Do you think the Snatchers and Bell-ringers are Pthumerians?

I definitely do! In fact, I believe Bellringing Women bit is hinted on by a description of one of the chalices?

Not only the looks, but also the fact that both Snatchers and Bell-ringers are exclusively found in Dungeons + connected with School of Mensis (whom we did figure HAD Pthumerians involved). Also:

While I was looking at Snatchers again for this ask, I noticed this super cool detail, that their necklace looks like a torch sort of...? And we know Pthumerians dabble in pyromancy + if Keepers of the Old Lords are any indication, fire - and setting your body and soul in fire - was sort of a sacred thing for them! Makes me wonder if necklace design is one of the tokens of that. Heck, their odd skin patterns might be burnt marks? Unusual color, because Pthumerians are still not quite humans!

(My headcanon is fire magic gifted to their kind by Wet Nurse that once was one of the crowlike Great Ones living on the sun but sacrificed like 70% of her body to help proto-humans to survive THEIR beast plague at least somewhat)

What also messes me up sometimes is:

There is clearly some heritage within Cainhurst! Annalise does recognise the meaning of that ring, too.

I personally do not think that pthumerians slowly evolved into humans on their own somehow? For me pthumerians appear to be sort of proto-humans, kinda like nephilim! They even have racial variety of their own - just skin that is bleach white and shades of grey, rather than beige and shades of brown. However, I do think that they are ABLE to mingle genetically with humans! My biggest hook is that Maria who looks as human as possible, can use fire blood magic that appears to be their genetics (at least / especially taking roots from Pthumeru Ihyll).

My lucky guess is that this line, the now known Cainhurst nobles, at least has had a long line of generations of pthumerians procreating with humans - only the strongest and the prettiest ones! - in order to weed out 'unwanted' genes and take the best from both species. Leading to a mixed line - super tall humanoids with very pale skin and permanent dark circles under eyes. Not always pale skin though, it depends on the region... But yeah, Cainhurst vilebloods had a LOT of arrangement I think. The royal people just tend to be like this about bloodlines :pensive:

These guys are also what gives me a hunch that pthumerians or humans or both were not really nice to offsprings that showed genes they considered 'unwanted'? Lost Child of Antiquity is a mob that is also found in Pthumeru Ihyll - so, associated with the line that eventually became Cainhurst vilebloods. Giant Lost Child is associated with Loran - they are only found in Nightmare Frontier (and stormy pathwalk to Nightmare of Mensis, which IS layer of Nightmare Frontier)... We did agree as a fandom that Nightmare Frontier must be connected to Loran, right?

So like, Giant Lost Children were disowned once they were born like this - and used in slavery it seems?? This is what whip lashes are? I think this also has connection with how pthumerians have gigantic variants sometimes - like giant Church Servants, or Shark Giants (my beloathed -_-), or the big guys in the dungeons with cannons and literal candles on their backs! This one might be result of painful birth mutation where it is mesh of human and this 'gigantic' pthumerian.

(But, I honestly do not have an idea what could have caused a mutation that makes you look rocky and have bat-like wings (undeveloped). I think Kin were involved though - there are themes of petrification from great blast of Arcane in the game (Eye Pebbles, Rom's "corpse" on altar, statues all over Upper Cathedral covered in dramatic manner as if they were creatures that ended up turning into stone, petrified people in Yahar'gul)... And it is Arcane-boosting blood gems that are grey in color, too. The closest to winged Kin we do have are Gardens of Eyes.)

I side-tracked but yeah, yeah they are pthumerians. Hell, I'd argue that Bloodborne Patches is easily mixed between human and pthumerian, just look at him closer!

I am yet to figure what did happen historically - how there are friendly pthumerians that do NOT act like zombies (like Chapel Dweller), what about pthumerians that seem to have lost their roots (like Logarius), why ones like Church Servants work for the group that has been actively raiding the dungeons where remains of their civilisation were etc? So many questions??

Though the gist of this I think, most remaining pthumerians have gone crazy from living far too long thanks to their unholy magic and rites, longer than what nature had prepared for them, but naturally humans didn't learn from history and attempted doing the same lol

Bloodborne Lore Ramblings

Here we go again!

THE BIGGEST SPOILERS PLEASE PLAY BLOODBORNE BLIND

The blood, where does it come from? What does it do? Why does it do that? Why has no one copped on yet? These are questions no one in Pthumeru, Loran or Yharnam has ever even considered thinking about. Yes! The blood is old, very old, it's the Old Blood, and Yharnam was not the first civilization to encounter it or be destroyed by it. To learn about the Old Blood, we need to go back to who ruined everything for everyone in the beginning: the Pthumerians. This will be a rather extensive post, I fear. I don't plan these out.

The Pthumerians were an ancient race of prehumans, spooky, pale, tall, thin humanoids with sunken features. Creatures right out of a mediocre Internet creepypasta. They were the first to encounter the Eldritch Truth, the existence of the Great Ones, the Nightmare, eyes on the inside, all that. Pthumerian society seems to have become completely obsessed and centred around the Great Ones, rites such as Marriage only being available to Pthumerian royalty, when they presumably 'wed' a Great One, bearing its child, and also considering themselves as custodians of the Great Ones. The Old Lords of the boss names Keeper of the Old Lords and Watchdog of the Old Lords are most likely the Great Ones. The Labyrinths in which the Pthumerians dwelt hint towards more of their highly ritualized existence. Pits full of corpses, bloody pools, candles just absolutely everywhere, treasure and store rooms draped in cloth and statues, the Pthumerians lived for stuff. And died for it, and un-died for it. It would seem the Pthumerians had their own unique powers over undeath (for all the basic chalice dungeon enemies are emaciated, skeletal and rotting, the Merciless Watchers are covered in open sores and look slick) and, for some reason, fire. If it has fire, it comes from or is ultimately linked to Pthumeru (yes, Maria and by extension the Vilebloods have Pthumerian links).

Pthumeru's downfall is uncertain. Maybe they couldn't keep up with the pace or demands of their ritualized existence. Maybe the effects of the Eldritch Truth were too much for even them to bear. Maybe it was the blood turning everyone into beasts. Maybe it was all three. Pthumeru contains beasts like we know, but also their own unique variations, namely the Bloodlicker (those huge tick looking things) and the Lost Children of Antiquity (those gargoyles). And yes, you find both in Cainhurst. Simply put, Cainhurst wanted to take on the mantle of ancient Pthumerian royalty, didn't really work out so well.

The Old Blood itself is of alien origin. My personal belief is it comes from an Ebrietas, of which Pthumeru has one, in the city of Isz. Perhaps that is the first Daughter of the Cosmos, who knows. I believe this because we're told the source of the Healing Church's special blood is located in the grand cathedral, and who lives there? Ebrietas does. She's right goddamn behind Amelia's boss room. Just out of sight, out of knowledge, is like the whole source of the problem at the very beginning of the game! I don't know what you'd call that, but I think it's neat. Now, you might say, she's found in the Upper Cathedral Ward! Yeah, but that's only how you access that portion of the Grand Cathedral. When you go to pick up A Call Beyond, look over the railing. It's Amelia's boss room.

Anyway, blood, use it, turn into a beast. But this is complicated. First, the actual problem isn't even really the liquid itself, it's what it's IN that liquid – Vermin, the writhing centipedes seen and sought out by those beautiful bastards in the League. Vermin, the root of all man's impurity, seem to be what actually cause us to turn into beasts. It is, after all, a blood borne disease. Perhaps eggs or small, larval forms are carried through, which then grow and cause mutation, or, as it is hinted at in the Beast Roar tool description, it simply awakens something deep within the human form... You find vermin too in Silverbeasts when you kill them, one or two large silvery vermin burst out, and the headless version of the Bloodletting Beast (gotta talk about him too!) has an absolutely colossal one inside of it.

So, use blood, get vermin, become beast. Now you're a beast, what happens next? Well, that takes us to Loran, and land devoured by the sands.

Loran is interesting because it's here we encounter what appears to be beasthood's final phase – electricity. Loran itself has small electrical surges in the air caused by the endless sandstorms generating static electricity. Curiously, this is also present in some of its beasts. The Loran Silverbeasts generate an electrical explosion, as does its big, big brother, the undead Darkbeast, a creature seemingly held together by matted fur and animated by sparks and marrow. Another bolt-based beast is the Abhorrent Beast, who actually seems to have wind-based attacks, much like the winds eternally rushing through Loran. Are these beasts a unique product of their environment? Potentially. But we also find a Darkbeast far from home in Yahar'gul and an Abhorrent Beast in the Forbidden Woods (well a man, who turns into one at least). I think it's fairly safe to assume they're not unique to that place, but Loran definitely got them first.

There's also that pesky piece of description that says that the devouring sands had its roots in the beast scourge. So, maybe after all, bolt beasts and wind powers are a Loran original. But then there's also the idea that Yharnam will be next. Crazy, crazy theory here, but do beasts make wind? Sand? Do they alter an environment to block out Kinhood? If Loran fell like that, and Yharnam's now 99.9% beasts, there's a chance. We do see a lot of stuff floating in the Yharnam air in the evening light...

Beasthood is the anithesis is Insight. Did you know, in-game, the higher insight you have, the harder it is to build up the beasthood meter? The real icing on the cake is the bolt, though. Only one type of enemy the game as an inherent weakness to Bolt – Kin. Kin are people who have been changed by insight, or by experimentation in post-human creatures. It's a sliding scale, then. If Kinhood is the potential in a human for alien ascendancy, then Beasthood is the opposite, degeneration even further from humanity, and an active reaction against it, generating the electricity that Kin naturally fear. It should be noted that those not long off becoming beasts lose their eyes, as the pupils turns to mush, and we all know the more eyes the spookier you get. That's why so many hunters like Gascoigne and Djura, and so many Yharnamites have their eyes covered. It's been posited that Beasthood is like an immunity reaction to an alien element – to the Old Blood, or the alien Vermin. Although possible, I would wonder why Vermin seem to thrive inside degenerating bodies. But Beasthood does seem to be a reaction.

You've got to wonder, three civilizations fell to this stuff now, why did no one ever stop to think that clearly it's causing a huge, irreversible problem? Pthumeru was obviously obsessed, maybe even haughty. Loran, well, there's so little info that it's hard to say.  I get the feeling they were horribly overwhelmed by sickness, beasts and sand. Yharnam clearly was controlled by the theocratic Healing Church, and likely the knowledge was suppressed by those who sought to experiment with it for ascension. I love how Laurence just straight up lied to Willem, though. I will not forget our adage, eh? Yeah, won't forget it, but I will just completely ignore. Good job, Larry.

Lastly, there is again the problem of the Great Ones, specifically one of them – the nameless Moon Presence. It's quite heavily implied that the Moon Presence, or the Bloodmoon, or both (or one and the same) are responsible for this particular apocalyptic outbreak. Old Yharnam saw a Bloodmoon before, a message found near the Charred Hunter set states that a red moon hung low. Nights of the Hunt happen, and are regular occurrences if the casual nature of the NPC dialogue throughout Central Yharnam and the Cathedral Ward are to be taken as such, as well as the mention of 'old beast tales' in the Church Pick's description in the Old Hunter's DLC. They're just not city-ending events. At most a few people god bad, and the hunters deal with it. But tonight is different, tonight the School of Mensis is doing their big ritual to call down the moon with a nightmare newborn as bait.

So how does this work? If beasthood is a reaction against old blood/vermin/alien influence, then just what exactly IS the Bloodmoon doing as it gets closer? What about it causes such a horribly violent reaction in the infection/vermin that causes beasthood to go berserk? Maybe Vermin aren't even alien, maybe they're naturally found in humans and they go nuts when Old Blood is introduced, turning us into Beasts. It's all speculation, but they are regardless the root of man's impurity, and I think it's possible that maybe they really are man's after all. I think it's merely the nature of the Bloodmoon itself, as an alien thing. I think it's because the Moon Presence is a true, proper, alien Great One and as such must be immensely powerful or just immensely other, making the reaction go into overdrive. I don't think that's too far-fetched, because they are called Nights of the Hunt, not days, evenings or dawns, but Nights, when the moon is out, but it's normally so very far away.

There's the belief that the Old Blood might come from the Moon Presence. It's not impossible. Blood is bred through people like Blood Saints who have purer or more power strains. It's bred and doled out via Ebrietas, who I am mostly sure was once a person, or a Pthumerian, but not a Great One proper. It could explain the Moon Presence's connections beyond is just being the most alien creature mankind has encountered, why its presence causes beastpocalypses.

Actually maybe lastly, there's the Bloodletting Beast as a source of the Old Blood. I myself have really nothing to refute this or defend it. He's just too unimportant. He's got a big vermin in him, sure, and in Japanese his name is 'Host of the Beast Blood', which seems pretty damning. But what do his names mean? Perhaps he's the first beast, or the oldest beast. Micolash was the host of the Nightmare of Mensis, but he was just the manager running the show. Being found in Pthumeru, the oldest place we know would surely give the idea of him being one of if not the old beast an edge. Before the DLC people thought he was Laurence, actually. Some still do. I don't think so. We met that asshole.

Of course, beasts also hate fire. Then what in Kos' name are Beast-Possessed Souls and Loran Clerics?! Pthumerians have fire powers, do they keep them? Loran wasn't Pthumerian though! Can they even be counted as true beasts?!

Alas, I am now really truly rambling because we're at that very special point where there's basically no evidence to back a thing I say, but that's why I love Bloodborne. The endless, completely unverifiable lore theories.

14.11.19

The Nightmare of Mensis, quick notes:

An even quicker note to begin: I say here “she” as opposed to “they”. I do not know why I change pronouns; sometimes she feels to be “she”, mostly “they”, perhaps sometimes “it”. 

I was going to say that the Nightmare of Mensis is an incredibly unique Nightmare, but I think, really, that is true of all Nightmares. Mother Yharnam seems to take on a form which humans better understand, and I believe Loran may’ve been similar, though I have only truly come across Her in a form which, well, mirrors Her physical state in Bloodborne. Either way, that seems to be a unique stance taken on by Mother, and, in the way that the other Pthumerian Nightmares take on a form which the Pthumerians better understand, is one taken by them, too. It seems to be a choice to be understandable to humans.

It is then perhaps fair to say that the Nightmare of Mensis is, as I touched upon in the last post, a Nightmare not confined to expected borders as the others, but in unexpected ways. Mother Yharnam can appear outside of Her city-boundaries, She was with us in Prague, and I am quite sure I saw Her too in Yahar’gul. The Nightmare of Mensis, however, is almost elemental in nature, like the Primogenitors Themselves. She is the mirror and the threshold, the shallowest waters of the Ocean as far as I am aware, excluding the deepest Nightmares since, although the world is a sphere, I suppose “shallow” implies the top of the sphere and not the bottom. That, and I have not worked with the deep Pthumerian Nightmares, not yet, so I cannot comment on them. I haven’t worked with the Nightmare of Mensis yet either, but, of course, I have. You cannot “not work” with the Nightmare of Mensis. She is in everything Mensis and certain Pthumerians have touched.

Very particular energies. It is almost as if there is leftover programming in her for her to be a Great One - not tied to a typical Great One form like Ebrietas or the Amygdalae, but in deific status. It is as if something is leftover inside her that would make her a Great One, only it was never completed or made public, or it was even removed, yes. I remember now the Puppets which remain curiously animated even when Mergo has been slain, and while they may very well be animated by Kos as much as I feel She hasn’t reason to protect the library, I wonder if the Nightmare was programmed with intent to be alive. They are all alive, because they are all of blood, but there is something unique in the NIghtmare of Mensis. I see little silver things, too, little worms, parasites. They’re hers, cute little things that wriggle in one of the deeper layers of blood - although, to this point, I had not seen blood as layered, and so perhaps they are Nightmarish speak in the way that Vermin are and not completely literal - sorry, not completely manifested.. I cannot help but lean towards them as real. Rooted. They are like the White Moon: Radiant. They seem to be silver, mucous light. Do you see why this is indicative of something more?

I have always, always struggled with my conception of her. I remember being in her lungs, the library, feeling of the bitter cold air come through as she breathed and the weight of the sound: like a sleeping body, curious, and eerie. And I remember her in abstract ways. I know that she has a pathway through her seen in Bloodborne, but travelling it in the game is disorienting, incredibly so, bringing about a mental effect almost like motion sickness, or that which comes from stepping off a boat onto dry, unmoving land. She is depicted so lucid, so seemingly false.. Yet not, as I wonder if it is indeed what the Hunter sees, what she shows them, what they see. Not that she held any special care for us in the way that we were given “more” of her to see, but, I believe, with more eyes, we sank deeper within, and I don’t think she cared to dig us back out in the same way that Mother probably would. If we wanted to look in the mirror, we would see her reflection, that is simply how it is. 

Hi I just saw your lore posts on Arianna and Cainhurst

It reminded me that I wanted to ask about the League. Do you think they were basically Yharnam’s police?

I do think that Vermin is one of the possible reflections of human dregs or otherwise a way to reflect the evil, and we do know that the rune of Impurity was discovered thanks to Valtr!

I am using this ( x ) retranslation document, and interestingly, localisation and either of translators versions say that the rune was found 'inside' of Valtr, not BY Valtr! So I presume that because he ate a beast, there were strange vibrations coming from within him, that Caryll or someone familiar with Caryll's rune language deciphered and wrote down (Adeline and Ludwig prove that other people can discover new runes on their own).

^ My inspiration for there being multiple ways to envision human dregs was the fact that on the Clocktower dial, there is a rune that looks similar but not the same, and I always felt like it was someone else's vision of the concept!

So yeah, for a long while I was thinking that Impurity was supposed to reflect Valtr's personal vision of evil, that supposedly would have to include a lot of broken laws too. But now I think its more likely that it was rigged by the concept of HOW Impurity was discovered! Whether Valtr was consciously trying to process whatever weird Insight he received upon eating a beast or someone basically just leaned an ear close and listened to his body, in either case - this concept of human dregs is tied to beasthood. And why beasts are bad? Well, because they eat their own, are blood-hungry, etc etc.

In offline mode, Vermin can be found by killing Old Hunters that have red glowing eyes instead of mob's regular yellow:

Red eyes appear to be special for beasts too - Abhorrent Beasts have them, many Beast Patients have them (that we all know have especially poisoned blood, I speculated it was the use of blood from Blood-Starved Beast ( x )), a special scourge beast that deals poison damage in Old Yharnam has them... Choice of red eyes feels like displaying very massively spoiled blood. But you also can get Vermin if you fight a boss with a League confederate and the confederate survives, so: Ludwig, Laurence, Paarl (beasts); The One Reborn and Shadows of Yharnam (have to do with cursed Pthumerian rituals); Rom and Living Failures (both are associated with lumenwood that reaches for the stars to be saved from curse of beasts, however Rom is also a spider person like Patches but with 999+ more Insight, so maybe blood/Pthumerian bit too).

So yeah... I tried to find some system here, but not only in online mode you get Vermin out of ANY hunter you defeat in PvP, but also Valtr himself talks about how Vermin is pretty much everywhere. So, as long as someone's blood is taunted by hunt/beasthood/ministration/whatever else, he (and anyone that keeps the rune in mind) will find Vermin in their body. And in Yharnam it is... well... EVERYONE...

I presume the post about Arianna inspired you to send this ask because she is supposedly on Valtr's hit list as a sex worker, so I will just say the goals of the League are different from that. Sure maybe in his constable past he would try to close her booth, but times have changed and the only reason he'd have something against her is by sensing Vermin in her. That might even come off especially strongly because Vilebloods are "cursed"; but at the same time, it might not even be there because they exclude themselves from the circle of blood and hunt the way hunters and the Healing Church do it and their "beasthood" manifests differently! It is up to interpretation what's up with Vilebloods, though I do like the idea that ironically they do not have human dregs (at least as they are present in others), and poor Shadows of Yharnam only became exception because of getting infested with snakes who DO have Vermin!

Another bit about 'police' comparison is that the League appears to be a hidden society, whose mission is so insane that virtually it means killing everyone - perhaps with taking their own lives when they're done. Rather than ensuring certain 'rules' are followed and punishment follows only if they are broken, they are in the position where the single 'rule' (to not be the "filth") is broken by everyone or almost everyone ALREADY, and they are exterminating ones like that. It is more like... idk, a secret society of fanatics. A cult, sort of? Actually:

League more or less shares the same mindset as what School of Mensis is doing - forcing themselves to be redpilled about whatever horrors lurk within world of humanity! Forcing oneself to look at something that is everywhere and presumably there is nothing TO do about it besides either killing everyone or killing yourself. Only, League doesn't have a cage that (presumably) lets the person to handle it without mental pain. League confederates only have their own willpower and guts to carry them through it (RIP Yamamura).

TLDR; I am not sure whether Valtr would judge Arianna or not, but his problem with fellow humans by now evolved into higher plane (but at the same time into more basic plane...?) so he'd definitely not bother. UNLESS vile-blood is corrupting as well, and Arianna sharing it with hunters would count as spreading human dregs (ie Vermin). THEN Arianna is dead. Overall I think if he found a person who is clearly a harm on the society but just HAPPEN to not be filthied by Vermin, he'd still not get them off the hook easily. Just that the League as it is doesn't deliberately police the bad guys, but exterminates the ones with impure blood; simply doing the SWIPER NO SWIPING could've been just a fun light-hearted change of the pace for them.