Yharnamgame
A gothic valley city known for blood-based medicine. It hosts the Healing Church, which offers blood transfusion as a miracle cure. A plague of beasts afflicts it, and it is caught in the night of the Hunt.
Bloodborne's lore is told through items, scenery and fragments; much is interpretation. We tag what the game says [game] and community reading [reading].
The Healing Churchgame
A religious order that found, through ancient blood, a cure for disease. It grew through hospitals and hunters. Its core hid blood research: witches, vicars, experiments.
The Pthumeriansgame
An ancient people whose underground civilization left the Labyrinths (Chalices). They reached knowledge of the Great Ones before vanishing; their rites are the source of the old blood.
The Great Onesgame
Cosmic entities above humanity. Some are worshipped, others are imprisoned. They are the source of Insight: knowing too much is a burden.
Byrgenwerthgame
A college of scholars (Master Willem, Laurence, Micolash, Caryll) researching the occult. The quest to contact the Great Ones splits them.
The Hunt and the Nightgame
A recurring hunt ritual: hunters fight beasts as the city bleeds. The protagonist arrives for a transfusion. The Hunter's Dream is a refuge.
The Hunter's Dreamreading
A dream plane run by Gehrman and the Moon Presence. Workshop, resting place and prison. Can be read as a way of keeping hunters apart.
The Beast Scourgegame
After many transfusions the old blood turns people into beasts: fur, claws, loss of reason. The Church tried to suppress it.
Insight and the Inner Eyesreading
More knowledge lets you see what is hidden. Every point reveals more. Knowledge has a cost.
Kos and Kosmreading
Kos(m) is a Great One tied to the sea and the Fishing Hamlet. Its 'child', the Orphan, suggests a hunt for a substitute child.
Nightmaresgame
Planes that overlay the world: Nightmare of Mensis, Hunter's Nightmare, Nightmare Frontier. Each is the work of a particular wish.
Cainhurst and the Vilebloodsgame
A castle of isolated nobility tied to Queen Annalise and blood rites; contrasts with the public Church.