Preface If I had to choose one word to describe the School of Mensis, it would be macabre. There is a delightful villainy to the whole faction absent from so much of Bloodborne. They certainly lend themselves to the game’s most iconic imagery, skirting the line between sterile and viscerally grotesque. But more than any […]
Preface Although Bloodborne‘s narrative was largely coherent before the introduction of The Old Hunters DLC, some major questions did remain. Who was Kos? Where did Laurence acquire his Third Umbilical Cord? How did Gehrman’s mysterious apprentice die? These were holes in the narrative which were thankfully filled with our new journey through the Hunter’s Nightmare. […]
Preface Bloodborne, with few exceptions, focuses more on its web of factions than its characters. But given the writing style of Director Hidetaka Miyazaki, these factions in many respects are this game’s characters. There is perhaps no fictional institution better embodying the corruption, elitism, and dehumanization in modern medicine than the Healing Church. Presenting themselves […]
Preface If I had to pick the roughest area of Bloodborne‘s worldbuilding, it would have to be the Executioners. Now, there are many parts of the game which lack narrative polish, at least on the environmental side, and this covenant is hardly far below the standard. On the whole, they are fairly well-integrated into the […]
Preface When it comes to factions in Bloodborne, the Choir might be considered the most underutilized. Compared to the School of Mensis, they certainly don’t play as up front a role in the game’s plot. That said, I would argue that their presence is felt even in their absence. Indeed, anonymity is part of the […]
Although referred to as a “runesmith” in the localization, Caryll, or Karel, (カレル) is more accurately a “copyist” (筆記者) known for transcribing the Great Ones’ speech into script. No other student of Byrgenwerth was apparently so keen to capture the arcane potential of such inhuman sounds into the written word. This isn’t too surprising, since […]
Item descriptions cite Ludwig as both the source of the Healing Church Workshop and the first of its hunters. What possessed him to become a hunter is evident from the emblem his workshop first issued: a sword hilt possessing nigh-blinding radiance. In a Victorian-style setting, this Radiant Sword Hunter’s Badge harkens back to a time […]
Unlike the Powder Kegs, Archibald remained part of the Healing Church’s workshop in spite of his own deviancy. The man was merely considered an “eccentric” according to various item descriptions, and this was likely because his inventions weren’t that far removed from the church’s ideals. Rather than aim to create weapons emphasizing flash over usability […]
Where there is an orthodoxy, there is always a heresy. And in the case of the Healing Church, theirs is perhaps the most involatile — ironic, considering they call themselves “Powder Kegs”. For rather than defy the church exactly, this colorfully-named group of miscreants challenges the methods of its hunters’ workshop. As hunters gravitated toward […]
Lokey Lore 