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Basic Information

New Players ► Recommended (Late Blood Moon): Player Level 70 - 80 & Weapon Upgrade +9

Timezones	Bosses	Enemies	NPCs	Important Items	Insight
None	► Gehrman, The First Hunter	None	● Doll	● Notebook	+ 1 Encounter Gehrman, The First Hunter
	► Moon Presence		● Gehrman	● Beckoning Bell	+ 3 Defeat Gehrman, The First Hunter
			● Bath Messengers	● Silencing Blank	+ 5 Encounter Moon Presence
			● Insight Bath Messengers	● Old Hunter Bell	+ 5 Defeat Moon Presence
			● Stump Messengers	● Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter
				● Yharnam Messenger Hat (DLC)
				● Worn Messenger Top Hat (DLC)
				● Messenger Head Bandage (DLC)

Timezones	Bosses	Enemies	NPCs	Important Items	Insight
None	► Gehrman, The First Hunter ► Moon Presence	None	● Doll ● Gehrman ● Bath Messengers ● Insight Bath Messengers ● Stump Messengers	● Notebook ● Beckoning Bell ● Silencing Blank ● Old Hunter Bell ● Eye of a Blood-drunk Hunter ● Yharnam Messenger Hat (DLC) ● Worn Messenger Top Hat (DLC) ● Messenger Head Bandage (DLC)	+ 1 Encounter Gehrman, The First Hunter + 3 Defeat Gehrman, The First Hunter + 5 Encounter Moon Presence + 5 Defeat Moon Presence

Hunter's Dream ❘ 狩人の夢	Location

Description The Hunter’s Dream serves as the base where hunters can purchase items, upgrade their character, repair and upgrade weapons, and more. It's here that you'll find the Doll, and Gehrman a mysterious wheelchair-bound advisor. Use lanterns scattered around Yharnam to return to the Hunter’s Dream at any time. When you die the first time, you end up here. Connections Yharnam Headstone, Frontier Headstone, Unseen Headstone and Nightmare Headstone Bath Messengers Use Blood Echoes to buy items from the Bath Messengers or sell unneeded items. As the story progresses, additional items become available for sale. Buying Items with Insight After gaining 1 Insight, a Messenger appears that offers to trade items for it. As the story progresses, additional items become available for purchase. Workshop Use Blood Echoes alone to repair weapons or in combination with fortification items to fortify weapons. Sufficient Blood Echoes and fortification items are required to make repairs and fortify weapons. After acquiring Blood Gem Workshop Tool, Blood Gems can be fused to and removed from weapons. Up to three Blood Gems can be fused to weapons, each having its own effect, such as improved attack or an increased chance of causing status afflictions.

Storage Items in the player inventory can be placed in storage. Each item in the player inventory is limited by a maximum capacity. Acquired items that exceed the maximum capacity for that item are automatically sent to storage. The icon next to the item you pick up will be a box, indicating it's going to storage. When you die, the game automatically replenishes your Quicksilver Bullets and Blood Vials supplies from your storage. Memory Altar With the proper workshop tools, one can memorize Caryll Runes. Memorizing Caryll Runes yields various effects, including improved character stats and increased capacity for holding Blood Vials and Quicksilver Bullets. Altars & Makeshift Altar Offer items to a Holy Chalice and conduct a ritual to unseal a Chalice Dungeon. With a network connection, you can search for Chalice Dungeons unsealed by other players. As the story progresses, new type of Chalice Dungeons can be unsealed. Inspect the Makeshift Altar to automatically join an unsealed dungeon. In order to use Makeshift Altar player need to acquire Short Ritual Root Chalice item. Stump Messenger Use the Stump Messengers to customize the appearance of messengers that appear in the field. After acquiring a messenger accessory, show it to the Stump Messengers, and thereafter all messengers will adorn that accessory.

World Notes Hunter's Dream | Workshop: To escape this dreadful Hunter's Dream, halt the source of the spreading scourge of beasts, lest the night carry on forever. Hunter's Dream | Workshop Gehrman Spot: Ascend to Oedon Chapel. Hunter's Dream | Workshop Gehrman Spot: A Holy Chalice is said to be enshrined in Old Yharnam, seated in the valley. World Changes Skyboxes during the Day, Evening and Nighttime. Skyboxes during the Blood Moon. Workshop is on fire when you defeat Mergo's Wet Nurse. Skyboxes when Moon Presence descends. Before Yharnam Sunrise ending. After Yharnam Sunrise ending. Doll will occasionally pray there and have unique dialogue line. When Blood Moon is triggered, lighting changes and flowers start to glow.

New Game Plus & Beyond

The main changes in New Game + are the enemy's stats; they all hit much harder and have larger health reserves, so they are more difficult to kill. The increase to their stats is dependent on the area, with earlier parts of the game getting a much bigger increase than later ones, so you'll need to be on your toes right from the start. The values shown in the tables below show you how much enemy stats are multiplied by in each area. More information on New Game + wiki page.

New Game +

Location
Central Yharnam	912	742	86	86	86	86	83	80	93
Cathedral Ward	830	1054	104	104	104	104	98	96	111
Healing Church Workshop	1143	776	104	104	104	104	98	96	111
Healing Church Workshop | Executioner	919	700	104	104	104	104	107	96	96
Forbidden Woods	1213	3660	105	105	105	105	101	98	113
Yahar'gul (Blood Moon)	975	2046	106	106	106	106	102	98	114
Hunter's Nightmare	1209	1472	107	107	107	107	102	99	115
	► Defenses: Physical, Blunt, Thrust, Blood, Arcane, Fire and Bolt. Resistances & Bonuses don't change in further playthroughs.

New Game + Multipliers

Location
[NG+] Central Yharnam	6.080	15.453	1.240	1.240	1.240	1.240	1.240	1.240	1.240
[NG+] Cathedral Ward	4.218	5.461	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355
[NG+] Healing Church Workshop	4.218	5.461	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355
[NG+] Healing Church Workshop | Executioner	4.218	5.461	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355	1.355
[NG+] Forbidden Woods	3.967	5.266	1.243	1.243	1.243	1.243	1.243	1.243	1.243
[NG+] Yahar'gul (Blood Moon)	1.883	4.217	1.137	1.137	1.137	1.137	1.137	1.137	1.137
[NG+] Hunter's Nightmare	1.591	4.145	1.118	1.118	1.118	1.118	1.118	1.118	1.118

Beyond New Game +

The increase in difficulty does not stop after your first playthrough - you can keep making things more and more difficult all the way up to your 7th playthrough. Starting with NG+2, subsequent playthroughs have enemy HP and Blood Echoes amounts that scale consistently off of NG+ values, this does not apply to the defences which stay the same as in NG+ (multiplier value 1.00). The Playthrough table shows the multipliers for further rounds of NG+. These are applied to the values in the above table, and not to the game base values.

	NG+2		NG+3		NG+4		NG+5		NG+6
Location
Central Yharnam	975	817	1003	928	1026	1113	1048	1484	1094	1855
Cathedral Ward	888	1160	913	1318	933	1581	954	2108	996	2635
Healing Church Workshop	1223	854	1257	970	1285	1164	1314	1552	1371	1940
Healing Church Workshop | Executioner	983	770	1010	875	1033	1050	1056	1400	1102	1750
Forbidden Woods	1297	4026	1334	4575	1364	5490	1394	7320	1455	9150
Yahar'gul (Blood Moon)	1043	2251	1072	2558	1096	3069	1121	4092	1170	5115
Hunter's Nightmare	1293	1620	1329	1840	1360	2208	1390	2944	1450	3680
HP & Blood Echoes Multipliers	1.07	1.10	1.10	1.25	1.125	1.50	1.15	2.00	1.20	2.50

New Game +

Location
[NG+] Central Yharnam	912	742	86	86	86	86	83	80	93
Central Yharnam	150	48	70	70	70	70	67	65	75
[NG+] Cathedral Ward	830	1054	104	104	104	104	98	96	111
Cathedral Ward	197	193	77	77	77	77	73	71	82
[NG+] Healing Church Workshop	1143	776	104	104	104	104	98	96	111
Healing Church Workshop	271	142	77	77	77	77	73	71	82
[NG+] Healing Church Workshop | Executioner	919	700	104	104	104	104	107	96	96
Healing Church Workshop | Executioner	218	128	77	77	77	77	79	71	71
[NG+] Forbidden Woods	1213	3660	105	105	105	105	101	98	113
Forbidden Woods	306	695	85	85	85	85	82	79	91
[NG+] Yahar'gul (Blood Moon)	975	2046	106	106	106	106	102	98	114
Yahar'gul (Blood Moon)	518	485	94	94	94	94	90	87	101
[NG+] Hunter's Nightmare	1209 ↥	1472	107	107	107	107	102	99	115
Hunter's Nightmare	760	355	96	96	96	96	92	89	103
	► Defenses: Physical, Blunt, Thrust, Blood, Arcane, Fire and Bolt. Resistances & Bonuses don't change in further playthroughs.

Breakable & Normal Weak Points

In Total and Part HP columns you will find value of the base HP without area multiplier. In Bloodborne each entity has own base HP (and NG) value which is then multiplied by the area (or part of the area) multiplier in which enemy or boss is in.

In the HP Percentage column you will find value of how much damage you need to deal to that body part to break it in percentage of total boss HP.

Enemies and Bosses can have multiple weak points which some are breakable (listed with multipliers) and take higher damage while broken while some will have only higher damage multipler the whole time (mainly listed in the notes section).

Main Game Bosses

Boss & Body Part	Total HP	Part HP	HP [%]	Damage X	Damage X after breaking
Cleric Beast | Central Yharnam
Notes: The Cleric Beast's head and all four of its limbs can be injured separately, stunning it and giving you a few seconds to pile on additional attacks; its wounded limbs will also take 50% more damage. Hitting its head with gunshots, thrown weapons or melee attacks will stagger it, allowing you to inflict heavy damage with visceral attacks; it will eventually heal any damaged parts of its body, restoring their defense to normal but also allowing you to injure them again.
Head	2700	20	0.74%	1	1.5
Small Arm	2700	120	4.44%	1	1.5
Large Arm	2700	300	11.11%	1	1.5
Leg	2700	200	7.41%	1	1.5
Darkbeast Paarl | Old Yharnam
Notes: Dealing heavy damage to Paarl's head in a short period of time will stagger him and allow you to perform a frontal visceral attack; repeatedly striking his limbs knock him down and dispel his lightning aura, at which point he'll take 50% more damage until he restores it. Hitting his other limbs can keep him down, allowing for chaining it if you are doing enough damage to his limbs.
Head	1800	130	7.22%	1	1.5
Front Leg	1800	150	8.33%	1	1.5
Rear Leg	1800	200	11.11%	1	1.5
Vicar Amelia | Cathedral Ward
Notes: You can injure her head and all four of her limbs by hitting them repeatedly; doing so will cause her to stumble, and the injured limb will take an additional 50% damage.
Head	2500	80	3.20%	1	1.5
Arm	2500	150	6%	1	1.5
Leg	2500	200	8%	1	1.5
Rom, the Vacuous Spider | Moonside Lake
Notes: While fighting Rom, focus on attacking only one of her sides - these spots can be injured with repeated attacks, after which point they'll take additional damage when hit.
Left Side	1000	250	25%	1	1.25
Right Side	1000	250	25%	1	1.3
The One Reborn | Yahar'gul, Unseen Village
Notes: The large corpse atop its front half, the lower central core of its body and all four of its large arms can be injured once each to knock it down for several seconds, allowing you to let loose with your strongest attacks at no risk to yourself; the large corpse receives heavily-increased damage and is your priority target once you've knocked the boss down.
Small Leg	1800	100	5.56%	1	1.5
Large Leg	1800	200	11.11%	1	1.5
Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos | Altar of Despair
Notes: Target Ebrietas' head with your strongest attacks and do your best to stagger her. She'll expose her head after her ram attacks and Head Smash, so your goal during both Phases should be to bait these attacks from as far away as possible and quickstep in to strike before she lifts her head.
Head	1800	200	22.22%	2	2.5
Legs/Tentacles	1800	200	11.11%	1	1.25

Boss & Body Part	Total HP	Part HP	HP [%]	Damage X	Damage X after breaking
Amygdala | Nightmare Frontier
Notes: Its head will take tremendous damage, even from normally weak sources such as pistols. Focused attacks on its head will eventually stagger it and allow you to perform a frontal visceral attack. Two brighter limbs will take additional damage as well.
Head	2200	300	19.09%	1.4	2.1
Arm 4	2200	200	9.09%	1	1.5
Arm 5	2200	200	9.09%	1	1.5
Arm 6	2200	180	8.18%	1	1.5
Arm 7	2200	150	6.82%	1	1.5
Arm 8	2200	150	6.82%	1	1.5
Arm 9	2200	120	5.45%	1	1.5
Arm 10	2200	120	5.45%	1	1.5
Tail	2200	200	1.82%	0.2	0.3
Legs	2200	100	0.91%	0.2	0.3
Ludwig the Accursed | Hunter's Nightmare [DLC]
Notes: Ludwig's left and right sides can be injured individually and will take additional damage from all attacks thereafter; he will also be temporarily stunned when one side is injured allowing for a few more swings before he recovers. Unlike many other bosses Ludwig will not regenerate damaged limbs, so take full advantage of this and focus on one side for optimal damage or injure them sequentially to keep him immobilized, Repeated blows to the head during Phase 1 will stagger him, at which point you can perform a visceral attack on his face. If you have a Cannon, it can be used with Bone Marrow Ash to attack Ludwig's head and stagger him very quickly. During Phase 2 Ludwig will stagger after sustaining enough damage, at which point a visceral attack can be initiated from the front of his torso. His sides no longer can be injured at this point, but breaking his super armor will cause him to stumble. The transformed L2 attack of the Whirligig Saw is supremely effective for quickly injuring Ludwig's legs, especially when augmented with Fire Paper; during Phase 2 it is one of the fastest and easiest ways to stagger him.
Head	2400	400	16.67%	1	1.5
Side	2400	200	8.33%	1	1.5
Laurence, the First Vicar | Hunter's Nightmare [DLC]
Notes: Target Laurence's head with pistols or the Piercing Rifle to stagger him, then follow through with a visceral attack. Staggering him works in exactly the same manner as with the original Cleric Beast; he will eventually repair the damage to his head, allowing you to injure it and stager him again. You can also injure Laurence's limbs, but unlike most other bosses this will only stun him temporarily and does not actually increase the damage he receives.
Head	2700	60	2.22%	1	1
Arm	2700	150	5.56%	1	1
Leg	2700	150	5.56%	1	1
Moon Presence | Hunter's Dream
Notes: Dealing enough damage to its head will knock it into a stagger state and enable you to follow hrough with a visceral attack; repeated blows to its arms will injure them and cause it to stumble for a few seconds, setting it up for further combos. Any injured part of its body will take drastically increased damage, including its head; it will eventually repair this damage with its Regeneration move, but this will also allow you to stagger it again with focused attacks on its face.
Head	1020	100	9.80%	1	1.5
Front Leg	1020	150	14.71%	1	1.5
Rear Leg	1020	200	19.61%	1	1.5

Chalice Dungeon Bosses

Dungeon Boss & Body Part	Total HP	Part HP	HP [%]	Damage X	Damage X after breaking
Bloodletting Beast | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: Repeated blows to its head will injure it and cause it to stagger, allowing you to perform a frontal visceral attack; all four of its limbs can be injured as well, and will receive 50% more damage afterwards. It will eventually heal any injuries to its limbs or head, but in the process it will make them vulnerable to injury again, giving you more opportunities to perform visceral attacks. During its second phase it will no longer restore its wounded extremities.
Head	1700	100	5.88%	1	1.50
Arm	1700	150	8.82%	1	1.20
Leg	1700	300	17.65%	1	1.15
Watchdog of the Old Lords | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: By hitting its head and each of its four legs separately, these parts can be injured once per fight and will receive 50% more damage as a result. Injuring its head or any of its limbs will also cause it to stumble, opening it to your attacks. You'll need to move out again quickly, though, as it will use a medium range explosion once it has stood up.
Head	2000	400	15%	0.75	2.50
Front leg	2000	80	4%	1	1.50
Rear leg	2000	280	14%	1	1.15
Abhorrent Beast | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: You can injure his arms and head separately; once any of these parts have been injured, they will receive 50% more damage. By striking the head you can eventually stagger him, which will injure the head and open the beast up for a visceral attack.
Head, Legs and Arms	1190	200	16.81%	1	1.50
Rom, the Vacuous Spider | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: While fighting Rom, focus on attacking only one of her sides - these spots can be injured with repeated attacks, after which point they'll take additional damage when hit.
Left side	1000	250	25%	1	1.25
Right side	1000	250	25%	1	1.30
Amygdala | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: Its head will take tremendous damage, even from normally weak sources such as pistols. Focused attacks on its head will eventually stagger it and allow you to perform a frontal visceral attack. Two brighter limbs will take additional damage as well.
Head	1800	300	23.33%	1.4	2.10
Arm 4	1800	300	16.67%	1	1.50
Arm 5	1800	230	12.78%	1	1.50
Arm 6	1800	300	16.67%	1	1.50
Arm 7	1800	170	9.44%	1	1.50
Arm 8	1800	200	11.11%	1	1.50
Arm 9	1800	170	9.44%	1	1.50
Arm 10	1800	200	11.11%	1	1.50
Tail	1800	400	4.44%	0.2	0.30
Legs	1800	150	1.67%	0.2	0.30
Undead Giant (Twin Curved Blades), Undead Giant (Club and Hook) and Undead Giant (Hatchet and Cannon) | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: Twin Curved Blades Variant: By hitting its head and each of its limbs, you can injure these parts separately, which will cause them to take 50% more damage; after some time the specifically injured limbs will have their defenses restored by the Recovery move, though this will allow you to injure them again. You can also stagger it by hitting its left and right legs, opening it up for a visceral attack. Club and Hook Variant: It has several weak points including its head, its legs and a large lump of flesh on its right hip; all of these spots can be targeted for extra damage or additional effects. Undead Giant (Hatchet and Cannon) Variant: They can be staggered by attacking their legs, which will open them to visceral attacks to their head. This can only be done once, and then you'll need to wait until after they have used their limb recovery, indicated by a swirling red particle effect, in order to do it again.
Head	1800	100	5.56%	1	1.50
Arm	1800	170	9.44%	1	1.50
Leg	1800	220	12.22%	1	1.50
Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: Target Ebrietas' head with your strongest attacks and do your best to stagger her. She'll expose her head after her ram attacks and Head Smash, so your goal during both Phases should be to bait these attacks from as far away as possible and quickstep in to strike before she lifts her head.
Head	1620	400	49.38%	2	2.50
Arms	1620	250	15.43%	1	1.25
Tentacles	1620	300	18.52%	1	1.25

Roaming Chalice Dungeon Bosses

Roaming Dungeon Boss & Body Part	Total HP	Part HP	HP [%]	Damage X	Damage X after breaking
Watchdog of the Old Lords | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: By hitting its head and each of its four legs separately, these parts can be injured once per fight and will receive 50% more damage as a result. Injuring its head or any of its limbs will also cause it to stumble, opening it to your attacks. You'll need to move out again quickly, though, as it will use a medium range explosion once it has stood up.
Head	550	400	54.55%	0.75	2.5
Front leg	550	80	14.55%	1	1.5
Rear leg	550	280	50.91%	1	1.15
Abhorrent Beast | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: You can injure his arms and head separately; once any of these parts have been injured, they will receive 50% more damage. By striking the head you can eventually stagger him, which will injure the head and open the beast up for a visceral attack.
Head, Legs and Arms	600	200	33.33%	1	1.5
Undead Giant (Twin Curved Blades), Undead Giant (Club and Hook) and Undead Giant (Hatchet and Cannon) | Chalice Dungeons
Notes: Twin Curved Blades Variant: By hitting its head and each of its limbs, you can injure these parts separately, which will cause them to take 50% more damage; after some time the specifically injured limbs will have their defenses restored by the Recovery move, though this will allow you to injure them again. You can also stagger it by hitting its left and right legs, opening it up for a visceral attack. Club and Hook Variant: It has several weak points including its head, its legs and a large lump of flesh on its right hip; all of these spots can be targeted for extra damage or additional effects. Undead Giant (Hatchet and Cannon) Variant: They can be staggered by attacking their legs, which will open them to visceral attacks to their head. This can only be done once, and then you'll need to wait until after they have used their limb recovery, indicated by a swirling red particle effect, in order to do it again.
Head	540	100	18.52%	1	1.5
Arm	540	170	31.48%	1	1.5
Leg	540	220	40.74%	1	1.5

Enemies

Enemy & Body Part	Total HP	Part HP	HP [%]	Damage X	Damage X after breaking
Church Giant (Axe), Church Giant (W. Ball), Church Giant (Bare Fists) and Church Giant (Flame Fist) | various locations
Notes: There is one move that can be used by all Church Giants, and while they rarely use it, you should always be on the lookout for it. If you're standing reasonably close in front of them they'll sometimes raise their leg up and use a powerful stamp, so powerful that it actually breaks their leg. When that happens you'll be able to see the bone sticking out of their knee, and if you attack it you'll do considerably more damage than normal and have the ability to stagger them. Unlike armed Church Giants both fist versions have also powerful slam attacks with their left or right arm where they break them and you can hit the bone that sticks out of them to make them stagger for a moment, with no visceral opportunity though. Flame Fist Variant: This Church giant is the only one of his kind that can be staggered without having to wait for it break its leg, and there are a couple of ways you can go about it. The first method is to attack his head when he lowers it during or after one of his attacks. Bait him into using an attack that causes him to lower his head so that you can strike it and stagger him; overhead or jumping attacks will generally give you the best chance of hitting his head. Unlike armed Church Giants both fist versions have also powerful slam attacks with their left or right arm where they break them and you can hit the bone that sticks out of them to make them stagger for a moment, with no visceral opportunity though.
Legs	400	40	10.00%	1	1.5
Lost Child of Antiquity | various locations
Notes: While these enemies can be interrupted and staggered, shooting them during any of their attacks (but outside of the interrupt timing window) will knock them onto their backs, where they'll flail about helplessly on the ground for several seconds before getting back up; this offers a prime opportunity to hit them with your strongest attacks at no risk to yourself.
Fluorescent Flower | various locations
Notes: If you have even one Poison Knife, you can throw it at the dangling flower to poison the entire enemy. This shining flower takes additional damage making it prime target.

An Agony of Effort, Part XIV - The Price of Progress (The Hunters Dissected) | Google Docs Link

The original sin of the hunters, their great misdeed driven by arrogance and curiosity, set in motion the events we observe and read about in the Bloodborne’s infamously cryptic story. In the remote Fishing Hamlet, the scholars of Byrgenwerth—the first of countless hunters—committed atrocities that would forever haunt the members of this bloodstained profession.

Although these events fundamentally shape Bloodborne’s in-game narrative, the atrocities of the Fishing Hamlet—along with those committed later by the Mensis scholars—are the most significant elements of the game in terms of our ability to decipher Bloodborne’s hidden meaning. In this concluding episode of the series, we’ll make our final foray into Bloodborne’s medical metaphor and attempt to explain its origins. If game director Hidetaka Miyazaki did in fact set out to tell a horror story inspired by real-life early medicine, there was no shortage of historical material to work with. He could have easily drawn upon the horrific nature of disease, gross experimentation and gruesome, blood-soaked early surgery. I believe wholeheartedly that that’s exactly what inspired Miyazaki in crafting this game. But there’s a compelling argument that the medical metaphor—and its relationship to several of the game’s most important characters—was drawn directly from two medical figures of the 1700s whose tale is both supremely noble and unfathomably nightmarish. By digging through this history, we take arguably the biggest step so far in demystifying Bloodborne’s story and unearthing its hidden meaning. In this episode, we make our final incisive dive into this medical mystery.

Across 15 installments of this series, we’ve discussed the many ways that Bloodborne reflects the evolution of medical science in 17 and 1800s Great Britain. I’ve argued that the game’s leading figures represent the medical scholars, surgeons and anatomists of the period, whereas the Great Ones symbolize the internal organs and systems of the body that could only be encountered and understood by gaining eyes on the inside—a clever double entendre meaning insight and a literal view inside the human body. But what was the impetus for telling this kind of story? In this episode, we’ll try to accomplish two main goals:

First, we’ll examine the shared attributes and histories of two essential female figures of Bloodborne. Their adjacency to the game’s most pivotal plot points appears to stand as a testament to these characters’ relevance to Bloodborne’s in-game story and lore—and to the game’s underlying meaning.

Building upon this overview, I’ll then put forth my argument for the origin of Bloodborne’s medical metaphor and quite possibly of the entire game. If I’m correct, we’ll see that Bloodborne’s main concepts, its leading factions and at least four of its most prominent characters or entities were derived from a single historical source. I think the evidence is extremely powerful and persuasive.

It’s no secret that pregnancy and childbirth are prominent themes in Bloodborne that are presented oftentimes with no subtlety whatsoever. Arianna, for example, becomes pregnant and eventually gives birth to a Celestial Child, presumably an infant Great One. Annalise, queen of the Vilebloods, tasks her followers with collecting Blood Dregs so that one day she may give birth to a child of blood. But pregnancy is the central feature of the game’s two most important female figures, neither of whom utters a single word of dialogue: Queen Yharnam and the Great One, Kos. These two voiceless characters possess virtually identical stories, and by examining their relationship to the hunters, we can reveal the game’s historical origins.

We can begin this exploration in the Hunter’s Nightmare, which is a living record of the dreadful exploits of Bloodborne’s oldest institutions, specifically Byrgenwerth, the Healing Church and their old hunters. Almost every major NPC we encounter in this area speaks of a dark secret—a heinous act committed by the scholars of Byrgenwerth. Most detailed of these accounts is that of Simon the Harrowed, who tells us that the nightmare “sprouted from their very misdeeds.” When we finally encounter Lady Maria at the top of the astral clocktower, she grabs our arm, pulls us in close and whispers, “A corpse should be left well alone.” Maria, we come to discover, did not honor these words. Several pieces of information lead us to believe that Maria and Gehrman came to the Fishing Hamlet long ago where they murdered the inhabitants of the hamlet and examined their brains [Accursed Brew]. We see a peg-legged figure walking into the hamlet in the DLC teaser video, and we find Maria’s beloved weapon, the Rakuyo, in the hamlet’s well, which she presumably discarded in disgust because it served as a constant reminder of the barbaric acts she committed there.

But their greater sin, we come to learn, was their defilement of the body of the Great One, Kos, whose carcasse washed upon the shore [Kos Parasite text]. Whether Kos died a natural death or was killed at sea is unclear, but we know for certain that her body contained an unborn Great One, the Orphan of Kos, which the hunters removed. The whispers of the Baneful Chanters, unseen figures of the Fishing Hamlet, chronicle the atrocities committed here:

Mother is dead, her baby taken Scales are suffering the grief of Kos … Kos we have beckoned, and Kos is dead Forgive us, and curses upon the fiends A call to the bloodless, wherever they be

A unique piece of dialogue from the Doll seems to confirm that Gehrman was primarily responsible for the hamlet atrocities. After we slay the Orphan of Kos and end the nightmare, the Doll tells us: "Oh, good hunter. I can hear Gehrman sleeping. On any other night, he'd be restless. But on this night, he sounds so very calm. ...perhaps something has eased his suffering.” This naturally implies that Gehrman was haunted by his actions in the hamlet, which included the defilement of her body and that of her unborn child.

As a hunter, the player-character is said to be just like our forefathers. Curious. Looking for secrets. Consumed by a lust for knowledge. It’s what compelled the first hunters to murder the villagers of the Fishing Hamlet and probe their internal organs in the name of research. It’s what drove them to cut open the carcasse of Kos and remove her unborn child. But it haunted them forever, and it’s why Brador, Simon and Maria tell us that some knowledge isn’t worth the price. Maria’s memorable warning that “A corpse should be left well alone” is even more striking in the original Japanese, which Last Protagonist retranslates to “Rummaging through corpses isn’t very admirable. But I understand…the secret is too sweet.” The hunters’ desire for knowledge, gained by dissecting Mother Kos’s body and removing her unborn child, superseded any sense of morality and decency they might have possessed.

Although the evidence is far less direct, there are numerous pieces of information indicating that the circumstances surrounding Kos are virtually identical to those of Queen Yharnam. We encounter Yharnam in the base game in two locations and at two critical junctures of the storyline. When we defeat Rom, we see the spectral presence of Queen Yharnam appear on the glassy bed of the Moonside Lake. She’s looking down, possibly staring at her bloodied abdomen. She raises her head and directs her gaze toward the gigantic blood moon that looms over the lake. The cries of an infant suddenly can be heard. We later come across Yharnam at the base of the Lunarium in the Nightmare of Mensis. Just as before, Yharnam stands with her gaze upward toward the moon and the Lunarium where we fight Mergo’s Wet Nurse. It’s here that we find an empty carriage that would have belonged to Yharnam’s child, Mergo, had Mergo been born. But the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that Mergo didn’t make it to term. Within the deepest reaches of the chalice dungeons, we find Queen Yharnam and engage her in battle. Here, she displays two forms—one in which she’s in the late stages of pregnancy, and another in which her abdomen isn’t swollen and instead is badly bloodied. Concept art also shows Yharnam in the latter months of pregnancy. This is the most explicit evidence that Yharnam doesn’t represent just a woman or queen; she was a pregnant woman whose abdomen was cut open. While it’s possible that this act might have been a failed Caesarian section, I don’t believe that’s what we’re supposed to surmise from Yharnam and the loss of her unborn child. Two questions naturally emerge: What exactly happened to Queen Yharnam, and who was responsible?

There are precious few references to Queen Yharnam in the game outside of the encounters we’ve already discussed. Importantly, though, the Pthumeru Chalices tell us that the Pthumerians carved out the labyrinth. Similarly, Alfred tells us of the “tomb of the gods, carved out below Yharnam,” implying that what lies beneath the city is essentially a burial place or grave. This term “tomb of the gods” could apply only to the Great Ones who are referred to elsewhere as gods, but it could generally indicate that the labyrinth is also a tomb of this long-gone Pthumerian civilization.

We know that Byrgenwerth’s scholars delved into the labyrinth. Alfred indicates as much, as does the Tomb Prospector set. But something that I don’t think we’ve collectively paid enough attention to is the linkage between Byrgenwerth and Queen Yharnam. The last barrier we have to overcome to access the College of Byrgenwerth is the boss of the Forbidden Woods, the Shadow of Yharnam. The name of this boss isn’t a reference to the city of Yharnam. It’s a reference to the queen. It’s why we later encounter these Shadow figures on the same level of Mergo’s Loft on which we find Queen Yharnam. Presumably, the Shadows are the servants of the Queen who are mentioned in the Blood Rapture Rune, which is dropped by the Shadow of Yharnam boss. Why does that matter? The boss fight arena for the Shadow of Yharnam is immediately adjacent to the grounds of the College of Byrgenwerth. This lamp location is called the “Forbidden Grave.” And as we’ve repeatedly discussed in this series, the word “byrgen” is an Old English word meaning burial place or grave, indicating that the College of Byrgenwerth essentially is the College of the Grave. When we piece all of this together, I believe we’re supposed to see that the Byrgenwerth scholars—who are described as “tomb prospectors”—created their own dig site on the edge of the college grounds, in essence digging through and prospecting within this Forbidden Grave. It was here that they accessed the Tomb of the Gods and dug up the dead, pregnant body of Queen Yharnam and dissected it. I realize that many people will reject this idea, but let’s run with it.

Yharnam, and the Pthumerians, are representations of the undead if not just the dead. The “Pthumerian Look,” as it’s sometimes called, is intentional. They’re designed to look like dead bodies. Their skin is ghostly pale. Their eyes are recessed with dark rings around them. Their cheeks are sunken. The skin around their lips is wrinkled from dehydration, just as it would be in a body in the days after death. It’s quite possible that their name is even a reference to the fact that they’re dead. The term “umeru” in Japanese, as I understand it, means buried in the ground, although I’d like to receive better confirmation from a native speaker.

While yes, we encounter Yharnam in a physical form of sorts, we do so at the bottom of a place called a tomb. In our other encounters, she’s a spirit figure with no physical presence. This further reinforces the idea that Yharnam is dead. I’m not certain whether we’re supposed to interpret that Yharnam was found and killed by the scholars of Byrgenwerth so that they could extract her unborn child, Mergo, or if they simply came across the body of the dead, pregnant queen and dissected her for research. But in either case, we’re led to believe that the scholars of Byrgenwerth, or their successors in the School of Mensis, were involved in this process. We know that Rom is hiding the Ritual of Mensis, blocking our access to the hidden village of Yahar’gul. When we kill Rom, a veil is lifted, Mergo’s cries begin and we see Yharnam appear on the lake. We thus can conclude that the Ritual of Mensis that Rom was hiding involved Mergo, or even Yharnam and Mergo. When we access the Nightmare of Mensis by touching the dead body of Micolash near Advent Plaza, we’re able to yet again encounter Yharnam, hear the cries of Mergo, defeat Micolash, who was behind the Mensis ritual, and eventually slay Mergo’s Wet Nurse, which brings an end to the nightmare.

I’ve argued that the Ritual of Mensis is a metaphor for anatomical dissection. But I stopped short of saying exactly what it entailed. In my reading of the evidence, the Ritual of Mensis was the dissection of Queen Yharnam and her unborn child, which created the Nightmare of Mensis. Yharnam’s consciousness or spirit cannot rest, nor can the cries of Mergo be silenced, until this horrific act is avenged and the Wet Nurse—a knife-wielding dissector—is slain in atonement. If you’re open to this idea but still not convinced, the latter half of this episode might change your mind. But first, let’s look at one more thing associated with Queen Yharnam. If we navigate the chalice dungeons and eventually defeat Queen Yharnam, she drops a strange item called the Yharnam Stone. Many players have suggested this item refers to an ectopic pregnancy or lithopedion, a fetus that dies and calcifies outside of the womb and is commonly called a stone baby. This trinket absolutely confounded the lore community for years. For all the effort it takes to reach, let alone defeat Yharnam, we’re rewarded with this token that has no application as a currency, has no impact on the player’s stats and has no ability to unlock new areas. It appears to have just one use, although it was cut from the final release version of the game. Lance McDonald revealed in a 2019 video that if the player carries the Yharnam Stone and ventures to the Fishing Hamlet, there is a dialogue option in which the player may give the stone to the Hamlet Priest. If we do, the priest says, “Kos! Fair child of Kos. Time is not, and the sea rumbles afar. And yet, a mother’s pungent devotion can still be felt. Ahh, thank you messenger. I exude gratitude for one such as you. Kos, bless this messenger, this visitor from beyond.” Although there’s likely no in-game connection whatsoever between Queen Yharnam and Mother Kos, the Yharnam Stone item and this unused bit of content reinforce the idea that the stories are essentially one and the same with these two mother figures whose unborn children were taken from their dissected bodies.

Fine, you might think. The hunters carved up the pregnant bodies of Kos and Yharnam. What does this have to do with Bloodborne’s medial metaphor? Far more than you might fathom. In the mid-1700s, within the heart of the Georgian Era of British history, the world of medical research would be permanently altered by the groundbreaking and equally horrifying work of two men. These men, just like Maria and Gehrman, would become forever known for dissecting the bodies of pregnant women and their unborn children in the pursuit of higher knowledge.

These men were the Hunters. And I believe their story was the primary inspiration for Bloodborne’s hunters and its medical metaphor—if not the entire game itself.

It’s not an embellishment to say that there are no larger names in the history of anatomical dissection in Great Britain than William and John Hunter, brothers who were born in 1718 and 1728 in the countryside south of Glasgow Scotland. The elder brother, William, abandoned his plans to join the clergy in favor of medicine, earning his medical degree from Glasgow University before accepting an apprenticeship with Scottish physician William Cullen. Cullen would go on to become professor of chemistry and pathology at the University of Edinburgh and a leading medical scholar of the central nervous system. As I argued in Part IV of this series, I believe William Cullen was a key inspiration for Provost Willem. William Hunter briefly studied at the University of Edinburgh before relocating to London in the 1740s to assist two fellow Scottish physicians in their midwifery practice. Because he was able to ingratiate himself with the intellectuals and high society of London rather quickly, William chose to break an agreement with his former master, William Cullen, to become a junior partner in his practice in Scotland. He instead remained in the English capital to continue his work in midwifery. It was a wise and lucrative decision. By his mid-40s, as described by researcher Peter M. Dunn, William Hunter had become “the leading physician-man midwife of his day.” But William’s passion and the source of his fame was his zeal for anatomical dissection as a tool for teaching and research.

In 1746, William opened his own anatomy school in London that was unique in all of England. Unlike the medical schools at Oxford and Cambridge, or even other private anatomy schools of Great Britain, William’s anatomy school guaranteed that every student would receive his own cadaver to dissect at every session of the four-month-long course. Other schools obtained at most two corpses that the head master would dissect over a period of weeks during colder months of winter while the students merely observed. The steady stream of fresh bodies to William’s anatomy school was unheard of at the time. In the 1740s, there was no legally sanctioned method for private anatomy schools to obtain bodies for dissection. The Murder Act of 1752, which allowed executed criminals to be dissected, was still years from passage when William founded his anatomy school. Because William enrolled as many as a hundred students per term, the demand for bodies was staggering. To satisfy demand, the only recourse was body snatching—the digging up of coffins from fresh graves, dragging the body out with a length of rope, shoving it into a sack and transporting the corpse under the cover of night to the basement of the anatomy school. The task of obtaining bodies fell to William’s brother, John, who had come to London to train under William who was 10 years his senior. Within a few years, John would become a full partner in the operation of the Hunter school. While William would lecture and present practical information from his perspective as a physician, John would demonstrate dissection and surgical applications on the cutting table. In the school’s early years, to satisfy their cadaver demand, it’s believed that John dug up bodies himself. This lasted for only a short time before he expanded his grave robbing operation to include anatomy students and, eventually, a hired band of professional body snatchers. These men were otherwise known as “Resurrectionists.” But colloquially among the commoner class, they were known as “Sack ‘em up men'' because they delivered bodies in cloth or burlap bags fresh from the graveyard to the anatomy school door. These figures were the inspiration for Bloodborne’s Kidnapper enemies, commonly called “Bag Men,” as we discussed in Part V of this series. The Kidnappers kill the player-character and deliver the body in a bag to the underground keep below Yahar’gul.

John Hunter would soon surpass the dissecting prowess of his older brother, thanks to his extraordinary knife skills and his penchant for experimentation. In his 12 years at the Hunters’ anatomy school—first as an apprentice and later as a researcher and lecturer—John dissected more than 2,000 bodies, making him the most prolific anatomist of the Georgian Era. This work not only produced a multitude of anatomical and physiological breakthroughs; the Hunters brothers’ preservation of diseased tissues and physical abnormalities helped ensure that the thousands of aspiring surgeons they trained were able to successfully identify illness and disease in both the living and the dead. This is why, I am convinced, the ritual materials within Bloodborne—the items most prized by hunters who delved into the Tomb of the Gods—are virtually all body parts and preserved tissues. The items Sage’s Hair, Sage’s Wrist and Yellow Backbone are all specifically referred to in their item descriptions as “body parts.” The cadaver element is right there in their item descriptions. We also have Bloodshot Eyeballs that are “removed quickly after death, or even before,” just as in a postmortem dissection. The Sage’s Hair and Wrist, specifically, are said to have been used by the Healing Church in its search for truth, or knowledge, yet again strongly implying their use in medical scholarship. And most explicit of all ritual materials is the item called Inflicted Organ, or as it’s more accurately described in the original Japanese, “Disease-riddled Organ.” All of these ritual materials are body parts and diseased tissues that anatomists would have removed and preserved to aid in anatomical instruction. Because Bloodborne treats these materials as “ritual” materials, it suggests that the game’s rituals might represent anatomical dissection. The most notable of these, of course, would be the Mensis Ritual, which I argued in Episode 5 is a reference to dissection.

But here’s where the story of William and John Hunter mirrors what we observe in Bloodborne. William was trained as a man-midwife, serving as a physician to London’s wealthy women during their pregnancy. He would go on to deliver all 15 children of King George III and Queen Charlotte. Compelled by his fascination with human anatomy and obstetrics, and quite likely by his insatiable hunger for wealth and fame, William set out to accomplish the unthinkable: He would dedicate the latter half of his life to studying—and, more importantly, to visually capturing—the development of the fetus at every stage of pregnancy. In the mid-1700s, little was known about fetal development. Not surprising, considering there were social, religious and logistical barriers to fetal study. Not only was it considered morally reprehensible to dissect the corpse of a pregnant woman, a fetus or a stillborn child, there were few opportunities to do so even if the anatomist was unbound by social mores. Although women weren’t spared from capital punishment in 18th century Great Britain, it was unheard of that a pregnant woman would be sent to the gallows and thereby render her corpse fair game for the dissecting table. With few pregnant corpses to study, the anatomists of the 16 and 1700s had made few breakthroughs in studying the fetus and the mother’s physiology. William Hunter was intent to change that. To do so, he would rely on the impeccable dissection abilities of his brother, John, and the illustration skills of Dutch artist Jan Van Rymsdyk, who would capture the Hunter brothers’ dissections with lifelike precision. And while John’s steady knife-wielding hand would be critical to this venture, it was his familiarity with the seedy underworld of body snatching that proved even more valuable.

As historian Wendy Moore chronicled in her 2005 biography of John Hunter titled “The Knife Man,” the Hunter brothers secured the corpses of at least five pregnant women, paying their team of body snatchers to exhume the bodies often within hours of burial. Through John’s meticulous handiwork, the Hunters and the artist van Rymsdyk created 34 engravings that would constitute William Hunter’s magnum opus, “Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus,” which he published in 1774. The book, which was printed as an elephant folio of unusually large proportions to ensure the visibility of van Rymsdyk’s striking sketches, showed the fetus in its various development phases, including in its final state just days before birth.

Medical scholars acknowledge that the Hunters could have exhumed and dissected as many as 20 pregnant women in the completion of the “Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus.” But I suspect that the story of the Hunter brothers might have come to the attention of Hidetaka Miyazaki in or around 2010 following the publication of a shocking and highly contentious article by sociologist Don Shelton. In his piece published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Shelton cites hospital data of the period to conclude that there simply weren’t enough dead pregnant women in London to have accounted for the known dissections of William and John Hunter. Pregnant women by nature tend to be young and healthy, and deaths during pregnancy were much less frequent than they were among infants, children and the elderly—or even among women shortly after they gave birth and died from blood loss or infection. Instead, Shelton argues, the Hunter brothers didn’t just dig up the corpses of pregnant women—they paid men to kill and deliver the bodies of expectant mothers to the doorstep of the Hunters’ anatomy theater. William Hunter, much like Gehrman, might have been driven by such a powerful, manic curiosity that it would compel him to engage in this murder-for-hire scheme to obtain these anatomical treasures.

Although Shelton’s article received coverage in the mainstream press, leading to television pieces and news stories in the British news source The Guardian, historians and medical scholars almost universally denounced Shelton’s conclusion, insisting that he had ignored the fact that William Hunter was a physician at a lying-in hospital and would have known when pregnant women at the hospital would have died. The Hunters, therefore, could have easily targeted the graves of these women rather than digging up graves at random in hopes of finding a dead expectant mother, or hiring men to kill and deliver these prized specimens. Still, Shelton’s study garnered enough interest in international media five years before the release of Bloodborne that it seems plausible to have been the source that brought the Hunters to Miyazaki’s attention. It was 2012, after all, when the game began development under the name “Project Beast,” meaning Miyazaki would have had a year or two to develop a conceptual framework for the game between the release of Shelton’s article and the beginning of Bloodborne’s development. Bloodborne’s inescapable medical metaphor and its central themes of pregnancy and childbirth would make perfect sense in a game inspired by William and John Hunter and their dissection of pregnant women in the name of medical science. Bloodborne builds upon this primary historical source, expanding the game to subtly reflect the evolution of medical science and practice in the 17 and 1800s, rooting its Gothic horror aesthetic in the real-life history of Edinburgh, the center of medical study of the Victorian period.

I’ve argued in several episodes of this series that the Great Ones of Bloodborne were designed to resemble things found within the human body—organs, systems and even fetuses—because that’s what anatomical researchers would have discovered during the course of dissection, the main form of medical research in the 17 and 1800s. But as I noted in Part XII-C, the Great Ones also have a subtle element to them that connects us back to William and John Hunter. The Great Ones seem to possess some aspect that is associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Based on what we now know, this doesn’t seem at all coincidental. The Great Ones aren’t just based on things found within any cadaver’s body—they represent the organs and systems that would have been found within the dead bodies of pregnant women and their unborn children. It’s why Kos—the central figure of the Hunter’s Nightmare and source of the Curse of Kos—is designed as a massive womb and her unborn child, the Orphan of Kos, is a fetus. It’s also why the Brain of Mensis is described as a rotten, eroded brain. It’s the brain of a dead fetus that has begun to decompose. And that’s why, when the Mensis scholars encountered this Great One, their brains were “stillborn.” We’re supposed to associate the Brain of Mensis with a dead fetus or stillborn child whose rotting brain would have been discovered during an anatomical dissection of a pregnant woman and the child she was carrying. Finally, it’s why the Moon Presence’s face is a cross-section of an umbilical cord while its body is designed as the circulatory system. John Hunter’s most important medical discovery that resulted from the dissection of pregnant women was that the fetus’s blood circulation was separate from that of the mother. That the final boss of the game is a giant circulatory system seems very relevant.

Queen Yharnam and Mother Kos are our connections to the real-life history of William and John Hunter, and Maria and Gehrman—presumably the first two in a long lineage of hunters—seem to be the direct analogs to the Hunter brothers. Much like the younger John served first as an apprentice to his older brother, so too did Maria serve as a student to Gehrman, the first hunter. Together, they raided the Fishing Hamlet and committed the original sin of the game—the defilement of Mother Kos’ corpse and the removal of her dead, unborn child—just as the Hunter brothers gained medical fame and infamy for their dissection of pregnant women. Why would Kos be designed as an oceanic creature that would have washed up on the shore of the Fishing Hamlet like a whale, only to be dissected? There are several theories that From Software drew from Japanese history and manga set in fishing or whaling villages beset by mysterious illness. But I think there’s a strong possibility Kos is depicted as a large sea creature because one of the most famous anecdotes about John Hunter was his dissection of a piked whale, whose 17-foot-long carcasse was delivered from the banks of Thames river where it washed ashore to the doorstep of the dissecting room in the rear of John’s London home. He wrote an entire book on it, titled “Observations on the Structure and Oeconomy of Whales.” Dissecting expectant mothers and all manner of exotic animals contributed greatly to John’s reputation as an eccentric and morbid figure. As an interesting aside, medical and literary scholars have noted that John Hunter and his home on Leicester Square were almost certainly the inspiration for Dr. Henry Jekyll and his elaborate mansion in Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” which we’ve acknowledged repeatedly was a major influence on Bloodborne.

The successors to Bloodborne’s early hunters, the students of the School of Mensis and their leader, Micolash, appear to have committed the same sin as Gehrman and Maria, only at a later time in the game’s history. Mensis somehow encountered Queen Yharnam deep in the Tomb of the Gods and then removed her unborn child, Mergo. This appears to have created the Nightmare of Mensis, a realm where Mergo’s consciousness, and that of Micolash, is trapped. Micolash, as he dies in the nightmare, screams, “I’m waking up. Now I’ll forget everything.” The knowledge he gained from dissecting Yharnam’s body and that of her fetal child Mergo was lost.

The Hunter’s Workshop, which we observe in the waking world and in the Hunter’s Dream, is our constant reminder of fetal dissection. The workshop seems to be a small anatomical study space, complete with the dissecting tools, jars and chemical solutions that are reminiscent of real-life dissecting rooms of the 1700s. It’s also why we find one of the four umbilical cords there in the waking world version of the Abandoned Old Workshop. We find it atop a small table that’s covered in bloody cloth, as if a dissection of a small body had taken place there. It would make sense that some waking-world version of the Orphan of Kos—one of infant size as opposed to the man-sized version we encounter in the Hunter’s Nightmare—was brought to the Hunter’s Workshop and dissected so that its umbilical cord could be removed.

We also see the Surgery Altar in the Hunter’s Nightmare isn’t a place of surgery at all, or even an homage to surgery. It’s a monument to dissection. All the figures in the display are carved in stone, even the body lying on the operating table. But unlike the three living figures standing around the altar, the subject on the table is a desiccated corpse with its head cut open. This is an altar to the art of dissection, which was the source of the Hunter’s Nightmare realm—the dissection of Kos and her unborn child. Laurence, seemingly racked with guilt, is posed in the Nightmare Cathedral in the exact same position as From Nature, the cast of a dissected corpse, to further reinforce that the original sin of the hunters and of the scholars originating at Byrgenwerth, was dissection.

Dissection of pregnant women and their unborn children is certainly nightmarish, and I’m convinced this is the origin of the “Nightmare Slain” text we receive three times in the game. Unlike the usual “Prey Slaughtered” text that’s displayed after defeating most bosses, we see “Nightmare Slain” when we defeat Mergo’s Wet Nurse, the Orphan of Kos and the Moon Presence. By freeing the consciousness of the dead, dissected Mergo from its captor, the nightmare is ended and Yharnam bows to us in gratitude. By slaying the Orphan of Kos, whose pregnant mother was defiled by the hunters, we return its restless spirit to the sea. And by killing the Moon Presence, presumably we are ending the endless cycle of the hunt. In my interpretation, the hunt isn’t just the slaying of beasts. It’s everything that Bloodborne entails—an endless search for knowledge in the hope of advancing humanity. It’s a grand metaphor for medical research. And only by consuming three umbilical cords—body parts that would have been only obtainable by dissecting fetuses—can we obtain the necessary knowledge, the medical understanding, to end the hunt.

Bloodborne has always been a medical story at its core, one inspired by the surgical history of Great Britain. Within the game’s steelbook case, early concept art shows the gate to Cathedral Ward with the inscription, “Faithful hath been your warfare,” a quote from John Milton’s epic poem, Paradise Lost. But the quote’s connection to Milton’s biblically inspired work is irrelevant; it’s the quote’s application in real-life architecture that’s important. It appears on the signage at the entrance to the British Medical Association, a union for surgeons and physicians in London. As I said months ago when we first began, “Bloodborne is meant to depict the nightmarish experience of Victorian-era illness and disease and the dehumanizing nature of medical research, surgery and addiction.” I hope that over the course of this series, I’ve been able to argue this point and give you something new to think about. My dissection of Bloodborne, at least for now, is complete. Thanks for watching.

An Agony of Effort, Part III - The Animal Within (The Beastly Scourge) | Google Docs Link

An Agony of Effort, Part VII The Vicar & The Blade (Laurence & Ludwig)

Laurence and Ludwig, fallen heroes of the Healing Church, are perhaps the most tragic figures in a story populated almost entirely with tragic figures. Although From Software exercised literary license in crafting these characters, they weren’t cut from whole cloth. Based on what we’ve discussed in this series, as well as some additional evidence we’ll reveal today, we can say with confidence that From Software drew inspiration from two historical figures—and the literary adaptation of one of those figures—to give life to these two foundational members of the Healing Church.

Before we can reveal the real-life inspirations for these characters, we have to briefly recall several key points I’ve made in this series. Point 1: Healing Church = Royal Infirmary In Part VI of this series, we discussed the ways in which the Healing Church serves as a parallel to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, arguably the world’s leading surgical hospital of the 19th century. It’s where Victorian author and poet William Ernest Henley sought and received treatment for tuberculosis in 1873, and where he became friends with famed author Robert Louis Stevenson. As I’ve argued throughout this series, From Software used Henley’s personal story and the literary works of both Stevenson and Henley to develop the main story of Bloodborne and several of its leading characters. Point 2: Hunters = Surgeons Throughout this series, and especially in Part VI, I’ve shown how From Software portrayed hunters as a metaphor for Victorian surgeons and anatomists, none more explicitly than the Healing Church hunters who are explicitly described as doctors. This is the core tenet of the game’s medical metaphor. And finally, Point 3: Healing Blood = Anesthesia In Part II of this series, I laid out the evidence showing that the Healing Blood, the central item in the game and the basis for the Healing Church, is meant to represent the intoxicating and addictive anesthetics of the Victorian era, primarily ether and chloroform.

When we view hunters as Victorian surgeons, the Healing Blood as an 1800s anesthetic, and the Healing Church as the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, other pieces start to fall into place fairly quickly. With that said, let’s turn our attention first to Laurence, the first vicar and founder of the Healing Church, then we can move on to Ludwig.

As we discussed in the second video of this series, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Gothic horror tale, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” served as the basis for the Healing Blood. In Stevenson’s short story, doctor and chemist Henry Jekyll experiments with chemical agents in his attempt to create curative substances. But in the process, he discovers certain agents that possess intoxicating, addictive properties that he can’t resist, and one of his concoctions transforms him into the repugnant Edward Hyde. Stevenson almost certainly based his story on the unsettling tale of American dentist and chemist Horace Wells, who experimented with ether and chloroform in the late 1840s, which caused a violent behavioral transformation and prompted him to take his own life.

In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Stevenson describes Mr. Hyde not just by his violent and antisocial behavior but by his unique appearance which is completely different from Dr. Jekyll’s. Although popular adaptations of the story later depicted Hyde as a sleek and flamboyant figure—somewhat like Gehrman during his boss fight—in the original tale Hyde is referred to much differently. Stevenson characterizes Hyde as a troglodyte, meaning a cave man or primitive ancestor to humans. Stevenson describes Hyde three times as “ape-like” in appearance. That’s how Hyde was depicted in the 1931 film “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.”

This is what we’re supposed to see in Laurence’s beastly skull in the Grand Cathedral, with its uniquely simian appearance. Unlike the Scourge Beasts or even Vicar Amelia and their canine physiognomy, Laurence’s transformed skull matches the description of the ape-like Mr. Hyde. Lore hunter JSF pointed out this detail years ago, but wasn’t sure what it might mean. It was and is an important observation. As I’ve repeatedly said and shown in this series, Stevenson’s “Jekyll and Hyde” was the inspiration for the Healing Blood. But critically, this detail allows us to understand that the ape-like Mr. Hyde, a beastly figure into which Dr. Jekyll transformed, was almost certainly the inspiration for Laurence. As we just noted, the theory is that Robert Louis Stevenson based his characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde upon Horace Wells, a pioneer of early anesthesia. If we start to connect the dots, we could argue that Laurence—the founder of the Healing Church and its champion of the anesthesia-like Healing Blood—was indirectly inspired by Horace Wells, a real-life physician driven to darkness and death by his addiction to ether and chloroform. We discussed in Part 4 of this series that Laurence got his name, in part, from Lauriston Place, a street in Edinburgh where the Royal Infirmary was relocated in 1879. This makes perfect sense, considering the Healing Church was inspired by the Royal Infirmary. But we can now look at two naming inspirations side by side: From Lauriston and Horace, we get Laurence.

Although there’s this ape-like physical skull that we associate with Laurence that remains in the waking world on the altar of the Grand Cathedral, his soul or consciousness is manifested in the Hunter’s Nightmare as the burning corpse of a Cleric Beast. We find this corpse resting on the altar of the Nightmare Cathedral.

It’s not surprising that many people have suggested that Laurence’s statuesque appearance is similar to Michelangelo’s Pieta, which depicts Mary cradling the dead body of Christ. Laurence of course is a Christ-like figure in some superficial ways, in that he sought to save humanity with the power of divine blood that possibly could help them transcend their human bonds and ascend to another plane of existence, just as Christ’s blood in the form of his martyrdom provides spiritual salvation and delivery to heaven for his followers. But Pieta isn’t the direct artistic inspiration for Laurence’s pose in the Nightmare Cathedral. Instead, just like pretty much everything else in the game, the inspiration comes from Edinburgh’s medical community in the 1800s. Housed in the Surgeon’ Hall anatomical museum is a plaster cast titled “From Nature” or “Cast From Nature.”

Although the work was inspired by Pieta, the piece is not Renaissance art. It’s a plaster cast of a partially dissected body, as captured by Edinburgh anatomist John Goodsir in 1845. Flaps of incised skin are folded back on the upper chest. We can see much greater similarity between Laurence and “From Nature” than we can between Laurence and Pieta, from the protruding ribs, to the back-leaning head to the identical positioning of the arms and legs. Not to mention, there’s no Mary figure in either “From Nature” or the altar containing Laurence’s cleric beast body. The only major difference is the direction they’re facing. This further reinforces Bloodborne’s use of the term “beast” to represent dissected bodies, or cadavers, also known as bodies drained of blood, while further underscoring the point I’ve been trying to make throughout this series: Bloodborne is meant to depict the nightmarish experience of Victorian-era illness and disease and the dehumanizing nature of medical research, surgery and addiction. The Edinburgh medical community, as well as the lives and works of William Ernest Henley and Robert Louis Stevenson are the soul of Bloodborne. This just further reinforces this conclusion.

Before we finish this section on Laurence, let’s examine one more thing. One of the more confusing items in the game is the key item called Laurence’s Skull. The item description is a swirling tempest of seeming contradictions: “Skull of Laurence, first vicar of the Healing Church. In reality he became the first 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.”

This item description is exceptionally difficult to follow, but we’ll give it a try. At some point in the Bloodborne universe, Laurence was a scholar at Byrgenwerth. He discovered a special medium, the Old Blood, that had remarkable properties. It alleviated pain and provided a euphoric intoxication. He saw great promise in the substance and wanted to bring it to the masses, which was a noble aspiration. But the Healing Blood that he crafted was too seductive. Just like Dr. Henry Jekyll, Laurence was unable to resist the temptation of the intoxicating substances he had refined. He lost himself in the drug and transformed into something else. Just like Dr. Jekyll permanently transformed into the ape-like creature Edward Hyde, Laurence transformed into an ape-like beast whose skull we find on the altar of the Grand Cathedral. Laurence, the man, was forever lost when this beastly transformation occurred. He could never transform back into his human form. When the item Laurence’s Skull tells us “the skull is a symbol of Laurence's past, and what he failed to protect,” it means the past is Laurence’s human past, and what he failed to protect was his humanity. In “Jekyll and Hyde,” Dr. Jekyll had relied on a serum to transform him into Hyde, and another serum to transform him back into Jekyll. But eventually, the latter serum stopped working. The fading remnant of Dr. Jekyll’s consciousness within the physical form of Edward Hyde was trying to formulate a serum so that he could transform back into his human self, but it was never going to be possible. Laurence, his consciousness trapped in the Hunter’s Nightmare, is destined to seek his human skull, a symbol of his past, a symbol of his humanity, the thing he failed to protect. But it no longer exists in the waking world. In that world, there is no Laurence anymore. There are no human remains of Laurence. There’s just a skull of an ape-like beast that Laurence became. That’s what the item Laurence’s Skull means.

Ludwig, the Holy Blade With Laurence’s origins made much more clear, we can turn our focus to Ludwig. We learn from the Yharnam Hunter attire and the Sword Hunter Badge that Ludwig was the first hunter of the Church, therefore he would have come after the Old Hunters of Gehrman’s era. Let’s recall two of our main premises that we discussed earlier: 1) Bloodborne’s hunters are metaphorical representations of Victorian era surgeons, and 2) the Healing Church is meant to represent the Old Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. If these assumptions are accurate—if what I’ve argued throughout this series is true—then there should be clear-cut evidence substantiating this: That the real-life parallel for Ludwig would have had to have been a surgeon from the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in the Victorian era. Furthermore, if my insistence that the personal story and poetry of William Ernest Henley was indeed a major influence on the game Bloodborne, then we should expect to see a linkage between Henley’s poems from “In Hospital”—the book of poetry about his two-year stay at the Royal Infirmary—and Ludwig, a character inspired by a real-life surgeon of the Infirmary. Guess what? We do.

There are two vital pieces of information that allow us to pinpoint the true inspiration for Ludwig. The first piece comes from Bloodborne; the second comes from Henley’s poetry. Let’s start with the evidence from within the game. It’s an item that we don’t directly associate with Ludwig by name. But it’s obviously an item exclusively affiliated with Ludwig. It’s the Hunter Chief Emblem. The Hunter Chief Emblem is an item that provides the player easier access to Cathedral Ward, the home of the Healing Church, in the early game. But the emblem’s practical application is virtually irrelevant here. It’s the item name and description that are important. Let’s talk about the item name first. There are two important things to keep in mind about the word “chief.” First, throughout all of Bloodborne, the word “chief” appears only once: It’s in the Hunter Chief Emblem. It’s not in any item descriptions, lore notes or pieces of dialogue. It’s only on the Hunter Chief Emblem. Second, the lore hunter Last Protagonist confirms in his exhaustive Japanese retranslations that the word “chief” is correct, meaning there wasn’t a mistranslation in the original version, or some other more appropriate term that should’ve been used instead. The word “chief” in Hunter Chief Emblem is accurate.

Both of these are HUGELY important, as we’ll see momentarily. As for the item description, it states, “The main gate is shut tight on nights of the hunt, and could only be opened from the other side with this emblem. In other words, the captain's return, and this emblem, determined the end of the hunt.” The item bears an emblem we’re led to believe is the icon the Healing Church. We see this emblem on the Cathedral Ward gate, and we can see that it is almost identical to the Communion Rune, which we see throughout the Healing Church’s Research Hall. This tells us that the Hunter Chief Emblem belonged to the captain of the Healing Church hunters, not just any band of hunters. It didn’t belong to Gehrman’s Old Hunters or the Powder Kegs. This belonged to the captain or chief of the Healing Church hunters. Although the Sword Hunter Badge tells us that “Ludwig was the first of many Healing Church hunters to come,” within Bloodborne, there is only one figure who is named or alluded to as the leader of the Healing Church hunters: It’s Ludwig. We know from the Yharnam Hunter attire that Ludwig recruited hunters, implying he organized, trained and equipped them. We learn from the Radiant Sword Hunter Badge that this key item was carried by Ludwig’s successors or heirs to his will, suggesting that they venerated him as a leader. The spoken words of Ludwig, the Holy Blade, solidify this conclusion. After we defeat Ludwig in the Hunter’s Nightmare, he asks “Are my church hunters the honorable Spartans I hoped they would be?” as if they were his disciples or soldiers. He’s clearly being depicted as the leader or captain of these Healing Church hunters. It makes sense, then, that Ludwig, the first Healing Church hunter and commander of these “honorable Spartans” is the Hunter Chief to whom the Hunter Chief Emblem first belonged. Even if it was handed down over the generations, Ludwig is the only hunter we can individually identify as the owner of this emblem at some point in the history of Bloodborne.

With that in mind, we can turn to the other critical piece of evidence, this time within the literary works of William Ernest Henley. As we discussed in much greater detail in the first video of this series, Henley spent two years in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, from 1873 to 1875, where he underwent successful surgery on his right leg to remove infected tissue caused by tuberculosis of the bone. He wrote more than two dozen poems that were later consolidated into a book of poetry titled “In Hospital,” which captured his experience undergoing Victorian era surgery and his lengthy recovery in the Royal Infirmary. In three different poems from “In Hospital,” Henley refers to an unnamed surgeon at the Royal Infirmary as “The Chief.” He even titles one of the poems as simply “The Chief,” and dedicates this piece entirely to this surgeon. He describes this person as “the professor” who makes rounds with nurses, surgical staff and medical students scurrying along behind him, following his every word and instruction. As multiple literary historians have confirmed, and as basic logic would lead us to conclude, the surgeon that Henley referred to as “the Chief” was Sir Joseph Lister, chair of clinical surgery at the Royal Infirmary from 1869 to 1877. I realize that sounds extremely odd based on the figure we encounter Ludwig, the Accursed in the Hunter’s Nightmare. But stick with me for a few minutes and I think you’ll be surprised.

It’s not an overstatement that Joseph Lister was arguably the most important surgeon of the 19th century and remains one of the leading figures of medicine in the last 300 years. Lister developed and popularized what was known as the antiseptic surgical technique that revolutionized the preparation of surgical spaces and disinfecting of incisions. As head of surgery at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Lister also brought on a host of Nightingale Nurses, those who were formally trained in the nursing profession. These changes under Lister represented a period of modernization and improvement in the quality of medical care and surgery that had never been seen in a major hospital, and it triggered a mass transformation in medical care in the United Kingdom, Europe and America. Lister also ushered in a period of heavy reliance upon the new, seemingly miraculous anesthetics of his day, which further emphasized the Royal Infirmary’s step into the modern era. These anesthetics, ether and chloroform, are the Royal Infirmary’s version of the Healing Church’s Healing Blood.

Lister performed the surgery that saved William Ernest Henley’s right leg from amputation. As head of surgery at the Royal Infirmary at the time, and as Henley describes in his poems from “In Hospital,” Lister made rounds in the Infirmary to appraise surgical incisions and oversee the application of fresh bandages, soaked in carbolic acid. In the poem titled “Staff-Nurse: Old Style,” Henley says of the infirmary’s matronly nurse, “They say ‘The Chief’ himself is half-afraid of her.”. In the poem titled “Clinical,” Henley writes: “Hustles the Class! And they ring themselves Round the first bed, where the Chief (His dressers and clerks at attention), Bends in inspection already.

Because we know that Henley repeatedly referred to Joseph Lister as “The Chief,” and because we know that Bloodborne’s hunters are meant to represent Victorian era surgeons, we can confirm that the Hunter Chief refers to Lister. And because we know that the Hunter Chief is Ludwig, we can deduce that Lister was the inspiration for Ludwig.

It’s clever that the Hunter Chief Emblem is a piece of cloth, or handkerchief. Surgeons in the mid to late 1800s would have had two uses for cloth handkerchiefs. Prior to the surgery, they would douse a handkerchief with ether or chloroform and hold it by the patient’s nose to administer the anesthetic. This would have started the surgery. Once the surgery was complete, the doctor would use the cloth to wipe the blood from his hands. That’s why, according to the Hunter Chief Emblem item description, the presentation of the Hunter Chief Emblem signifies the end of the hunt. It’s the end of the surgical operation.

In the base game of Bloodborne, we find the NPC named Edgar in the Nightmare of Mensis. He’s wearing the Student Uniform and wielding Ludwig’s Holy Blade and the Rosmarinus—and yes, that’s the correct pronunciation. Edgar’s wielding of these weapons is meant to have us associate the Holy Blade with the Rosmarinus. Let’s examine why.

Joseph Lister, of course, was best known for his antiseptic method, which involved dousing bandages in carbolic acid, or phenol, and cleaning his hands and surgical tools in phenol as well. But he was famous for spraying vaporized carbolic acid in the surgery room in an effort to disinfect the air. The device he used was called a Listerizer, which is what Bloodborne used as the basis for the Rosmarinus, which is said to spray “a cloud of sacred mist.” Lister eventually abandoned use of the sprayer because it didn’t have any impact on infections and, ironically, it just badly irritated the eyes and sinuses of the surgical staff. I think that’s why the item description of the Rosmarinus includes the line, “Oh, fair maiden, why is it that you weep?” We’re meant to associate the Rosmarinus, much like the Listerizer, with Ludwig’s Holy Blade and thus Ludwig, who is based upon Joseph Lister. Both weapons are Healing Church weapons. As I’ve noted in this video and throughout this series, the Healing Church was based on the Royal Infirmary, which is where Lister developed and utilized the Rosmarinus-like Listerizer.

There’s some additional evidence to support the conclusion that Ludwig was inspired by Joseph Lister. First, let’s look at Ludwig’s Holy Blade. Lister, who inspired Ludwig, was a leading surgeon. The weapon of a surgeon, of course, would be a scalpel. Ludwig’s Holy Blade, as noted in its item description, is a silver sword. Silver was the preferred metal for early scalpels. It’s resistant to oxidation and is one of the least chemically reactive metals known to man, making it a valuable material in early medicine. We can think of Ludwig’s Holy Blade as Lister’s silver scalpel. We’ll come back to the item description for Ludwig’s Holy Blade in just a few minutes, because there’s another interesting takeaway.

All of Ludwig’s dialogue also appears to relate to Joseph Lister, often drawn from the verses of William Ernest Henley’s “In Hospital” collection. When we enter Ludwig’s arena in the Hunter’s Nightmare, we encounter something that no other boss in the game receives: a spoken introduction. A bloodied corpse speaks to us, warning of the approaching monster. “An unsightly beast... A great terror looms! Ahh... Ludwig the Accursed is coming. Have mercy... Have mercy upon us…”

Note the nature of this dialogue. The corpse is warning us of Ludwig’s approach. He says “Ludwig the Accursed is coming.” This text and From Software’s decision to include this sort of a boss introduction scene seems to be modeled off of the first paragraph of Henley’s poem titled “Clinical,” which is dedicated in its entirety to Joseph Lister. And just like the introduction of Ludwig, which speaks of this oncoming, looming figure, Clinical begins with the approach of the intimidating chief surgeon. Through the corridor’s echoes, Louder and nearer Comes a great shuffling of feet. Quick, every one of you, Strighten your quilts, and be decent! Here’s the Professor.

Although Lister would become one of the most influential and transformative figures in the history of surgical practice, he wasn’t without his critics during his lifetime. Among them were his Scottish contemporary James Young Simpson, as well as American surgeon Samuel Gross. We saw Gross and his assistants in action in the previous video, in the painting by Thomas Eakins, titled Gross Clinic. Unlike Lister and his surgical assistants who practiced with great attention to cleanliness and disinfection, Gross roundly rejected Lister’s antiseptic method. He, and many other physicians, didn’t put any stock into the germ theory of disease, which Lister had embraced after studying the work of French scientist Louis Pasteur. This context allows us to understand Ludwig’s dialogue after the player has defeated him, assuming we’re wearing church attire. Ludwig asks us: “Tell me, good hunter of the Church, Have you seen the light? Are my Church Hunters the honorable Spartans I hoped they would be?”

Whether we answer yes or no, Ludwig mentions his critics. If we say yes, he responds, “Ah, good...that is a relief. To know I did not suffer such denigration for nothing.” If we say no, he responds, “Oh, my. Just as I feared. Then a beast-possessed degenerate was I, as my detractors made eminently clear.”

Before we finish with Ludwig, it’s important to jump back to Ludwig’s Holy Blade. There’s one other big takeaway. The item description tells us that the Healing Church workshop of Ludwig departed from the ways of Gehrman’s Old Hunter Workshop. This indicates to us that the character Gehrman, as the first hunter and founder of the Old Workshop, likely represents more primitive surgical techniques in the decades if not century prior to Joseph Lister. For a good while, I wondered whether Gehrman was supposed to mirror Sir Robert Liston, a legendary and at times infamous surgeon of Edinburgh who practiced in the decades before the arrival of anesthetics.

Liston, not to be confused with Joseph Lister, was a leading surgeon of the early 1800s and taught at the University of Edinburgh medical school where he mentored the next generation of surgeons including Joseph Lister and a man we’ll discuss in an upcoming video, James Young Simpson. Liston was known for his flamboyance, confidence and—most importantly—speed. Surgeries prior to the antiseptic method, and prior to Victorian anesthesia, had to be performed quickly if the patient were to stand any chance of survival. Death from blood loss of course was a significant concern, but infection was the major killer. The longer a wound remained open, the more likely it was to turn septic. Liston reportedly was able to amputate a leg within three minutes and reveled in the challenge. It’s perhaps no coincidence that an old hunter technique was quickening, as we see in the item, Old Hunter Bone. It improves the speed of the hunter. The item itself appears to be a femur that has been severed, as in an amputated leg. Looking at Gehrman’s weapon, the Burial Blade, we naturally see a scythe that he uses to behead the player-character in the so-called “Yharnam Sunrise” ending. But the artwork for the Burial Blade depicts the untricked weapon’s handle as the bones of the lower leg. It’s supposed to look like a limb that’s been amputated, a Liston special. Also note that the Old Hunter Trousers contain a double belt wrapped around the leg to prevent beast blood from creeping up the leg. It’s also meant to depict a tourniquet belt that would’ve limited blood loss during an amputation.

I now believe that this is just supposed to link Gehrman with the old surgeons who would have performed amputations, not necessarily Robert Liston in specific. There are a few reasons why I changed my mind on this relationship, which I’ll discuss in the final videos of this series.

In the next video, we’ll take a closer look at the village of Hemwick. Although Hemwick and its charnel lane are often overlooked for their lore significance, we’ll see how they strongly reinforce Bloodborne’s connection to the work of William Ernest Henley. The village of Hemwick is not what it seems.

Welcome to the Cursed Land. The moon is close. It will be a long hunt tonight... Hidden amongst the furthest reaches of the treacherous eastern mountains, this city lies in seclusion. Forgotten. Cursed. An affliction has cursed the city for countless ages, an endemic nightmare known only as the Scourge of the Beast. Those afflicted by this sickness lose all sense of reason, transforming into what can only be described as beasts. Night after night, “hunters” arise to cleanse the streets of these horrors.

Introducing Bloodborne, action RPG from renowned Japanese developer FromSoftware, makers of the hit Demon's Souls and Dark Souls series, exclusively on the PlayStation®4 system. Face your fears as you search for answers in the ancient city of Yharnam, now cursed with a strange endemic illness spreading through the streets like wildfire. Danger, death and madness lurk around every corner of this dark and horrific world, and you must discover its darkest secrets in order to survive. A Terrifying New World: Journey to a horror-filled gothic city where deranged mobs and nightmarish creatures lurk around every corner. Strategic Action Combat: Armed with a unique arsenal of weaponry, including guns and saw cleavers, you'll need wits, strategy and reflexes to take down the agile and intelligent enemies that guard the city's dark secrets. A New Generation of Action RPG: Stunningly detailed gothic environments, atmospheric lighting, and advanced new online experiences showcase the power and prowess of the PlayStation(R)4 system. Ever-changing Chalice Dungeons to Explore: Use holy chalices to gain entrance to a network of vast underground ruins, filled with traps, beasts, and rewards, to explore and conquer. These generated dungeons offer brand new challenges to master, and can be uploaded or shared with friends.	Current Wiki Schedule Adding datamined Rally values to each weapon's attack in Attacks Properties. Incorporating info into the PvP techniques page from Tech Guide 2 video by SK. Checking server erased glyphs in Caryll Runes (done) and Chalice Glyphs pages. Weekly Maintenance: checking for broken links, going page by page (now 1021) for fact checks, typos, grammar errors and design updates.
	Recently Updated Pages Vitality Endurance Bloodtinge Arcane Offensive Stats Level Stats Old Hunter Bone Blood Echoes Insight Strength Skill	Most Visited Pages Best Blood Gems Setups Chalice Dungeons Flow Chart Individual Blood Gems Old Hunter Summons Top-tier Farmable Gem Chalices The Old Hunters Modded Save Save-editing Chalice Dungeons HUD Icons Data Mining Progression Guide Guidance

Need more beginner tips or want to uncover Chalice Dungeons visit FAQs section. If you want to learn more about what means what on your screen and game mechanics go to Game Mechanics section. Bloodborne does not allow manual saves. Any time something happens, the game will auto-save. The game will also periodically auto-save even when nothing is going on.

Strength Equipment Requirements

Requirement	Weapons	Requirement	Firearms	Requirement	Shield & Torches
6		6		6	Torch, Hunter's Torch
7	Blade of Mercy, Threaded Cane, Saw Spear	7	Hunter Pistol, Hunter Blunderbuss, Fist of Gratia	7
8	Reiterpallasch, Saw Cleaver, Simon's Bowblade	8		8	Wooden Shield
9	Hunter Axe, Beasthunter Saif, Church Pick	9	Ludwig's Rifle, Evelyn, Piercing Rifle	9
10	Rifle Spear, Chikage, Burial Blade, Rakuyo	10	Repeating Pistol	10
11	Beast Cutter	11		11	Loch Shield
12	Tonitrus	12		12
14	Beast Claw, Bloodletter, Boom Hammer	14		14
16	Kirkhammer, Ludwig's Holy Blade, Holy Moonlight Sword	16		16
17	Amygdalan Arm	17		17
18	Stake Driver, Whirligig Saw	18		18
20	Logarius' Wheel	20		20
27		27	Church Cannon	27
28		28	Gatling Gun	28
30		30	Cannon	30

Arcane Equipment Scaling

Weapon	Scaling Base (+0)	Scaling (+1)	Scaling (+2)	Scaling (+3)	Scaling (+4)	Scaling (+5)	Scaling (+6)	Scaling (+7)	Scaling (+8)	Scaling (+9)	Scaling Max (+10)
Amygdalan Arm	D	C	B	B	B	B	B	B	B	A	A

Bloodtinge Equipment Scaling

Weapon	Scaling Base (+0)	Scaling Max (+10)		+0	+1	+2	+3	+4	+5	+6	+7	+8	+9	+10
Bloodletter	B	S	Detail ►	B	B	B	B	A	A	A	A	A	A	S
Cannon	E	D	Detail ►	E	E	E	E	E	E	D	D	D	D	D
Evelyn	B	S	Detail ►	B	B	B	A	A	A	A	S	S	S	S
Gatling Gun	E	D	Detail ►	E	E	E	E	E	E	E	D	D	D	D
Hunter Blunderbuss	D	A	Detail ►	D	C	C	B	B	B	B	A	A	A	A
Hunter Pistol	D	A	Detail ►	D	D	D	C	C	B	B	B	B	B	A
Chikage	C	S	Detail ►	C	B	B	B	B	A	A	A	A	A	S
Church Cannon	E	D	Detail ►	E	E	E	E	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
Ludwig's Rifle	E	D	Detail ►	E	E	E	E	D	D	D	D	D	D	D
Piercing Rifle	D	A	Detail ►	D	D	D	C	C	B	B	B	A	A	A
Reiterpallasch	E	D	Detail ►	E	E	E	E	E	D	D	D	D	D	D
Repeating Pistol	D	B	Detail ►	D	D	C	C	C	B	B	B	B	B	B
Simon's Bowblade	C	S	Detail ►	C	B	B	B	B	A	A	A	A	A	S

An unmodified retail copy of Bloodborne runs on the Playstation 4 at 1080p resolution, and targets a frame rate of thirty frames per second. Although the game is fully playable and supported on the more powerful PS4 Pro and Playstation 5 consoles, performance remains locked to that of the Playstation 4. The game's performance targets can be unlocked through the use of patches created by Lance McDonald, which can be installed on Playstation 4 systems that have unofficially modified firmware. This allows for Bloodborne to be run at a much faster and smoother sixty frames per second, but at the cost of reducing the game's resolution to 720p. While Lance McDonald's patches can also allow the game to target sixty frames per second while retaining its 1080p resolution, the Playstation 4 lacks the necessary processing power to make this a feasible way to play Bloodborne. It is, however, possible to achieve this performance target using the superior processing power of the Playstation 5. The YouTube channel Digital Foundry has access to footage of Bloodborne running at both 1080p and sixty frames per second on a modified Playstation 5 that is using the patch created by Lance McDonald. This cannot presently be accomplished using a retail PS5, as the necessary firmware patches and cracks are not available. Performance remains smooth and consistent when running the game like this on Playstation 5 hardware, with encounters notorious for causing performance issues, such as the particle effect-heavy Blood-starved Beast fight, almost never dropping below sixty frames per second. The only instance of noticeable dropped frames occurred in the encounter with the Suspicious Beggar's Abhorrent Beast form, although Digital Foundry clarified that, as the footage was not recorded by them, it is possible the dropped frames were a glitch caused by the recording itself.

While the frame rate can be increased through patches, Bloodborne's native resolution remains capped at 1080p, even on Playstation 5 hardware. This inspired Digital Foundry to create a hypothetical demonstration of what Bloodborne running at an upscaled 4k resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels. The project use Topaz Video Enhance AI, which contains multiple AI models that produce different results. Using an AI to upscale Bloodborne caused a number of issues that are normally present during AI upscaling, due to Bloodborne's heavy use of antialising, specular aliasing, and chromatic aberration. This results in an image with a lot of visual "noise" and unnatural lighting that AI upscalers are not used to dealing with, and required a large amount of tweaking to produce a clearer image. Digital Foundry ultimately upscaled approximately forty minutes of footage to 4k, and presented it side by side with the original 1080p capture. The resulting footage looks much smoother and lacks obvious pixelation, but also softens the details on some textures, making them appear less distinct. According to Digital Foundry, it is unlikely that Bloodborne could ever run at a resolution above 1080p, as it was built specifically for the Playstation 4 and cannot simply be patched to run differently on the Playstation 5. A complete overhaul of the game would be required to have the game run natively in 4k, in which case a complete remake, similar to the 2021 remake of Demon's Souls, is a more likely outcome.

Note: Damage Multiplier data from official guide checked with http://darksouls2verificationdata.web.fc2.com/motion-bloodborne.html for correction after patch 1.09.

Feb 2022 Update: All attack properties (damage multiplier, damage type, stamina cost & attack impact) verified with datamined game files and added rally values for each attack.

Basic Information

This page contains embedded praske's spreadsheet of bosses and enemies values for Main Story and Old Hunters Expansion.

Use D-Pad Left and Right buttons (click into the spreadsheet) if you want to move table for more stats.

All bosses and enemies are sorted by their names alphabetically.