Among the Great Ones, Oedon holds a unique position. His name marks both a church and its accompanying graveyard, making him a known quantity to Laurence and his followers as they began styling themselves clerics as much as researchers. With this Oedon Chapel at the key juncture between Old Yharnam, the burgeoning new Yharnam, and […]
“Father” Gascoigne stands out from other church hunters in black for his epitaph. While cut dialogue confirms plans for Healing Church clerics to be addressed as such once upon a time, his equipment denies the concept for the final game in its description. Rather, Gascoigne is known as holy father because a cleric was his […]
Preface Considering the limits to the aesthetic of a particular era named for a specific country’s queen, FromSoftware has done wonders to invoke the vibe of a wider world in Bloodborne. Perhaps that shouldn’t come as too surprising when the country of said era was a global empire, with legends like Lawrence of Arabia to […]
The holy blood utilized by the Healing Church has lasted for decades. Part of this is because it is replenishable, with reserves of the old blood just requiring a dive into the underground labyrinth. But after Laurence’s head became the new source, there was a limit to how much blood could be extracted for blood […]
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 […]
Lokey Lore 