Bloodborne - The Nightly Hunt begins... (The Old Hunters DLC out Tuesday!)

General Thoughts
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Stars/moon/planets/"cosmos" mentioned in some notes - related to the rituals?

What is the hunt? Is it something that happens regularly? Has it been going on for a long time - an endless night?

What is "Paleblood"? "A paleblood sky" note, mentioned at the start? Scottish guy in central yharnham says to talk to the church about it.

What is "old blood" - mentioned by healing church (Amelia - seek the old blood) Is the old blood the cure? is the paleblood the curse? Or vice versa?

"Plague of beasts?" brought about by messing around with blood too much? did the church strawberry float up? Or is this an external influence - did the plague come from outside the city?

Dream world? Nightmare? Characters in dreams - seats around the world with people in them (died in them?) wearing those head restraints? Are those required for dreaming? Whose dream would it be? Whose nightmare?

Hunters dream looks like the old workshop area ("Source of the dream" achievement) - why? Who made the doll?

Spiders are important? Rom? Spider in the lecture building? Lore notes make reference to spiders (Rom??) being the one who controls or has performed the rituals?

Amygdala creatures appearing after the "blood moon" cutscene - why are they here? were they always there and are only now visible?

Blood/moon rituals - who is doing this? What for? "madmen want to beckon the mooN?" A child is needed (and must be silenced?) - Sounds of baby crying have started since cutscene when defeating Rom... Who was the woman crying - blood on her stomach? (baby being removed? killed?) "Mensis Ritual" - is this the same ritual? "must be stopped lest we become beasts"

Creatures behave differently as the "phases" of the game progress - reacting to the moon? Some have disappeared now the "red moon" is here

What are the "Great ones"? "When the great ones decend a womb will be blessed with child" - child needed for the ritual? Are the bell ringers calling the great ones to start the ritual? Note in the lecture building "Hunt the great ones" - is this the point of the hunt?


List of Bosses fought
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* Gascgoine - a former hunter? turns into a beast - is this what happens to everyone after time? Lived in Yharham (at least his daughter is in a house there and his wife goes to look for him, sadly ) Mentions that you'll be a beast soon too or words to that effect

* Cleric beast - monster created by the church? or a former church member? Did this one do something similar to Amelia to end up like this?

* Blood starved beast - massive beast, why was it in a church?

* Witch of hemwick - just a witch? Has the rune tool in her lair, is she part of the ritual?

* Darkbeast paarl - lightning monster. Related to the lightning weapon? (description mentions the darkbeast, in the plural - are there more than one?)

* Amygdala - one of the great ones? drops a chalice

* Shadow of Yharnam - three dudes in the woods. People killed in Yharnam? Or when Old Yharnam was burned down?

* Martyr Logarius. Old king/leader in Cainhurst? Frozen on his throne - has he been waiting for something? Why is he the only person left? Drops a crown that lets you see through illusions. (not sure if this is a one-off thing for this area of if its worth wearing it elsewhere?)

* Rom, vacuous spider

* One Reborn


Factions
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* Healing Church. In charge of "blood ministration" control the healing blood - can help keep people alive? Why are there weird looking statues in their cathedral? These look like the monsers in the clinic? Were the church experimenting on people? Who were the two people in the cutscene after killing Amelia - leaders of the church? Is the old guy in the rocking chair the same old guy from this flashback? Was this from "before" everything went wrong?

* Hunters? Do they work alone or for the church? or for some other faction? What is their purpose - just to kill beasts or something more specific?

* Vilebloods? Cainhurst faction. Vampires? Why do they want the blood from hunters? Were they the source of the "plague"? Dude you can talk to in the cathedral ward is not a fan (can give him invitation to go there)

* The League - bunch of hunters working together to kill beasts?

?? What are the beasts? Were they people? Over time people you can speak too start to sound like they are turning into beasts...

Location / setting
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What is Yharnham? What happened here. Blood infusions part of their culture (more intoxicating that alcohol apparently!) did something go wrong with the practice of infusing blood? Accidentally? On purpose?

What happened to Old Yharnham - "are we left no other choice than to burn it all to cinders?" Note about the Church abandoning people and "shutting the gates"?

Cainhurst - disconnected from Yharnam (need to take a carriage here) seems older than Yharnam (more medieval in design etc.). Seems to be full of ghosts. Is this where the "aristocracy" lived?

Forbidden Woods

Byrgenworth

Lecture Building

Nightmare Frontier

Unseen Village

Nightmare of Mensis


Player
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Who are you?
Why did you come here?
Where from? Referred to as an outsider several times.

Hunters
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Who are they?
What do they do?
Why?
What is the "contract" hunters sign?

NPCs
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...

So based on the advice that I am getting near the end I decided to return to some earlier areas again and see if there was anything I had missed. I had ran through some of the more recent sections a bit briskly so knew there was a good chance that I had missed something. After mooching around the Unseen Village I located a key to the Upper Cathedral Ward!

This area seems interesting, those enemies that can jump on you and suck your blood can be a bit annoying but other than that there hasn't been anything too troubling. Well, other than the fact that based on the name of a key I picked up this location is supposed to be an orphanage (interesting possibilities for the lore there...)

Speaking of lore, I beat a boss in this area called the Celestial Emissary. Hmmm... maybe there is more to the "cosmos" aspects of the lore than I had originally thought. Either way this was a bit of a shite boss, mainly because I suspect I am massively over-levelled for the area now. Basically drag the little guys to one side so they don't bother you and then get in close to whack the Emissary, avoiding his melee and magic attacks which are very clearly telegraphed.

Didn't have time to do anything else but there is a window which I've smashed after the Emissary so I'll see where that leads next time!

Isfoka

After taking down the Celestial Emissary I proceeded through the glass window which seemed to put me in an area that looks like it is the ceiling of the Grand Cathedral. There were a few enemies here but not much else - so following it through took me to a lift behind where the altar would be in the cathedral, and that led to another arena where some Lovecraftian nightmare awaited!

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos was an interesting fight - she had quite a mixed moveset including wide ranging attacks, AOE attacks, an annoying head rush attack that was capable of one hitting me if not avoided and the ability to enduce Frenzy - something which in general can just strawberry float right off!

In the end though she wasn't too hard, especially in the face of the almighty Axe.

Stay back away from her ranged attacks, pick the moment to move in close, time a roll right to avoid her swings and then get in close for some hits. Always remembering to be ready to run like hell if she calls the stars down!

twitter.com/RussellMcIver/status/1162124596608479233

Interesting that several "celestial" creatures have now been located near the centre for the Healing Church... lore notes updated according!

Killing Ebrietas didn't unlock anything else that I could see so I returned to the Nightmare of Mensis.

The Frenzy build up that came from being in sight of the building was a bit annoying here - especially as Frenzy seems to keep on going up even when you've broken line of sight and the light has gone out! I gave up caring about it in the end and just took the hit to HP when it came.

Rock throwing giants and beasts outside weren't too much trouble, the spiders on the ground floor had to be handled carefully as it was easy to get rushed by all of them! The angry hunter on the bridge had a nice looking weapon on him but didn't put up too much resistance. After that there were some little statue like dudes who seemed to ignore me for the most part, so I offered them the same courtesy. The big ones were definitely hostile though so had to be put down.

Interesting lift that seems to go down to nowhere in this area as well - need to poke about more because there is obviously something else that is meant to happen down there (does the big chandelier fall down there like the one in the Upper Cathedral did and maybe that reveals something?)

Anyway taking the next lift up there were some very charming dog headed birds and bird headed dogs... this clearly is a nightmare! They were a bit annoying but nothing the whip couldn't handle.

And so that took me to an interesting arena fight against Micolash, Host of the Nightmare! Some interesting implications for the lore here based on the appearance of Micolash (another one of those helmet things that are clearly linked to dreams) and the stuff he chats about before, during and after the fight.

Oh and now I can use this in response to the poll in the thread "Kos or Kosm":




The actual fight wasn't too bad. Ignore the other enemies as much as possible, chase him into the right bit and that go to town on him. After getting to half health he ran away and had to be chased again, hiding behind a cage door and needing to be dropped in on. This second stage was a bit trickier as he has a magic attack that seems to be basically impossible to avoid! After a couple of goes it seems that if you stay close he didn't seem to use it so that was my strategy in the end and victory was mine!

After Micolash there was more exploring to do, including more strawberry floating Frenzy shite some pigs and some more Shadows of Yharnam who have been reduced from their boss status to being mere standard enemies. But eventually this took me to the top of the nightmare which saw the return of the crying lady from the earlier cutscene, a neglected child screaming in a pram and the worlds worst strawberry floating wet nurse!

This fight wasn't too bad, she has some annoying far reaching attacks and combos but is also relatively slow and easy to blindside so she didn't take many goes to best. Again - not a huge amount seemed to happen when she died, the baby stopped crying and the mother sort of evaporated away.

On returning to the Hunters Dream it seems like all is not well though...

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