#gherman the first hunter

[evangelifloss]

I had a dream bloodborne 2 was announced except it was a brightly lit farming simulator and you had to protect your ranch from beasts

[twiggybeing]

Laurence is the hardest and worst boss in Bloodborne.

Geheman: easy

Moon: easy

Orphan: easy

But fucking Laurence?

Laurence: hard

[paulito8000]

Mein face wenn the yharnamites call das jägersausfahrhackschnittklingenbeil „hunter‘s axe“

Mein face wenn der Moment the yharnamites call den sägengezahnaufreißwundspeerstecher a „saw spear“

mein face when yharnamites call der Transformierengezähntwolftiermannfleischaufreißer a "saw cleaver" mein face when yharnamites call das Kurzschwerthineinsteinbrecher a "kirkhammer" mein face when yharnamites call der schickestockprügelhineingezähntpeitsche a "threaded cane"

[fantomette22]

Maria and Gerhman snowball fight but it’s this

Maria is about to BURY that boomer, I’m so sorry 😭

LMAO 🤣 🤣 RIP Gehrman the first hunter.

Oh i’m dead that would absolutely happen. Probably very accurate 🤣 I need to draw that 😂

Like just yesterday when i was ice skating in the forest and failing miserably it remind me that i hc Gehrman do like snow a bit i guess but really not ice 😂 like poor man can’t walk probably on ice & snow with his prosthetic 😭

Like THIS is him V

And you probably have Maria who know how to ice skate since she’s a kid lol. She have an advantage she’s used to a shit tons of snow and like my old comic she’s used to snowball fight 😂

Still I bet he could take all the old hunters on a snowball fight (he got a good aim) but then Maria would be even better xD and then good luck to run after and tackle her because she’s the pro at running away in the snow! If you know you know… didn’t wanna spoil my fic but well id care i can tell it to you lol but yeah our girl is the best at running in the snow :,)

[fen--harel]

Woken up with something of a nightmare, have you?

[xxxmathildaxxx]

my taste in men fluctuates between Ebenezer Scrooge and Gherman the first hunter

[subzeroparade]

Hello im darundik on ao3 and have been so slowly working through your works and am currently on The Feast We Promised and I am so IN LVOE with how you interpret canon events into practical terms. Like I always assumed that Maria entered the healing church after the cainhurst massacre, bc she hides her relationship to them, but of course this idea of cainhurst being allowed and THEN disappearing makes sense. And also the whole thing of gherman being a designer first and foremost and being the hardest hitter, the fact that there’s a difference between academics and prospectors — LOVE THIS. The moment where you said “Maria joined the church as a botanist” — of course. Of fuxking course. The term “hunter” now means “just a person who wacks beasts” but it doesn’t necessary only mean that — as evidenced by the choir members in-game, who definitely don’t hunt, but ar hunter-type enemies. I’m just. Tearing my hair out. I love this so much. I’m reading SO slowly but enjoying it SO much.

Thank you so much, the engagement with my work means a lot :') Especially Feast, because so much went into it.

Please have this Maria sketch I have been noodling for part of the day as thanks.

[modeus-the-misanthrope]

Monsterfucker Tournament, Round 1 of the Feminine Division. The matchup as decided by a random number generator is.....

Flora, the Moon Presence: An eldritch Great One capable of creating a dream realm that the player of Bloodborne spends the vast majority of their (non-dlc) adventures roaming. She seeks to have a child as all Great One's do and desires to have all other Great One's slaughtered. It is unknown how, but all Great One's in game use humans as surrogates for their children. She seemingly has overridden Gherman, the First Hunter's willpower and is capable of doing the same to the player character. Forcing them to serve her.

Chimera Falin: A human cleric who was consumed by a dragon while in and adventuring party with her brother, best friend, and several other hired members. After being revived she was fused with the remains of the Red Dragon that consumed her, and several harpies. She dutifully serves Thistle while also retaining a moderate amount of her personality. She is capable of still using magic while in this form alongside her draconic strength, making her very powerful and dangerous. She seemingly still retains the intact male anatomy of the Red Dragon she has been fused with, but identifies as a woman before and after her chimerafication.

[katyspersonal]

Hello there ! Do you have any headcanon about Lady Maria ? Like maybe her relationship with other characters than Gherman and Adeline ?

Thank you for an ask! I've posted some headcanons about her past ( x )and her habits and alike ( x ) but it was a considerable time ago! Also I have a delayed ask from my friend @heraldofcrow regarding Maria's family because the sheer amount of people I needed to cover and contexts I needed to explain crashed me shdfhsd (I will post it when I am ready Crow </3 )

I will cover more or less solid ideas here though because some headcanons I am still just bouncing around!

Maria and other Old Hunters

Like it says here, she and Henryk were the ones helping Byrgenwerth, descending from the families with close ties to ancient cultures and having a lot of knowledge under their belts (as well as personal interest)! Both of them are not very talkative outside of "important" stuff. However, every time they do speak with each other it is very agreeable, fulfilling and positive experience! They share a lot in common and understand each other's struggles and fears effortlessly!

Djura was a person she respected a lot, especially for being the fellow denier of magic using, unlike the rest of Old Hunters that enjoyed arcane weapons, Moon-granted powers, bells, etc etc. That's why Powder Kegs were "heretical"! They both only relied on their skills, only he also was a great engineer! She considered straight up joining Oto Workshop (remains of which later became Powder Kegs) but did not like what their fixation on fire was unfortunately bringing in her. She has the secret pyromancy power, you know x)

^ The fact that concept art features a Charred Hunter similar to Djura with a rapier and one of Powder Kegs weapons imitates a Cainhurst weapon makes me consider the idea that Maria and Djura knew each other even before the Hunters stuff! I will examine this idea later, but them being old friends is an appealing idea! In either case, for her Djura was like that one "cool mutual" who instantly gives you self-esteem boost if they like your post! xD Djura was yet to undergo his character arc at the point Maria's resolve as a hunter cracked after Fishing Hamlet though, so his (former) feverish hatred to the beasts made her trust him less. She already got burnt when Gehrman somewhat harshly didn't understand her faltering and didn't want to risk getting judgement from Djura, the second person she admired, too.

Gratia is a cousin that Maria never learned of, as Gratia was discarded since birth (born same kind of Pthumerian-Human hubrid as Snatchers)! It was rather lucky to still meet within Old Hunters as adults. Maria felt quite comfortable with her, coincidentally getting sense of 'older sister' figure from her that she missed after parting with Annalise! Even though Gratia and Annalise are nothing alike of course x) But a much more stronger, more bold and confident, and more tall woman is something that allowed Maria to connect with her softer side, especially when Gratia would straight up pick her up in a (too tight) embrace when she congratulated her with something, or expressed vocal wish to "protect" her!

Matias (Blood Minister from intro cutscene) used to double as a bar man at the times when alcohol was still relevant in Yharnam, so she interacted with him outside of the hunt enough! She needed a glass sometimes, okay? xD He is a curious person though and prefers to get under facades and see what people are really made of, so he abused being sober while she was drunk to ask her about her feelings on various topics and people, or pry on her secrets. She was so stoic and reclusive, he just wanted to know who was the person under the Hunter role! Very crooked of him, but at least he didn't use drunk secrets of others for evil, he is Just Like This lol. He eventually felt guilty for being so shady though. As one of the first Old Hunters who started to experience the potential drawbacks of the hunt and blood (losing legs capacity, blindness, having to amputate fingers etc), he also was one the first to get in a wheelchair. Maria was so nice and helpful to him despite him becoming "useless", he should have been nice too, this old nosy bastard.

Maria and the Healing Church

Laurence... Alright, heeeere we fucking go again with my beloved image that is a pillar for many of my headcanons:

Maria and Laurence are not blood-related (at least as far as great-grand parents go, I didn't develop centuries of family tree!), but saw each other since younger age! They were not close though, as Laurence travelled and studied abroad in his kid and teen years! Whenever he visited, it was also not more than simple exchange of news at the dinner in a group of people. Maria and her squad (Annalise, Crow and King) knew him as arrogant asshole with inflated ego, but he returned in Maria's life in Byrgenwerth era, as admittedly more charismatic and pleasant person than before.

They managed to patch up years of awkwardness and distance and became friends, especially since he got along with Gehrman quite well! ...but then he decided that HE was special, and HE could tame the holy blood when Loran and Pthumeru Ihyll failed 🙄 Maria was more by the side of Caryll, Rom and Willem on the big bad academical infighting! She argued with Laurence a lot. When he convinced Adeline that letting him surgically alter her body to produce holy blood was a good idea, Maria straight up could not handle it maturely. It is a long one to go into but Laurence already tugged some unexplainable sense of fear and hesitation in Maria. She felt like his influence somehow was everywhere (not she alone, actually) and she never could stand up against him properly, but "losing" Adeline was the very peak of the sense of helplessness. She wished she reacted more maturely and her weakness only proven Adeline that Laurence was more reasonable trustworthy (owch.....), but in either case, since then a HELL of passive aggression and coldness followed between Laurence and Maria.

....and then, they somewhat broke the ice in Research Hall arc, after Maria abandoned the hunt and could at least entrust in evolution through Eyes and Stars. They both figured they took bad turns in life and there was no point in lamenting the past, they still needed to save what could be saved. They finally had pleasant, albeit very bitter-sweet interactions after years of mutual vitriol. However, I am considering a very dark idea of Laurence seeing that Maria was bordering suic1dal moods and not only letting it happen, but even "encouraging" it in secret, as he wanted her out of the way before commanding Cainhurst massacre. No, he knew that he had her will broken and she would just let him do it, he was not scared. But he... didn't want it. He figured it was a better way to go for her as someone who still believed she could atone for her sins, rather than living to reach complete state of helplessness. He "allowed" her one last "choice" in her life.

Fucked up concept, fucked up concept, I know.

With Brador relationship was a bit strained, but they were more of friends than Maria and Laurence. At least, she was not feeling so inexplicably cornered by him with all her might as a warrior, nor Brador was trying to scare her into being hush. He believed she was smart enough to not get herself or her friends into more trouble, albeit always felt bad for her kind, honorable nature. He knew he was an opposite of her, completely drenched and even reveling in disgraceful crimes he was doing to help "smarter people" advance. But, Maria pleaded with Brador to get a word out from her to Laurence, to pay attention at the weird actions of Doctor Micolash at the Research Hall and why patients kept suffering and diving into 'Sea', and Brador listened to her. It is quite a confession from Brador to go against Laurence for someone, and Maria knows this. They'd have very deep friendship under better circumstances, I think.

Vasylissa (White Church Hunter) is another character Maria saw often! Technically, Maria replaced her as an overseer and caretaker of Research Hall in the end. Even before that, Maria appreciated this person and was always relieved to find her in Grand Cathedral praying instead of Laurence. Vasylissa at least remembered to "fear the blood" much better than everyone else in the Healing Church. Very arcane-leaning, very should-have-stayed-in-Byrgenwerth person that helped Maria to feel less alone. They exchanged everything they knew as well as had many heart-to-hearts, and Vasylissa considered themselves to be good friends.. She was one of the people who cried and blamed herself when Maria was gone. I also like to play with an idea that Maria would like to approach her romantically, but noticed someone else had eyes on her - that Black Church female Hunter who guards her! So she decided to step back.

Ludwig was also a person with whom Laurence and Healing Church stuff didn't sour the things with! Heck, the guy loved what Laurence represented more than himself, and mostly was just fixated on the hunt (and his 'Guidance', but that was a secret!)! They are both knightly and full of honour, naive and kind but ruthless in battle! I even wrote a post of headcanons of them as a pairing once ( x ), but everything said in that post still applies minus the dating bit :') They were good friends that vented and could comfort each other, they disagreed on the same Healing Church's antics, they had friendly sparrings, they kept each other in mind upon separation and stocked up things to share with each other when they'd meet next..

I think when Maria went from 'magic bad humanity good' to 'maybe there IS some hope for humanity in pursuit for Stars and Moon 🤔', Ludwig showed Holy Moonlight to her. He was a little reluctant and jealous considering it, but could not see Maria so doubtful and lost. If sharing something so intimate could've helped her to finally make sense of her conflicts, then so be it. Only.. it made things worse, because Maria saw that the violence and murder was in the plans of even the Great One that was advertised by Laurence and the others as the way to help humanity!

Maria and Cainhurst

This is the part where I unfortunately have to restrain myself, because there is so much to unpack that, like I said, I still have a separate ask to work on this!

But, Maria had sort of a friend group since childhood with Annalise (half-sister from her cheating father), Eidinghardt (Bloody Crow of Cainhurst) and Elias (King)! Her relationship with Crow were the closest of the group, as the two were like siblings! They were fighting a lot but not in a toxic way, more like the typical siblings banters! Maria additionally pinched Crow's cheek or invited him for a nice fist fight when they were kids and Crow constantly made Elias cry, or was rude towards Annalise! He was an asshole, and she was an anti-bully ranger x) Yet, whenever it subdued, they were playing together a lot and getting into trouble together. Crow was very jealous when Maria decided to leave Cainhurst, like... I would not surprised of the 'straight up clinged to her leg and dragged after her across the floor' situation fdshhfd For people that fought a lot he felt only she truly understood him, and he never quite recovered from realisation that Maria might not really felt the same, even if she did love him too.

Elias was very gentle person when he was growing up, and could only really turn to Maria to hide from judgement for "shaming" his noble family. She was there for him during both of his most hardcore conflicts with Annalise (who was and is extremely hard to earn forgiveness from), and believed in him when he decided to become a warrior too. Annalise, like I said, Maria found a comfort in, lacking a mother figure and instead seeking a woman to turn to in older sisters figures. But also, Annalise gave her chills sometimes! She never dared to lie to her or break a promise to her- and she did see what happens on example of Elias. At the same time, Annalise was so reliable, someone Maria could share her problem with and just know that Annalise will help...

____________________________

This is all for now! Obviously this is not all characters to cover; there are still Logarius, Izzy, Caryll (one more cousin, but known one), Micolash and Rom, and relatives in Cainhurst! I just wanted to answer the ask now but I am still cooking some headcanons because I figured I can't rush it and right ideas find me at their own pace :pensive: Still, thank you for letting me talk about it in detail!!

[none-house-left-grief]

no please share your Bloodbourne AU with us….im glad im not the only one thinking about this

Hey sorry I'm only getting to this now! I never get asks for this blog so I don't bother checking often.

I don't have any particularly detailed thoughts, and a lot of things just don't fully add up unless you ignore some lore on both ends but here's re a few ideas I've had (they're all just very very obvious connections tbh they're not super interesting I think):

Obviously the religion of the Ninth is the Healing Church

The Cathedral Ward, specifically Oedon Chapel, would be the Ninth/Drearburh equivalent

It gets a bit complicated when we get to talking about the Lyctors, Resurrection Beasts, and BoS, however

I think the best option for BoS to be would be the hunters (Wake being the much sexier and much much less creepy version of Gherman (would that make Pyrrha Lady Maria?) as the leader/founder)

The Byrgenwerth Scholars could be the Lyctors (or necromancers more broadly)

The Lyctors would be the known bosses and scholars we know of (Maria, Micolash, Rom, etc.) although they could also include hunters like Gascoigne

The RBs would be the bosses that are not human (Amygdala, Blood Starved Beast, (potentially Vicar Amelia idk how I feel about including her tbh)

Here's the tricky part:

John and Alecto could be Willem and Laurence, but I see Jod as Laurence in this (because he would use the blood (which in this case it would be the necromantic equivalent ig??) to "help" people but Alecto would not vibe with it)

However Willem was essentially the founding figure of Byrgenwerth, which, if we didn't do a 1:1 comparison could also work

Laurence could also be Anastasia the First, being the respective founders of their churches

Another issue is that I don't know what to make of the necro/cav duos. Admittedly, this is what makes the AU fall apart for me a little, although I'm sure there's a way to make it work

The easiest thing to do would be to make them Hunters, but then the BoS thing would have to be different

We could pull a Soul Eater and have the cavs be the Hunter weapons because the healing church also has hunters, but that doesn't quite fit for me

Unless

The Cainhurst Vilebloods could be the BoS equivallent, going against the church founded under Laurence/John

This lets the hunters be necromancers and their cavaliers, provided they hunt in pairs

This also lets Pyrrha be Maria and have some ties to BoE through Wake

Some characters might not have direct connections tho

Nona is hard to account for on account of the whole Nona thing

Characters like Patches don't seem to fit with tlt either

The House system would have to be potentially scrapped, although they could be allied/paired off based off of branches from the Scholars

Magic is also a challenge, as the closest thing are the Arcane Hunter Tools and Blood which isn't the same as necromancy (especially not TLT necromancy with the intricacies of the River, thanergy and thallergy, etc.)

Lyctorhood would also be a challenge, although it could be as simple as "the soul/body/blood is absorbed when 'ascended'" or something

The whole "Bloodborne is full of references to the horrors of womanhood and pregnancy and femininity and blood" thing also doesn't fit quite as neatly with tlt because it has a more anti-imperialist bend to it and gender-fuckery happens, but it's not quite like in Bloodborne

For this reason, the whole Pthumerian part of the lore doesn't fit in any way that's easily apparent to me, although I'm open to ideas on all of this, particularly I would love to find a way to fit Queen Yharnam into all this without just making her Wake because they're both the only ones who are prego.

Anyway yeah that's about it lmao hope it's as interesting as you thought it would be

[iotnonii]

Is anyone a fan of bloodborne and also Ginjnaninjaowo's Prism series?? Please I'm fighting for my life trying to make Maria into a magical girl Notes on First Rough Draft:

I realized I didn't know how the hell magical girls worked. I only ever watched madoka and it's a lot like a very intricate clock to me, as in I can see somewhat how it works, but the actual components are foreign to me. In trying to be as extra as a magical girl, the whole thing feels incohesive. The thing is, Maria has to have a strong color palette since she's one of the old hunters and I don't know how to even begin balancing said palette if black and white don't count. I'm also at a disadvantage since most of bloodborne is covered in red and black and the clocktower is an intentional washed out grey. I couldn't find a shape that was simple enough to read as "prism shape" to me. This was somewhat fun but what the hell reads as "Clock" here other than her weapons? So definitely more references are needed.

Notes on Second Rough Draft:

I just looked up pirate magical girl since I'm very attached to the cravat and I just wanted to figure out how someone would keep that while doing magical girl stuff. As someone who is a firm lover of butch women, this felt like sacrilege- almost like I just drew Gherman's fantasy. There are colors though! And she has her funny lil hat that I love. The trim is bit weird but I was afraid of overusing the clock ticks. Still feels miles ahead of the other design though so I'll take it!

please, if you have any questions or suggestions- dm me or throw something in my ask box. Thank you ;-;

[miirshroom]

"O Flora, of the moon, of the dream."

So I decided to explore what it could mean that the Doll in Bloodborne references a "Flora" in connection to the moon. Essentially tracing several connective threads down lines of inquiry related to the Flower Moon.

In a way, this is a follow up to my previous post "Elden Ring and Bloodborne - What do we Learn from the Dead". For context: under certain conditions the doll may kneel in front of one of the gravestones in the Hunter's Dream and say the following prayer:

"O Flora, of the moon, of the dream. O little ones, O fleeting will of the ancients. Let the hunter be safe, let her find comfort. And let this dream her captor, foretell a pleasant awakening. Be one day, a fond, distant memory." - Peculiar Doll

Data mining has confirmed that there are 2 conditions that may trigger this, so long as the Hunter's Nightmare has not yet been accessed but the blood moon has been triggered: 1) At Hunter's Nightmare gravestone, or 2) In a New Game + cycle, directed at the Hunter's Gravestone that appears only if the "Yharnam Sunrise" ending was previously selected (in which the player is beheaded by Gherman). Further, there are indications that "Flora" was the name of the Moon Presence in earlier versions of the game.

Xtha-cka Zhi-ga Tze-the, the Killer of the Flowers Moon

It is traditional among native people of Turtle Island (more commonly known as North America) to assign names to the moons of the year based around notable benchmarks in the changing of the seasons. There is no codified system that spans all peoples - it varies by region. The Farmer's Almanac adopted the system of naming moons as inspired by this practice and similar European traditions that pre-dates the Julian calendar. But this is both generalized to apply to a wider area and includes the biases of Colonial America that do not always harmonize with the origins of the tradition.

'Killers of the Flower Moon' is a 2023 movie based on a 2017 book that got its title from a 2009 poem by Elise Paschen about the 1921 murder of Anna Kyle Brown in the first of what would be known as the Osage Reign of Terror. A conspiracy generally masterminded by rancher William Hale to secure land and oil rights. This was considered to be the first major murder case of the FBI. Actually, the title of the book and movie muddle the intent of the poem in a subtle way (though the explanation is provided in the first few pages of the book). In Osage it's "Killer of the Flowers" Moon because this is the time of year when a late frost may arrive and kill young flowers.

So now I intend to suspend disbelief and consider the metanarrative. Because in my experience, FromSoft has been extremely attentive to the dates when their games are released. Some hints of this are in the ways that the phases of the moon in real life at date of release match the moon phases observed in game for Sekiro and Elden Ring. Recently much emphasis was placed on the number "621" in Armored Core VI and release day of Shadow of the Erdtree, considering that the only time they have ever released a game on the exact day of a solar eclipse was Forever Kingdom in 2001 on the June 21 summer solstice. In fact, before Shadow of the Erdtree, the only Fromsoft game ever released on the day of a full moon that I could find - out of 80+ games - was also on the day of a blood moon. This will come up later.

There have been 4 games in the history of FromSoftware that have been released during part of a Flower moon/Flower Killing Moon cycle. That is, when the May moon is either waxing or waning:

Lost Kingdoms (Rune) 2 - May 22, 2003 (Last Quarter - Aquarius)

Nanpure VOW (Sudoku) - April 26, 2007 (Waxing Gibbous - Virgo)

Iraroji VOW (Picross) - May 24, 2007 (First Quarter - Virgo)

Dark Souls Remastered - May 24, 2018 (Waxing Gibbous - Libra)

One notable observation is that May 24th appears twice. Another is that Nanpure VOW and Iraroji VOW actually are for two different May moons - the second one is a Blue moon. And it is an outlier in the FromSoft catalogue to be making these sudoku and picross games to begin with - a puzzle game genre that had not been touched before or since. A similar outliner is seen in 2009 with FromSoft publishing 2 visual novels playing through the cases of famous Japanese fictional detective Kosuke Kindaichi - The Inugami Curse and The Village of 8 Graves.

So why emphasize May 24?

Q. How do you Solve a Problem like Maria?

A. With the Sound of Music

There could be multiple reasons. In Canada May 24 is Queen Victoria Day (French: Fête de la Reine, lit. 'Celebration of the Queen'), as it was Queen Victoria's birthday and she was the Mother of Confederation for Canada.

But there is an odd pull that I want to dig into because it ties in quite well with the musical themes of Bloodborne: On May 24, 1982 the funk/art band Blondie released their 6th album titled "The Hunter" under label Chrysalis and recorded at New York studio "The Hit Factory". The 11th song on this album is a cover song titled "The Hunter is Captured by the Game". Studio not to be confused with "The Hit House", which is the indie publisher who collaborated with Ruby Friedman to create the song "Cut You Down" that appears to have been commissioned for the Bloodborne trailer released March 19, 2015.

The two best known Blondie songs otherwise are "Heart of Glass" (from 3rd album Parallel Lines) and "Rapture" (from 5th album Autoamerican). Heart of Glass is about being in a fragile emotional state that is easily left broken hearted, and also I note that for all of the various organs represented in Bloodborne not one of them is a heart. Rapture is about, well, I don't think paraphrasing does it justice:

"And you drive all night and then you see a light And it comes right down and lands on the ground And out comes a man from Mars And you try to run but he's got a gun And he shoots you dead and he eats your head Then you're in the man from Mars You go out at night eatin' cars You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too Mercurys and Subarus And you don't stop, you keep on eatin' cars Then when there's no more cars You go out at night and eat up bars Where the people meet"

Which upon doing linguistics translates to a hit list for: the founder of Detroit in Michigan (Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac), a Village of Lake People (Lincolns), Quicksilver (Mercurys), and the 7 Sisters Pleiades Constellation (Subarus). Blondie's 7th album is called 'No Exit' inspired by the Sartre play of the same name ("L'enfer, c'est les autres") and was released in 1999, of which the hit single is titled 'Maria'.

The City of Detroit is itself on the traditional lands of the Potawatomi and Miami native peoples, among others. It was founded in the early 1700's and one of the first structures constructed was a chapel to St. Anne. The land upon which Fort Detroit was built was reluctantly ceded by the coalition of Native American tribes known as the Western Confederacy (led by Little Turtle) in 1795. Fort Detroit later burned to the ground on June 11 1805, with the fire rumored to be started by hot pipe ashes that a baker has dropped in his stable. On the other hand, the Treaty of Detroit later acquired more land rights for additional territory in the Michigan basin and on the US side was signed by a William Hull.

I'll address the "man from Mars" later but what stands out for me here is that Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac may be correlated to the founding of Yharnam (which would later burn down in a fire as a consequence of an ashen disease), Village of Lake People to the Fishing Village, Quicksilver to the creation of bullets that can repel the beasts. The 7 sisters is something I'm still picking over - I suspect that cross-referencing other FromSoft games may help with this one. And I've also noted that quite a lot of the female characters in the game share fragments of their names with each other and with Annalise.

For Annalise herself, I suspect that the connection to the brutal Osage killings might be relevant, partially because of the specific use of the term "Reign of Terror". This was previously used for the period of time when Queen Marie Antoinette was beheaded. According to this article, Cainhurst Castle may have been inspired by Bran Castle in modern day Romania, former Transylvania. Marie Antoinette's mother was Maria Theresa, who was sovereign of the Hapsburg domains for 40 years - including Transylvania - and the only woman to have held this title in her own right.

The Greater "Will"?

And another thing: multiple significant "Williams" have been coming up in these historical dives tangentially connected to Bloodborne. I suspect that Master Willem in the nexus for these especially after considering this next one: Sir William Gull, a physician active between 1842 and 1887.

Sir William Gull was a court physician for the Prince of Wales and received his knighthood for curing the prince of typhoid fever (typically contracted by eating food contaminated by feces - sanitation was pretty rough in the 1800's). His best known work includes investigation into the spinal cord and causes of paraplegia, being the first to describe anorexia nervosa and identify it as a psychological condition, and investigation into the effects of atrophied thyroid gland in women (cessation of periods, roundness of face, sleepiness, and indifferent attitude).

The association with the spinal cord is of particular relevance to Bloodborne considering 3 factors: 1) the Yellow Backbone item that can be used to modify chalice dungeons and is also dropped by "The One Reborn" 2) the prevalence of wheelchair-bound enemies, and 3) collecting and consuming umbilical cords allows the player to become immune to the fate of being placed in a wheelchair bound state by the Moon Presence - umbilical cord blood is rich in stem cells and the use of stem cell therapy is proposed as a means of repairing spinal cord damage. Alongside the topic of human cloning (which was partially covered in this BobbyBroccoli video), the ethics of stem cell research was a topic of debate in the early 2000's. There's a 2002 Dream Theatre song about this zeitgeist.

Also here are some of my favourite quotes from Sir William Gull which seem topical:

"Fools and savages explain; wise men investigate." William Withey Gull – A Biographical Sketch (T. D. Acland), Memoir II.

"The foundation of the study of Medicine, as of all scientific inquiry, lies in the belief that every natural phenomenon, trifling as it may seem, has a fixed and invariable meaning" Published Writings, "Study of Medicine"

"Realize, if you can, what a paralyzing influence on all scientific inquiry the ancient belief must have had which attributed the operations of nature to the caprice not of one divinity, but of many. There still remains vestiges of this in most of our minds, and the more distinct in proportion to our weakness and ignorance." British Medical Journal, 1874, 2: 425.

The fictionalized (and unjustly defamatory) version of Sir William Gull is suspected of being Jack the Ripper based on a conspiracy theory. The most popular version of which is in the Alan Moore comic "From Hell". This is the 4th time the concept of "Hell" has come up in connection with Bloodborne. Another as previously mentioned was in the Sartre play No Exit through a Blondie album, where "Hell is other people". What I did not mention at the time is that this is the opening lyric to the song "Cut you Down" from the Bloodborne trailer:

Your blood's gone bad I knew it would The devil killed And yet you're back for good

And fourthly, Bloodborne released in the year 2015. In tarot, the 15th major arcana is The Devil, and I have extensively deconstructed the way that Elden Ring exposes FromSoftware's use of tarot.

"If you show someone their future, they have no future. You take away the mystery, you take away hope." - Paycheck, 2003

And if this seems to be bouncing around a lot and grasping for barely connected straws, it gets more complicated. Because there is the astral clock-as-time machine to consider. On December 25, 2003 the movie 'Paycheck' released on the exact same day as a FromSoft game called Ootogi, Myth of Demons 2: Immortal Warriors. The movie was based on a Phillip K. Dick novel of the same name so from the perspective of intentional release date matching it would have been easy to guess the plot ahead of time.

Essentially what happens in the movie is that a programmer is contracted for a 2 year job after which his memory will be deleted to preserve confidentiality. But instead of payment or the personal effects he remembers submitting he receives a package of random objects that his more knowledgeable pre-memory-loss self had left for him, which he soon finds out are exactly what he needs to evade various situations that happen.

And now he needs to solve both the mystery of what exactly he has been doing for the past couple years and why people want him dead. Turns out he was building a machine that predicts the future and realized at about the end of the project that this was a pretty bad idea:

"The machine predicts a war - and we go to war to avert it. It predicts a plague - we herd all the sick together, create a plague. Whatever future this predicts, we make happen. We give over control of our lives completely. I did this… Seeing the future will destroy us."

On my FromSoftware timeline the release of Armored Core Nexus on March 18, 2004 is basically the last date before observations go non-linear and fragmented. The backbone of the whole thing remains consistent - Armored Core games follow astrology like clockwork. That's the problem I assume: one revolution of a clock lands you right back where you started. The tragedy at the end of the procession of stars (see: Shadow of the Erdtree) is that the future is the same as the past and there is no hope for change.

"Attention all Planets of the Solar Federation.

We have Assumed Control." - 2112, Part VII

March 18 is also the release date of the 1st album of progressive rock band "Rush", under the label Moon records. This is surrounded by two other instances in extremely tight timeframe that I find very difficult to believe a coincidence: 1) January 14, 2004 is the release of King's Field mobile and the anniversary of the 7th album Permanent Waves (some standout songs: Entre Nous "we are planets to each other", and Closer to the Heart), 2) April 1, 2004 is the release day of Kuon and the anniversary of the 4th album 2112 ("The Twin Moons, just two pale orbs as they trace their way across the steely sky....We have had peace since 2062, when the surviving planets were banded together under the Red Star of the Solar Federation. The less fortunate gave us a few new moons.").

Points to note: the cover for 2112 would establish a red star as the symbol of the Solar Federation - Mars is the "red star". Mars is also likely associated with Formless Oedon as described briefly in this previous post. This album also generated the "Starman" logo for Rush which features "the abstract man against the masses". Second, Rush's international label for their first 4 albums was Mercury Records - perhaps sufficing as the Mercurys eaten by the man from Mars. Which is setting up a conflict in which the band Rush is eaten by the Man from Mars but also fighting from within. And who else would they be fighting on behalf of but the Man Woman in the Iron Mask: Queen Annalise. Rush as a band is a trio, and sometimes talked of themselves as "The Three Musketeers" as said by Geddy Lee himself in his auto-biography "My Effin Life" (and it also is the headline of a 1984 interview).

This whole extended reference does get more complex, as these matches suggest a pattern. Albums 7, 1, and 4 are seen here, albums 3 and 6 will turn up matching the dates of other games, and two compilation albums will match other dates for 7 total. The calendar date match with the 3rd Rush album is Armored Core V Verdict Day on September 24, 2013 - it features the song "Bastille Day" about cutting off heads. And that's it. A heavy skew towards the 1st 7 of 19 Rush albums.

It is at this point in time that I find it necessary to address the Blood Moon. Because the next released FromSoft game is Armored Core Nine Breaker on October 28, 2004, which happens to be the day of a lunar eclipse, a.k.a. a Blood Moon. Which is made more significant by the way that FromSoft basically never releases games on the day of even normal full moons. I imagine there is a reason for this: You're not supposed to do bloodletting or surgery on the day of a full moon. Especially not for the body part associated with that moon according to a complicated system of arithmatic. This particular moon was in the phase of Taurus, which governs neck, throat, and vocal chords.

And I know a few other details about the release of Bloodborne on March 24, 2015. It falls 4 days after a solar eclipse which looked like this as seen from the UK (i.e. the general setting of Bloodborne).

And 11 days before a blood moon - which again was governed by Taurus. Not just any blood moon, but the third in a tetrad that some religious folks were very weird about according to the google image search.

Back to the flower moons and/or killing flower moons. I don't know what's up with April 26th. After searching the discographies of a dozen or so bands based on vibes, nothing has come up yet for that date. Some potentials came up in a "this day in history" search but that's not something I want to work through right now. I do have a pretty strong opinion about May 22, 2003 - this is the anniversary of the Paul Simon song St. Judy's Comet from the album There Goes Rhymin' Simon. It's a lullaby. It's about a saint. Mergo = "Me ergo" = I think, therefore I am the 3rd tone of a musical scale. Mergo has some themes of "St. TRIna". The "Third Umbilical Cord" is itself a musical reference. In one musical theory the circle of thirds helps to organize pitches. However, "umbilical" is a word that can also be applied to the end caps of a scroll, which are rolled up in a spiral. A more complex musical theory follows the spiral array model as an algorithmic process for using ascending spirals to select musical chords made of 3 notes. Also as a context note, St. Judy's Comet is basically the reason that I'm looking into musical references at all after stumbling upon it in the search for 'Comet Judy'.

So why single out these three musical acts in relation to Bloodborne - Blondie, Rush, and Paul Simon? Is there a common connection between them? Yes, actually. All three performed at the Hammersmith Odeon in England. Oedon = scrambled Odeon = scrambled "singing place". With "hammersmith' showing that even in a game without a blacksmith somehow there is a blacksmith after all.

And on the topic of hammers, Oscar Hammerstein II - son of theatre owner William Hammerstein - was the lyricist for the Sound of Music musical referenced briefly above. Something to put a pin in for future reference is that this was his last major work - he was afflicted with stomach cancer and died less than a year after the premier.

So is the Moon Presence Really Named Flora?

Yes and No.

"O Flora, of the moon, of the dream. O little ones, O fleeting will of the ancients. Let the hunter be safe, let her find comfort. And let this dream her captor, foretell a pleasant awakening. Be one day, a fond, distant memory." - Peculiar Doll

I would imagine that the moon that the doll is referencing is either the May "Flower Moon" of the Farmer's Almanac or the August "Yellow Flowers Blossom Moon" of the Osage. Or both is possible. Lumenflowers in Bloodborne have the form of the typically-yellow sunflower, but their colour is instead a pale blue. One of the other blue moon matches occurs in August, with the release of Dark Souls Prepare to Die edition in 2012. So that would make it another blue moon: "Blue-Yellow Flowers Blossom Moon".

"Flora" is mentioned by the Doll, Lumenflowers (pale blue sunflowers) are placed in front of the astral clock, Nanpure VOW and Iraroji VOW are twin games with different moons, Lady Maria and the Doll are twins. That would seem to make the Doll a proxy of the "Blue Killer of Flowers Moon", and that Lady Maria has a link with the Killer of Flowers moon as frost is what kills the flowers and she is distantly related to the frost-covered Castle Cainhurst. But the doll will only say the prayer after the blood moon rises, as if it was that occurence that caused the Moon Presence to shed a former identity and adopt a new one.

For the antagonistic Moon Presence the answer may be deceptively simple: The Hunter's Moon. That one time in the history of FromSoftware that a game was released on the day of a blood moon on October 28, 2004 it would have been a Hunter's Moon according to the Farmer's Almanac. The day that a bloodletting operation gone wrong resulted in damage to vocal chords, and the ensuing discordant noise led to confusion among the Hunters as to what they were even seeking to hunt for. And the only Flower moon before this would have been attached to Lost Kingdoms 2 on May 22, 2003.

There is no Great One in Bloodborne which resembles a heart, but the Moon Presence has the appearance of a circulatory system forming a lion's mane, gaping open ribcage, and prominent exposed spine. The Hunter Moon is likely seeking the same thing that the Hunters have lost: a "heart". And the player acts to fill the void of that missing heart for as long as they continue to play the game through new cycles - which is what is conveyed in the ending where the Moon presence presses the player to its face and then they take the place of Gherman. The dream is the game is the captor. "The Hunter is Captured by the Game".

Where to Go Next?

I have seen speculation that the stories of Yharnam, Kos, and Annalise are connected. I suspect that this is correct but the mechanics of "how" probably involve digging even deeper into the stacked layers of history/chalice dungeons/umbilical chords which is too big of a task for now. At a guess it builds on the concept of "Hell is other people" in such a way that a lot of the monsters have a specific human elsewhere in the game who is an alternate version of them (or are there multiple versions of some, with the chalice levels being the key?). Ultimately, within the conceit of the game the act of becoming an infant Great One is to not simply collect the four "third umbilical cords" but to understand what they mean.

[girlwithteeth]

I am playing bloodborne again because it is the beat game fromsoft ever made and I love the story telling so much!!!

Gherman is the first hunter. The nobles of castle cainhurst would have been educated. The scholars of a particular school found undead abominations and the corpses of gods in an archeological site. One of Gherman’s acolytes, a girl of noble heritage, threw themselves down a well, unable to reconcile the perceived nobility of combat with the horror of the slaughter demanded of her. The healing church is a cult granted legitimacy and power through the wanting of their saint’s blood. The noble of cainhurst found something underground and want to bear child from blood. Their own blood is tainted. There is a god that exists only in voice and blood. There is (to my knowledge) only one enemy that does not cry out as they die and that is a fungus ridden old man, leader of the college of note, who was old and dying at the time the healing church was being established. Gherman was said to possess a mania unseen by his student(s?). There is a doll that looks like the noble girl that killed herself. There is a plane separate from reality which can tether and sustain a person for only one night, but a night unending, until the deed is done and the hunt is finished. There is a doll there that has the face and voice of that noble girl. The doll can hear the echoes of the blood you have spilled. She pours them into you, the sounds of your victims slaughter give you strength. After a while, she can hear the song those echoes sound in your veins. She finds them soothing. There is a special hell for people just like you. And wouldn’t you know it? That noble girl is there. Head of the damned healing church, who monopolized that special blood, who monopolized the hunting of beasts that sprang from it. Who killed all of the nobles of cainhurst, those people with blood that is quite similar to those of their blood saints, but forbidden. You find her at the head of some faux-orphanage come house of healing. Everyone has been experimented on, more inhuman than the blood drunk hunters and beasts outside their walls. What was the point? Who would kill themselves for the shame of killing and live again just to do such a thing? Is it even really the same woman? Or another doll with her face, her voice, only more convincing? Shapes and sounds. Body, blood, and voice. A hunter should hunt. What are the ‘musts’ of the rich? The preachers? The poor? To get. To lead. To drink the blood of the saints and bleed in turn. What is a saint that lives to be milked of their life for profit? What is a hunter that would rush to kill more readily than a wolf? What leads a religion when no priests have known their prophet? What is money on the night of the hunt? Will you to reach a point where you can no longer abide to live by the direction of others? Is this night truly worse than what came before, or were you simply numb to hear of suffering as history? Every night is an apocalypse for someone. Every day the world ends ten thousand times.

[zinogirl]

Gherman, The First Hunter

absolute masterpiece of music

[superiorsturgeon]

I think we as a society should do more of this. Catch me seductively spilling a glass of Barbera aged to the Gherman the First Hunter boss theme down my half-opened top!

I just found out the most hilariously amazing thing.