of "ame that explodes furiously
upon impact. Crush the beasts, then burn them
- the brute simplicity of the Boom Hammer was
favored by hunters with an acute distaste for
beasts."
Another slightly rarer Powder Keg weapon
developed was the Stake Driver, Djura's
personal weapon of choice. The Stake Driver is
described as:
:
 described as:
A trick weapon fashioned by the workshop
heretics, the Powder Kegs. The stake driver
allows for high-damage critical attacks, but is
dif!cult to use and leaves its wielder wide open,
but none of this should bother a mere Powder
Keg.
These two new trick weapons, among others
like the Ri"e Spear and Whirligig Saw, were
drastically different from the previous designs
of the Hunter's Workshop. However the Powder
Kegs didn't settle with trick weapons, even
trying to implement bigger and stronger
!repower into their arsenal with the Cannon
and Gattling Gun.

We can also give the Powder Kegs credit for the

design of the Rope Molotov Cocktails, seeing as
gaining the Powder Keg Badge unlocks them at
the Bath Messenger.

At some point in time, the Powder Kegs were

labeled heretics and exiled from the workshop.
Presumably, the Powder Kegs are no more, as all
references to them are in the past tense, and
even their badge description refers to them as
the late Powder Kegs. They were very likely
disbanded or slain quite a long time ago, seeing
as nobody seems to reference them. Their
association with the Workshop only lends
credence to the idea of the Powder Kegs being a
relatively old faction, as the Workshop itself is
no longer a relevant institution as evidenced by
the Saw Hunter Badge: The Workshop is gone,
and no group recognizes this meaningless
badge, except the messengers in the bath who
understand its profundity. The only remaining
trace of Powder Kegs is found in the Retired
Hunter Djura.
So who is Djura? His of!cial description
reads: "An old veteran hunter who is said to
possess amazing skill. No one has seen him in
:
 possess amazing skill. No one has seen him in
many years, and he looks like he's been on his
own for some time." We learn more from the
description of the Grey Wolf Cap which states it
as:
"Attire of the retired hunter Djura. This worn
wolf cap was his trademark. Djura is known
through his contact with the Powder Kegs, the
heretics of the workshop. He is said to have
been both uncommonly kind and dreadfully
foolish. Djura felt defeated by the state of Old
Yharnam and renounced his hunter's vows."
Uncommonly kind is certainly right. Djura is
unique amongst any character in Bloodborne as
showing sympathy towards those affected by
the Scourge of the Beast. "The things you hunt,
they're not beasts. They're people." It's also
interesting to note that his cap refers to him as
having contact with the Powder Kegs, rather
than being a member. It's possible that Djura
knew of the Powder Kegs or made friends with
them, that he carries a Powder Keg Badge
indicates that at the very least he was some kind
of Honorary Member. He most assuredly
traveled alongside the Powder Kegs, as the
description of the Gatling Gun states that Djura
had three companions, the youngest of whom
used the Gatling Gun.

But Djura's absolute most important quality is

that he, like the PC Hunter, was once a part of
the Hunter’s Dream.

"I no longer dream, but I was once a hunter,

too."
"You have the whole night to dream. Make the
best of it."
He also knows full well that killing the PC
Hunter will do nothing but stall them. If the PC
dies to Djura, he remarks:"I should think you
still have dreams? Well, next time you dream,
give some thought to the hunt, and its purpose."
:
 give some thought to the hunt, and its purpose."
I do not believe every Hunter is special like the
PC and Djura. There would be much more
information and general knowledge about the
Hunter's Dream if this were the case. Certain
Hunters are special, chosen by Gehrman and
attached to the Hunter's Dream. The title I have
given these special Hunters is a Paleblood
Hunter. The Doll herself admits that the PC was
not the !rst:
"Over time, countless hunters have visited this
dream. The graves here stand in their memory.
It all seems so long ago now..."

Djura was at one point a Paleblood Hunter, like

the PC Hunter, who retired from Hunting and
renounced his vows to live in solitude.

Which brings us to Old Yharnam. While Old

Yharnam is an optional location in the game,
the PC Hunter is guided towards it by Gehrman
in order to acquire the Holy Chalice.
Historically, Old Yharnam was the location of a
terrible disease known as Ashen Blood.
Antidote tablets are described as: "Small
medicinal tablets that counteract poison. Used
to treat ashen blood, the baf"ing sickness that
ravaged Old Yharnam long ago. These tablets
only provide short-term relief.” The tablets
were used as to give temporary relief to the
victims of the disease, while they were being
treated by the then newly formed Healing
Church. What would bring true relief would be
the bringing of Blood Ministration, the medical
procedure that would become the cornerstone
of Yharnam. With the ability to cure any
disease, the Healing Church's blood
ministration got to work immediately. However,
as the antidote notes:
”The ashen blood ailment eventually triggered
the spread of the beastly scourge."
:
 With blood ministration came the Scourge of
the Beast, as the Old Blood used in the
ministration would spread the Scourge. One
disease had been contained, but the treatment
gave birth to the Scourge, just as it had in Ailing
Loran:
"There are trace remains of medical procedures
in parts of ailing Loran. Whether these were
attempts to control the scourge of the beast, or
the cause of the outbreak, is unknown."
With the Scourge of the Beast too much to
handle, a Hunt was called.

Now we have Djura, the Powder Kegs, and Old

Yharnam, three pieces of a puzzle. But it's not
unless the PC stumbles into a hidden building
in Old Yharnam that the pieces connect. Near
Djura's tower is a hidden building that can be
accessed by dropping a far, far distance down a
ledge. Inside this building, everything comes
together. Here, the PC Hunter !nds two corpses.
One of them holds a Ri"e Spear, the other
wears a set of Charred Hunter gear. Next to
them is a Hunter’s Note. This is where it all
comes together.

“The red moon hangs low, and beasts rule the

streets. Are we left no other choice, than to
burn it all to cinders?”
What follows is purely my own interpretation
and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.
After Maria’s death and Gehrman’s self-in"icted
retirement, the Healing Church lost a signi!cant
portion of its strength. The School of Mensis
began to drift apart from the Healing Church
proper, and it seemed as if things were spiraling
downwards. As the Healing Church continued
:
 downwards. As the Healing Church continued
its operations and explorations of the
Pthumerian Labyrinth, they discovered a
swamp in the Forbidden Woods. Located
directly behind one of their clinics, the swamp
was deathly poisonous and !lled with strange,
parasitic leeches. The poison likely came up
from the Hintertombs in the Labyrinth, where
we can see very similar swamps. We also !nd
in this swamp what appear to be lumbering
giants, much like the ones that the Healing
Church would later employ as their enforcers.
It’s possible that the poison itself mutated those
who lived into these beings. Either way, the
Healing Church discovered these parasites that
secreted a poisonous substance.
In the Forbidden Woods we also !nd the White
Church Garb, which reminds us that the Church
believes that “medicine is not a means of
treatment but rather a method for research, and
some knowledge can only be obtained by
exposing oneself to sickness.” And so did the
Church develop the Ashen Blood from the
parasitic leeches, and loose it upon Old
Yharnam.
As Old Yharnam began to grow sick with Ashen
Blood, Laurence and the Church arrived with
the Old Blood, promising a cure to all diseases.
They were hailed as saviors as they began to
administer their miraculous special blood to the
people of Yharnam, swelling in power and
position. But, as the antidote reminds us, with
Ashen Blood came the Scourge, as those who
had been treated with Communion fell victim
to the Scourge, becoming beasts.
With Gehrman gone and his Old Hunters
disbanded, the Church had a need for a new
workshop to deal with the victims of the Ashen
Blood. The Oto Workshop was formed, and
Hunters were recruited en masse to deal with
the rising issue of the Scourge of the Beasts.
These Hunters, unlike the silent warriors of
Gehrman’s, slaughtered the beasts furiously.
The old hunter garb, worn by the Oto Hunters,
:
 The old hunter garb, worn by the Oto Hunters,
tells us that in this era Hunters were “ten a
penny”, indicating that during the time of the
Ashen Blood Plague, it was likely not at all
unusual for citizens to witness groups of
Hunters walking the streets in search of those
who may have fallen to the Scourge. It was
likely a time of great fear for the people of
Yharnam, not knowing who would be next to
turn, who would die of the plague, or who
would be swept up in the bloodshed. The
streets became a constant war zone between
Hunter and Beast as the plague spiraled out of
control and countless citizens succumbed to
the Scourge of the Beast. Soon, the Oto
Workshop developed into something else. As
the Beasts grew more and more numerous, and
more and more dangerous, the Powder Kegs
were born in response. With them, came a
young man named Djura.

Djura was, like the PC, a Paleblood Hunter

guided by Gehrman. When the Old Yharnam
Hunt began, Djura awoke in the Hunter’s
Dream. Djura acted as the PC of his time. He
started weak, but gathered Blood Echoes and
gained strength through the Doll. He lit lamps;
he left notes; he slew bosses and probably died
many times, reawakening at the lamp and trying
again. During this time, he came into contact
with the Powder Kegs.

Djura joined the Powder Kegs in hunting the

beasts of Old Yharnam. He grew to use their
equipment and they considered him an
honorary member, and likely a friend. But as
Old Yharnam grew more and more tainted with,
the Scourge spread. When the line between
man and beast was blurred, the red moon hung
low. Djura, looking down at his fallen comrades,
opened his notebook and left a note.

“The red moon hangs low, and beasts rule the

streets. Are we left no other choice, than to
:
 “The red moon hangs low, and beasts rule the
streets. Are we left no other choice, than to
burn it all to cinders?”

The Scourge of the Beast was too great, and the

Powder Kegs could no longer stem the tide
through simply hunting beasts. The Powder
Kegs, with their "air for the dramatic, their
bombastic nature, and their love of "ame and
explosions, were not gentle with Old
Yharnam. The city was cleansed. The Powder
Kegs razed the city to the ground. With the
Blood Moon high over the sky and the beasts
overpowering, the Hunters saw no choice but
to burn it all down. The attire of the Charred
Hunter Gear, worn by the Powder Kegs who
cleansed the city, states: “Wearers of this attire
hunted down victims of the scourge who
survived the raging "ames and stench of singed
blood.” Men, women, and children were hunted
and purged. The entire city was cleansed to
keep the Scourge of the Beast from spreading.
Djura participated in all of it. It's possible that
Djura tried to put a stop to it, or it's possible that
he willingly, gleefully participated in the
slaughter. Either way, Old Yharnam was
devastated, never to recover.

With the Dawn approaching, Djura returned to

the Hunter's Dream where Gehrman, the First
Hunter, met him by the tree. Wracked by guilt
and shame at the carnage he had caused, he
sunk to his knees and accepted his death,
severing his connection to the Hunter's Dream.
When he awoke, the sun had risen and the
Hunt was over. By now, the Workshop had
branded and condemned the Powder Kegs as
heretics. Those Powder Kegs who hadn’t died in
combat had become so drunk on blood that
they had been dragged into the Hunter’s
Nightmare. All that remained was Djura. And so
he went to Old Yharnam, where he had caused
so much horror, and cast aside his Hunter's
vows. If nobody cared about the beasts of Old
Yharnam, then he would protect them from any
:
 Yharnam, then he would protect them from any
further bloodshed.

Chapter Four: Ludwig, The Hunts,

Father Gascoigne, and Eileen
“Ohhhh.. What’s that smell? The sweet blood...
Oh, it sings to me. It's enough to make a man
sick.”
-Father Gascoigne

When we as players are !rst thrust into

Bloodborne we do not deal with eldritch
monstrosities, horrible truths, or inconceivable
entities beyond the reach of space and time.
None of these facets of Bloodborne were ever
included in promotional material. The terrible
truth of Bloodborne’s Lovecraftian Mythos was
kept a secret up until its very release. What we
!rst !nd is the Hunt, thrust into it scared and
desperate for answers.

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

In Yharnam, blood "ows like water. You will

!nd no bars in Yharnam, no pubs or taverns.
Only blood is found in Yharnam. The Pungent
Blood Cocktail tells us: “In Yharnam, they
produce more blood than alcohol, as the
former is far more intoxicating.” Blood is the
source of pleasure, entertainment, worship, and
devotion in Yharnam. Even Arianna, a
prostitute by trade, introduces herself to the
Hunter not by offering sexual services, but
instead a vial of her blood. But it’s not just any
:
 instead a vial of her blood. But it’s not just any
blood that "ows through Yharnam; only blood
permitted by the Healing Church is allowed to
"ow. The Old Blood, speci!cally the blood of
Ebrietas, is administered to the population by
special doctors known as Blood Ministers, who
carry on an art that was !rst pioneered by the
First Vicar, Laurence. We’ve already discussed
how Ebrietas gets her name from a species of
butter"y, but she also gets her name from a
latin word meaning drunkenness or
intoxication. Indeed, the blood of Ebrietas not
only aided to cleanse Yharnam of disease but
also provided the citizens with a drug more
addictive and more intoxicating than alcohol.
But with the rampant spread of the Old Blood
came the Scourge of the Beasts.

Once Old Yharnam had been cleansed and

knowledge of the Scourge became public
knowledge, a new way of dealing with the threat
was required. Secrecy would no longer be
enough, and so the Workshop was retired and
sealed. Instead, with the Healing Church in its
new position of power, the Healing Church
Hunters were born. At the forefront of this new
movement would be Ludwig, the new head of
the Healing Church’s martial force. Gehrman
tells us the following: “The Healing Church and
the Blood Ministers who belong to it were once
guardians of the hunters, in the times of the
hunter Ludwig.” According to the Sword
Hunter Badge: “Ludwig was the !rst of many
Healing Church hunters to come, many of
Whom were clerics.” Not much is known of
Ludwig’s origins, but from his Radiant Sword
Hunter Badge we learn that Ludwig was part of
a lineage of chivalrous warriors known as the
Holy Blades: “The radiant sword indicates the
heirs to the will of Ludwig. These hunters, also
known as Holy Blades, are what remains of an
ancient line of heroes that date back to a very
early age of honour and chivalry.”
Ludwig had a very different approach to
:
 Ludwig had a very different approach to
hunting beasts than his predecessors in the
Workshop had, which we can see from the
details found in the weapons of choice of
Healing Church Hunters.
"A trick weapon typically used by Healing
Church hunters. It is said that the silver sword
was employed by Ludwig, the !rst hunter of the
church. When transformed, it combines with
its sheath to form a greatsword. The Healing
Church workshop began with Ludwig, and
departed from old Gehrman's techniques to
provide hunters with the means to hunt more
terrifying beasts, and perhaps things still worse.
-Ludwig’s Holy Blade

“A ri"e typically used by Healing Church

hunters. It is said that this ri"e was employed
by Ludwig, the !rst hunter of the Church. Its
long, heavy barrel makes up in range for what it
lacks in reload speed. Ludwig's Ri"e exhibits
several departures from the workshop's design,
suggesting that the Church anticipated much
larger inhuman beasts." -Ludwig’s Ri"e

From these two weapons we can see a drastic

shift in design from Gehrman’s Workshop to
Ludwig’s. While the Hunters of Gehrman’s time
favored agile weapons, quick movement, and
easily concealable tools, Ludwig’s Hunters
wielded weapons with great force. These
Hunters no longer hid in the shadows, they
walked openly, wielding their weapons. After
Old Yharnam, it had become painfully clear to
the Healing Church that only more and more
dangerous creatures would arise from the Old
Blood, and so more powerful weapons would
be required.

Ludwig sought to deal with the Scourge of the

Beast in a very different manner than his
predecessors. In the time of Laurence and
Gehrman, the Healing Church and the
:
 Gehrman, the Healing Church and the
Workshop operated in secrecy. The School of
Mensis quietly researched, Laurence perfected
Blood Ministration, and Gehrman’s Hunters
acted as a clean-up crew, !xers of problems.
An individual would succumb and the Hunters
would quietly remove them in the middle of the
night, leaving the population none the wiser.

With Ludwig however, a new approach was

taken: Do not ignore the populace; arm the
populace. We see this from the Yharnam
Hunter Attire: “Ludwig, the !rst hunter of the
Healing Church, once recruited Yharnamites to
serve as hunters. This hunter's attire was made
for new recruits, and has excellent
straightforward defense. But not nearly enough
to allow an ordinary man to stand any real
chance against the beasts." Ludwig would deal
with the beasts not through secrecy, but
through purges or Hunts. Arm the population,
inform them, and work alongside the citizens of
Yharnam to battle the beasts. The Church
called for the Hunts.

It would, unfortunately, cause a sort of never-

ending cycle. Beasts rise, in order to combat
the Beasts the citizens rise up, imbibe in the Old
Blood, and strike them down. Now that they’ve
been tainted by the Old Blood they inevitably
become Beasts, causing more citizens to rise up
and imbibe in the Old Blood. Even more
problematic was the fact that as the Hunts
called for stronger Hunters, stronger Hunters
would become stronger Beasts: “Ludwig was the
!rst of many Healing Church hunters to come,
many of Whom were clerics. As it was, clerics
transformed into the most hideous beasts.”

Hunters would become drunk on blood, addled

by it, intoxicated by it. The Hunters would
become a threat. And so it was that we !nd
:
 become a threat. And so it was that we !nd
ourselves now faced with a different group, one
that seems to be particularly mysterious: The
Hunters of Hunters. In Central Yharnam the
Hunter encounters Eileen the Crow, who warns
them sternly: “Prepare yourself for the worst.
There are no humans left. They're all "esh-
hungry beasts, now.” It’s the polar opposite of
Djura’s warning, that the beasts are still humans.
Eileen belongs to a mysterious organization
known as the Hunters of Hunters, detailed in
the Hunter Rune: “This red-smudged rune
means "Hunter," and has been adopted by those
who have taken the Hunter of Hunters oath.
These watchmen admonish those who have
become addled with blood. Be they men or
beasts, anyone who has threatened the pledgers
of the "Hunter" oath surely has an issue with
blood."

The Hunters of Hunters, it would appear, are an

order old as the Workshop itself, tasked with
disposing of Hunters who have been lost to the
intoxication of the Old Blood. The Crow Hunter
Badge tells us: “The badge of the Hunter of
Hunters is quietly passed down from
generation to generation, usually to an outsider
from the hinterlands.” The use of the singular
an outsider seems to imply that there is only
ever one Hunter of Hunters at any one point in
time, once a generation. It is interesting that it
speci!es that the Hunters of Hunters are
typically outsiders. Eileen herself speaks with
an accent unlike a Yharnamite. Perhaps,
whoever the Hunters of Hunters are, it was
decided that Yharnamites, blood-drunk that
they were, were not to be trusted with this
important task.

But it’s the Hunters of Hunters origin that

interests me the most. Where on earth did they
come from? The Crowfeather Attire gives us a
small amount of information: “Hunters of
Hunters dress as crows to suggest sky burial.
:
 Hunters dress as crows to suggest sky burial.
The !rst Hunter of Hunters came from a foreign
land, and gave the dead a virtuous native
funeral ritual, rather than impose a
blasphemous Yharnam burial service upon
them. With the hope that former compatriots
might be returned to the skies, and !nd rest in
the Hunter's Dream." The explicit mentioning of
the Hunter’s Dream is very, very peculiar.
Eileen herself appears to know about the
Hunter’s Dream, as if the PC Hunter attacks and
dies to her, she will respond by instructing
them to “Tell the little doll I said hello.” Like
Djura, Eileen appears to have at one point been
a dreamer, a Paleblood Hunter like the PC.

“No more dreams for me. This is my last

chance."

It’s not the only link that Eileen and the Hunters
of Hunters have to Gehrman and the Hunter’s
Dream; the Blades of Mercy, the weapon of the
Hunters of Hunters, states: “A special trick
weapon passed down among hunters of
hunters. One of the oldest weapons of the
workshop. Splits into two when activated. The
weapon's warped blades are forged with
siderite, a rare mineral of the heavens.” One of
the oldest weapons indeed, the Blades of Mercy
are one of only two trick weapons made of
siderite, a rare mineral that fell from the
heavens. The other is Gehrman’s Burial Blade,
the !rst of the trick weapons: “A masterpiece
that de!ned the entire array of weapons crafted
at the workshop. Its blade is forged with
siderite, said to have fallen from the heavens.”

Exactly what connection Gehrman has to the

Hunters of Hunters is unknown. It’s possible
that the Hunters of Hunters were formed to
police and oversee the Workshop, or it’s
possible they may be a splinter faction that
:
 possible they may be a splinter faction that
separated from Gehrman. Whatever their
reasons, their methods are clear: !nd Hunters
who have succumb to bloodlust and end them.
Two such Hunters would be two of Eileen’s
targets, Henryk and Gascoigne.

Father Gascoigne is the !rst of!cial boss in

Bloodborne. While it’s possible to !ght the
Cleric Beast, that boss is optional. Gascoigne
serves as the !rst true boss !ght in the game,
and he is one that serves as a very cold wake-up
call to the player. Like many Souls veterans, I
walked into Bloodborne with a very speci!c
mindset: caution. Study the opponent, look for
weaknesses, wait for their guard to be down,
strike once, back, watch, strike. It’s a very slow,
cautious, passive playstyle that the Souls games
have hardened in many players. Gascoigne
seems to be placed so early in the game
speci!cally for players like that. Gascoigne has
the exact same tools that the Hunter can wield.
He uses a Hunter Axe as his weapon and a
Blunderbuss as his !rearm. He can be
staggered, and he can stagger. He’s a parallel to
the player in this manner. Really the only
difference between Gascoigne and the Hunter
is the insanely aggressive manner in which he
!ghts. Gascoigne charges with blind
abandonment, he weaves through the !ght
swiftly, dodging attacks and keeping pressure
on the Hunter. It’s almost a direct message to
the player from the developers: “You have the
same tools as him, why are you losing? He’s not
being unfair, he’s not cheating. He’s just playing
the game, just like you. So why is he
slaughtering you?” The player very quickly
learns that they must adapt to Gascoigne or they
will die. Passivity is no longer a valid strategy, in
order to master Bloodborne the player must be
swift, aggressive, and unrelenting like
Gascoigne.

But once Gascoigne’s health gets low enough,

:
 But once Gascoigne’s health gets low enough,
he will transform. He will succumb fully to the
Scourge, becoming a powerful Beast that will
relentlessly assault the Hunter. But to really
understand Gascoigne, let’s start at the
beginning and analyze what we can learn about
him from the game itself.

From Gascoigne’s Attire we learn that:“‘Father’ is

a title used for clerics in a foreign land, and
there is no such rank in the Healing Church.”
This would seem to imply that Gascoigne came
to Yharnam, like many others, in search of the
miraculous Blood Ministration which was
rumoured to cure any disease. The PC Hunter
was one such individual, as was Gilbert and
likely many others. Like Eileen and Gilbert,
Gascoigne’s voice has an accent that differs
slightly from the Yharnamites. Seeing as
Gascoigne wears attire similar to that of a
Healing Church Watcher and wields the
weapons of the Workshop, he was clearly
trained as a Healing Church Hunter after he
came to Yharnam. But his attire notes that: “The
dingy scarf is a Holy Shawl and symbol of the
Healing Church, from which Gascoigne would
eventually part ways.” It’s unclear exactly why
Gascoigne left the Church, but perhaps he left
in order to raise a family. After all, Gascoigne’s
daughters can be spoken to in Yharnam, hiding
in their house. Indeed, the daughters provide
the last, key pieces of information on
Gascoigne: “Are you a hunter? Then, please,
will you look for my mum? Daddy never came
back from the hunt, and she went to !nd him,
but now she's gone, too... I'm all alone... and
scared..." It would seem that when the hunt was
called, Gascoigne answered. Though he had left
the Church, he still rose up to cleanse the
streets, along with the rest of Yharnam. When
he didn’t return, his wife Viola went off looking
for him. “My m-mum wears a red jeweled
brooch. It's so big and... and beautiful. You won't
miss it.” When we !nd Gascoigne, he is hacking
:
 miss it.” When we !nd Gascoigne, he is hacking
a corpse to pieces. He turns to face the Hunter,
having !nally succumb to the Old Blood.

“Beasts all over the shop... You’ll be one of them,

sooner or later.”

On a nearby balcony, a red brooch dangles from

the corpse of a dead woman. But how did it all
come to this? What happened to Ludwig?
What is the story behind Father Gascoigne?
And why is Eileen in Yharnam?

What follows is purely my own interpretation

and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.

Everything changed after Old Yharnam. The

Church, seen as saviors, were now in control.
No longer did they require secrecy, instead they
"ourished and gained power. With this power
and with the spread of the Scourge, the
Workshop was retired and replaced with the
Healing Church Hunters, led by a Hunter named
Ludwig. Ludwig was a courageous, honorable,
and chivalrous man who took a new approach
to the Hunters by recruiting openly, training the
population of Yharnam to combat the dangers
of the hunt, and working on designing new
weapons to eliminate the Beasts without issue.

Ludwig was the heir to a legacy of ancient

heroes known as the Holy Blades, dating back
many generations. It’s possible he was one of
Gehrman’s apprentices, who succeeded
Gehrman after his retirement and was put in
charge of the new, reformed Workshop in the
Upper Cathedral Ward. It’s in this Workshop
:
 Upper Cathedral Ward. It’s in this Workshop
that we can !nd the Radiant Sword Hunter
Badge, which allows the player to purchase
Ludwig’s Blade and Ri"e.

But the Radiant Sword Hunter Badge also

unlocks another piece of equipment: the Tomb
Prospector Attire. It is described as follows:
"Attire of tomb prospectors who explore the old
labyrinth on behalf of the Healing Church. The
Healing Church traces its roots to Byrgenwerth,
and is therefore aware of the ruins' true
importance. They contain much more than
mere hunter trinkets, indeed, they hide the very
secrets of the old Great Ones. sought after by
those with the insight to imagine greatness."

We can now get a bit of a better picture of

Ludwig’s arsenal, judging from the equipment
made available by obtaining his Badge. Ludwig
wielded a Holy Blade and a Ri"e, his weapons of
choice. Along with them, he wore Tomb
Prospector Attire, or at least he did at one point.
It’s possible that Ludwig traveled into the
Labyrinth in search of a weapon or an answer to
put an end to the Scourge once and for all.
Maybe he simply wanted the Truth, to know
where the Scourge came from. What he found
was the Holy Moonlight Sword.

"An arcane sword discovered long ago by

Ludwig. When blue moonlight dances around
the sword, and it channels the abyssal cosmos,
its great blade will hurl a shadowy lightwave.
The Holy Moonlight Sword is synonymous with
Ludwig, the Holy Blade, but few have ever set
eyes on the great blade, and whatever guidance
it has to offer, it seems to be of a very private,
elusive sort." -Holy Moonlight Sword

It must have been fate, that the heir to the

legacy of the Holy Blades would !nd such a
:
 legacy of the Holy Blades would !nd such a
weapon. With it in hand, Ludwig truly did
become the Holy Blade, a hero to the people
who feared the Scourge of the Beast, and a
leader to the Church Hunters who followed him
into battle. But as the Moonlight Sword’s
description states, few people ever saw the
blade. It would seem that Ludwig kept it very
close to him, not allowing the others to lay eyes
upon it.

"Aah, you were at my side, all along. My true

mentor… My guiding moonlight..."

The Holy Moonlight Sword was more than just a

blade. The blade offered Guidance to Ludwig,
as is described by the Guidance rune: "When
Ludwig closed his eyes, he saw darkness, or
perhaps nothingness, and that is where he
discovered the tiny beings of light. Ludwig was
certain that these playful dancing sprites
offered "guidance" and emptied Ludwig of his
fears at least in the midst of a hunt." When he
hunted, Ludwig allowed the sword to guide
him. He closed his eyes and followed the
guidance of the Moonlight Sword as he cut
down beasts. He had no fear in his heart, and
became a weapon for the Healing Church.

"Without fear in our hearts, we're little different

from the beasts themselves." -Eileen the Crow

The shift in Ludwig’s personality did not go

unnoticed. Ludwig’s dialogue reveals that there
were those who accused him of being a “beast-
possessed degenerate.” Even in the back of his
mind, he knew that was he was doing was
wrong. “Good hunter, have you seen the thread
of light? Just a hair, a "eeting thing, yet I clung to
it, steeped as I was in the stench of blood and
beasts. I never wanted to know, what it really
:
 beasts. I never wanted to know, what it really
was. Really, I didn't." Yet he continued to use the
Holy Moonlight Sword and follow its Guidance,
hoping to secure a future where the Healing
Church Hunters became honorable warriors
who protected the people. He would suffer any
denigration if it meant that goal could be
achieved.

In the end, Ludwig became further and further

steeped in bloodshed. With each swing of the
Holy Moonlight Sword, he descended further
into beasthood. Eventually, blood-drunk as he
was, Ludwig was dragged into the Hunter’s
Nightmare, cursed to wallow in a pit of corpses
for all eternity.

With Ludwig gone, the Healing Church Hunters

slowly began to fall apart. Organized Hunts
became mobs as Yharnamites wandered the
streets, dragging the infected out and burning
them at the stake. The Hunters themselves
began to rely more and more on Communion
for strength, the Healing Church administering
more Old Blood to their Hunters in order to give
them the power to vanquish the Beasts. One of
these Hunters was Father Gascoigne. Gascoigne
had come to Yharnam in search of a cure to his
disease, seeing the famous Blood Ministration
of Yharnam as his last chance at salvation. It
was there that he was trained as a Hunter,
possibly by a man named Henryk. Very little is
known of Henryk, but he wears the garb not of
a Healing Church Hunter but of a Workshop
Hunter, one of Gehrman’s. Henryk is also
mentioned multiple times as being an
old hunter, and the voice !le he uses as an NPC
Hunter are those of the Aged category in the
game’s !les, the category designed for the
elderly.

Gascoigne and Henryk would quickly become a

:
 Gascoigne and Henryk would quickly become a
powerful duo, partner Hunters and good
friends. According to Henryk’s Hunter Garb: “
The taciturn old hunter Henryk was once
partners with Father Gascoigne, and though
they were a !erce and gallant duo, their
partnership led to Henryk's tragically long life.”
The last sentence particularly interests me, the
use of the phrase a tragically long life. It’s
possible that Henryk, old as he was, either grew
sick or weakened in his age. Gascoigne not only
wanted to see his closest friend live, but he had
another reason for wanting the old Hunter to
continue on; he loved Henryk’s daughter.

"Yes okay, thank you very much mister[or ‘miss’

if the PC is female] hunter! I love you almost as
much as mum and dad, and grandad!” -
Gascoigne’s Unnamed Daughter

Indeed when we encounter Henryk we !nd

him in Oedon Tomb just as we found
Gascoigne, only Henryk is not standing by the
grave where Gascoigne was found; he is
standing in front of the corpse of Viola,
Gascoigne’s wife. But Henryk is not himself any
longer, he has succumb to the Old Blood.
Gascoigne had fallen in love with Viola,
Henryk’s daughter. Perhaps Gascoigne
convinced Henryk, in his old and weakened
state, to accept Communion from the Healing
Church. The old Workshop Hunter was likely
wary of the Old Blood, but was convinced by his
son in law, the father of his grandchildren, to
accept the Ministration.

Gascoigne too had accepted the Ministration,

but in his case there were complications. “If you
!nd my mum, give her this music box. It plays
one of daddy's favorite songs. And when daddy
forgets us we play it for him so he remembers.
Mum's so silly, running off without it!" While
the Old Blood of the Healing Church can cure
:
 the Old Blood of the Healing Church can cure
any disease, it cannot repair a damaged mind.
Father Gascoigne had come to Yharnam in
search of a cure to his mental illness, but the
Blood Ministration had failed. Even the tainted
blood of the Great Ones could not !x the bouts
of insanity he suffered. It’s possible that during
his episodes in which he forgot the faces of his
family, Gascoigne grew violent, irrational, or
paranoid. Viola, his beloved wife, would play
him a lullaby. It would ease his mind and help
him to stay grounded and sane. But Gascoigne,
intoxicated as he was with the Old Blood,
continued to Hunt and continued to accept
Communion, the Ministration of Blood. When
Gascoigne failed to return from the Hunt, Viola
left her children locked inside and "ed to !nd
him, to bring him home… but she forgot the
music box. When she found him, he was
drenched in blood, killing man and beast alike.
She pleaded with him to come home, to
remember her. But he would have none of it.
Viola died that night, killed by the man she
loved.

If the player uses the music box in the !ght

against Father Gascoigne, he suffers noticeable
pain. He grasps his head, muttering and
moaning. How else could he possibly react, as
he remembers the terrible things he did to his
beloved Viola? Henryk soon goes searching for
Viola and Gascoigne, fearful of what may have
happened to them. When he found Viola’s
corpse, he was empty. His tragically long life
would be ended by Eileen the Crow, Hunter of
Hunters.

“This too is hunters' work, but bears no honor. A

burden you may choose to carry." -Eileen the
Crow

If the Hunter assists Eileen in killing Henryk,

:
 If the Hunter assists Eileen in killing Henryk,
then after the Blood Moon has risen they will
!nd Eileen mortally wounded in front of the
Grand Cathedral. "I'm afraid I've made a bit of a
blunder. I'm just going to have a short rest. Oh,
don't worry, I've taken blood. Enough to save an
old woman. No more dreams for me. This is my
last chance. What a fool I am, I'll have to tread
carefully. But that thing still lies in wait. Turn
back. This is my score to settle."

Many years ago, Gehrman founded the

Workshop. Much like the PC Hunter can,
Gehrman wielded two weapons: the Burial
Blade and the Blades of Mercy. Both weapons
were forged of siderite by Gehrman, The First
Hunter. Gehrman was not alone as a Hunter, he
had several apprentices who he trained to carry
on his legacy. Him and his apprentices
practiced a special art known as Quickening, as
evidenced by the Old Hunter’s Bone: "The bone
of an old hunter whose name is lost. It is said
that he was an apprentice to old Gehrman, and
a practitioner of the art of Quickening, a
technique particular to the !rst hunters.” There
are only four individuals in the entire game who
can use the art of Quickening: The PC Hunter, if
they clutch the Old Hunter’s Bone, Gehrman,
who uses a signi!cantly more powerful version
of quickening, Maria, Gehrman’s greatest pupil,
and an individual known only as the Bloody
Crow.

The Bloody Crow is found in the Grand

Cathedral as the !nal !ght in Eileen’s questline.
It is a very dif!cult !ght. It would seem that
Eileen came to Yharnam with the goal of
hunting down this mark, the Bloody Crow;
along the way she slew Henryk and would have
slain Gascoigne if the Hunter had not beaten
her to the punch. We know very little of the
Bloody Crow, but we can see that he wields a
Chikage blade and has strong ties to Cainhurst,
with his use of Numbing Mist and his dropping
:
 Chikage blade and has strong ties to Cainhurst,
with his use of Numbing Mist and his dropping
of a Blood Rapture rune. Most bizarre is that he
wears the Crowfeather Garb of a Hunter of
Hunters. The Bloody Crow of Cainhurst,
evidently one of the First Hunters as evidenced
by his use of the art of Quickening. Here we can
paint a possible picture:

In the infant days of the Workshop Gehrman

trained his apprentices and gave one of them
the Blades of Mercy. Mercy is a central theme
to Gehrman, it appears to be his goal to grant
mercy to Hunters who either are trapped in the
Dream or have succumb to bloodlust. This
apprentice he tasked with the important job of
acting as an unseen watcher of the Workshop,
forming a new order of people separated from
Communion and the Old Blood of Yharnam.
What happened next is very unclear and for
the most part completely unexplained. Perhaps
this apprentice traveled to Cainhurst, or
perhaps traveled into the hinterlands to train
the next Hunter of Hunters who would travel to
Yharnam. Whatever happened, we can see the
results:

The Bloody Crow of Cainhurst, possibly the !rst

Hunter of Hunters or possibly the one who
supervised and trained Eileen. Eileen wishes to
put him to rest, to grant him mercy. But what
fascinated me the most about Eileen is what
happens if the player never encounters her at
all.

If the PC Hunter never speaks to Eileen then if

they travel to the Grand Cathedral after the
Blood Moon has risen, they will be suddenly
attacked by Eileen herself. Eileen accuses the
Hunter of succumbing to bloodlust. It is
through this dialogue that Eileen reveals how
she truly feels: “The hunters must die... The
nightmare must end…” Eileen herself knows full
:
 nightmare must end…” Eileen herself knows full
well the way in which the Hunter’s Dream
sustains and propagates the Hunters. Indeed,
the Hunters themselves are being manipulated
by the Great Ones into carrying out their
eldritch tasks. What if there were no more
Hunters, none left to seek the blood or carry out
the will of the Blood Moon. Would the
nightmare end? Think of the way we as players
thrill every time we slay a boss, how we rush to
the Dream to grow stronger, how we want only
to continue hunting, to continue growing in
power.

"Few hunters can resist the intoxication of the

hunt. Look at you, just the same as all the rest..."

Maybe she’s right.

Chapter Five: Valtr, The League,

and the Vermin

“The night brims with de!led scum, and is

permeated by their rotten stench. Just think,
now you're all set to hunt and kill to your heart's
content!”
-Valtr, Beast Eater

The Beasts and the Kin. These are the two types
of enemies that we face in Bloodborne. One is
born of the Scourge of the Beast, humans
tainted from the in"uence of the Old Blood.
The other are ascended humans, who have
purged their body of the Scourge and have
become Kin of the Cosmos, pure beings.
There’s something else though, some strange
third thing that seems to be right around the
:
 third thing that seems to be right around the
corner, yet somehow avoid description. It’s
almost like there’s something we just can’t put
our !ngers on, right in front of our nose. To try
and pinpoint what this thing is let us examine
Valtr, the Beast Eater, and his League of
confederates.

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

We !rst encounter Valtr in the Forbidden

Woods, where he introduces himself to the
player. “I am Valtr, Master of the League.
Members of the League cleanse the streets of all
the !lth that's spread about during the hunt.
Like any half-decent hunter ought to, you
know? Haven't you seen enough of these
wretched beasts, freakish slugs, and mad
doctors? Sentence these !ends to death.” The
League appears to have been an organization
that exists during the transitionary period from
Gehrman’s workshop into Ludwig’s, however
Valtr has been in Yharnam for quite some time.

According to the Constable Garb, worn by Valtr,

there is a rather popular fable in Yharnam. “
Once upon a time a troupe of foreign
constables chased a beast all the way to
Yharnam, and this is what they wore. The
constables became victims of the beast, except
for one survivor, who in turn devoured the
creature whole, all by himself.” As Valtr’s title is
that of the Beast Eater, it’s very reasonable to
assume that he is the constable from this fable.
It was when Valtr consumed a Beast, an utterly
unholy act, that an Oath Rune was born within
him: Impurity.
:
 him: Impurity.

“This rune, discovered inside the forbidden

beast eater, came to symbolize "Impurity," and
the oath of The League. Confederates of The
League hunt to discover vermin. Vermin writhe
within !lth, and are the root of man's impurity.
Crush all vermin without hesitation.” -Impurity.

When Valtr performed such a tainted act, he

gained the Impurity Rune and the ability to see
Vermin, and with this ability he formed the
League. The League, dedicated to hunting
down Vermin, consisted of individuals who
were brought face to face with the root of man’s
impurity and suffered the consequences. We
only know of three confederates, other than
Valtr. The !rst is Yamamura the Wanderer, who
is described by his garb as: "Garb of a distant
Eastern land, worn by Yamamura the Wanderer.
This Eastern warrior pursued a beast for
honorable revenge, then became a hunter of
the League. But when he stared straight into
impurity, it drove him mad." It would appear
Yamamura’s membership of the League was
rather short-lived, as as soon as the Impurity
oath was committed to his memory he was
driven mad. So while Yamamura plays a
relatively minor role in the League, two more
signi!cant !gures are the Madaras twins.

From the Butcher Mask, we learn it is a: “Mask

of the Madaras twins, denizens of the
Forbidden Woods, likely belonging to the older
of the two. The twins grew up in silent kinship
with a poisonous snake. Eventually they learned
human ways, and became hunters. When they
discovered vermin even in their beloved snake,
the younger brother is said to have murdered
the older.” Furthermore, we learn from the
Butcher Garb that: “Both the twins became
hunters, and brought back and dissected their
beast prey, in order to support the villagers in
:
 beast prey, in order to support the villagers in
their forbidden research.”

What was the forbidden research of the

villagers? What twisted discovery brought
Yamamura to madness? And most importantly,
what are the Vermin?

What follows is purely my own interpretation

and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.
Some time early in Yharnam’s history, a group
of foreign constables chased a beast into the
city. The beast, however, turned and devoured
the constables one by one. The sole survivor
was Valtr, who slew the beast and, in some
twisted, maddened hunger for revenge,
devoured the beast in turn. This unholy act
branded Valtr as the Beast Eater, and within him
was born the Oath Rune: Impurity. When Valtr
turned and gazed throughout the city of
Yharnam he found he could now see those who
had become impure, tainted with !lth. In order
to combat this new threat, Valtr formed the
League, gathering a group of confederates and
branding them with the Impurity Rune so that
they could see the true root of man’s impurity.
In regards to the timeline of when exactly this
took place, it appears to have taken place during
the time when Hunters were in the
transitionary period away from Gehrman’s
workshop, but not yet fully formed with
Ludwig’s. We see that Valtr favored the
Whirligig Saw, a weapon designed by the
Powder Kegs, and so it’s likely that the League
was in full force during the time of Old
Yharnam. Two confederates of the League
would be the Madaras Twins, wild folk from the
Forbidden Woods who were trained in the art
of hunting. The Madaras twins had a great love
:
 of hunting. The Madaras twins had a great love
for their beloved poisonous snake, alongside
whom they had grown up together. The
Madaras Whistle tells us: ”The twins grew up
alongside a poisonous snake, and developed a
silent, inhuman kinship. The poisonous snake
grew uncontrollably, raised on a healthy diet of
beast entrails.” It appears that the Twins would
bring the victims of their hunts back to the
Woods with them, not only feeding them to
their snake, but also handing them over to the
villagers to aid in their research, as referenced
in the Butcher Garb.
But what research was occurring in the
Forbidden Woods? It’s simple: Ashen Blood.
The Healing Church was, at this time, using the
Forbidden Woods and the nearby poisonous
swamp as their laboratory for the research and
development of Ashen Blood. The Healing
Church was studying the parasitic leeches
found in the poisonous swamp, not only to
develop it for use in Old Yharnam, but also to
discover the source of the poison. The source
of the poison, of the !lth. Where did this
poison come from? Recall the Butcher Mask:
“When they discovered vermin even in their
beloved snake, the younger brother is said to
have murdered the older.”
"A centipede-like creature discovered on
successful hunts by League hunters. Vermin,
found hidden within !lth, are only seen by
League confederates, and are the root of man's
impurity. The League has assumed the task of
!nding and crushing all vermin. Perhaps there
is some mercy in the madness. Those who wish
to see vermin can, and those who choose to are
provided with boundless purpose." -Vermin
The poison swamp was teeming with Vermin,
unseen by those who had not committed the
Impurity Rune to memory. As the Madaras
twins slaughtered the infected, Vermin-riddled
beasts and fed them to their snake, the creature
became tainted and riddled with the parasitic
:
 became tainted and riddled with the parasitic
creatures. This is the source of the Snake
Parasite of the Forbidden Woods. Vermin
infested the local wildlife, and in turn the
wildlife infested the villagers. The Snakes spat
poison at their enemies, the Ashen Blood
turned against the very people who had
developed it in the !rst place.
Ashen Blood, the poison, the Vermin. Perhaps it
is the case that all cases of poison in the game
are cases of Ashen Blood, and in turn are
caused by the Vermin. After all, the antidote
tablets that were used to treat Ashen Blood are
still in circulation today. If we look at the
Nightmare Frontier, for example, we can recall
the poisonous swamp that loveable,
trustworthy Patches knocks us into. Here we
!nd countless leeches, and large creatures
known as Crawlers. Interestingly enough, the
Crawlers do not take extra damage as either
Beasts or Kin. They are something else: Vermin.
Infesting the Loran Silverbeasts we even !nd
more maggots, likely teeming with Vermin
themselves. We as players of a videogame are
so conditioned to think of poison as some
random, nameless, vague side effect that we
never stop to think what this poison actually is,
and if it has a root cause.
This brings us to the Bloodlickers. Large, "ea-
like creatures, they are !rst discovered in
Cainhurst alongside a group of parasitic
leeches. While described as beasts,
interestingly enough they do not suffer from
damage bonuses against beasts. They’re
something else. Not kin, not beast: Vermin.
What if the Vermin were to infest a human?
Not just one or two vermin, but an entire
colony of the parasites squirming and writhing
within the blood of a human being. No doubt
they would be tainted. No doubt they would be
forbidden. No doubt they would be Vile.
:
 Chapter Six: Cainhurst Castle, The
Executioners, and Queen Annalise

"Once, a scholar betrayed his fellows at

Byrgenwerth and brought forbidden blood back
with him to Cainhurst Castle. It was there that
the !rst of the inhuman Vilebloods was born.
The Vilebloods are !endish creatures who
threaten the purity of the Church's blood
healing. The Ruler of the Vilebloods is still alive
today. And so, to honor my master's wishes, I
search. For the path to Cainhurst Castle."
-Alfred, Vileblood Hunter

If you're like me, you were excited the very

moment the Stagecoach pulled up to greet you
at Hemwick. The journey to Cainhurst Castle
and the exploration of the new area provides a
nice breath of fresh air and a pleasant
interruption in Bloodborne in which we are
shown a whole new area with a whole new
mystery. Cainhurst is an area unlike any other in
Bloodborne. To be perfectly honest... it doesn't
really !t in, does it? A forsaken Castle ruled by
an Undead Queen. The weeping ghosts of
murdered women wandering haunted
chambers. Man-eating gargoyles lying in wait to
ambush unsuspecting prey... Really, the area
would !t much more into Demon's Souls than it
does into Bloodborne. Cainhurst is so unlike
any other area in Bloodborne, even from a
gameplay perspective. After all, Cainhurst is the
only area in the game that offers a Dark Souls-
style Covenant for the player to join. So to get to
:
 style Covenant for the player to join. So to get to
the bottom of the mystery of Castle Cainhurst
let's start by taking a look at Cainhurst itself,
what we know about it, what we can glean, and
what monsters wander its halls.

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

While in Yharnam blood is an object of

worship, in Cainhurst blood is an object of
desire. The Nobles of Cainhurst were elitist and
aristocratic, enjoying form and elegance over
strength or functionality, as described the
Knight's Set: "Attire of the knights of Cainhurst.
A regal piece graced by intricate goldwork. The
Cainhurst way is a mix of nostalgia and
bombast. They take great pride in the blood-
stained corpses of beasts that they leave behind,
con!dent that they will stand as examples of
decadent art." In Cainhurst, your status at Court
is everything. The closer you are to the Queen,
the more important you are. The further away
you are, the less you matter. The Blood Rapture
Rune: "This rune resonates with servants of the
Queen, carrier of the Child of Blood, who yearn
for their Queen's blood with little hope of
requitement. For them, they !nd solace in
"Blood Rapture," that serves as a surrogate for
their desires."

The highest of honors in Cainhurst was to be

named a Vileblood, one of the elite inner circle
of Queen Annalise. As evidenced by the ritual
Queen Annalise makes the PC Hunter perform
should they choose to become a Vileblood, the
Vilebloods imbibed in the Queen's blood. While
Yharnamites share blood through injection and
transfusion, the nobles of Cainhurst seemed to
:
 transfusion, the nobles of Cainhurst seemed to
drink it directly from the source, as Queen
Annalise extends her wrist to the Hunter. The
Vilebloods were the elite guard of the Queen,
and would travel out to hunt for her, bringing
tribute back to her in the form of Blood Dregs.
We will explore the Vilebloods and Queen
Annalise further in a later section, but for now
let's focus on the lesser important !gures in
Cainhurst and what information we can gather
from them.

"The old nobles, long-time imbibers of blood,

are no strangers to the sanguine plague, and the
disposal of beasts was a discrete task left to
their servants, or knights, as they were called for
the sake of appearances." –Reiterpallasch

While there are beasts in Cainhurst, they are

much different from the beasts of Yharnam.
There is no sign of lycanthropy, the main
symptom of the condition we refer to as the
Scourge of the Beast anywhere to be found in
Cainhurst. Instead, the beasts of Cainhurst are
twisted, malformed things that drain the blood
from the ground. The of!cial description of the
Bloodlickers reads: "With no host left to defend
Cainhurst Castle from the beastly siege, these
deadly, vile creatures prowl the grounds,
gorging themselves on the tainted "uid of the
fallen."Indeed, the Bloodlickers seem far more
interested in draining blood from corpses than
they are of the PC Hunter. Unlike Yharnam's
beasts which rip and tear "esh to shreds in pure
rage, the Bloodlickers move quietly from corpse
to corpse, drinking.

We have here an example of a very different

kind of Beast, one wholly unlike the Beasts of
Yharnam. Yharnam Beasts, we know, are the
result of individuals succumbing to the tainted
blood of the Great Ones, infected thanks to the
use of blood ministration. The Bloodlickers,
:
 use of blood ministration. The Bloodlickers,
infested with Vermin, must have a different
origin. Let us recall what Alfred says about
Cainhurst. "Once, a scholar betrayed his fellows
at Byrgenwerth and brought forbidden blood
back with him to Cainhurst Castle." Whatever
blood was brought to Cainhurst, it was most
certainly not the blood of the Great Ones. It was
something different, forbidden, impure. The
introduction of this forbidden blood led to a
new mission by the then-burgeoning Healing
Church, and the formation of the Executioners.

"In his time, Master Logarius led his

executioners into Cainhurst Castle to cleanse it
of the Vileblood. But all did not go well and
Master Logarius became a blessed anchor,
guarding us from evil. ...Tragic, tragic time... ...
that Master Logarius should be abandoned in
the accursed domain of the Vilebloods. I must
free him, so that he may be properly honored in
martyrdom." -Alfred, Vileblood Hunter

Little is known of the Executioners. They were a

group of Hunters who, led by a man named
Logarius, traveled to Cainhurst and battled the
Vilebloods. It would seem the Executioners
existed in the very early days of the Healing
Church, back when the Church was still
operating mostly in secrecy. The Executioner
Attire reads: "Attire worn by the band of
executioners commanded by the martyr
Logarius. Later became the basis for all Church
attire, with its heavy draping of Holy
Shawl." This would seem to suggest that the
Executioners were the !rst case of an organized
group of the Church operating in the open, as
before then there was no section of the Church
wearing their familiar uniform. What this
means of Alfred is unknown. He claims to be a
simple Hunter, perhaps he simply sought to
emulate the teachings of Logarius. He certainly
has a great deal of veneration for Logarius, his
:
 has a great deal of veneration for Logarius, his
entire mission being to complete Logarius'
mission once and for all to elevate him to true
martyrdom.

Whatever Alfred's motivations behind following

the path of the Executioner, we know that the
Executioners of old did battle against the
Cainhurst Vilebloods. From the accounts we
have access to, it was not a close battle...
Logarius' Wheel describes itself as being: "Used
to slaughter the Vilebloods in Cainhurst. Bathed
in pools of their blood, and forever steeped in
their ire." Slaughter is the key word here. The
nobles of Cainhurst were systematically
executed, the Vilebloods were bludgeoned to
death by the mighty Wheels of Logarius. For all
their elegance and beauty, the Cainhurst
Vilebloods were no match for the fury of the
Executioners. But there was one Vileblood who
could not be slain, and this brings us to the !nal
topic of our current analysis.

“I am Annalise, Queen of Castle Cainhurst. Ruler

of the Vilebloods, and sworn enemy of the
church."

Annalise is a very strange !gure in Bloodborne

and, like I mentioned earlier, doesn't really
seem to !t. She is most assuredly something far
more than simply human. In fact, the Queen is
immortal. There is no way to kill her; even
Alfred, who rips her limb from limb, smashes
her into pulp, tears out her organs, smears her
against the "oor, and leaves her nothing more
than a pile of blood and meat, fails to kill her.
Indeed, she is left simply writhing eerily."What
good's your immortality now! Try stirring up
trouble in this sorry state! All mangled and
twisted, with every inside on the outside, for all
the world to see!"-Alfred. The Queenly Flesh, a
chunk of meat the PC Hunter can retrieve from
her remains, reads: "This pinkish lump of "esh
:
 her remains, reads: "This pinkish lump of "esh
remains warm, as if cursed. All hail the undying
queen of blood!" Annalise is never dead.
Her consciousness remains inside of the meat,
and can be used to repair her. Indeed, Annalise
can even be restored from her mangled state if
the Hunter brings the Queenly Flesh to the
corpse in the Altar of Despair. But Annalise is
not unique in this. She is not the only immortal
Queen in Bloodborne.

Upon defeating Yharnam, Queen of Pthumeru,

the Hunter receives the Yharnam Stone. It
appears to be meaty, organic remains, and even
has the faint outline of a fetus within it. The
Yharnam Stone reads: "The Queen lies dead, but
her horri!c consciousness is only asleep, and it
stirs in unsettling motions."

What follows is purely my own interpretation

and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.

In the depths of ancient Pthumeru, the

Byrgenwerth Scholars studied and researched
the Old Blood of the Great Ones. However, the
Scholars found much more than the Great
Ones, they found those who had once
worshipped them: the Pthumerians. It's not
exactly clear if they directly located Yharnam, or
if they simply gathered blood samples from the
Pthumerians themselves. However it's most
likely that some of Yharnam's blood was
recovered and researched. The Old Blood, while
to be feared, was not forbidden. It seems
strange that the Scholars, seekers of truth,
would label anything as forbidden. Yharnam's
blood must have been so tainted, so vile and
impure, that it was not to be toyed with.
Perhaps this blood was teeming with Vermin,
:
 Perhaps this blood was teeming with Vermin,
the source of the Pthumerian’s seemingly
magical abilities. Yharnam's mastery over blood
is unlike anything seen in Bloodborne. During
the battle against her she seems to teleport,
spray blood from her !ngertips, and summons
blades in the air of pure blood. Yharnam also
appears to be able to project herself from her
prison in Pthumeru, appearing in both the
Nightmare of Mensis and the Moonside Lake.
Neither human nor Great One, Yharnam is
some twisted, impure mix of the two, possibly
as a result of her impregnation by Oedon, the
Formless Great One of Blood.

One scholar, however, betrayed their fellows.

This may have been Maria. We already know
that Maria was of Cainhurt descent. Perhaps
after the Hamlet Massacre, Maria was
disillusioned enough to bring the impure
Yharnam’s blood back to her people. However it
doesn't really seem to !t, as Maria is associated
with the early Healing Church. The Healing
Church most assuredly fears the blood of
Yharnam, and even labels her blood as
forbidden as well. The Blood of Arianna's
description reads: "A member of the old Healing
Church would know that her blood is similar
indeed, to precisely what was once
forbidden." Arianna even wears a Cainhurst
dress, furthering the connection between the
two !gures. Perhaps the scholar who brought
the forbidden blood to Cainhurst was just an
unnamed scholar, or perhaps it was Maria, or
even the Bloody Crow. Either way, Yharnam's
tainted blood made its way to Cainhurst Castle.

Queen Annalise imbibed in the tainted,

Vermin-riddled forbidden blood of Yharnam,
becoming !rst of the Vilebloods. But Annalise
was not satis!ed with the simple
transformation that followed. She sought an
Heir, a Child of Blood. Annalise believed that
through the mass consumption of powerful
:
 Heir, a Child of Blood. Annalise believed that
through the mass consumption of powerful
blood she would be able to impregnate herself
and give birth to the Child of Blood, and so she
created the Vilebloods. The Cainhurst Attire
says: "This paper-thin silver armor is said to
de"ect blood of ill-intent, and is what allows
the royal guards to capture prey for their
beloved Queen, so that one day, she may bear a
Child of Blood." The Vilebloods set out into the
night, seeking powerful beings to capture and
drag back in chains to their Queen. Hunters
would become the favored prey for the
Vilebloods. The Blood Dreg, an item the PC
Hunter can recover if they have the Corruption
Rune equipped, tells us: "The Vilebloods of
Cainhurst, blood-lusting hunters, see these
frightful things in coldblood. They often appear
in the blood of echo !ends, that is to say, the
blood of hunters. Queen Annalise partakes in
these blood dreg offerings, so that she may one
day bear the Child of Blood, the next Vileblood
heir." Look at the image of the Blood Dreg item.
Look at the small... things that seem to squirm
inside of it. They rather look like sperm, don't
they?

Annalise believed that the consumption of the

blood of powerful !gures would allow her to
eventually conceive a Child of Blood. Whatever
a Child of Blood is, it would never come to pass.
The Church discovered of this new threat and
formed a response in the form of the
Executioners, led by Logarius. The Wheel
Hunter Badge tells us: "Martyr Logarius led a
band of Executioners, and this badge was
crafted at their dedicated workshop. Their
workshop was a secretive enclave of mystical
beliefs and heady fanaticism which served as
the backbone of the Executioners' unique brand
of justice." Again we can see the reference to
secrecy, describing the Church's early style of
operating in darkness.
:
 The Executioners stormed Castle Cainhurst and
slaughtered the Vilebloods. The Nobles of
Cainhurst were shown no mercy as Cainhurst
fell to the invaders. But when Logarius marched
into the Queen's throne room, he found that no
matter what he did, she would not die. Perhaps
simply imbibing Yharnam's blood had granted
Annalise power beyond death, or perhaps it was
the accumulation of Blood Dregs that had given
her immortality. Either way, Logarius ruled that
Queen Annalise would never be allowed
freedom. If she could not be killed, she must be
made prisoner for all eternity to prevent the
birth of her Child of Blood. A mask was forced
onto her, covering her entire face. There are no
references or information available to be found
on what exactly this mask is, other than looking
at it as she wears it. However, whatever power
the mask holds has bound her in her throne
room and left her unable to resist her captivity.
This still would not prevent outside sources
from meeting with her and bringing her further
Blood Dregs, as the PC Hunter is capable of
doing, and so Logarius took the Crown of
Cainhurst, the Crown of Illusions, and placed it
atop his head.

"One of the precious secrets of Cainhurst. The

old king's crown is said to reveal illusions, and
expose a mirage that hides a secret. And so
Logarius donned the crown of his own volition,
determined to prevent a single soul from
stumbling upon the vile secret. What visions
did he see, sitting serenely upon his new
throne?"

Only by wearing the Crown of Illusions would

one be allowed access to Annalise's throne
room. To prevent any further interaction with
Annalise, Logarius donned the crown and sat
upon the throne of Cainhurst, acting as a living
lock for the prisoner Queen. Recall how
:
 lock for the prisoner Queen. Recall how
Logarius’ Wheel states that it had become: “
Bathed in pools of their blood, and forever
steeped in their ire.” Transforming the wheel
reveals how tainted it has become, as it contains
the strength of the Vilebloods’ within it.
Logarius too had been so drenched in the
impure blood that he had been forever steeped
in the fury of the fallen Cainhurst Nobles. He
became undying, a part of the bloody spirits of
the fallen Vilebloods. He would remain as such
until the PC Hunter would end his watch, taking
the Crown of Illusions and discovering
Annalise. But what path will the Player take?
Will they kneel to the Queen and join her,
bringing her Blood? Will they help Alfred in
smashing her to pieces? Which path is the
correct one to choose?

"Acts of goodness are not always wise, and acts

of evil are not always foolish. but regardless. we
shall always strive to be good." -Martyr Logarius

Chapter Seven: The Pthumerians,

Arianna,
Oedon, and Mergo
“In the age of the Great Ones, wedlock was a
blood contract, only permitted to those slated
to bear a special child."
-Ring of Betrothal

The Pthumerians existed long, long ago, long

before the events of Bloodborne take place. And
yet the echoes of what happened in old
Pthumeru resonate very deeply in the current
city of Yharnam, moreso than Yharnamites can
possibly know.

For starters, I will use only information and

:
 For starters, I will use only information and
evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

The Pthumerian Society existed long, long ago,

centuries or even millennia ago. They were a
people who were masters of ancient arcane
arts, speci!cally relating to arts of Fire and arts
of Blood. The Pthumerian People seemed to be
Matriarchal, or at the very least the most
important positions were often held by women.
The hallways of the ancient Labyrinth echo with
the Sinister Bells rung by the Bell Ringers. When
we look at the description of a Sinister Root
Chalice we are told: "When used in a ritual, this
sinister chalice summons the Sinister Resonant
Bell. The bell-ringing woman appears to be a
mad Pthumerian." Aside from the Bell
Ringers we have the Keepers, a group of eternal
warriors who wander the Labyrinth caring for
its denizens. The Bone Ash Armor states:"The
keepers, who mind the slumbering Great Ones,
gained eternal life, preserved in ashen form in a
ceremony of "ame that cremated body and
soul." These women clearly held positions of
importance, and we do know they are women
despite their masks, as the voice clips they play
during their combat and death animations are
that of a female voice actress.
Finally, we have the Pthumerian Queen.
Originally, the Pthumerian people had no ruler,
they worked as simple caretakers of the ancient
Labyrinth. The Great Pthumeru Ihyll
Chalice: "While early Pthumerians were mere
humble guardians of the slumbering Great
Ones, their descendants felt entitled to name
themselves a leader." As Pthumerian society
advanced, they grew into a more stable society
with a Queen as their !gurehead. The capital of
Pthumeru, Ihyll, was named after one such
Queen, possibly the !rst. However it is the last
Queen of Pthumeru, Yharnam, who will be the
:
 Queen of Pthumeru, Yharnam, who will be the
focus of our analysis.
As for the men of Pthumerian Society, they
seemed to provide more of a workforce and
military for Pthumeru. The Hintertomb Chalice
tells us: Hintertombs are the peripheral
catacombs of the old underground labyrinth. To
this day, the Watchers continue to expand the
hintertombs, unceremonious catacombs !lled
with graves and death. Indeed, very often will
the clanging sound of a pickaxe !ll the Player's
ear as the undead Pthumerians toil away to
expand the Labyrinth further and further. They
are overseen by the Watchers, fat and girthy
men wielding cudgels, cleavers, burning irons
and even shotguns.
There are also the Shadows of Yharnam; !rst
encountered in the Forbidden Woods, the
Shadows are presented to the player far before
we know of the Queen's true name. The only
two places the Shadows are found are in the
Forbidden Woods and in the Nightmare of
Mensis, both times in places very close to
Queen Yharnam herself. Interestingly enough, if
the PC Hunter wishes they can lure the
Maneater Boars into the Shadows found in the
Nightmare of Mensis. The Shadows will !ght
and kill the pigs, while some of them will die in
the process. The Shadows do not appear to be
aligned with the School of Mensis at all.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the
word shadow has many de!nitions, the most
lesser used being An inseparable attendant or
companion. It's a very clever use of ironic
wordplay by From Software, to introduce the
players !rst to the Shadows of Yharnam, leaving
them to naturally associate the Shadows as
being associated with the City Yharnam, as
opposed to the Queen.
The Pthumerians were, as the Chalices imply,
superhuman beings. They were close to the
eldritch Truth, and achieved evolution and
metamorphosis through the use of blood
:
 metamorphosis through the use of blood
ministration, as evidenced by the fallen
Pthumerian City Loran. According to the Ailing
Loran Chalice: "The tragedy that struck this
ailing land of Loran is said to have its root in the
scourge of the beast." When the PC Hunter
travels to the ruins of Loran, they !nd a city that
in many ways resembles Old Yharnam. It is a
place ravaged by the Scourge of the Beast, as the
vast majority of its inhabitants are either
mindless beasts or mad Bell Ringers. There is
even a Darkbeast, the mightiest of the beasts,
that lurks on the lowest level of the fallen city,
just as there is one that dwells in Old Yharnam.
In Old Yharnam, the Scourge of the Beast was a
result of the rampant blood ministration by the
then newly-founded Healing Church in an
attempt to cure the horrible disease ashen
blood. The Lower Loran Chalice states: "There
are trace remains of medical procedures in
parts of ailing Loran. Whether these were
attempts to control the scourge of the beast, or
the cause of the outbreak, is unknown."

We can now put the pieces together and see

that what the Player is currently experiencing in
Yharnam once occurred a long, long, long time
ago in ancient Pthumeru. Through the use of
the Old Blood of the Great Ones, the
Pthumerians were able to ascend and evolve,
and yet with the tainted blood came the
Scourge of the Beast, and possibly even what
we would refer to in the modern era of
Bloodborne as a Hunt, along with a Blood
Moon. This brings us back to the Queen.

When the red moon hangs low, the line

between man and beast is blurred. And when
the Great Ones descend, a womb will be
blessed with child. -Note found in the
Byrgenwerth Mansion

The PC Hunter !rst encounters Queen Yharnam

after the death of Rom, the Vacuous Spider. The
most immediately horrifyingly apparent feature
:
 most immediately horrifyingly apparent feature
of the Queen is the blood staining her stomach.
It's a sickening moment for the player, at least it
was for me. She is found at the bottom of the
Moonside Lake, having seemingly appeared out
of nowhere, staring up at the sky and weeping.
There, the PC Hunter sees the Blood Moon for
the !rst time, and hears the cry of a newborn
baby. In ancient Pthumeru, the Scourge of
Beasts ravaged the land. It must have been then
that the Blood Moon arose, perhaps for the very
!rst time, and a womb was blessed with child.
It's unknown if Yharnam was impregnated by
the Great Ones speci!cally because she was
Queen, or if she was simply a woman chosen at
random, but she is most assuredly assumed to
have been, in that Hunt, the potential mother of
a Great One. As we can see from the
bloodstained rags around her stomach, the
birth did not go well.

Let us now jump forwards hundreds of years

back into present day Yharnam, and discuss
Arianna. The PC Hunter encounters Arianna
living in the Cathedral Ward of Yharnam; the
Lady of the Night mistakes the Hunter for a
potential customer and sends them away,
telling them that she takes Hunts off. Once the
PC Hunter has defeated Vicar Amelia they can
convince Arianna to seek shelter in either
Oedon Chapel or Iosefka's clinic. Sending her to
the clinic will end all further interaction with
her, while sending her to the Chapel will allow
the PC to encounter and speak with her further.

Once Arianna and the PC Hunter become

acquainted, she does what any good
Yharnamite would do and offers her new friend
a vial of her blood. If the Hunter accepts, they
receive the item Blood of Arianna. It is with this
item that we see the !rst inklings that Arianna
may be much more than she !rst seems. "Blood
taken from Arianna, Cathedral Ward woman of
pleasure. A member of the old Healing Church
:
 taken from Arianna, Cathedral Ward woman of
pleasure. A member of the old Healing Church
would know that her blood is similar indeed, to
precisely what was once forbidden." Why would
Arianna have blood similar to something that
was forbidden? After all, blood "ows like water
in Yharnam; anyone and everyone shares and
imbibes in blood with one another. What
makes Arianna's blood special? Let us, for a
moment, take a look at what the PC Hunter
encounters should they go to the very depths of
the Pthumerian Labyrinth, to the very bottom of
Pthumeru Ihyll. It is here that the Hunter !ghts
against the weeping Yharnam, Queen of
Pthumeru. But take a closer look at her as you
!ght her and notice that she seems bound,
chained. There is cloth bound around her eyes,
blinding her, and her wrists have been tightly
chained together to keep her movement
restricted. She is restrained for apparently good
reason; during the !ght with Yharnam she will
free herself from her bondage and display a
mastery over blood that can only possibly be
de!ned as magic. She melts into blood, using it
to travel distances; she uses blood to create
false copies of herself, she sprays blood from
her !ngertips; she stabs herself through the
wrists and chest in order to summon blades of
blood that swing through the air and impale the
Hunter.

Returning back to Arianna, one only needs to

take a brief look at her features to see the
similarities between her and Queen Yharnam.
Where do these similarities come from? From
Cainhurst. Arianna’s dress is the dress of a
Cainhurst Noblewoman, one like Queen
Annalise. Their "owing hair, long sweeping
dress, and obvious beauty are all shared. The
Noble Dress is found in a Cainhurst portrait
room. There are many portraits of Nobles, and
one of a tall, crowned woman in a grey dress,
holding a blonde child... Perhaps Arianna is a
descendant of the Queen Annalise, who had
imbibed in Yharnam’s forbidden blood, or if not
:
 imbibed in Yharnam’s forbidden blood, or if not
royalty perhaps she simply has Cainhurst Blood
in her genes. Either way, her blood is forbidden.
If the PC Hunter has also rescued Adella the
Nun in addition to Arianna, they may notice
that, when talking to Arianna in the
Oedon Chapel, if they angle their camera to the
side they can notice that every time they speak
to Arianna, Adella will rise from her seat to stare
and watch the conversation. When the Hunter
!nishes speaking to Arianna, Adella will
immediately look away and pretend as if she
wasn't watching. It's a brilliantly subtle way to
show that Adella has her eye on Arianna, and is
possibly aware of the blasphemous nature of
her blood.

But the similarities between Arianna and Queen

Yharnam do not end with their clothing and
facial structure. The fate that befell Queen
Yharnam would, centuries later, befall Arianna.

Every Great One loses its child, and then yearns

for a surrogate.
Queen Yharnam's childbirth did not go well.
Judging from the massive amount of blood
staining her stomach and the way she is found
weeping in front of Mergo's Loft, we can only
assume that the child did not survive the
birthing process. When the Blood Moon rises
over Yharnam, Arianna !rst starts to feel pain in
her stomach. "Oh... there's something wrong
with me." She will refuse to give the PC Hunter
any more of her blood, and will have nothing to
say until after the Hunter has slain Micolash in
the Nightmare of Mensis. If the PC Hunter
returns to the Cathedral Ward they will !nd
Arianna's chair empty, and a trail of Serum,
clear blood, leading towards the Tomb of
Oedon. Following the blood trail we !nd what
is, in my opinion, the most disturbing scene in
the entire game: A sobbing Arianna next to a
squirming, wriggling Celestial Larva, covered in
:
 squirming, wriggling Celestial Larva, covered in
blood. The implications are... unpleasant.
Arianna has gone completely mad, muttering,
sobbing, and laughing. "It can't be... this is a
nightmare..." The Larva will do nothing but
squirm pathetically at her feet until the Hunter
kills it. A single attack from any weapon will do
the trick. Recovered from the dead creature is
an Umbilical Cord: "Every Great One loses its
child, and then yearns for a surrogate, and
Oedon, the Formless Great One, is no different.
To think, it was corrupted blood that began this
eldritch liaison."
What follows is purely my own interpretation
and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.

Centuries ago, the Pthumerian people

discovered the Old Blood and the Great Ones,
using the blood to elevate themselves beyond
humanity. Their height grew, their strength was
magni!ed, and they gained arcane control over
!re and blood. However with the Old Blood
comes the Scourge of the Beast. The
Pthumerian city of Loran was the !rst to
succumb to the Scourge, as an outbreak spread
throughout the populous and the Pthumerians
were infected by the scourge. And when the
line between man and beast is blurred, the red
moon will hang low; the Great Ones will
descend, and a womb will be blessed with
child. Queen Yharnam was impregnated,
but every Great One loses its child.

But the Hunt will always begin again, and so it

did. The red moon hung low and the line
between beasts and men was blurred. And so
the Great Ones descended, and a womb was
blessed with child. The daughter of Queen
Annalise, Arianna bore corrupted blood which
began an eldritch liaison. But with whom?
:
 This brings us to Oedon, the Formless One. The
Formless Oedon rune states: "The Great One
Oedon, lacking form, exists only in voice, and is
symbolized by this rune. Human or no, the
oozing blood is a medium of the highest grade,
and the essence of the formless Great One,
Oedon. Both Oedon, and his
inadvertent worshippers, surreptitiously seek
the precious blood." Of all the Great Ones,
Oedon is the one most similar to an Outer God
of the Lovecraftian Mythos upon which
Bloodborne is designed. Oedon is a being of
such absurdly complex design that it would be
impossible for From Software to even put him
in their game, for describing his shape is
something human beings simply can't do.
Oedon is also the Great One most closely
associated with the Blood, as both runes
associated with him, Formless Oedon and
Oedon Writhe, secrete a constant medium of
blood, and provide the PC Hunter with ways of
replenishing or storing the Quicksilver Bullets
that are fused with their own Blood. While the
Healing Church worships several Gods, it is
likely that Oedon is very high in their pantheon,
if not their Chief God. There is an entire chapel
devoted to Oedon's worship, the Great One of
Blood, around whom all of the Healing Church
revolves.
Oedon, the Formless Great One, exists quite
literally all around us. He is
literally everywhere, without shape and only
carrying a voice. In this sense, Oedon could also
possibly be referred to as the Cosmos itself.
Micolash makes this discovery in the
Nightmare, when he is found communing with
a Great One. He begins by confusing Oedon
with Kos, believing he is speaking to the dead
Great One of the ocean: “Ahh, Kos, or some say
Kosm... Do you hear our prayers?” Halfways
through the boss !ght, Micolash has an
epiphany. “The cosmos, of course!” It’s not
Kosm. It’s Cosmos. The Choir would discover
:
 Kosm. It’s Cosmos. The Choir would discover
this truth as well, indeed their entire religion
would be founded upon it as referenced by the
Cosmic Eye Watcher Badge: “Badge of a
member of the Choir, elites of the Healing
Church. The eye signi!es the very cosmos. The
Choir stumbled upon an epiphany, very
suddenly and quite by accident. Here we stand,
feet planted in the earth. but might the cosmos
be very near us, only just above our heads?"
Oedon is so omnipresent that while he might
not be God in the judeo-christian religious
sense it is mostly certainly God-like. This
would lead the Choir’s mantra, their epiphany: “
The Sky and the Cosmos are one.” The early
Healing Church had believed that the Great
Ones were associated with the water, as this
had been where Kos was found. The Choir
however concluded that it was not the sea that
linked them to the Great Ones, but the very
Cosmos itself, Oedon. It was Oedon who
impregnated Queen Yharnam, and it was
Oedon who impregnated Arianna.

The vast majority of players will !rst encounter

the crying of a baby when they are !rst
presented with the Blood Moon after the death
of Rom, the Vacuous Spider. It is at this point
that the line between the Waking World and the
Nightmare begins to blur. The Blood Moon
hangs low, the Amygdala become visible, and
the constant crying of a baby will begin to
follow and haunt the PC Hunter as they struggle
to understand what is happening.

Many players know that it is possible to see the

Amygdala before the Blood Moon rises if they
have at least 40 insight, but did you know it's
also possible to hear the crying baby before the
death of Rom as well? I discovered this on my
NG++ playthrough, in which I decided to start
with 99 insight and see if anything happened
differently. What I discovered is that if the PC
Hunter has an insight above 60 they can hear
the crying baby, even before the Blood Moon
:
 the crying baby, even before the Blood Moon
has risen. This would seem to imply that the
baby exists far before the Mensis Ritual takes
place

Every Great One loses its child and Mergo,

Queen Yharnam's child with a Great One, was
lost as well. When we encounter Queen
Yharnam in the Dreamlands, it looks almost as
if her stomach has been ripped open, a child
torn from her womb. But when we encounter
her in the bottom of the Pthumerian Labyrinth,
she is noticeably still swollen with child. Upon
her death, she drops the Yharnam Stone. In it
we see the outline of a fetus.
Roughly one percent of pregnancies are
ectopic, a complication in pregnancy meaning
that the fetus begins to develops outside of the
uterus. Of ectopic pregnancies, one percent of
them are abdominal, in which case the fetus
develops in the abdomen of the mother as
opposed to the womb. When one of these
pregnancies fails and the fetus dies, it begins to
slowly calcify and harden. The fetus can remain
in the mother for years. In many cases, the
fetus remained calci!ed and hardened inside of
the mother for decades after its death. These
fetuses are called Lithopedions, or “Stone
Babies”. This is what the Yharnam Stone is, the
calci!ed corpse of an unborn Great One:
Mergo.
Stillborn, the only thing that would be salvaged
from Mergo would be his Umbilical Cord.
Found from the defeated boss !ght Mergo's
Wet Nurse, the cord reads: "A great relic, also
known as the Cord of the Eye. Every infant
Great One has this precursor to the umbilical
cord. Every Great One loses its child, and then
yearns for a surrogate. This Cord granted
Mensis audience with Mergo, but resulted in
the stillbirth of their brains." Micolash had
seen both the success of Master Willem and the
failure of Laurence. He had seen that in order
:
 failure of Laurence. He had seen that in order
to ascend, one must use a Cord of the Eye, the
umbilical cord of a Great One. When the
School of Mensis attempted to use Mergo's
Umbilical Cord to commune with Mergo
himself, the ritual was an enormous and
terrible failure. It's unclear exactly what it
means for a Great One to be lost, or even to
be dead. They exist on a plane of existence so
far above our own. Recall that even though
something may die in the Waking World, its
consciousness may live on in the Nightmare.
Mergo lived on in the Nightmare, possibly
attached in part to the Wet Nurse, or possibly
manifested as the Wet Nurse itself. It is likely
that the School of Mensis made a connection
with Mergo by using his Umbilical Cord. But
what they found was an eldritch concept of
death so inconceivable that it resulted in the
obliteration of their minds.
“Beware, secrets are secrets for a reason. And
some do not wish to see them uncovered.
Especially when the secrets are particularly
unseemly…” -Simon the Harrowed

Chapter Eight: Micolash, the Blood

Moon,
the Dreamlands, and the Great Ones
"A hunter is a hunter, even in a dream. But, alas,
not too fast!
The nightmare swirls and churns unending!"
-Micolash, Host of the Nightmare

If there's anyone in Bloodborne that we can

safely ascribe the quality of 'bad guy' to, it's
probably Micolash. The Great Ones are too
complex and too alien in their existence to
ascribe moral values of 'good' or 'bad' to them;
Willem very likely tried his hardest to prevent
:
 Willem very likely tried his hardest to prevent
the events of Bloodborne from occurring in the
!rst place; the Beasts are no longer thinking
creatures; Yharnam is portrayed as being a
tragic !gure the victim of circumstances
beyond her control; Annalise de!ed the Church
and tried to steer her people into a new age of
prosperity; Laurence and Gehrman's tried to
control the Scourge; Ludwig tried to establish
an organization that would protect the
innocent; Eileen only kills Hunters who have
succumbed to bloodlust; the Abhorrent Beast
can't help the fact that he's been so horribly
af"icted with the Scourge and his dialogue is
almost heart-wrenching as you see how terrible
his condition is; Maria genuinely cared for the
patients of the Research Hall and was wracked
with guilt at her actions in the Hamlet; Patches
is mischievous but amicable; the False Iosefka is
desperately trying to !nish research which she
believes will uplift and save humanity; Alfred
simply wants to let Logarius rest in peace; Djura
just wants to protect Old Yharnam; Gascoigne is
slaying what he believes are monsters. Micolash
on the other hand is batshit crazy, and he seems
to be perfectly happy with that fact.

Micolash's existence seems to be, in itself, a

laugh at the player by the developers. We've
journeyed so far, faced so much, and struggled
so painfully in our search for answers. When
we !nally encounter someone who could
explain to us what the hell is going on, he's
stark-raving mad. It's almost as if the developers
are taunting us: "You're sure you want the
answers? He knows the truth; look what good it
did him." But before we get to Micolash's status
as being Host of the Nightmare and the
implications that holds, let's go back the
beginning and take a look at Micolash and his
School of Mensis.

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
:
 evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

Everything started at Byrgenwerth. A group of

Scholars discovered existence of the Great
Ones and the incredible power of the Old
Blood. This would lead to an inevitable
separation as differences in ideology led to a
group of the Byrgenwerth Scholars leaving the
Academy to found the Healing Church.
Micolash was one such scholar. In our !ght
against him we see Micolash wearing the
tattered uniform of a Byrgenwerth Scholar. The
description of the Student's Uniform
reads: "Uniform of the students of Byrgenwerth,
a bygone institute of learning. The Healing
Church has its roots in Byrgenwerth, and
naturally borrows heavily from its uniform
design. The focus not on knowledge, or thought,
but on pure pretension would surely bring
Master Willem to despair, if only he knew."
In the early days of the Healing Church the
group operated mostly in secret. Gehrman's
Workshop would serve as a secret police force
for the Church, while Micolash would found the
School of Mensis, a new institution of learning
for the Church to continue the research at
Byrgenwerth. According to the Upper Cathedral
Key: "The upper echelons of the Healing Church
are formed by the School of Mensis, based in
the Unseen Village, and the Choir occupying the
Upper Cathedral Ward." This key is found in
Yahar'gul on the corpse of an imprisoned Choir
member. From their new, secret location in
Yahar'gul, Micolash's new School of Mensis
would be protected and hidden by the Healing
Church. The Yahar'gul attire tells us: "The
hunters of Yahar'gul answer to the village's
founders, the School of Mensis. Hunters in
name only, these kidnappers blend into the
night wearing this attire." From their hidden
conclave, servants of the School of Mensis
:
 conclave, servants of the School of Mensis
would skulk out into the night and kidnap
innocents to drag them back to Yahar'gul for
their experiments. The PC Hunter can be one
such kidnapped victim if they die to a
Kidnapper, an enemy that !rst make their
appearance after the death of the Bloodstarved
Beast. The Hunter also encounters and !ghts
two Yahar'gul hunters lurking outside of a home
in the Cathedral Ward, possibly searching for
more victims. It would seem, however, that the
School of Mensis slowly drifted apart from the
Healing Church. While Yharnamites venerate
the Old Blood and pay homage to the Great
Ones as being god-like !gures, the citizens of
Yahar'gul worship the Great Ones directly.
Statues of the twisted !gures line the streets
and enormous Chapels are devoted to the
worship of spider-like Great Ones.

Furthermore, the rituals of the School of Mensis

seem to be either directly or indirectly
responsible for the coming of the Blood Moon.
But what is the Blood Moon?

Madmen toil surreptitiously in rituals to beckon

the moon. Uncover their secrets. -Note left by a
dead Hunter.
The Mensis ritual must be stopped, lest we all
become beasts. -Note left by a dead Hunter.
When the red moon hangs low, the line
between man and beast is blurred. -Note found
in Byrgenwerth Mansion.
The red moon hangs low, and beasts rule the
streets. -Note left by Djura.
Behold! A Paleblood sky! -Unknown author.
The Player !rst encounters the Blood Moon
after the death of Rom, the Vacuous Spider. The
PC Hunter discovers Queen Yharnam at the
bottom of the Moonside Lake, seemingly having
:
 bottom of the Moonside Lake, seemingly having
appeared from nowhere. She weeps as she
stares at the sky, and as the Hunter follows her
gaze they see the overwhelming Blood Moon
looming above them. After that, everything
changes. This is the moment when Bloodborne
goes from being a tale of Beasts and Blood to a
tale of horrible, eldritch things that work
behind the scenes. Or perhaps a better way to
explain it would be that it was always a story of
eldritch things, only we couldn't see
them. Many players walk out of Oedon Chapel
for the !rst time to the sound of a loud, hissing
vacuum-like noise coming from behind them.
They turn and stare at the peculiar wisp of air
that seems to "ow through the air. Some of
them, as I did, walk closer to learn more. It is
then that the Hunter is hoisted into the air by
unseen forces, crushed to death and
succumbing to Frenzy. If you're like me, you
moved on with the hunt. You chalked it up to
just another bullshit Miyazaki deathtrap. What
killed you was an Amygdala, or at least what I
will refer to as an Amygdala. It's not clear if the
Amygdala that serves as the boss of the
Nightmare Frontier is the Great One's name or
is its species. However the Amygdalan Arm
labels it as an “arm of a small Amygdala Great
One”, and the term Great One is too broad, and
so I refer to these creatures as the Amygdalae.
Once the Hunter slays Rom and the Blood
Moon rises, the Amygdalae are no longer
hidden; in fact it becomes painfully clear that
they've been there all along.
And this brings us to The Dreamlands.
Many players, indeed I would say the majority
of players, are naturally confused by the
words Nightmare and Dream that repeat in
Bloodborne. Most people haven't read the
works of Lovecraft, from which the Bloodborne
series takes its in"uence; even those who have
read Lovecraft typically only read his later (and
admittedly much better written) works such as
Shadow over Innsmouth and the Call of
:
 Shadow over Innsmouth and the Call of
Cthulhu. However towards the middle of
Lovecraft's career we have what Lovecraft
Scholars refer to as The Dream Cycle.
For Lovecraft, the act of dreaming was a method
in which human beings could brie"y transport
their consciousness to an alternate dimension.
The Dreamlands are not an illusion, they are a
real place. The Dreamlands are a location just
like Yharnam, Byrgenwerth, Cainhurst, or
Yahar'gul. The mere fact that the player can take
items from The Dreamlands and bring them
back to the Waking World is proof that it's a
place equally real. The Lead Elixir's description
states: "Its recipe for this mysterious concoction
is unknown, but some postulate that it
materializes only within the most desperate
nightmare."

There are four distinctly different locations in

the Dreamlands that the PC Hunter travels to:
The Nightmare Frontier, the Lecture Hall, the
Hunter’s Nightmare, and the Hunter's Dream.
The Hunter's Dream is the !rst place in the
Dreamlands the Hunter travels to, and from
here it is where they will travel to different parts
of the game's world. The Lecture Hall is the next
location the Hunter travels to. The Lecture Hall
of Byrgenwerth has been somehow warped and
transported into the Dreamlands. The Lecture
Hall is connected to the Nightmare, which
consists of both the Nightmare of Mensis and
the Nightmare Frontier, and judging from the
fact that a Church Giant is found in the upper
levels it’s possible that the School of Mensis
moved into the Nightmare Lecture Hall at some
point in time. Notice that when the Hunter
opens certain doors in The Lecture Hall and
transports to The Nightmare, the same warping
effects and particles occur as when the Hunter
uses a lamp. The Dreamlands are a location that
exists parallel to our own world. They have a
landscape just like we do, only they play by
slightly different rules. Teleportation is just
another method of transportation in the
:
 slightly different rules. Teleportation is just
another method of transportation in the
Dreamlands. The Dreamlands exist directly
parallel to our own Waking World. While the
Waking World is the domain of humanity, the
Dreamlands are the lands of the Great Ones.
These two worlds exist like a re"ection of one
another.

The Nightmare Frontier appears to be a

re"ection of the ravaged Pthumerian land of
Loran, as evidenced by the fact that Silverbeasts
wander the Frontier and that Amygdala drops
the Ailing Loran Chalice. The Hunter’s
Nightmare appears to be a re"ection of the city
of Yharnam itself. The Hunter's Dream is
obviously Gehrman's abandoned Workshop.
They are places so very similar to their locations
in the Waking World, only slightly different.

Consider staring into the mirror, watching your

re"ection. You stare at it for an hour and, for the
very briefest of moments, you see a !gure
standing behind you in your re"ection.
Whipping your head behind you, startled, you
see that nothing is there. Looking back at your
re"ection, the !gure is gone. What you've just
seen is a tiny little rip in the veil that separates
the two worlds, the Waking World and the
Dreamlands. The !gure is, of course, still
standing behind you. It exists on a plane of
reality parallel to your own, above yours. Maybe
the !gure was curious about you, wanted to
learn more, and in showing interest made itself
visible for just the slightest of moments.

"Behold! A Paleblood sky!" This message can be

found prior to Rom's death, rather confusingly.
If we look up at the sky, nothing is out of the
ordinary. The message is still there, however,
after Rom's death. Looking at the sky reveals the
Blood Moon in all its splendor. Of course the
message was there before, because the Blood
:
 message was there before, because the Blood
Moon was always there, we just couldn't see it.

This is what insight allows us to do. With forty

insight the Hunter will be able to see the
Amygdalae in the Cathedral Ward even before
the death of Rom. With !fty insight, the theme
music of the Hunter's Dream will change to the
theme that plays in the Hunter's Dream after
Rom's death even before Rom's death. With
sixty insight the Hunter will be able to hear the
crying baby when standing next to Arianna,
even before the death of Rom. There is a theme
here. Insight allows us to glimpse into the realm
parallel to our own and see what lies beyond
humanity's perception. After the death of Rom,
the veil that separates the worlds collapses
completely. Insight is no longer necessary; the
Blood Moon rises; the Amygdalae are visible;
the crying baby is heard constantly. The citizens
of Yharnam are driven insane once they are
forcibly made to understand the depths of their
reality. Simply looking upon the Great Ones is
enough to drive someone insane, let alone the
twisted knowledge that they lurked above you
all your life, always watching you. But where
does it !t together? How does Micolash beckon
the Blood Moon? Why is he in the Nightmare?
Why is he the Host?

What follows is purely my own interpretation

and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.

The School of Mensis was founded to continue

the study of the Great Ones began at
Byrgenwerth. Micolash reported to Laurence
and the Healing Church and in return they kept
the existence of the School a secret. After the
purge of Old Yharnam, secrecy was no longer
necessary and the Choir was formed to study
the Old Blood of the Great Ones and Ebrietas.
Early on, Micolash and the Choir co-operated,
:
 Early on, Micolash and the Choir co-operated,
as evidenced by the Augur of Ebrietas that
Micolash wields. However Micolash's
experiments and the rituals of the School of
Mensis slowly grew more twisted. Micolash
began to kidnap Hunters, likely to Ludwig’s
displeasure. Even the corpse of a Choir member
is found chained and imprisoned inside of
Yahar'gul, suggesting that Micolash and the
Mensis students were growing emboldened by
their closing nearer to the Eldritch Truth. In
response to this the Choir would send a man
named Edgar to in!ltrate the School of Mensis
and discover what was going on, implying that
the school had begun hiding their research
from the Choir. We know very little about
Edgar; he is found in the Nightmare of Mensis
and wears a Student Uniform, wielding a Holy
Blade and Rosmarinus. The Of!cial Guide
simply names him as Edgar, Choir Intelligence.
Edgar traveled into the School of Mensis to !nd
that the students now worshiped the Great
Ones as literal gods, the Amygdalae in
particular.

The motivations of the Amygdalae are

unknown. It's clear that the godlike beings
could likely send Yharnam toppling to the
ground if they wished. The weapons of mortals
pale in comparison to the Great Ones. It's odd
really, how they seem so idle and passive as
they watch the humans walk by, sometimes
reaching down in curiosity to grasp at one.
Amygdalae only appear in places of worship.
One is found wrapped around the Oedon
Chapel, another in the abandoned Church that
served as a gateway to Yahar'gul. The Amygdala
the player !ghts is located in what appears to be
a large cathedral, where the ancient
Pthumerians likely worshiped the Great Ones.
Consider the Moon rune's description: "A
transcription of "moon," as spoken by the Great
Ones inhabiting the nightmare. The Great Ones
that inhabit the nightmare are sympathetic in
:
 that inhabit the nightmare are sympathetic in
spirit, and often answer when called
upon." Perhaps that explains why the Amygdalae
which live in the Nightmare congregate around
places of worship. Maybe they listen to the
hopes and prayers of human beings. In
Yahar'gul however, the Amygdalae are
everywhere.
As Micolash and the School of Mensis grew
closer to the eldritch Truth, they attracted more
and more of the Great Ones, like a "ame
attracting moths. Their !nal ritual, however,
would be their undoing. Somehow Micolash
came into possession of one of the Umbilical
Cords of the Great Ones. Mergo's Umbilical
Cord, to be speci!c. Here was all the evidence
they needed, the Cord of a true Great One:
Mergo, child of Yharnam and Oedon. With the
results of their research and the Cord of the Eye
at their disposal, Micolash and the Mensis
students would attempt to ascend to the status
of godhood just as Rom and Willem had done
with the Orphan’s cord. Micolash would line his
brain with eyes. The Cord's description: "Every
Great One loses its child, and then yearns for a
surrogate. This Cord granted Mensis audience
with Mergo, but resulted in the stillbirth of their
brains." Mergo was dead. Indeed, Mergo had
died in stillbirth millennia ago in ancient
Pthumeru. It's not exactly clear what it would
mean for a Great One to be dead, if they can
even die in the !rst place. When the School of
Mensis communed with the dead Great One, it
was the end of Yahar'gul. The veil between
worlds was ripped apart; Bell Ringers brought
the dead to life; the citizens "eeing the carnage
were frozen in stone, permanently af!xed to
the walls they so desperately tried to climb to
freedom. The many caskets that lined the
streets burst open, body parts coagulating
together into masses of meat and bone that
clung together and attacked the Kidnappers,
murdering them.
Mensis was dragged into the Nightmare, ripped
:
 Mensis was dragged into the Nightmare, ripped
open. Micolash and all of his students were
dead, but their consciousnesses were pulled
down into the Nightmare. Very few would
survive this transition, the only two we know of
being Micolash and Edgar. Micolash was
brought to the Dreamlands, speci!cally the
Nightmare. Edgar likely survived due to the fact
that he was not wearing a Mensis Cage and
likely did not participate in the ritual, while
Micolash is a bit of a special case. Micolash's
corpse, still located in Yahar'gul, provided a
gateway. Just as the many lamps around
Yharnam provide gates to the Hunter's Dream,
Micolash's corpse, the Host of the Nightmare,
would provide a gateway to the Nightmare. The
Nightmare, as we have discussed, appears to be
a re"ection of the Pthumerian City Loran. If that
is the case, perhaps Loran was the place of
Mergo's attempted birth. At the top of Mergo's
Loft, the castle upon which the Hunter ascends,
we !nd Queen Yharnam weeping. By following
her gaze, we ascend to the top of the castle and
there we !ght Mergo's Wet Nurse. Historically, a
Wet Nurse was typically a woman who would
breastfeed an infant child if the mother, for
whatever reason, was unable to. While !ghting
her, the Lullaby of Mergo, a haunting melody,
plays throughout the area. Perhaps the Wet
Nurse was a Great One summoned by Yharnam
to care for her future child, or perhaps the Wet
Nurse was created as some kind of
manifestation of Mergo’s consciousness. Either
way, the Wet Nurse is a fully formed Great One.
She bleeds red just as the Amygdalae, the
Orphan, and the Moon Presence do, instead of
the clear "uid that the Kin bleed. She is the
dominant force ruling over the Nightmare from
atop Mergo's Loft, and something peculiar
occurs upon slaying her. In the English version
of Bloodborne, the blue text PREY
SLAUGHTERED accompanies a victorious boss
!ght. In the Japanese version, it's the blue
text YOU HUNTED. But in both versions, killing
Mergo's Wet Nurse causes the red
text NIGHTMARE SLAIN to appear on the
:
 text NIGHTMARE SLAIN to appear on the
screen. I was rather confused when I had !rst
seen this. Consider Bloodborne's tagline: Hunt
your Nightmares. Let's pause for a moment and
look at the four fully-"edged Great Ones that
the Hunter encounters: The Wet Nurse,
Amygdala, the Orphan, and the Moon Presence.
Of the four, Amygdala is the only one who does
not grant the NIGHTMARE SLAIN message. The
Wet Nurse, the Orphan, and the Moon Presence
are the only three enemies in the game who
make that message appear on screen.
This puzzled me for a very, very long time until I
came to a rather simple conclusion: Amygdala
isn't dead. Even after killing the one in the
Nightmare Frontier, the other Amygdalae still
remain. The Hunter even kills another
Amygdala in the Pthumerian Labyrinth. Perhaps
the Amygdalae aren't individual members of a
single species after all, but a single Great
One. After all, Patches speaks to the Amygdala
that grabs you in the Cathedral Ward as if it is
Amygdala itself. I only had this revelation after
re!ghting Mergo's Wet Nurse in NG+ and
realizing that she appears to create a perfect
clone of herself, using it to !ght me. The Great
Ones exist on a level far beyond our
comprehension, who is to say they can't be in
multiple places at once? In the depths of Great
Isz the Hunter even !ghts Ebrietas for a second
time, who appears to have been there all along.
Whatever the mystery behind the Nightmare
Slain message, slaying the Wet Nurse ends
Mergo’s consciousness and puts the Mensis
Rituals to an end.
However the ritual had not been
an entire failure. The ascension had worked,
more or less. A new Great One was born from
the stillbirthed minds of the Mensis Students:
the Brain of Mensis. The Living String tells
us: "The immense brain that Mensis retrieved
from the nightmare was indeed lined with eyes
on the inside, but they were of an evil sort, and
the brain itself was terrible rotten. But even still,
:
 the brain itself was terrible rotten. But even still,
it was a legitimate Great One, and left a relic. A
living relic, at that, which is a precious thing
indeed." The Brain of Mensis is a helpless Great
One whose only real strength is the madness it
causes by looking upon it. The Brain of Mensis
is suspended in Mergo's Loft, acting as a living
weapon that attacks oncomers. If the Hunter
!nds their way down to a lever accessible by
!ghting past the Winter Lanterns, they can
release the chains on the Brain of Mensis and
send it hurtling into the abyss. Working back
down to the base of Mergo's Loft they will !nd a
new elevator which brings them down to the
fallen, helpless Great One.
It was kind of sad, really. When I !rst
encountered the Brain of Mensis, twitching
there, a mass of brain and eyes that watched me
walking back and forth, I wasn't really sure what
to do with it. Should I kill it? It certainly wasn't
aggressive, it was simply lying there and clearly
had no way of !ghting back. I decided to do
what had become a bit of a habit for me
whenever I encountered something having to
do with the Great Ones: I put on the Mensis
Cage and performed the Make Contact gesture.
The Mensis Cage is described as: "This
hexagonal iron cage suggests their strange ways.
The cage is a device that restrains the will of the
self, allowing one to see the profane world for
what it is.It also serves as an antenna that
facilitates contact with the Great Ones of the
dream.But to an observer, the iron cage appears
to be precisely what delivered them to their
harrowing nightmare."
I had learned early that the Doll would respond
to gestures, leading me to believe there were
others that would as well. Just like everyone
else, I was hoping to !nd some kind of secret
somewhere. So far, I had been thoroughly
unsuccessful. No matter where I wore the
Mensis Cage or to whom I performed Make
Contact, nothing had happened. So I sat there,
like an idiot I told myself, as my Hunter stood in
:
 Contact, nothing had happened. So I sat there,
like an idiot I told myself, as my Hunter stood in
front of the Brain of Mensis with his arms
outstretched. I knew from experience that
eventually the Hunter would change positions,
and I had taken to waiting for that moment
before moving on with whatever I was doing.
To my complete and utter surprise, an item
appeared in my inventory. It was a Moon Rune,
the most powerful one I had encountered. "The
Great Ones that inhabit the nightmare are
sympathetic in spirit, and often answer when
called upon." It was a moment that legitimately
made me feel bad about this thing in front of
me. I decided to kill it. Maybe the fact that it
gave me a Moon Rune, a Rune that grants more
Blood Echoes upon killing enemies, was some
kind of cry for an end to its misery. I was
rewarded with the Living String, an item I had
been looking for idly for quite some time as it
was needed to access Pthumeru Ihyll.
Later I would read online that the Mensis Cage
was unnecessary, and one simply had to
perform Make Contact. To my surprise I would
read that nobody had discovered any use for
the Mensis Cage whatsoever. Nothing? Really?
Not a single secret unlocked with such an item
that seems so obviously placed to unlock a
secret? Maybe the Cage doesn't do anything at
all. Maybe, in their madness, the delusions of
the Mensis Students convinced them it worked
even though it wasn't necessary. Their madness,
after all, would deliver them to their harrowing
nightmare.
"Grant us eyes, grant us eyes. Plant eyes on our
brains, to cleanse our beastly idiocy." -Micolash,
Host of the Nightmare

Chapter Nine: Laurence, Gehrman,

and
The Hunter’s Mark
"Seek the old blood. Let us pray... let us wish... to
partake in communion. Let us partake in
:
 partake in communion. Let us partake in
communion... and feast upon the old blood.
Our thirst for blood satiates us, soothes our
fears. Seek the old blood... but beware the frailty
of men. Their wills are weak, minds young. The
foul beasts will dangle nectar and lure the meek
into the depths. Remain wary of the frailty of
men. Their wills are weak, minds young. Were
it not for fear, death would go unlamented."
-Vicar Amelia
Laurence and Gehrman. Together, they would
change the world. Who were they originally,
and how did they fall from grace? What
happened to Laurence, and how was Gehrman
bound to the Hunter’s Dream? When we see
now, what their organization has become, we
can only wonder what these two individuals
dreamed of. Did they want a better world? Did
they want personal power? Perhaps they were
simply madmen, chasing after scienti!c
curiosity and slaughtering the innocent in their
path. In this penultimate chapter we will
examine the fates of these two individuals, and
the consequences of their actions.

For starters, I will use only information and

evidence that can be found inside of the game.
I will save my personal interpretations and
beliefs for the end, so that you can make up
your own mind about the evidence presented.

The PC Hunter awakens into a world of horror,

just as the player does. They have no answers,
they have no real questions to even ask. The
world is confusing, frightening, and punishing.
Indeed if the Hunter had been alone, they likely
never would have gotten much of anywhere.
But the Hunter isn't alone.

"Ah-hah, you must be the new hunter.

Welcome to the Hunter's Dream. This will be
your home, for now. I am... Gehrman, friend to
you hunters. You're sure to be in a !ne haze
:
 you hunters. You're sure to be in a !ne haze
about now, but don't think too hard about all of
this. Just go out and kill a few beasts. It's for your
own good. You know, it's just what hunters do!
You'll get used to it..." -Gehrman, the First
Hunter
Gehrman provides the Hunter with a home and
a workshop. From within the Hunter's Dream,
Gehrman will provide the Hunter with a bit of
comfort and a small amount of guidance. But
who is Gehrman? Where does he come from
and why is he here? According to the Plain
Doll: "He was a hunter long, long ago, but now
serves only to advise them. He is obscure,
unseen in the dreaming world. Still, he stays
here, in this dream."
Gehrman was the First Hunter, and from him all
modern hunting techniques were developed. A
central theme of Gehrman is mercy, what he
grants to those he kills in the Hunter’s Dream, as
implied by his Burial Blade:
"Trick weapon wielded by Gehrman, the First
Hunter. A masterpiece that de!ned the entire
array of weapons crafted at the workshop. Its
blade is forged with siderite, said to have fallen
from the heavens. Gehrman surely saw the hunt
as a dirge of farewell, wishing only that his prey
might rest in peace, never again to awaken to
another harrowing nightmare."
He also created the Plain Doll, basing its
appearance upon his dead student Maria. From
within the Hunter’s Dream, Gehrman and the
Doll guide the Paleblood Hunters in their work.
Gehrman was also, as we know, an
acquaintance of Laurence.
"Oh, Laurence... what's taking you so long... I've
grown too old for this, of little use now, I'm
afraid..."
Our !rst encounter with Laurence comes from
discovering his skull in the Grand Cathedral,
after defeating Vicar Amelia. here we witness a
:
 after defeating Vicar Amelia. here we witness a
memory in which Laurence announced to
Master Willem that he was leaving the college.
We learn from Laurence’s Skull, found in the
Nightmare, that it is the: "Skull of Laurence, !rst
vicar of the Healing Church. In reality he
became the !rst cleric beast, and his human
skull only exists within the Nightmare. The
skull is a symbol of Laurence's past, and what he
failed to protect. He is destined to seek his skull,
but even if he found it, it could never restore his
memories." The human skull appears to be a
purely symbolic object, created in the
Nightmare, as Laurence’s skull in the Waking
World is found in the Grand Cathedral. In
Miyazaki’s interview with FuturePress he
remarks that “[Laurence’s] skull served as the
start of the Healing Church itself, but it’s taken
the form of a twisted beast.”
Laurence was therefore the founder of the
Healing Church, having left Byrgenwerth after a
disagreement in philosophy with Master
Willem. Laurence and Gehrman represent two
halves of a mystery. What happened to them?
How did things become the way they are when
we enter the game?
What follows is purely my own interpretation
and belief based on the evidence I have
gathered. Do not consider any of this as solid
fact. Instead, use it as my interpretation, so
that you can gather your own beliefs.
Laurence was the First Vicar; Gehrman was the
First Hunter. Their story, like much in
Bloodborne, begins at Byrgenwerth. We have
already established that Gehrman was an
associate of both Laurence and Master Willem.
Gehrman may have been a student at
Byrgenwerth, or judging by his combat
pro!ciency and craftsmanship may have been
the academy's handyman, groundskeeper, or a
bodyguard. But upon the discovery of the Old
Blood, Laurence would lead a section of the
Byrgenwerth Scholars in forming the Healing
:
 Byrgenwerth Scholars in forming the Healing
Church, separating from Byrgenwerth.
Gehrman, Laurence's closest friend, would join
him. Laurence and Gehrman believed that
humanity could achieve its next evolution
through the use of the Old Blood, as written in
the Metamorphosis Rune: "The discovery of
blood made their dream of evolution a reality.
Metamorphosis, and the excesses and deviation
that followed, was only the beginning." It was,
however, at this time that Laurence and
Gehrman came to a horrible discovery. While
the Old Blood could indeed cure any disease,
those who had been ministered were
susceptible to falling under a new, terrible
illness known only as the Scourge of the Beast.
Those who had succumbed to the tainted blood
suffered from a form of Lycanthropy. Their hair
elongated, their teeth sharpened, their size and
strength increased, and they became violent
and irrational. The men and women who had
succumbed to the Scourge became Beasts. But
Laurence could not stop his research. Sacri!ces
would need to be made. All who followed
Willem’s footsteps knew that evolution
required courage. A note found in the
Nightmare Lecture Hall reads: "Master Willem
was right. Evolution without courage will be the
ruin of our race." And so Laurence's work would
continue.
While Laurence formed the Church, Gehrman
formed the Workshop. A secret institution, the
Workshop would train a group of individuals to
hunt and slaughter Beasts. The Hunter attire
tells us it is: "A !ne piece of hunter attire that
provides stable defense to anyone facing
Yharnam's beastly threat. Allows one to stalk
beasts unannounced, by cover of night." The
Workshop acted as a secret cleanup crew for
Laurence's budding church. They would hunt
down those who had turned and execute them
before panic could spread throughout
Yharnam.
It's possible that Laurence and Gehrman,
:
 It's possible that Laurence and Gehrman,
knowledgeable of the Great Ones that they
were, also discovered the terrible nature of the
Blood Moon, and the source of the Scourge as
being the Paleblooded Moon Presence. They
tried to !nd a way to defeat the Moon Presence,
an antibody that would be too strong for it,
some way to control the Scourge of the Beast.
They were unsuccessful. Laurence and
Gehrman grew older, the Workshop was sealed
away and Gehrman became prisoner of the
Moon Presence. In his attempt to free his
closest friend, Laurence pushed his research to
the limits. The Scourge had to be contained, no
matter the cost.
Ashen Blood was introduced to Old Yharnam,
and the research intensi!ed. The beasts were
studied by Laurence and his Church, even while
corpses piled in the streets and the city was
covered in blood. Laurence’s countless
experiments resulted in a breakthrough, the
culmination of all of his research to put an end
to the Scourge of the Beast, and control it for
good: The Beast’s Embrace.
"After the repeated experiments in controlling
the scourge of beasts, the gentle "Embrace" rune
was discovered. When its implementation
failed, the "Embrace" became a forbidden rune,
but its knowledge became a foundation of the
Healing Church.”
In the Grand Cathedral of the Healing Church,
the First Vicar committed the Embrace to
memory, the Oath Rune burned into his mind.
With this he would take control over the
Scourge, put an end to the Hunts, master the
Old Blood, guide humanity to the next stage of
human evolution, and free his best friend from
the control of the Great Ones. This is what
everything had been for. All the dead victims,
all the unspeakable crimes, leaving
Byrgenwerth, exploring the Labyrinth, founding
the Healing Church; everything in his life had
been for this. Everything lead to this one
:
 been for this. Everything lead to this one
moment; for this, it would be all worth it. But it
was not to be.
“The skull is a symbol of Laurence's past, and
what he failed to protect.”
On that day, the Healing Church changed
forever. Laurence became the !rst Cleric Beast,
a creature the likes of which the Healing Church
had never encountered. This was not simply a
person who had grown fangs and hair, this was
a true monster. It’s possible that it was the
Church Assassin Brador who found Laurence
!rst. Brador’s Testimony, the scalp of a Cleric
Beast, tells us: "The scalp of a horrid Cleric
Beast, indicating that hunter Brador, a Healing
Church assassin, had killed a compatriot.
Afterward, he wore his ally's own scalp, and hid
himself away, deep below in a cell. The Church
provided him with a single, soundless bell of
death to ensure their secrets would be kept.”
Brador slew Laurence, and in doing so was
driven mad. He skinned the corpse, splattered
his clothes with the blood of the fallen Vicar,
severed the head from the body, and scalped it.
When he was found, he was drenched with
blood and gore, and his Bloodletter was steeped
in Frenzy.
“Nothing changes, such is the nature of man…” -
Brador
Brador and his Testimony to the failure of the
Healing Church were locked away. Any and all
research into controlling the Scourge of the
Beast was immediately stopped, and deemed
forbidden. The Clawmark and Beast Runes,
along with the Beast Blood Pellets, were all
black marked by the Healing Church. With
Laurence’s death, the Church had formed one
of the pillars of its philosophy: Beware the
frailty of men. The Scourge cannot be
controlled; it must be destroyed.
As for Laurence, his consciousness was pulled
into the Nightmare. Perhaps he was cursed to
:
 into the Nightmare. Perhaps he was cursed to
burn for all eternity, as punishment for the
"ames that covered Old Yharnam, a brilliant
mind lost to madness.
And so now we have the !rst half of our picture.
But what of Gehrman?
While Gehrman hadn’t been affected as deeply
by the events of the Hamlet Massacre as Maria
had been, it had still disturbed him. He too was
subject to the curse of the Kos Parasites, and
had terrible dreams because of it. Upon
defeating the Orphan, the Doll notes that
Gehrman is sleeping strangely soundly, for he
normally has dif!culty sleeping. Even so,
Gehrman aided Laurence in the founding of the
Healing Church and established the Workshop,
training the First Hunters in the art of slaying
beasts. But while Gehrman hadn’t been as
distraught by the Hamlet Massacre, the death of
Maria destroyed him.
According to Maria’s hunter garb, Gehrman had
a “curious mania” in regards to her that she was
unaware of. Maria greatly admired Gehrman,
but it’s unclear if the Master and Student shared
a romantic relationship or whether Gehrman’s
affection for her was purely one-sided.
Whatever the case, her death ruined him. After
defeating Maria in the Astral Clocktower, we
!nd her cof!n placed directly behind her chair.
Resting atop the cof!n lid are coldblood
"owers, the same as the ones found in
Gehrman’s garden in the Hunter’s Dream.
Spiraling into depression after the death of his
greatest pupil, Gehrman sealed his Workshop
away and withdrew from the world into his
isolation.
In his growing madness, Gehrman made a doll.
The master craftsman that he was, the doll was
made with exquisite perfection. The Small Hair
Ornament tells us: "Although it has been lost for
quite some time, one can still see signs of the
care with which this tasteful ornament was
:
 care with which this tasteful ornament was
once kept." This indicates that Gehrman held
onto his only memento of Maria, treasuring it
designing his doll off of her. Terribly lonely and
terribly miserable, he wanted nothing more
than to have Maria back. It was then that
something took notice of poor Gehrman’s
mania, for as the Moon Rune reminds us: the
Great Ones are sympathetic in spirit.
To have his beloved Maria back, he would give
anything. So it was that Gehrman was bound to
the dream, and the Hunter’s Mark branded in
his mind.
"Dangling, upside-down rune etched in one's
mind. Symbol of a hunter.” - Hunter’s Mark
What is the Hunter’s Mark? In terms of
gameplay signi!cance it functions as the Nexial
Binding from Demon’s Souls or the Darksign
from Dark Souls. But… what is it really? Its
description calls it a rune, but we do not
commit it to memory like we do the Carryl
Runes. Runes are, as we know, utterings of the
Great Ones etched into symbols. Runesmith
Carryl could commune with the Great Ones and
listen to their mutterings, but she could !nd no
words to describe them; instead Carryl could
only !nd symbols that represented these
utterings, comprehensible to human minds. If
we think of these symbols are representing
words of a language, we can therefore conclude
that the Hunter’s Mark is, quite literally, the
Great One word for Hunter, as the same symbol
is found on Carryl’s own Hunter Rune. The
uttering of a Great One, etched into one’s mind.
The symbol of a Hunter.
Hunter
This word, branded into one’s mind, is what
makes someone a Hunter. And not just any
hunter, but a special hunter: a Paleblood
Hunter, one bound to the Dreamlands. This
Rune is what makes someone immortal, cursed
:
 Rune is what makes someone immortal, cursed
to hunt and hunt and hunt until they are freed.
We as players have this Mark branded into our
minds. No matter how many times we die, we
wake up again. Even if we fall off a cliff; we’re
cut in half; we’re burned to death; we’re killed
by Frenzy; we’re crushed by a monster; we die
and die and die and die and die and die and die
and die and even still we wake up once more.
Even if we kill ourselves with the Chikage, or
the Wheel, or the Whistle, or the Bloodletter,
we wake up once more. There’s only one way
out for someone branded with the Hunter’s
Mark: to die by the hand of another branded
Hunter.
As Gehrman settled into his new place in the
Hunter’s Dream, he found himself shackled and
chained. There was no escape for Gehrman,
the First Hunter. Trapped in a living hell, unable
to die, unable to be granted mercy, Gehrman
guided other Paleblood Hunters. When their
hunts were over, Gehrman would end their life,
freeing them from the wretched, tortuous
existence of eternal life. He granted them
mercy. But where is the Hunter’s Mark coming
from?
As the player receives their !rst blood
transfusion, they are attacked by a beast. But
the beast turns to "ames, and the Messengers
arrive, crawling over the player. At that point,
something took notice of the player. Something
peered over them, and spoke a single word:
Hunter
With that uttering, they were reborn. Their life
before the transfusion was irrelevant. They
were now a weapon. They awaken into a new
world, a new nightmare. They awaken into a
Hunt.

Chapter Ten: The Paleblood Hunt

“Now, let's begin the transfusion. Oh, don't you
:
 “Now, let's begin the transfusion. Oh, don't you
worry. Whatever happens... you may think it all
a mere bad dream..."
-Blood Minister

Normally, this is the part where I would tell you

I'm going to use nothing but facts and evidence,
and save all of my speculation until the very
end. But we can't really do that in this part, can
we? Instead, consider all of my previous writing
to be the evidence we've gathered. I'll try to be
as factual as possible and I will certainly try to
leave as much of my speculation out as I can.
But for the purposes of this essay, consider this
last chapter to be purely my interpretation of
the impossibly complex ending to Bloodborne.
Use it for whatever you will. Accept it as fact,
dismiss it as nonsense, or use it as the
foundation for your own theories. I do however
ask that you read to the end before choosing to
comment, as this !nal chapter is the most
confusing and the most speculative of my essay.
Whatever you choose to do, use your mind to
think. Master Willem would remind you that
relying purely on pretension leads only to
despair.

The Moon Presence; the secret Final Boss of

Bloodborne. Of all signi!cant beings and events
in Bloodborne, this is the most mysterious. The
Moon Presence has caused many players to
leave Bloodborne with a feeling of discomfort,
as if they came so close to the Truth and yet
were still so far away. The Hunter encounters
the Moon Presence if they refuse Gehrman's
offer of mercy, and defeat him. The Moon
Presence descends from the Blood Moon itself,
even its name implies a deep connection to the
Blood Moon. As we know, the Blood Moon rises
whenever the line between man and beast is
blurred. When humans succumb to the
Scourge of the Beast, the Blood Moon rises... or
perhaps it's the other way around. Perhaps it's
that the Blood Moon rises, causing those
:
 that the Blood Moon rises, causing those
infected with the Scourge to transform into
Beasts. At the beginning of the game, we !nd a
note in the back of the Hunter's Dream,
presumably left for the Hunter: "To escape this
dreadful Hunter's Dream, halt the source of the
spreading scourge of beasts, lest the night carry
on forever." Now recall Gehrman's words to the
Hunter after the defeat of Father
Gascoigne: "The moon is close. It will be a long
hunt tonight." The Blood Moon, or rather the
Moon Presence, is the source of the Scourge.
The Beast exists within Humanity, it always has.
The Byrgenwerth Scholar Carryl was the !rst to
discover this during her commune with the
Great Ones. According to the Clawmark
Rune: "The "Clawmark" is an impulse to seek the
warmth of blood like a beast. It strengthens
visceral attacks, one of the darker hunter
techniques. Although the difference is subtle,
Runesmith Caryll describes the "Beast" as a
horri!c and unwelcome instinct deep within
the hearts of men, while "Clawmark" is an
alluring invitation to accept this very
nature." But it wouldn't be until the work of a
mysterious !gure known as the Irreverent Izzy
that Carryl's theories would be put into practice.
His weapon of choice, the Beast Claw, states: "As
"esh is "ayed and blood is sprayed, the beast
within awakens, and in time, the wielder of this
weapon surges with both strength and feverish
reverie." But while Izzy's claw is telling, it is the
tool he designed known as the Beast Roar
which is the most haunting: "Borrow the
strength of the terrible undead darkbeasts, if
only for a moment, to blast surrounding foes
back with the force of a roaring beast. The
indescribable sound is broadcast with the
caster's own vocal cords, which begs the
question, what terrible things lurk deep within
the frames of men?"

The potential for evolution exists within

humanity. But whether they will ascend to Gods
or descend to Beasts is unclear. If the Moon
:
 or descend to Beasts is unclear. If the Moon
Presence, the Blood Moon made Flesh, is
indeed the source of the Scourge, than it can
mean one of two things. The !rst possibility is
likely the most outlandish and controversial,
that being that the Moon Presence is the source
of humanity, which in itself contains the
Scourge of the Beast. The second, and I believe
more likely scenario, is that while the Beast lies
within all of humanity, it is not unless they are
tainted by the Old Blood that they become
susceptible to corruption and the Beast takes
over. It is when the Blood Moon draws
closer that those who have been infected with
the Scourge will succumb to their inner, terrible
nature and become monsters. But why? What
does the Moon Presence want? Let's take a brief
moment to look at the very bare bones of
Bloodborne, the bare minimum that the player
can accomplish in order to beat the game. Let's
strip out absolutely everything optional and
give only the basic, necessary conditions in
order to complete the hunt.

First, the Hunter awakens at Iosefka's clinic and

travels to the Healing Church. Along the way
they defeat Father Gascoigne, a Hunter who has
succumb to the Scourge. Once at the Grand
Cathedral of the Healing Church, the Hunter
defeats Vicar Amelia, the former head of the
Cathedral. Once Amelia is defeated the Hunter
learns the password which will grant access to
Byrgenwerth, the source of the Old Blood's
discovery. With the password in hand, the
Hunter travels to Byrgenwerth, along the way
defeating the Shadows of Yharnam. Once at
Byrgenwerth the Hunter discovers Rom, the
Vacuous Spider, and slays her. With Rom's
death, the gate to Yahar'gul is pried open and
the Hunter travels into the Unseen Village. The
Hunter defeats the One Reborn and locates the
corpse of Micolash, using his body as a gateway
to access the Nightmare.
In the Nightmare, the Hunter ascends Mergo's
:
 In the Nightmare, the Hunter ascends Mergo's
Loft, defeating Micolash's consciousness along
the way, before coming to the Final Boss of the
game: Mergo's Wet Nurse. A fully formed Great
One, the Wet Nurse is a vicious enemy who
rules over the Loft, and has claimed this section
of the Dreamlands as her own. Upon the defeat
of the Wet Nurse and the silence of the
nightmare newborn’s harrowing cry, the
haunting words NIGHTMARE SLAIN blanket
the screen. With the Wet Nurse's defeat, the
Hunter returns to the Hunter's Dream to !nd
the workshop burned to the ground. The Doll
instructs the Hunter to meet with Gehrman,
who meets them underneath an ancient tree.
There, Gehrman congratulates the Hunter on a
job well done: "Good hunter, you've done well.
The night is near its end. Now, I will show you
mercy. You will die, forget the dream, and
awake under the morning sun. You will be
freed... from this terrible hunter's dream." The
Hunter turns and kneels before Gehrman, who
rises from his chair for the !rst time and
executes the Hunter. The Hunter awakens from
their terrible Dream, weary and weakened, as
the sun rises over Yharnam. The credits roll.

When described in this way Bloodborne seems

to be a very linear, very simple game, doesn't it?
Gehrman tasks the Hunter with killing Mergo. In
order to do this, they must get to the Nightmare.
In order to get to the Nightmare, they need to
get to Yahar'gul. In order to get to Yahar'gul, they
need to get to Byrgenwerth. In order to get to
Byrgenwerth, they need to get to the Healing
Church. Getting to the Healing Church is the
!rst objective the Hunter makes for themselves
upon their initial meeting with Gilbert. What
does the Moon Presence want? It's quite simple
really: it wants to kill Mergo, and uses Gehrman
to guide the Hunter into doing it. The Moon
Presence, the Orphan, and the Wet Nurse are
the only three fully formed Great Ones that the
Hunter encounters. While the Hunter
encounters the Amygdalae, as we've discussed
:
 encounters the Amygdalae, as we've discussed
previously it's not entirely clear if the Hunter
ever truly !ghts or experiences the Amygdalae
as they, or rather it, truly is. The Great Ones,
beings of the Dreamlands, have their own
motivations and their own goals. They are not
allied with one another, just as all humans are
not allied with one another.

"When the red moon hangs low, the line

between man and beast is blurred. And when
the Great Ones descend, a womb will be
blessed with child.” -Note found in the
Byrgenwerth Mansion

Found in Byrgenwerth, this note is our !rst real

indication that there is something far, far
greater than just a hunt at stake in Yharnam.
The phrasing of the note, is interesting
however, as it describes a correlation. The red
moon hangs low, and the line between man and
beast is blurred. The Great Ones descend, and a
womb is blessed with child. The order of the
sentences make it seem as if !rst the Blood
Moon rises, and then the Great Ones descend.
But the note doesn’t explicitly state that
causality. Instead, what if it’s the other way
around? What if the Great Ones descend, and a
womb is blessed with child, and in
response the Blood Moon rises and the line
between man and beast is blurred. For what
purpose does the Blood Moon rise? Why is a
Hunter chosen to be bound to the dream?

“Seek the nightmare newborn.” -Unknown

This message appears rather strikingly, directly

after Rom has died and the Blood Moon has
risen. There is no source for the message; it is
not spoken aloud nor is it given in the form of a
:
 not spoken aloud nor is it given in the form of a
note. It simply appears in the mind of the
Hunter. A message and an instruction. Every
Great One loses its child. But… why does every
Great One lose its child? Perhaps this is what
the Moon Presence desires, the death of infant
Great Ones, using the Paleblood Hunters to
accomplish this feat.

While the Great Ones’ motivations and reasons

for acting are far too inhuman for us to
understand, they do have a very understandable
goal. The most apparent goal they, just as every
living creature before them, have, is to
reproduce. "Every Great One loses its child, and
then yearns for a surrogate." The order of the
sentence structure here is important. It is not as
one would think, which is that the Great Ones
yearn for a surrogate, that is to say a human
mother to give birth to their child, and then lose
their child as a result. This is most certainly
what happens, but it is not their goal. Instead,
every Great One loses its child, and then yearns
for a surrogate. It is evidently very, very dif!cult
for new Great Ones to be born. Mergo died in
stillbirth, the Orphan never even had the
chance to be born, and the Brain of Mensis was
born deformed, rotten and helpless. Something
always goes wrong with the birth of a Great
One, and so the Great Ones !nd replacements
for their lost children. We already know that
this is not the !rst hunt, and that the Hunter is
not the !rst in the Hunter's dream. There have
been those before the Hunter who have come;
the Blood Moon has risen in the past, and the
Moon Presence has guided Hunters into
completing its objectives through the use of
Gehrman, its surrogate child. The two Hunters
who we know went through this cycle were
Djura the Retired Hunter and Eileen the Crow.
Djura seems to remember little of the dream,
only recalling it faintly: "I no longer dream, but I
was once a hunter, too." Eileen however
remembers much of it. If the Hunter attacks
and dies to Eileen the Crow, she will chillingly
:
 and dies to Eileen the Crow, she will chillingly
ask the player: "You still have dreams? Tell the
little Doll I said hello..." Think of how we
experience dreams. Upon freshly waking up, we
remember it vividly, especially if it was a
nightmare. As the day progresses, details
become fuzzier and eventually we can't
remember the contents of the dream at all, only
that we had a dream. Indeed, those who
Gehrman executes in the Hunter's dream
awaken and slowly forget the details of their
terrible, terrible nightmare. But they don't have
to accept it.
If the Hunter refuses Gehrman's offer of mercy,
they do battle against Gehrman. It is the Master
and the Student, the Parent and Child, battling
so that the former can be freed and the latter
can overcome. With Gehrman, the Moon
Presence's surrogate child defeated, the Moon
Presence descends. Look at the way it curls
around the Hunter, almost protectively. It
lovingly embraces the Hunter, as a parent
would a child. The screen fades to black, and
we !nd the Doll pushing Gehrman's wheelchair.
It is not Gehrman sitting on the chair however,
but the Hunter, and as the credits roll we hear
the doll utter "And so the hunt begins
again." The Hunter has taken Gehrman's place as
the surrogate child, but this is not the only
option. The cycle does not need to continue.
The hunt can be transcended.
"Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt."
It's a handwritten note found in the very !rst
room in the game, the room in which the
Hunter awakens in Iosefka's clinic. As
evidenced by the Foreign Garb the Hunter is
wearing upon their awakening, the Hunter
remembers nothing prior to their
transfusion: "Not typical clothing for Yharnam,
perhaps it is of foreign origin. It is said, after all,
the traveler came to Yharnam from afar.
Without memory, who will ever
know?" Without memory, the Hunter discovers
:
 know?" Without memory, the Hunter discovers
this note and naturally the player forms a goal
in their mind: Seek Paleblood to transcend the
hunt. But what is Paleblood? The Hunter
apparently asks Gilbert this very question, to
which he responds: "Paleblood, you say? Hmm...
Never heard of it. But if it's blood you're
interested in, you should try the Healing
Church." Gilbert himself admits he isn't very
knowledgeable on Blood Ministration, and
directs you to try the Church. The Healing
Church, however, has absolutely no record
anywhere of Paleblood. Other than the
conversation with Gilbert there are only four
references to Paleblood anywhere in the entire
game. The !rst reference is the note found in
the beginning of the game.
The second reference is a note by an unknown
author, found in Yahar'gul: "Behold! A Paleblood
Sky!" The note is pointed towards the moon,
and if encountered prior to the death of Rom is
fairly confusing. After Rom's death, when the
Blood Moon rises and the sky twists into a
Nightmare, the note makes much, much more
sense. “The color of the sky after you defeat the
Vacuous Spider and the Mensis secret ritual is
revealed. The sky there is a very pale blue, like a
body drained of blood.” This quote from
Miyazaki discusses the sky that has been
revealed once the veil between the Waking
World and the Dreamlands has been torn apart.

The third reference to Paleblood is found in the

Nightmare Lecture Hall, as part of a series of
notes: "The nameless moon presence beckoned
by Laurence and his associates. Paleblood."
In Miyazaki’s interview he murmurs that “Right,
that’s another interpretation. ‘Paleblood’ is
another name for the monster that comes from
the moon.” The Moon Presence, the Paleblood
Great One. But as Miyazaki notes, there is more
than one interpretation for Paleblood.
Paleblood is not a single concept, but an
overarching theme of Bloodborne.
:
 overarching theme of Bloodborne.
There's another reference to Paleblood in the
game, one that some players probably forget
about as it occurs so early in the game.
"Oh, yes... Paleblood... Well, you've come to the
right place. Yharnam is the home of blood
ministration. You need only unravel its
mystery." -Blood Minister

It's the very !rst sentence uttered in the entire

game, by the doctor who ministers the Hunter's
!rst blood transfusion. This doctor is credited
simply as the Blood Minister. Let's take a
moment to pause in our analysis of Bloodborne
and instead go over something very, very
simple: What is blood?

I am not a doctor, nor will I pretend to be. As

such I am likely vastly oversimplifying things, so
take my explanation with a grain of salt. Blood
consists of three distinct ingredients. First are
Erythrocytes, typically referred to as Red Blood
Cells. Red blood cells travel through the body of
a human being and distribute oxygen to the
body's tissues. Red blood cells are the primary
means of life support and nutrition for the
body's tissues. Second is Plasma. Approximately
half of blood is plasma, a liquid that serves as
means of transportation for the blood cells
which carry out their task in supporting the
human body. When blood is centrifuged to
separate the ingredients, we !nd something
very interesting about plasma. Plasma that has
been separated from clotting proteins and
blood cells is actually an amber, light yellow
color. This liquid is referred to as Serum, or
sometimes pure blood as it is the liquid blood
in itself without any other ingredients. The third
ingredient of blood are the Leukocytes, or
White Blood Cells. White blood cells exist as
part of the human body's immune system; they
attack infectious invaders, foreign substances,
and clean after old and dead cell structures.
:
 and clean after old and dead cell structures.
Blood is such a central theme in Bloodborne,
everything revolves around Blood, even the
title. Especially the title. Bloodborne. A
bloodborne pathogen, a disease of the blood,
this is what the Scourge of the Beast is. It's an
infection, a disease that spreads from person to
person through the transfusion of blood. Master
Willem sternly reminds Laurence that: "We are
born of the blood. Made men by the blood.
Undone by the blood." The scourge infects the
victim by attacking and tainting their blood,
corrupting them. Now look at the Kin, ascended
mortals who have become Kin of the Cosmos.
They have escaped the taint of the Scourge,
moving past it. Indeed they bleed a clear, amber
liquid; serum, to be exact. The Kin of the
Cosmos have cleansed their blood of the
tainted scourge, separating it from the other
ingredients and becoming pure beings. And
!nally we have white blood cells, pale blood
cells. The white blood cells are the body's
immune system. They seek out the infection
and destroy it. But it's the way they destroy
infections that fascinates me so. White blood
cells grow and consume the infection, bringing
it within themselves and isolating it in such a
matter. The parallels to to the PC Hunter are
striking. "Seek Paleblood to transcend the hunt."
Maybe this isn't a note for the player at all.
Maybe it's a note for the Blood Minister.

Djura likely suffered from a terrible,

incurable disease. It's possible that Djura
suffered from a type of terminal anemia,
meaning that he had a signi!cant de!ciency of
iron in his bloodstream and that he had much
less haemoglobin in his red blood cells. Anemia
was a rather serious problem in the Victorian
Era, typically affecting young women. It would
become known as the Virgin's Disease, and
would be associated with a terrible paleness of
the skin. The lack of hemoglobin meant the red
blood cells carried much less nutrients
:
 blood cells carried much less nutrients
throughout the bloodstream; the blood was a
pale, sickly color, and the skin followed suit.
Those who suffered from anemia would be
sickly, tired, and weak. And so Djura’s
doctor discovered someone whose red blood
was pale, who carried the antibodies and the
potential to battle the Scourge of the Beast. He
discovered a Paleblood. When the Paleblood
was treated with the Old Blood, they were
reborn as a Hunter, and not just any hunter but
a special one. The Hunter’s Mark was branded
in the mind of the Paleblood Hunter,
connecting them to the Hunter’s Dream and
forcing them into servitude. But Djura would
not become strong enough to overcome the
Moon Presence. He was executed by Gehrman,
his connection to the Hunter's Dream severed.
Later, Gehrman would !nd a new apprentice in
a sick woman from the hinterlands, Eileen the
Crow, but again the Paleblood would fail.
Gehrman can be found muttering in his sleep,
almost whimpering: "Oh Laurence... what's
taking you so long... I've grown too old for this,
or little use now, I'm afraid." An even more
chilling message can be heard, though the
trigger for the dialogue is currently
unknown: "Oh Laurence... Master Willem...
Somebody help me... Unshackle me please,
anybody... I've had enough of this dream... The
night blocks all sight... Oh, somebody,
please." Gehrman is desperate for Laurence and
the art of Blood Ministration to !nd someone
who can put an end to the nightmare, who can
!nd a Paleblood strong enough to become
immune to the taint of the Great Ones. The PC
arrives at Yharnam.
"Oh, yes... Paleblood... Well, you've come to the
right place. Yharnam is the home of blood
ministration. You need only unravel its
mystery." -Blood Minister

Here, they meet the Blood Minister. After the

transfusion, the Paleblood has become a
Hunter. Recall the very beginning of the game in
:
 transfusion, the Paleblood has become a
Hunter. Recall the very beginning of the game in
which a Scourge Beast rises from the blood and
closes towards the player. Upon touching the
player, the Scourge Beast immediately bursts
into "ames. It can't touch you, because the very
!rst transfusion is coursing through your veins
and creating the antibodies required to battle
the Scourge. And then, the Messengers come.
This brings us to the last mystery, or rather, the
last mystery we'll be talking about. Gehrman
isn't the only denizen of the Hunter's Dream.
There are others. The Messengers are strange,
little creatures that venerate and worship the
Hunters. The other denizen is the Doll.

It's funny really, when the player !rst starts

playing Bloodborne they have no idea what
rules the world works by. They don't know what
is possible or impossible. Upon speaking with
the Doll it simply becomes something accepted.
"Oh, so there's a talking Doll, of course there is."
They don't question it, nor do they consider
how it came to be, it's just accepted as an
occurrence of the world. But sit down to think
about the Doll for a moment, and it becomes
painfully clear she is so much more than a Doll.
Magic doesn't exist in Bloodborne. There are no
wizards, no sorcerers. There are humans, and
there are Great Ones, godlike beings capable of
acts which we can only consider to be magic as
they are too complex for us to understand the
workings; some humans have learned to use
the power of the Great Ones in small and
limited forms but they are not Wizards, they are
Scholars and Madmen. To avoid beating around
the bush, Gehrman cannot animate a Doll. So
how did it come to life? We know that
Gehrman had a deep love and care for the Doll,
based upon the obsession for his student Maria.
The Doll Clothes tell us: "A deep love for the doll
can be surmised by the !ne craftsmanship of
this article, and the care with which it was
kept." Let us again refer back to the Tear Blood
Gem: "Created from a shining silver doll tear,
:
 Gem: "Created from a shining silver doll tear,
this blood gem is a quiet but unfaltering friend
that continually restores HP, the life essence of a
hunter. Perhaps the doll's creator had wished
for just such a friend, albeit in vain."
If the Hunter locates the Abandoned Old
Workshop in the Waking World, they !nd a
couple of things. They !nd the Old Hunter's
Bone, the doll set... but most importantly, they
!nd a Cord of the Eye. ""Every Great One loses
its child, and then yearns for a surrogate. The
Third Umbilical Cord precipitated the
encounter with the pale moon, which beckoned
the hunters and conceived the hunter's
dream." The word conceived is very important
here. The Oxford English Dictionary gives the
word conceive two different meanings. The !rst
is as follows: Form a mental representation of;
imagine. This is the !rst de!nition the player
infers from the context of the sentence.
However the other de!nition is as
follows: Become pregnant with. Considering
how much of Bloodborne is centered around
birth, rebirth, pregnancy, and motherhood, I
!nd it very hard to believe that the use of the
word 'conceive' in the Cord of the Eye is purely
accidental. Gehrman was terribly alone and
terribly miserable in his isolation. All of the
Cords of the Eye are found from women; one
from the Wet Nurse, one from Arianna, and one
from Iosefka. The exception to this rule is the
one found in the Workshop, until you consider
that it's found directly next to a woman. Not a
human woman perhaps, but a doll of
one. Perhaps in Gehrman's madness and his
love of the doll that was his only companion,
the Great Ones took notice. After all, the Great
Ones that inhabit the nightmare are
sympathetic in spirit.
In his desperation and longing for his beloved
Maria, Gehrman was willing to give up anything
in exchange to get her back. When a Great One
promised to bring her to life, Gehrman signed
away his life into servitude. But the Doll was
:
 away his life into servitude. But the Doll was
not Maria. What is the Doll? What is it really?
What manner of being is it, a thinking and
feeling creature inhabiting an arti!cial body?
And why, sitting in the altar at the Old
Abandoned Workshop, the place where
Gehrman signed away his life to servitude of the
Great Ones, is there the umbilical cord of a
Great One, a Cord of the Eye?
Let’s pause for a moment to take a look at what
we now know as the Winter Lanterns. The
Winter Lanterns are, as any player who has
braved the Nightmare full well knows, one of, if
not the, most absolute dangerous enemies to be
found in Bloodborne. The Winter Lanterns are
tall, lanky women singing out of tune, covered
in bloody rags; they have no head, instead they
have a large brain covered with eyes that blink
and dart in a full circle around them. Extending
from their brains are tentacles which they use
to grab the Hunter and hold them still. On their
own, the Winter Lanterns are not particularly
hard to deal with. What makes them so
dangerous is that making even the briefest eye
contact with the Winter Lanterns causes an
uncontrollable rise of Frenzy which quickly
does massive damage to the Hunter. But what
is Frenzy? Frenzy is a status effect that occurs
whenever the Hunter comes into contact with
the intense concept of the Great Ones. The
Amygdalae cause Frenzy by grasping the Hunter
and forcing them to look into their eyes. The
Celestial Larvae, Ebrietas, and the Maneater
Boars cause Frenzy by vomiting on the Hunter.
The Gardens of Eyes cause Frenzy by leaping
up and grasping the Hunter by their head,
clinging to them and !lling their ears with a
mind-piercing, high pitched ringing noise. The
Cathedral Watchers can in"ict Frenzy by
wielding a wooden cross twisted into a symbol
of the Great Ones, which glows a dark crimson.
The Winter Lanterns cause Frenzy simply by
looking at the Hunter.
From this information we can gather that
:
 From this information we can gather that
Frenzy is a condition which occurs when an
individual is forcibly made to wrap their minds
around the eldritch nature of the Cosmos and
the Great Ones. To put it another way: Insight is
what happens when an individual slowly learns,
discovers, and processes the information of the
Great Ones. Frenzy is what happens when an
individual is forced to process the information.

The Winter Lanterns’ Frenzy attack is so

powerful that many players do not even bother
engaging them. They run past, desperately
hiding from the Lanterns as they sing their song.
Whatever you do, don’t look at them. The
game even provides mechanics for this,
providing ways around them or cliffs that the
Hunter can slide along or sneak underneath to
prevent having to look at the Winter Lanterns.
Because of this, the majority of players never
take a good look at the Winter Lanterns; they
are an enemy that revolves around avoiding
looking at them. The Winter Lanterns’
existence went relatively unexplained until a
player with the username chim_cheree
managed to snatch a hi-resolution screenshot
of one of the Winter Lanterns close up. She
came to a horrifying realization as she took a
good, long look at the Winter Lanterns: They’re
wearing the Doll’s clothes… The comparison
between the Winter Lantern’s bloody rags and
the Doll’s clothing is disturbing, to say the least.
While the Lantern’s clothing is covered with
blood and they are not wearing the shawl that
the Doll has over her shoulders, every other
piece of clothing matches. The sleeves, the
ruf"es, the skirt, the seams, they all match
perfectly. This discovery was just the tip of the
iceberg as players instantly began working to
gather more screenshots of the Winter Lanterns
and really take a good, close look at them.
While it’s dif!cult to tell, many players point to
the grooves in their clawed hands as being
indicative of the Doll’s familiar jointed !ngers.
This discovery had me incredibly, incredibly
:
 This discovery had me incredibly, incredibly
excited. Just like everyone else, I was racing to
get a picture of the Winter Lanterns for my own
look. But when I took a picture of the brain
lined with eyes that the Lanterns have instead
of a head, I discovered something… well,
something incredible. It may be shaped like a
brain, but it’s not composed of the familiar grey
matter which we associate with brains. It’s not
composed of anything human at all. I, like a
few other people, discovered that it’s not a brain
at all. It’s the Messengers. "Ahh, the little ones,
inhabitants of the dream... They !nd hunters
like yourself, worship, and serve them. Speak
words, they do not, but still, aren't they sweet?"
The brains of the Winter Lanterns are
comprised of Messenger corpses bound and
meshed together into a single form.

There’s something just madly genius about it.

The one enemy in the game who can give us
the most horrible, terrifying Truth just by
looking at it is the one enemy we want nothing
more than to look away from. Of course the
Winter Lanterns cause Frenzy. How could we
not go insane by looking upon the twisted form
of the one being in the entire world who can
offer us comfort and warmth? How could our
minds possibly comprehend the terrible
realization that the Doll is linked so closely to
these horrible creatures?

Have you ever attacked the Doll? I mean really,

really attacked the Doll. I mean taking a Cleaver
and hacking the Doll to pieces. Many players
must be sick at the thought, how could you
possibly attack the one being who provides you
with comfort throughout the horror of
Bloodborne? Well if you attack the Doll, you
might notice that she bleeds. Her blood is not
red, like the humans or the Great Ones. Her
blood also isn't serum, like the Kin of the
Cosmos. Her blood is white. Almost like bleach,
the Doll bleeds a pale blood. Bizarrely enough,
:
 Cosmos. Her blood is white. Almost like bleach,
the Doll bleeds a pale blood. Bizarrely enough,
taking a close look at the Messengers will reveal
something very similar. When the Messengers
leave a note behind, did you know they actually
rise up from blood? Of course you did. When
it's a Specter, it's the familiar red bloodstain. But
when it's a note... it's pure white, blood of the
Messengers and blood of the Doll. If the Hunter
kills the Doll, the next time the Hunter returns
to the Dream they will !nd her standing there.
"Hello, good hunter. I am a doll, here in this
dream to look after you.” She doesn’t remember
us...
"Over time, countless hunters have visited this
dream. The graves here stand in their memory.
It all seems so long ago now…"
Countless Hunters? That doesn't make sense at
all. So long ago? It wasn't really all that long
ago... Gehrman has only been imprisoned for at
most possibly 100 years or so. As for the known
Palebloods, I can count them on one hand:
Djura, Eileen, and the Player. We do know
however, that the Blood Moon has risen in the
past. In ancient Pthumeru, the people
succumbed to the Scourge of Beasts. What if
there haven't been only four Blood Moons?
What if there have been hundreds? What if
over the past thousands, tens of
thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, the
Blood Moon has risen and Hunters have
entered the Dream, the Hunter’s Mark branded
in their minds, before falling and succumbing to
the Moon Presence? It's part of a cycle, and the
Doll has been there.
Many players have encountered the Doll
sleeping in the Dream. When they wake her
she will gasp, apologize for having drifted off,
and will return to offering her normal dialogue.
But there’s another situation the Hunter can
!nd the Doll in. Sometimes, very rarely, the
Doll will be found kneeling before a grave.
“O Flora, of the moon, of the dream. O little
:
 “O Flora, of the moon, of the dream. O little
ones, O "eeting will of the ancients... Let the
hunter be safe, let him !nd comfort. And let this
dream, his captor... foretell a pleasant
awakening... be, one day, a fond, distant
memory..."
If the Hunter interrupts her she will awaken,
startled, and apologize for having drifted off
into sleep. She will not remember the words
she spoke.
Maybe she wasn't always a Doll; maybe she's
had a hundred different shapes and forms, but
she was there as the Palebloods struggled
against the Moon Presence. Maybe, a long long
time ago, she was even a Maiden in Black. Recall
how we discussed the manner in which white
blood cells destroy infections: they consume
them. Upon !rst meeting the Hunter, she tells
us: "You will hunt beasts… and I will be here for
you, to embolden your sickly spirit." Sickly. Her
white blood only further supports this
metaphor, as she strengthens our immunity to
the Scourge and grants us power.

The Paleblood Hunter defeats the Moon

Presence by consuming the Cords of the Eye
and the Ancient Blood Echoes, becoming too
powerful and immune to its in"uence. The
Great One that has haunted humanity since its
conception falls.

NIGHTMARE SLAIN

We are left with the Doll, reaching down to

grasp us in our new form. Remember that the
Great Ones are not all of the same faction, of the
same species, or even of the same ideology.
The Great Ones are unique in their desires and
their eldritch wishes, incomprehensible to
us mere human beasts. Having consumed the
Scourge and the Great Ones, we have ascended
and been born anew, ready to bring Humanity
into its next evolutionary stage. And it’s all
:
 and been born anew, ready to bring Humanity
into its next evolutionary stage. And it’s all
thanks to the Doll. The Doll, who nurtured us,
emboldened us, strengthened, and cared for us.
The Doll cradles us in a motherly fashion,
giggling.

"Are you cold? Oh, Good Hunter."

Perhaps not every Great One loses its child after

all.
: