Bloodborne Lore Explained: The Hunt, The Old Blood, and The Great Ones

Bloodborne is one of those games that never tells you what's happening. You wake up on a table, a beast made of blood crawls out of a puddle, and within minutes you're fighting werewolves on a cobblestone street. Most players finish the entire game without fully understanding the story. That's by design. FromSoftware buried the lore in item descriptions, environmental details, and cryptic NPC dialogue.

This guide pulls all of it together. If you've ever wanted the full Bloodborne lore explained in plain language, you're in the right place. We'll cover the Healing Church, the Old Blood, the cosmic Great Ones, and all three endings.

What Is Bloodborne About? A Quick Overview for Newcomers

Bloodborne takes place in Yharnam, a fictional Victorian city built on a miracle cure called the Old Blood. This substance, discovered deep beneath the city, could heal any ailment. People traveled from across the world seeking treatment. The Healing Church controlled the supply and grew into the most powerful institution in Yharnam.

But the Old Blood came with a price. Over time, those who used it began transforming into beasts. The streets filled with monsters. The Church, desperate to maintain control, established the Hunt: a night where trained Hunters would purge the beasts from the city.

You play as a Hunter. You arrived in Yharnam seeking the Blood Ministration (a medical treatment), and now you're trapped in a night of the Hunt that seems to have no end. As you fight deeper into the city, you discover that the beastly plague is only the surface problem. Something far older and far stranger hides beneath Yharnam.

The Healing Church and the Old Blood

The Healing Church is the central institution of Yharnam. It was founded by Laurence, a scholar from Byrgenwerth College, after he discovered the Old Blood in the underground ruins called the Chalice Dungeons. These labyrinths existed long before Yharnam. They were built by an ancient civilization called the Pthumerians, who had direct contact with the Great Ones.

Laurence took the Old Blood to the surface against the wishes of his mentor, Master Willem. Willem warned him: "We are born of the blood, made men by the blood, undone by the blood. Fear the Old Blood." Laurence didn't listen.

The Church used the blood to perform miraculous healings. People flocked to Yharnam. The Church grew wealthy and powerful, establishing the Choir (its upper echelon) and the School of Mensis (a research branch obsessed with making contact with the Great Ones). But as the blood spread through the population, the beast plague accelerated. Entire districts fell. Old Yharnam was burned to the ground in a failed attempt to contain the outbreak.

The Healing Church's greatest sin wasn't ignorance. They knew the blood was dangerous. Internal documents and hidden experiments show they continued distributing it while secretly searching for a way to ascend beyond humanity. The common people were expendable. The Church's real goal was evolution.

The Great Ones: Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror at the Heart of Bloodborne

This is where Bloodborne shifts from gothic horror to cosmic horror. The Great Ones are godlike beings that exist on a plane beyond human perception. They aren't evil in the traditional sense. They simply operate on a scale that makes human concerns irrelevant.

The Pthumerians worshipped the Great Ones. Byrgenwerth scholars studied them. The Healing Church tried to commune with them. Every faction in Bloodborne's history has been drawn to these beings, and every faction has been destroyed or corrupted by the attempt.

Key Great Ones you encounter include:

Ebrietas, Daughter of the Cosmos. Found hidden deep beneath the Healing Church, Ebrietas is the Great One the Choir has been studying. She was left behind by the other Great Ones, and the Church has been harvesting her blood. Much of the Old Blood circulating through Yharnam may originate from her. Rom, the Vacuous Spider. Rom isn't a true Great One but a scholar who ascended into a higher form. She maintains a barrier that hides the ritual of Mensis from the waking world. When you kill Rom, the blood moon descends and the true nightmare becomes visible. The Moon Presence. The entity that created the Hunter's Dream. It trapped Gehrman as its servant and uses Hunters as pawns. Its motivations are unclear, but it seems to want the other Great Ones' influence removed from Yharnam. It is the final boss in one of the three endings. Mergo. An infant Great One whose cry echoes through the Nightmare of Mensis. Mergo was born from Queen Yharnam of the Pthumerians. The School of Mensis performed the ritual of Mensis specifically to make contact with Mergo, killing their physical bodies in the process.

One crucial detail: the Great Ones all share a common trait. They yearn for a surrogate child. This desire drives nearly every event in the game.

The Hunt Cycle: Why It Repeats

The Hunt isn't a one-time event. It's a recurring cycle. Every time the beasts grow too numerous, the bells ring and the Hunters are called. The night begins, the streets are purged, and eventually morning comes. Until the next time.

But the night you experience is different. The ritual of Mensis has pulled the Nightmare closer to the waking world. The blood moon hangs in the sky. Beasts are more numerous and more aggressive. NPCs lose their minds as the night progresses. This particular Hunt may be the last.

The cycle persists because no one addresses the root cause: the Old Blood itself. The Healing Church keeps distributing it. The people keep taking it. And the Great Ones keep exerting their influence from beyond the veil.

Your character's role is to break the cycle, though whether you succeed depends on which ending you reach.

Key Characters You Need to Know

Gehrman, the First Hunter

Gehrman created the art of hunting beasts. He trained the first generation of Hunters and founded the Hunter's Workshop. At some point, the Moon Presence trapped him in the Hunter's Dream, an otherworldly safe haven where new Hunters awaken. He's been stuck there for an unknown length of time, unable to die or leave.

A hunter is a hunter, even in a dream. And sometimes the best way to honor the Hunt is to keep its atmosphere alive in your own space.